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everybody!

I have a genuine Arduino Micro ("designed with adafruit", made in Italy) which is working perfectly well.

One thing I'd like to do but cannot figure out how (or at all), is to turn off the blue power LED. I hate blue LEDs, they hurt my eyes, and this one is particularly bright too.

I could just paint it over with black paint but maybe there are programmatic ways to switch it off?

Regards

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3 Answers 3

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The Blue LED is permanently connected to +5 volts through R5.

You would have to either remove R5 or the LED from the circuit board.

enter image description here

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There is not way to turn it off in software.

The only thing you can do is desolder the led, or it's resistor. Just add some solder to the joints on both sides. Then angle the iron, so it touches both side. The led/resistor will tend to get loose and stick to the iron. Cleanup the board, by removing the excess solder.

I tend to just destroy the led using a utility knife. Just try to lift the "glass" on top of the led with a bit of force. Scrape over the white remains to make sure there isn't any connection left.

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Unfortunately the blue LED is a direct connection between 5V and GND. You can see below in the schematic exactly how it is connected

enter image description here

The only way to 'turn off' the LED would be to remove either the 1K resistor or LED with a soldering iron.

Another possibility is to take a sharp knife and make a cut in the track directly before or after the LED. I've marked the locations where to cut on the eagle screenshot.

enter image description here

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  • 1
    Just gooped the led under black paint, works well enough:)
    – Alexey Dolganov
    Commented Aug 2, 2016 at 19:33
  • @AlexeiDolganov that will work, as long as you don't care about the current being consumed by the led. For example in projects running on batteries.
    – Gerben
    Commented Aug 3, 2016 at 9:32
  • No, it will be connected to USB, no need to count every mA spent.
    – Alexey Dolganov
    Commented Aug 3, 2016 at 14:05

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