Can I chain LEDS to mobo HDD header?

[dampeal]

I'm wondering if I can chain LEDS to my mobos HDD LED header...

the reason I ask is that my case has two HDD activity LEDs, and it kinda looks goofy with one out all of the time.. it's an Ultra M998.. but also I'm going to re-install two mobile racks as well that have HDD LED indicators in them..

So basically I want to chain 4 leds to connect to the one on my mobo.. is this safe? not sure how much voltage the header puts out or if it would be able to power four of them or not

I have lots of spare parts floating around and I was thinking of making like a little rack, like a mobo header, with the male pins on it with a single lead to the mobo, the other hdd connecters would connect to the 'rack' to all be activated by the mobo

would this work? has anyone every tried it?

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: dampeal
I'm wondering if I can chain LEDS to my mobos HDD LED header...

the reason I ask is that my case has two HDD activity LEDs, and it kinda looks goofy with one out all of the time.. it's an Ultra M998.. but also I'm going to re-install two mobile racks as well that have HDD LED indicators in them..

So basically I want to chain 4 leds to connect to the one on my mobo.. is this safe? not sure how much voltage the header puts out or if it would be able to power four of them or not

I have lots of spare parts floating around and I was thinking of making like a little rack, like a mobo header, with the male pins on it with a single lead to the mobo, the other hdd connecters would connect to the 'rack' to all be activated by the mobo

would this work? has anyone every tried it?

no... because of circuit. You'd either be using a paralell config <forces the header to draw more power), or a serial config <would draw less power>, in which voltage woulld change.

That could damage your board.

Lemme guess... you want to drop a vandal switch and have your pwr led and the vandel led both light on?


Easiest fix is to use this LED calculator. It will even draw a wire diagram with the proper required resistor @ votlage you put in /w how ever many LED's you want.

http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz

The PSU can put out voltage in either 5V 7V 12V. Id go with 7V.

This depends on which 2 combination out of the 4 wires you use.

 

[dampeal]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Originally posted by: dampeal
I'm wondering if I can chain LEDS to my mobos HDD LED header...

the reason I ask is that my case has two HDD activity LEDs, and it kinda looks goofy with one out all of the time.. it's an Ultra M998.. but also I'm going to re-install two mobile racks as well that have HDD LED indicators in them..

So basically I want to chain 4 leds to connect to the one on my mobo.. is this safe? not sure how much voltage the header puts out or if it would be able to power four of them or not

I have lots of spare parts floating around and I was thinking of making like a little rack, like a mobo header, with the male pins on it with a single lead to the mobo, the other hdd connecters would connect to the 'rack' to all be activated by the mobo

would this work? has anyone every tried it?

no... because of circuit. You'd either be using a paralell config <forces the header to draw more power), or a serial config <would draw less power>, in which voltage woulld change.

That could damage your board.

Lemme guess... you want to drop a vandal switch and have your pwr led and the vandel led both light on?


Easiest fix is to use this LED calculator. It will even draw a wire diagram with the proper required resistor @ votlage you put in /w how ever many LED's you want.

http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz

The PSU can put out voltage in either 5V 7V 12V. Id go with 7V.

This depends on which 2 combination out of the 4 wires you use.

hmm.. thanks... glad I aksed and didn't just go for it..

but no, no vandal switch involved, I just want to utilize the LEDs I already have there for HDD activity..

there are two HDD activity leds in my case, and one on each mobile rack, but there is only one hdd led header on the mobo, I want them all to be lit up or blinking with hdd activity

and I don't want to involve psu etc, I just want the LEDs all conncted to the HDD LED header on the mobo if possible.. so they show activity, if not all four at lest the two of them that are on the case bezel

 

[ChefJoe]

With HDD leds they're just a quick, short power flash. I bet you could wire a couple LEDs in parallel and not damage your board. LEDs hardly draw any power so I doubt it'll overheat any power delivery circuitry.

IIRC most add-on SATA cards have HDD activity headers should you want to show activity on one set of HDDs vs another.

 

[Rubycon]

You're going to be current limited. If both LED's are identical they will fire with lower intensity. If however one is red and the other is yellow, for example you will most likely have one at normal brightness and another at barely perceptible brightness.

The best bet is leave the extra flying free OR find another header to attach it to. I wish more common desktop boards had a header for LAN activity, for example.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
I wish more common desktop boards had a header for LAN activity, for example.

pft.. like you couldnt solder this one yourself... Hell if you had enough parts, im sure you could even make your own nic card ruby..