Modding Not enough power

I've hooked up 2 car LED strips that are meant to run from a cigarette lighter socket in a car. I've put them up so that they will run as HDD LEDs but they're not getting enough power as they should be running off 12v.

Is there any way or does anyone know of any way to make them run off the HDD header but still draw the amount of power they need without damaging any components.

 

Hi Ryu,
Never use more than 1 LED at the HDD header, you risk destroying the mobo.
you'll need an optoisolator, and Linear shows you how (circuit on page 2):
http://case-mods.linear1.org/how-do...r-or-optocoupler-to-run-more-hard-drive-leds/

ARM

 

I don't think i've explained what i've actually done very well give me a little time to go get a web cam and i'll post a pic here

 

I think you do need the link ARM sent you to, but page 2

http://case-mods.linear1.org/how-do...or-optocoupler-to-run-more-hard-drive-leds/2/

I think you may just need to change the +5V to +12V

 

surely you could do it using a transistor?

 

ok here is what i have at present



the leds are both meant to run from the same cigarette lighter socket so i figured that both together should be able to run from the same 12v off a psu and they do however what i want is for them to run from the hdd header and they do but they draw so little power that only one of them lights up and even then barely

hope that explains it a bit better

the single white wire on the on/off switch goes to the white wire on the HDD header connector then 2 wires (one from each of the leds) goes to the red wire. the other two wires (again one each from each Led connects to the on/off switch)

the on/off switch bit works fine and if i connect them to the 12 volt rail of the psu they work fine its literally as far as i can see a way of making them draw the power from the 12v of the psu but only activating when the hdd is read that I need its not a matter of a seperate led for different drives. both leds are meant to work at the same time when any of the hdds are readitten to etc. also my electrical knowledge is almost nil mostly trial and error until i get it to work most of the rest of the electricals for the mod are done or i know how to do them but this is the first time i've linked anything i was doing to try and run directly connected to the mobo.

 

Of course you could do it with a transistor but you would need many transistors to drive all of those LED's

 

above link fixed sort of for some reason its showing the picture rather than the link.

 

::cough:: ::bump:: ::cough::

Still stuck...