First-time modders should read this

[Akira13]

I'd just like to share my "near cpu-death" experience with the community here. I'm new to modding, and decided to start by adding blue LED's to my drives. I've never soldered before, so I thought I'd try modding an old keyboard first. Well that went great, so I tried my floppy drive. The de-soldering took some time, and my LED wasn't the right size, so it took several tries to make it fit behind the faceplate. When I finally had it done, I plugged it back into my computer, but the BIOS wouldn't POST past the floppy drive. Then smoke started coming from my case, and lots of it. I dove behind my computer and pulled the plug. It turns out that in my haste, I had shorted the power connector in the back of the drive by plugging it in improperly. The wires were completely melted, so I had to cut them. Luckily my PS (Enermax) still has lots of molex connections left. It was also very lucky that the short didn't corrupt my HD, which was connected in parallel to the same molex connector.
So, it was a lesson well learned. Unfortunately, my apartment now smells like burnt plastic (and I'm sure it will for some time to come). Good luck to all those aspiring modders and hobbyists out there.

Edit: Here are some pics:
Bezel
Failure

 

[Zim Hosein]

Sorry to hear about you incident Akira13, I too know what burnt plastic smells like, and it ain't nice.

 

[MillhouseOfHorror]

akira, you wouldnt happen to frequent IGN would you?

anyway, Iv been planning on replacing my CDROMs' LEDs with some spiffy blue ones I picked up, but:
1) forgot to by resistors

2) the lights in my CDROM drives are little clear rectangles. NO IDEA where to plug the LED into

 

[Akira13]

MillhouseOfHorror, no, I don't frequent IGN. But good luck on your modding. My CDRW (HP) has those rectangular cubic LED's. I haven't got around to replacing those yet (just my floppy, DVD drive, case, and keyboard). I'm pretty sure you don't need resistors (see Virtual Hideout for some instructions).

 

[pbrain]

Your results look similiar to what I did, though we used difference means to acheive it .

 

[nnnyyy]

at least it was just the floppy. better luck next time

 

[ChrisADuffy]

Some pretty cool pics. I have a new mod idea now. How about a small smoke machine inside a modded case or clear case. White smoke, blue smoke, green smoke, you name it. Of course the smoke would have to be of the non toxic variety!

 

[MedicBob]

Useing a smoke machine inside of a case would be bad. I am familure with smoke machines fire departments use for training and they do leave a slight wet residue. Wet + Electronics = BAD

Good idea though.

Sorry to hear about the modding fire. Make sure you use quality solder and proper guage wire for any mods

 

[lstintxs]

i was putting a k6-2 chip in a friends box once and shorted the wrong pins on the multiplier(i thought it was the multiplier), i hit the power and smoke and sparks, not only melted that jumper but the two beside it, blew a hole in the northbridge and cooked the proc.

not a good day, took alot of beer to appologize, that and i gave him another chip and he bought a mainboard from me cheap. we squared it but i felt horrible.

-mike

 

[Akira13]

Perhaps it's time we made a modding graveyard thread? I bet there are lots of lessons to be learned from everyone else's mistakes. I bet there are also a lot of funny stories out there.