Which transistor to use for my project?

Projects General Guidance
1

Hello,

for a project I want to make I am buying parts. But since I am very new to electronics I want to ask you for your help.

I have an Arduino Nano, that is powered with 12 Volts. With this I just want to light up 2x LED-Stripes. Each stripe needs 12 Volts and consumes 4,8 Watt.

To switch the LED stripes on and off, I want to use digital Pins and a transistor. The 5 Volt of the Output pins shall switch the 12 Volts to the LEDs. Now my problem is, that I am a little overwhelmed by the amount of available transistors... Which one should I take? NPN or PNP?

E.g. is the "BD433" the right one for this project?

Datasheet: Intelligent Power and Sensing Technologies | onsemi

Best regards
Michael

2

Use an N-channel MOSFET to switch the low side of the LED, unless there's some special consideration that rules this out. That should be the default type of transistor for switching. AOI514 (and the rest of that series) and IRF3708 are good fets (the IRF is nice because it works passably at 3.3v on the gate)

NPN transistors work better than PNP (for equal cost/other parameters), and for switching, MOSFETs are better than BJTs (and N-channel fets work better than p-channel ones).

3

Oh ok. I thought a BJT would have been the right choice.
Thank you very much!