Not all resistors are the same and growth in new markets like high-power LED lighting is serving to highlight the importance of understanding all aspects of an application in order to correctly and safely specify the right type of resistor for LED lightings. Microhm Electronics NUAL series and FLR serires are applicable to this field.
For LED lighting applications, devices with a nominal rated forward current of 350mA are quite typical but LEDs designed for operation at 700mA, 1A and even 1.5A are becoming increasingly common. So where the application example discussed above requires a resistor with a rating just over 2W, higher power LEDs may well require resistors rated at 10W or more.

Axial-leaded wirewound resistors  Nual series offer reasonable power handling with low resistance tolerances, excellent low TCR (temperature coefficient of resistance) performance and they can operate over of aluminum-housed wirewound power resistor with ratings to 50W and above.


Wirewound resistors are available with non-inductive windings but thin film resistor technology provides an alternative that may suit some applications. Microhm Electronics' NLR series offers low-inductance power film resistors in various package housings to support different power ratings e.g. 20W/35W TO-220, 100W TO-247. For surface mount designs, the NLR series of power SMD film resistor from Microhm Electronics can handle up to 50W.