I have been working on a simple circuit that uses a 10mm RGB led. I have had the same problem again with the red diode dying out after maybe a day. This time I thought I fixed it, but I guess I'm wrong. I have a 330 ohm resistor connected to it, which based on ohms law and the data sheet should be enough, but it just seems to stop working when I turned it on. What might be the problem of this.
Information on the circuit:
It's basically a simple thermometer that gives you a idea what the tempature is based off of the color of the RGBled. It uses a attiny85 to control everything and a LM 35 tempature sensor
9 volts is the input to a LM7805 regulator which then feeds to the chip. Then from the outputs of the chip a 330 ohm resistors is connected from the chip to all the anodes.
The data sheet of the LED:
http://cdn.sparkfun.com/datasheets/Components/General/YSL-R1047CR4G3BW-F8.pdf
Best Answer
The current through the red LED will be higher than the others due to it's lower voltage. However given a 5V supply it should still only be about 10ma which is well within the ratings given on the LED datasheet.
So either you got a crap batch of LEDs or you have something else wrong in your circuit. Some possibilities I would consider.
Your voltage regulator is not actually operating correctly due to missing ground connection, missing capacitors or some other issue.
Your resistors are not the values you think they are. In my experiance resistor color codes are all too easy to misread and I would strongly suggest testing them with a multimeter.
I would also suggest you post a full schematic of your circuit so we can see if there are any design errors.