Hey guys im just wondering what your opinions are on how to light the inside of a case. LED, cold cathode or other? Thanks and if cold cathode where do you hide that flipping inverter.
Every situation is different--different cases, layouts, even desired effects. Now, the typical situation is that you've got a case window, and you want everybody to clearly see your motherboard and components. Cold cathodes work well in this situation because they conveniently produce a large volume of diffuse light. So you get a well lit area with minimization of shadows. But you are right, they require an inverter. Furthermore, extending the cables between the cold cathode and the inverter is a fairly limited proposition (typically its going to be a max of about 8-10 inches). The good news is that you can indefinitely extend the wires between the inverter and the 12v power source. So you just have to be creative and find places. It also significantly helps to paint the inverter black. Put a black inverter right next to a bright CCFL, guaranty your eyes will not see it in the contrast. I'll also point out one of my pet peeves about cold cathode lighting. If you are trying to achieve the effect I've mentioned above, it actually helps to hide the cathode entirely from direct view, yet while letting the light shine onto components you want lit up. My pet peeve is when folks just stick the cold cathode right onto the inside of the window. I've found that all this does is blind the viewer (and give them a migraine)--you can't even see the components against the contrast. So one of the best ways to achieve bright lighting of a motherboard is to have only a partial window. Then stick the cathode to the inside of the side panel that is not windowed. This give it separation from the motherboard, to allow for maximal lighting, and not to blind the viewer. That's just my one example. If you are trying to achieve a more subtle effect, LED strings work quite nice. To get match the diffuse brightness of a CCFL, tho, you will need a lot of LEDs. Same principles apply--just a single superbright LED pointed at your eye, and forget-about-it. So LED fans, which are typically mounted at 90 degrees to a window are a nice option, plus they are pre-wired and ready to go. Creating light panels and bars by mounting LEDs into frosted plastic panels is also an option to getting diffused lighting. Another common option is EL wire, but this will not generate enough light to light up something. EL wire is great for accents. UV reaction is a whole paragraph unto itself. navig
I have found that cold cathodes right next to the edge of the windows work the best. As Navig said, keep the actual tube out of view. On my latest project I am using luxeons in all 4 lower corners of my scratchbuilt cube. I am just hoping that the light that is produced is quite diffuse seeing as I don't want really bright spots. I'll let you know how it pans out...
I have found that cold cathodes right next to the edge of the windows work the best. As Navig said, keep the actual tube out of view. On my latest project I am using luxeons in all 4 lower corners of my scratchbuilt cube. I am just hoping that the light that is produced is quite diffuse seeing as I don't want really bright spots. I'll let you know how it pans out...
Navig gave a great answer. It really depends on your personal taste/effect you're going for. I really hate being blinded by lights. personally, I'm playing with both in my mod. The inverter sucks. I'm gonna hide it on the other side of the floppy bay. Some people can hear a whine off the inverter, which makes for a negative. I'm having a rough time with my planned led lighting, and have to rethink it, but I would say that ccfls give a broader light, while leds are usually more like a spotlight. Speaking of that, there's a variety of leds out there, from the super bright, to arrays, to RGB (which I want to try out.)
Don't forget to look in the auto parts stores too! I found these blue LED spotlights there. I have since found the same ones cheaper in my local grocery store. They are really bright and can be moved and focused to highlight 'special' parts. I've seen them in blue, red and white at the car parts places. From my H2O-C7 log: john
I went from CCFL lighting to LED lighting, due to all the wires that resulted from needing inverters. If you want to light up a specific part of your case, such as the motherboard, but you don't want to be wiring up LEDs, then I'd recommend something like this. They don't require an inverter cause they run from 12V, they are suprisingly bright as well. However if you want to be lighting up more of your insides, then you'd need two or three of these. Alternatively, if you want something that is a little closer to the diffuse light you get from a CCFL, then look into ths alternative instead. As mentioned before, you can use LED fans, which give off a lot of light, but in my personal opinion, they can look really bad if not hidden effectively.
Lamptron 5 Spread Lazer LED are also worth looking into, two of these provides enough light to illuminate my entire watercooling system.
