hello everyone, hope your all ok today! im abit of a beginner when it comes to modding and electronics, and ive started recently planning on a new mod for my computer case. the plan is to have quite a few LED's placed around various locations within the case. i know you can buy LED's with 4 pin molex plugs on but due to hopefully having a good dozen, the thought of all those molex's is putting me off. i dont know much when it comes to electronics and was wondering if its possible to have a small simple circuit board within the case with all the LED's connected to (abit like christmas tree lights) and possibly onli 1 power socket coming from it that can connect to the PSU? and a switch in ther to turn them off and on. no fancy flashing or fading stuff. lol. been looking for ages and just cant seem to find a website or thread that gives a simple straight forward answer so i gave up and decided to make my own thread. any ideas of how its done and what things i will need to make it? if you got any pictures that would be great aswel. all help is greatly appreciated and thank you in advance! chris
It's certainly possible, and won't be too hard. Tell us how many LEDs you plan to use and their specifications (forward voltage drop and typical current draw) and we can help you further.
hi, thanks for replying. i havnt decided fully on how many because im still planning it, but ive had a quick count and i reckon id need approx 31, so for the moment ill say 31. in terms of specification again i have not a clue what type of LED wud be best to use, but i found some that seems like something id like to use. ill paste in all the information thats about them for you: 20x 3mm Blue 5000 mcd LED Bulb Lamp Free Resistors Description : Emitted Colour : Blue Size : 3 mm Lens Colour : Water Clear Peak Wave Length (nm) : 460 ~ 470 Forward Voltage (V) : 3.2 ~ 3.6 Luminous Intensity Typ Iv (mcd) : 4000 - 5000 Viewing Angle : 20 Degree Quantity : 20 and Free 20 Resistors (Work for 12v) it doesnt say anything about typical current draw though. do you need any other info or is that ok? seriously this is much appreciated thank you.
Well, if they're giving you the resistors, it's really easy. Just solder the long leg of the LED to one of the resistor's legs, solder the other leg of the resistor to 12V (the yellow wire on a molex connector) and solder the short leg of the LED to ground (either of the black wires on a molex connector). Then you can connect all of the LEDs like that in parallel.
awesome, i think i understand. so where would a switch go if i wanted one? or wud it be more simple to just unplug the molex wen i dont want them on, do you think?
