Spare parts Enterprise boldy goes …

From the MAKE Flickr pool

… where no LED has gone before.

Observe the maiden voyage of a tiny space-faring ship. Upon encountering the above-seen “magnetic anomaly” the ship’s onboard magnetic reed switch is activated. Chief engineer Origamiwolf explains the ship’s schematics –

A resistor is added to each of the red LED branches; this is to limit the current in those branches so that the white LED gets some current as well. Without the resistors, the bulk of the current will flow in the red LED branches (which have less resistance), and the white LED will not light as the current flow through it will be extremely small.

Hmmm … the target appears to be some type of neodymium borg vessel. Refer to Wolf’s Junkyard for further analysis.