I had never seen a strobe led fan mod till last week.. right here. That thread is old and I want everyone to see and do this mod, it is awesome and easy. pics here, more if the is any interest. http://hometown.aol.com/dawze3/myhomepage/personal.html My fan mod uses a couple storebought ($2.50) led strobe toy tops (as in a spinnin top), from Maui Toys at my local Walmart. They have 5 LEDs that strobe cool patterns when the top is spun. I removed the circuit from two tops, soldered the power and spin activated on/off switch together on the two circuit boards, hot glued the pair, stuck it on my 80mm fan and walaa, a friggin cool strobe led fan mod. A single circuit works well on a 60mm fan, two does nice on an 80mm. I had to use standoffs to give the fan a bit of distance between the grill because the added circuits are hot glued to the fan. Hot glue because I might some day need to change the button battery. High RPMs and mine is running solidly attached, did play with balance to get the shake out of the new load on the fan. Patterns cycle though about 32 variations and different fan speeds also creates more variation. Star bursts, spirals, flower petals, figure 8's, squares, triangles, ect.. all in red-yellow-blue. Cheap and easy, and it is sooooo friggin cool! I bought all the Cool Light Tops from my local Walmart and am having fun moding the circuits with various additional colored LEDs and much more. Yaal realy, really should try this.
bored spitless For those in Australia, the Cool Lights Top can be found here.. http://www.therapytoyshop.com/laser.html The Laser Tech Top is similar, just has sound effects as well, found that one in the U.K. here... http://pages.ivillage.com/perx4play/id13.html currently on a special price here... http://pages.ivillage.com/perx4play/id15.html
Wow! How did you think of that? I definitely have get some of those. Too bad I don't really have any visible fans... How about air flow, is it very restricted because of this? And the balance of the fan is a bit off too, I guess? So the fan will shake/noise more? It had been cool to put this on the cpu fan, but I guess it's a bit risky, as it might rattle the whole heat sink loose after some time..
sweet Zede I saw this and decide to go on ebay and see what i can find. The idea was really good I can see the problem through wear and tear after a while but that just normal when modding some stuff. I bought 2 of those tops for about 8.88 that incuded shipping to get to me, not bad. I think with some the modders well look at these tops and say hey I can make this board myself I make up a symatic on it. Well waiting to see what there like and play with them myself. Then i'll probly put those two on a fan controller to turn down the speed to reduce the wear on the fan and make it quieter. Thanks again for the idea, this well do some sweet modding looks.
Hot glue works well for attaching these. Once centered and balanced, my low RPM fans are real quiet and air flow is still good. High speed fans still have good air flow as well and they have cool patterns but balance is a bit more critical, they shake pretty crazy till you find the sweet spot. Thread lock or split lock the hardware because even small vibes will loosen the hardware over time. I love the creative spirit here, might just be the meds kicking in.
Two links deep used to take you to a pcmods page where they sold them. The link seems outdated now, but if you search pcmods you might find them there somewhere. Failing this, see the all-knowing oracle!
