Custom LED Lighting
Years ago when I started building my computer, case lighting wasn’t as popular as it is now. There are so many options now for illuminating the inside of your case. Anyways, I purchased a blue cold cathode for my case. I liked the color and everything looked great until I came across this article about one exploding inside a case. After reading that, I pulled it from my case, but I still wanted to have the inside lights. I decided to create a custom LED light bar. Keep in mind that this was about four years ago, so I’m not going to go into every minor detail about this project.
To make the front part of the project, I cut a piece of pvc long ways as shown here. This gave it a nice rounded edge where the LEDs would be mounted. I only used 1/4 of the pvc, but depending on your design, you could do whatever you want. For the back, bottom and sides I used plexiglass, but that step comes after all the wiring is done.
Once I got that piece cut, I drilled 10 holes about an inch apart for the 5mm LED clips in each hole. After those were inserted and the LEDs were installed, it was time for the wiring. Below is rough wiring diagram showing how I did it.
For all the LEDs, I cut the positive lead (longer one) down to shorten it and then soldered the resistor to the newly shortened lead. Then I cut the negative lead (shorter one) down and soldered a short wire to each one. After that, I connected all wires with a long wire, covering each soldered joint with heat shrink tubing. I used an old molex connector to easily provide power. (yellow = 12v / red = 5v / black = ground)
That was about four years ago and they’re still shining bright!
If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment.
Useful Links:
Resistor Calculator for LEDs
Frozen CPU - LED Lighting
LED Light Bars
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2 Responses to “Custom LED Lighting”
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Although I already have enough lights in my computer case, your concept could be utilized for other things that I am already pondering.
Thank you.
I like your idea, but for me, not for decoration. I don’t have a window and don’t care to do that. I’m going to get power from a wall wart and install some bright LEDs for when I crack open my huge tower case and have it powered down and need better lighting in it (gettin’ old) to see what I’m doing. Getting a light to shine in the case is sometimes awkward, can be hot and in the way. Putting LEDs in the case with their own power source and switched will be nice. Also I’ll place them in different areas so I’m less likely to block the light with my big hands in there. If somebody wanted they could mount a micro switch so installing the side cover would shut off the LEDs. HMMMMmmm…I may do that, my case is as big as a refrigerator, it might as well have door lights like one.