Light LEDs in a Hot Dog

5

Have you ever seen LEDs powered through a hot dog before? Well Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has been having some fun running some juice through a hot dog and lighting LEDs that were simply stuck into the hot dog.

“If you’re *not* going to eat the hot dog, a neat trick is to stick a bunch of standard LEDs into it. (Yes, this really works!) Apparently the voltage between nearby points on the hot dog is fairly low, since the LEDs don’t seem to burn out.

As the hot dog cooks, the resistance of the hot dog increases and the LEDs get dimmer since less current can flow through them. If you look *very* closely (or take a time lapse movie) you can see the LEDs move further apart as the hot dog swells during cooking.”

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5 Comments


  1. I think its because of the moisture in the hot dog (water) that acts as a conductor


  2. Two possible causatives (!) for the LEDs lighting.

    1: 120 volts (ac) dropping across the length of the hot dog; the LEDs
    tap a short segment and light-up (half of each cycle). Spreading the leads farther apart should make the light brighter (if the leads are plugged into the hot dog along its length).

    2: As Hasseb Anjum says, the moisture may conduct the current. If the LEDs are plugged-in with their leads at the same distance from a fork, then they may be acting as a one turn loop around the current flowing from fork to fork.

    It would be nice to see these different arrangements with ONE LED so that we can see what is the probable cause of the LED-current.

    In the early 1970s, there was a kitchen-helper (called a “Hot Dogger”) which would roast up to four hot dogs by this method;—the cover had an inter-lock so that the cook area was live (w/120 volts) ONLY when the lid was fully closed.

    the_captn


  3. What my under educated mind says is that the hotdog has more resistance than the LEDs so electricity is taking the LEDs. If you do like Neil says and move the LED’s contacts closer to the forks there’ll be less ‘hotdog resistor’ and the LEDs will be brighter/cook/whatever they do when you pass closer to 120v through them


  4. what size leds where do you buy a variety of colors?

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