phase's Shuttle SN41G2: Update: Page3, 24thJuly. RGB LEDs

wow, thats sooo inspirational. I'm curious to see what all you do with those lcds, cause they got potential. i love the molex mod, and i'd love to try something like that one day, *sigh* one day. i love your daring use of wire managment, and i will definetly keep my eye on this one, 3 thumbs up!

 

nice! , i like it!!!!

 

I would say it doesn't matter that much. If it's the wrong way around just use a transistor + resistor as a NOT gate (inverts a binary signal)

Nice work

 

I bet that I just missed it, but HOW did you stealth those molexes for cd and hdd? it's fantastic

 

Wow.. i like the insides...

 

you didn't miss it he never made a guide for it, I did the same thing it is actually pretty simple. cut a hole just big enough for the connector, make sure its tight enough so it doesnt move while you plug in the connector, then solder on the wires to the underside of the circuit board of the optical drive. To get a grasp of what Im saying look under your hard drive where you see the bare circuit board. You will see 4 solder points directly under the power connector and you can then figure out whats what. saves ALOT of room and if yoru interested I have a shuttle with some of those mods on sale on eBay currently. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=5152214279 if that doesnt work its eBay item # 5152214279

 

I'm not sure I'm following that... I also think I may have explained myself poorly. Thing is, I know that the mobo for instance controls LED on/off not by switching the + line, but the - line (the + is always on). This makes it rather difficult to use an RGB led on a mobo (say, one colour for power, one for hdd activity...). I was wondering whether the MO LED bus does the same: switch on and off by toggling the - line, so to speak, while the + is always on, or whether it toggles the + line instead. I get the NOT gate, but can you elaborate on the transistor?

 

I understood what you said. I was merely suggesting a solution if the matrix orbital lcd swtiched the wrong way for you (which I think it switches the + line, didn't cheese post an article on that a while back?).

Search for transistor not gate, it's a very simple schematic with two components (a transistor and a resistor). It's pretty much building a not gate without using ICs.

Lookin good

 

hey everybody!

Thanks for the interest! Im afraid everything is well behind as the 4th year of my physics degree seems to be sucking up all my time!

Im not sure which way the MO switches, ask on http://www.lcdforums.com/, im sure they can tell you.

Thanks for the explaination Zero_Distortion Its simple but not too obvious. Although sadly my old drive has died (it wouldnt write cds anymore, although everythign else was fine), so ive just got a stock DVD burner in there now, and no time to mod it

Sorry for the lack of updates, but when anything is done itll be here!

RoB

 

I asked the MO team on their forums which way their LED GPOs switch. As I anticipated, they confirmed that the LEDs share a common +5V and that it is the - lines that switch. As such, if you want to use the LED GPOs on the display to control a RGB LED, you need to have an RGB LED with a common anode.

These are much harder to find than RGB leds with common cathode (the ones you can buy generally are common cathode ones unless explicitly stated otherwise). However I did find two sites which sell them: LEDtronics Inc. and HB Electronic Components. The first address will sell in batches of about 10, but the latter will sell individual numbers if required.

Just thought you might want to know!

 

Black. It's the new black.
Great project.

 

hey nexxo,

Thanks for the info! sadly everything is grinding to a halt with uni and such :-( im not sure if the common anode GPO affects what i was planning on doing as i was going to use the fan controller GPOS with PWM rather than the on/off GPOS, and people on the MO forum seemed to think it was do-able. But then i hadnt got round to checking much of the specifics.....

Ive had quite a few questions about the stealth molexes, so heres a quick and dirty pictureless guide:

The basic principle is that the power leads are connected to the solder points of the rear molex, inside the drive. Open up your drive and have a look where the rear molex connects to circuit board inside, there will be four large solder points there. To do this mod you just need to connect wires to those solder points and re-route them to where you would like your molex to be. Make sure you keep the wires connected the right way round! I happened to mount my new molex on the side near the front, but wherever you can fit (with a bit of modding ) would do.

Once you have moved the molex, you can use the rear one to 'tap into' the power lines, in my case i powered my hard disk of the same line.

I hope that makes sense, if it doesnt open up your drive and have a look, it should all become clear!

Thanks for the continued interest everyone! i really wish i had more time to work on all this!

RoB

 

have u done anymore? i know its a old log now but i was loving it

 

hi!

im glad you were enjoying the log, unfortunately ive not done anything on it since that last post! ive taken to modding cars more than computers nowadays, so look out for my MG midget pics in the motors section (not there yet....)

Thanks for the interest though

RoB

 

wow thats some really sweet work

very brave soldering a motherboard