I'm currently embarking on my first mod and right now, I've been wiring up LEDs. Soldering resistors to the LEDs to be more precise (quite therapeutic actually) and they will be inside the case (don't worry, they're not blue and "gamer" like). I want to control these LEDs by a switch so I can turn them off at night or what not. It's a two terminal rocker switch and I was trying to work out in my head how to do this. I got as far as thinking that I wire up the live cable to the LEDs on one terminal and the neutral to the other, then wiring this to a molex to plug in, live to live, neutral to neutral. I swear there's a flaw in this but can't see what it is as I'm still a beginner.
Put the switch directly after the Molex connector and before the LEDs, like this: Code: ______ |Molex | |______| | | | _|____ | |Switch| | | | | |_______|_ | LEDs & | | resistors| |__________| It doesn't matter which of the two cables you put the switch on as long as it breaks the circuit.
Ahhh thank you! That makes a lot of sense, I knew there was a flaw in my design. Thanks a lot for that, very helpful!
NEW QUESTION PLEASE READ!! Ok, I'm going to leech off of this thread instead of creating a new one as this is very similar to my question as well. here's my problem, I spent the last 5hrs getting my little juncture box perfect (see pic A) and I feel that I borked this somewhere. I forget to plan on the rocker switches which is a standard 2 pin rocker (see pic B). So now, is it too late to connect the rocker wires just to this juncture strip, or am I totally thinking wrong anyway? That I need to go directly to the power source (ie. the molex, pic C) to be able to turn the lights on and off? If that's the case, can I use a 2 headed molex (ie. one that has 2 female ends so I can connect another another molex straight to it which would be the second rocker switch)? If I can connect a 2 headed molex, would turning off one effect the other, or will they be independent of each other? I have a bay panel fitted already for 2 rocker switches and if it's possible I don't want to add any more 4 pin molexes than necessary (I've already calculated exactly the number that I would need for my case and have made custom wiring which will be a problem later if I need to add more somewhere). If I'm not clear, let me know and I'll try and explain better than I have with more pics or something. . . PIC A PIC B PIC C
I may be dumb, but from what i see, you're using both 5v and 12v parts of the molex, thus drawing two different voltages to (i guess) different items. It's not a Good Idea™ to plug both voltages to the same rocker switch. I never tried it, but i think it could just kill your PSU instantly. If i'm wrong (and you're not using 5v AND 12v), just do just like i didn't post!
no, you're not dumb, just confused. I didn't make it easy by changing colors on you, I should have used yellow for clarification. But if you look closely at the right side molex, you see numbers which correspond to this table: Pin 1 : +12v (yellow) Pin 2 : ground (black) Pin 3 : ground (black) Pin 4 : +5v (red) Thus you can see that I have wires coming from Pin 1 and pin being the +12v feed. So, no, I'm not using the +5v wire. Any Help yet to my questions??
You'll need to put the switch between the either the ground or the +12v line. The easiest way would be to put another moulex extender in line with your junction box and the psu and connect the switch to that... i'll try to draw... Code: From PSU Extender to junction box +5v -----------|--- ----------|--------- gnd -----------|--------------|--------- gnd -----------|--------------|--------- +12v -----------|---| --|--------- | | | | ---/----- Switch ~
ok, I think I understand what your saying, but does that mean I only need 1 wire to the switch from the molex, and then 1 wire from the switch to the junction box, that's it? If that's right then my thinking was way wrong as for some reason I was thinking that I needed both the positive and the ground to be connected to the rocker, and then connect those somehow to both the junction box and the molex.
Oh Man. Great News!! I've been slaving away down in the cellar (with da'gimp) for a couple hours now, rewiring, re-measuring and hooking stuff back together. And you know what? IT WORKED!!!! I'm so stoked, you have no idea. Thanks for the help, it's really made my day and it's made such a good start to the weekend.
