From what I've read, I used to think that LEDs have a constant votlage drop across them at all times. People or texts will say things like "This diode has a drop of X volts".
But I realized from a little experimenting yesterday that this is not really so.
For example my multimeter on the diode setting measures a 1.58V drop for a generic red LED I have. But when I put it in a circuit and power it up, at only 10ma, I measure a voltage of 1.98 across it. This is a huge discrepency. Is there some equation I can use to predict the voltage drop of an LED when driven at different currents?
For the multiplexed LED display project I am working on, I need to figure out what kind of resistors I will need for pulsing these LED. I am aiming for 160ma pulses. If I get the supply voltage at about the right level, could I do without resistors entirely? Seems like at high enough current, there will be enough drop over the LED to just even things out on it's own, if that makes any sense.