Small update: I've changed the green LED of my Cambridge Soundworks volume controller for a red one. I had a red cylindrical LED that was exactly like the green one. I just unsoldered the green, and soldered on the red. This makes it go with the color scheme, which is black/red.
I had a little time today, so I decided to make a backlit case badge, like some other members also have done. I cut a square piece of 2mm thick plexi, and sanded it diffuse. I also cut the top of the LED (3000 MCD red). \/ I drilled a hole in the bezel \/ Then I glued the plexi and LED to the bezel \/ The LED in the backlight is actually connected to the fan controller switch I have at the back of the case, so the brightness of the case badge depends on the voltage I use on the fans (7 or 12). And when the fans are off, the case badge is not lit. This provides me with a subtle way of checking the fans' status (7V/12V/off) without having disturbing status LEDs on the front (I want the bezel to be as "clean" as possible). The LED for the backlit case badge is 3000 MCD, but the resistor is a bit larger than necessary, and I mostly run the fans at 7V. Despite this, I still think the LED is a bit bright, so I might put a piece of paper between the plexi and the badge. Making a backlit case badge was a very straight-forward job, and I can even recommend it for people to do as their first mod.
-> nice work there bard -> maybe you could wire 2 led to it instead, so that if the fans are on 12v it's blue then red when running on 7v -> so that it matches your power/hdd activity button thing
That was a good idea, the_secret. I could do that. The switch I use for the fans is actually DPDT, so that will work out fine. And I think I can squeeze a blue LED in there too... I'll see about that Thanks very much for the idea. And thanks to Zap too Edit: I'm soldering in this moment
And here is the result: When the fans run on 7V, the case badge is red, and when they run on 12V, it's blue. Thanks again, the_secret, for your good idea.
How hard was this to do because I'm thinking of replacing the LED in mine with a blue one and my soldering skills aren't great. Take it's just a 5mm LED?
It's not a regular 5mm LED. It's actually a flat, square LED with a little cylinder on top (this cylinder is what you see from the outside). But of course, it can be changed for a regular 5mm, but you will have a little 1mm long "tunnel" in to the LED, unless you fill the hole with clear epoxy or equivalent. The soldering is very easy, it's just two points. I'm not really sure about the voltage/mA of the LED in there, but you can use a multimeter. And the resistor for the LED can be changed too. (Blue LEDs tend to demand higher voltages/current) The resistor is in there somewhere, not too hard to find, just trace the wires.
The red LED is 3000 mcd and the blue is 8000 mcd, but the red is still a little bit brighter, as the blue was mounted behind the hot glue that holds the red in place. The brightness when looking at the badge is pleasant, not too far from the brightness of the power button.
I did a new, small mod today. I see some of you have used thin optical fibers for activity lights on your stealthed drives. I didn't have any optical fibers, and besides, I wanted a little larger light. This is what I did: I measured up where the LEDs on the drives were. Then I drilled 2.5mm holes in the bay covers that stealth the drives. I taped masking tape on the outside, and applied hot glue into the holes from the inside. When the hot glue had hardened, I took of the masking tapes, and I had two "lenses" on the covers. Then I mounted them back on the drives. The light from the LEDs shines through the semi-transparent "lenses". The DVD drive uses a standard led (shining upwards), so the light from this isn't that bright. But the CD-burner has a really bright SMD LED, and shines nice and bright through the lense. Here's a pic. (both LEDs are green. The lit LED is the CD-burner)
New update (and now I have a new camera! ) I wanted to try that molex light thing, like Japala and some others have done before. There is only one molex connector showing in my computer, so I only had to put an LED in one of them. I started by removing the pins from the molex and drilling away two of the little walls in it: I had to file down an LED in order to make it fit in the molex. It was originally 1cm, but now it's only a couple of mm: I then soldered a resistor and the LED between the +5V pin and the ground pin. Then I started to cram everything back in: This is how it looked after I was finished cramming. Only the resistor shows. I used a little hot glue to isolate the resistor to prevent short circuits: I then put the whole thing back into the computer, and it looked something like this (only better in rl): What do you think?
I've always wanted to change the color of that blue LED fan I have at the back of the computer, so today I did. I didn't actually replace all the LEDs but at least one. Here's how to proceed if you want to change the LEDs in an LED fan: Here's the standard Sunbeam LED fan with four blue LEDs: \/ There is a blank tape around the copper traces (to prevent short circuits and such). Just peel this tape off. Hmm, this thing here is probably not needed... No, actually, that is the copper traces used to power the LEDs. Cut this over on a place with only two traces (there are places with three traces too, these will be harder to join again): \/ Now that the traces are split, you can pull out the LEDs from the fan casing: \/ I don't have any pics of this part, but it's not hard to explain. I desoldered one of the LEDs from the copper traces using a solder wick, which sucks up the solder. Some solder was left, so I had to heat the areas with solder while pulling on the LED. A couple of minutes of pulling and burning my fingers I had the LED out and could insert the new, red 5mm LED. I soldered this in place. Then I held the split ends of the traces (where I cut them up earlier) together, while applying solder to join up the traces again. That went well. I tested my new blue/red fan, but , it didn't spin. Turned out that the red LED I used had a longer lens than the blue one. I took out the dremel with a thin sanding stick thingy, and sanded away from the inside of the fan, until the LED and the inner circle of the fan were flush. Then I connected it to my computer again, and here's how it looked: \/
Sorry for the low-quality pics in this post. My dad has the digicam, so I had to use the video camera. I have added two UV LEDs to the hightower, as I have colored some of the smt components on the graphics card with fluorescent pens. To power the UV LEDs, I made a new device, consisting of a plug for floppy connector, and pin headers with 5V/GND on the other side. There are four pin headers, meaning I can power up to four low current devices. One of the four channels has an integrated 100ohm resistor. This is the channel I use for the UV device. Here's the UV device. I haven't mounted it yet, so pics of that are to come later.
