I want to make a switch that will let me change each of my system leds colors.

Have 3 leds hooked up to the power indicator for example. Be able to choose which color is on.

Orrr something more ambitious. Have 3 LEDs Red Green Blue, and have a dimmer for each, turn the knobs for 16 million colors.


How do I do it?

for the first one you would need to make or get a light pipe, basically a clear plastic thing that the LEDs travel through, or some fiber optic wire and just get a switch to switch them on and off.

for the RBG, get 3 potentiometers or rheostats and put one of them plus the normal resistor in series with each leg of the RGB LED, just like you were making a normal LED varibale brightness. Very simple to do, very pimp looking results.

Why do they use resistors? I just wired my bright blues right into the power/hdd lights.

There are also LED arrays that are all inside one lens. I'm too lazy to find them.







Heh heh - just kidding - I pissed the hell out of some people (and some admins) last time I said taht. I found this page here: http://info.digikey.com/T022/V5/0961.pdf. Those are kind of what you want. Put a lens in front of them and it would look perfect. There are also LEDs that are all in one lens - but I couldn't find any with three different colors. Or, you could use lightpipes, like those available from here: http://www.ledtronics.com/. Oh, by the way, ledtronics gives out free samples. Check out their household LED lights. Pretty sweet.

Quote: Originally posted by ninjas Why do they use resistors? I just wired my bright blues right into the power/hdd lights.

well, either you got lucky or your are killing your LED. most LEDs need a resistor between them and the power supply. Superbright blue are usually fine it you give them 5V so odds are you are alright, but any other color would have fried the LED. Basically the resistor acts like a speed bump and slows down the power so it doesn't burn up the LED.

The way to find out what you need is to take the power going in (either 12V or 5V in a computer) and subtract the voltage rating for the LED. you can find that on the packaging that the LED came in. then divide the result by the current rating for the LED, again from the packaging. the result is the resister value you need. Resistors only come in certain values (long explination) so if you can't seem to find the same number, go to the next higher one. the higher the value the dimmer the LED will be.

I'm running them right from the wires on the motherboard. The power and hdd indicator light plugs.

Or use a pot and a multimeter. I swear I'm not advocating drug use here...How.To.Smoke.Marihuana.Out.Of.A.Bong(2002)VCDistro .Sharereactor.mpg These guys are though (if you have Edonkey).

broken link

Don't trust Miststlkr, he works for the government.

Wow, thanks nleahcim, perfect.

5mm SpiderLED Indoor RGB Illuminator LED
http://www.netdisty.net/ds/sml13rgb/

Quote: Originally posted by Wixx Don't trust Miststlkr, he works for the government.

damn, i'm caught. but what they don't know is that what i just told them to do will create a listening evice so that Big Brother can spy on them any time their comuter is on and, as with 90% of us, i douubt he ever turns his off. mwahahahahaha