Blue LED's are Schweet

[xXgambitXx]

i just got a new LED for my sx1030 clone to replace the Power LED and it is very cool. i was getting some stuff from Frozen CPU and i decided to throw in a Blue LED since it's so cheap. installation was easy, the space on my case was too small so i had to drill it out to make it a little bigger. but once i got it in, i found out this thing is REALLY BRIGHT, i can't look directly into it for too long and i can still see the light on my hand when i hold it 2 feet away from the case.

if you're bored of your lights, get one of these, highly recommended. has anyone else tried these ?

 

[Tab]

Anyone have any tutorials on how to do things like this? Thanks

 

[xXgambitXx]

i think it's a little different for every case but for the sx1030's, it's just a matter of pulling out the old LED and plugging in the old one, just like a christmas bulb. the only part that requires work is taking off the front case bezel.

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: xXgambitXx
i think it's a little different for every case but for the sx1030's, it's just a matter of pulling out the old LED and plugging in the old one, just like a christmas bulb. the only part that requires work is taking off the front case bezel.

You need to be careful, however, not all LEDs are interchangable with others. Some require resistors to get the right frequency and if you don't use them *poof* LED in smoke at Hardforums (in the cool case section) you can find a link to a program some guy wrote to compute the resistance needed.

 

[Tab]

Heh, that would suck majorly if you got a bunch of led's and they all died! Anyone have any other website's that sell things like this?

 

[aceO07]

I replaced my Lian-Li case leds too. The power led is white, the harddrive led is blue. It lights up a spot on the other size of my room when my lights are out. When the blue drive led flashes, the opposite wall lights up WHILE the room lights are ON! The case is on the floor, else I'd probably go blind.

The white led is 5600mcd, the blue led is 10400mcd.

 

[aceO07]

Originally posted by: Tabb
Heh, that would suck majorly if you got a bunch of led's and they all died! Anyone have any other website's that sell things like this?

You can buy the leds from anywhere. Try going to a local radioshack if you want them quick.

I don't think you'll need a tutorial, it just involves splicing the wires that go to the current led and reconnecting them to your new led. If you're not comfortable doing that, I think I saw a kit at the frozencpu site. That just involves waiting to the mail to arrive and then plugging it into your motherboard.

Don't look directly into a really bright led, you could damage your eye.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: aceO07
I replaced my Lian-Li case leds too. The power led is white, the harddrive led is blue. It lights up a spot on the other size of my room when my lights are out. When the blue drive led flashes, the opposite wall lights up WHILE the room lights are ON! The case is on the floor, else I'd probably go blind.

The white led is 5600mcd, the blue led is 10400mcd.

10 thousand??? Where'd you get one that bright?

You can buy the leds from anywhere. Try going to a local radioshack if you want them quick.

And if you want to pay a lot.
Some places to check out:
Electronic Goldmine
All Electronics
Marlin P. Jones

 

[Tab]

So, I cant kill my self while doing this or my entire rig? That helps

 

[MainFramed]

those are shivvy!

 

[BZeto]

I ordered a blue led from frozen cpu also. I installed in my case for my new pc, but I haven't built it yet so I have yet to see how it looks, glad to hear its bright though

 

[aceO07]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
10 thousand??? Where'd you get one that bright?

I got them from bgmicro.com. It's where I get really cheap Panaflo fans.

 

[amdskip]

Originally posted by: aceO07

Originally posted by: Jeff7
10 thousand??? Where'd you get one that bright?

I got them from bgmicro.com. It's where I get really cheap Panaflo fans.

yup

 

[Scarpozzi]

Check out the new Dell 1650s and 2650s. They all have new 'ACTIVE' Bezels that light up blue or change to a blinking red if there's a problem with the server. They're REALLY smooth looking. We have about 15 of them that came in over the summer...

 

[Mark R]

10,000 mcd - that must be like a laser.

Personally, I prefer, my 'Super-flux' blue LEDs - 1,800 mcd but they are wide angle like a light bulb, rather than like spot lights like conventional LEDs. In terms, of actual light output they produce about 3-4x as much as the most powerful conventional LEDs. Unfortunately, their high power requirements, means that you won't get full brightness if you just connect them to a normal LED header.

Heh, that would suck majorly if you got a bunch of led's and they all died! Anyone have any other website's that sell things like this?

Yup, I just destroyed about $15 worth of these yesterday, together with a custom built circuit board - I'd filled the board with components, and like a fool I misread some 10 Ohm resistors as 100 Ohm (which the circuit called for). Powered it, and after a very brief bright flash, all the LEDs were dead.

Here's a pic of some in use

 

[Tab]

So, how do I know if my motherboard uses the right resistors? I really dont want to kill some expensive leds

 

[Mark R]

The low-power LEDs supplied with cases, need high value resistors to limit the power. As a result the resistors built into motherboards are designed to supply a safe amount of power to these LEDs. There are 2 reasons why your LEDs will be safe:

1) Super-bright LEDs usually can cope with a higher current (e.g. 30 mA, compared to 20 mA for a standard LED).

2) Blue or white LEDs have a higher 'forward voltage'. The effect of the higher forward voltage is to reduce the current available for the LED (A circuit designed to provide 20 mA for a red LED, will only be able to supply 10 mA to a blue LED)

You have nothing to worry about, your LEDs will be safe if you connect them directly to the motherboard LED headers. However, if you use a blue or white LED it will be much dimmer than it's maximum capability, similarly 'super bright' LEDs will not reach their maximum performance. And if you are using a 'super-bright blue' LED, then it will be nowhere near as bright as it could be.

 

[techfuzz]

I picked up a simple blue LED about 2 years ago from Radio Shack and replaced my power LED in my case too. I only had 1 problem, the power leads on the LED were too long so I had to snip them a little bit to fit.

 

[Dotntaz]

I just bought a case from Thermaltake, the XASERII. These cases already have the BLUE POWER LED's. I think it is just too cool. It is very bright also. I bought this case because i was having heat issues, BUT NOT ANY MORE. My temps have all dropped by 10-15 DEGC. The Thermaltake XASERII's are worth checking out if you are in the market for a new case.

~DOT

 

[Pothead]

You can get the blue leds at Radioshack...gideontech has an article on changing the leds on keyboards, cd-roms, case leds, etc.

 

[Egrimm]

I've got 4 blue leds in the front of my case: 2 for power in some holes in the lower part and two where the normal power and hd leds were. The case has an acryllic front which lights up when the computer is on, the lower part is lighted all the time and the upper part then lights up even more when the hd's are used. Looks real sweet as the case is light-blue metallic itself. Has a similar black case with red leds mounted the same way.

 

[OulOat]

Originally posted by: Pothead
You can get the blue leds at Radioshack...gideontech has an article on changing the leds on keyboards, cd-roms, case leds, etc.

Better get them while you can, the Radioshacks in my area stopped ordering them. So they carry 1-4 per store, but once they are gone they are gone. I would order from online if you are ordering a bunch, since the Red LEDs online only cost about 50 cents, compared to $2.50 at Radioshack

 

[Deskstar]

Yes, do it. I got a blue LED from Radio Shack about 2 years ago and replace the "Power" LED on my main machine. Looks great and not too bright, just right. I also found an article on how to replace the green LEDs on the Digital Doc 5 that I have with blue ones, which I did last year (fried 2 of them in the process, however, with my overly hot soldering iron). But, persistence yields success and now I have a great looking blue DigDoc5 screen with blue power LED.

I thought about making a second hard drive LED in blue (one HDD LED for the main HDD and a second color for the secondary HDD that is on its own controller card). But, I got lazy.

The work is well worth it.

 

[RU482]

I replaced the green LED's in my bench supply at work with UltraBright Blue LED's...I almost blinded the guy who sits across from me

 

[OulOat]

Just put 2 red (3000 MCDs) and 1 blue LEDS (2600 MCDS) into a floppy disk, it looks pretty sweet. I would rather get the red orangish kind of leds for it, since I want to get that fire look in my removable drives, but it's nice right now. Ah, a hard nights work.