LED controllers?

E

eTanium

New member
Hi all!

I am working on putting things together for a new build, and the case I have chosen has a button on the top to turn on and off the LED on the front case fan.

I am also going with a water block that has two white LEDs in it, as well as a two 5.25" drive bay pump and res combo that houses a third LED, all that seem to run off of Molex. I was curious if there was a way that I could tie into the case's LED button to control all LEDs in the case, or maybe make a custom switch for the water block/res LEDs.

Any and all suggestions are welcome. Thanks!
 
been toying with a similar idea myself. My 810 has the button that turns on the rear leds for the I/O panel. I could careless about that as i normally have a torch with me when I'm back there. I'm wondering if I can mod that switch to turn on and off my spectre pro's leds
 
I would think that one pin on the 4 pin connecter for the front panel fan, controls its LED. If I can splice into that wire, and connect the other three LEDs to it, I could have them all run off of one button. Would the one molex connection support four LEDs?
 
one molex can easily handle 4 leds but ya have to watch what volt line ya use since 12volts will fry them.
 
S_I_N said:
one molex can easily handle 4 leds but ya have to watch what volt line ya use since 12volts will fry them.
Click to expand...

Could you go into depth a bit more on that? out of the four wires on a full size molex connection, which puts out what voltage? Also, since there would be fore on one line, wouldn't they each share the 12v. So... 12/4 = 3? They should then only be getting 3 volts each?
 
no it dont split the voltage it'll give 12volts to each just like it does when you spit a molex for fans.
 
elder_scrol said:
connected in parallel will give u 12v to each led.

connected in line will give 3v to each led (12/4 =3)
Click to expand...

What's the difference between parallel (one molex per LED?), and in line (having them share one voltage wire?)?

Sorry for the ignorance, but this is new to me.

Thanks!
 
sorry , my English is not very good so I may not be able to make myself clear.

when u connect parallely the leds then the voltage at the terminals will be 12V. that means the every led is on 12V current. most leds can't handle that much voltage.

when u connect the leds in line(negative leds terminal to the next leds positive terminal) then u have voltage loss from led to led , which means it 's devided to 3,4 or 5 leds (as many as u connect).

check here m8 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirchhoff's_circuit_laws
 
elder_scrol said:
connected in parallel will give u 12v to each led.

connected in line will give 3v to each led (12/4 =3)
Click to expand...

I dont beleive that is accurate Elder without some kind of resistor or the likes in place how does it know to devide the voltage evenly? look at led strips they use one power for the whole lot if what you say is accuarte then how do they put like 30-40 leds on a single strip?? that would knock it down to much, say its 36 for ease of math 12/36=.333333 nowhere near enough to power an led. So the power has to be the same from one led to the next. and will be the same at start as it is at the finish of the line.

back to my earlier statement when you put a fan y splitter on a molex to share it to 2 3 or even 4 fans it still has the same voltage thru each leg of the split. Yeah it may be knocked down a tad but not split between each.
 
S_I_N said:
how do they put like 30-40 leds on a single strip??
Click to expand...

that can achieved only with parallel connection .I have never seen any of those led stripes in real so I can only guess they use leds with voltage 5V or 12 V or sth near those and of course with a resistance in line connection so that they can achieve the desired voltage.

if u have a power source (lets say 3v) u can connect as many leds (3V) as u like in parallel connection .the only requirement is that the source can handle the current( I : measured in Amperes)
 
Well, I did some digging around for tutorials, and this one helped.

http://www.ronmodz.com/how-to-s/cold-cathode-lights-ccfl-with-a-led-rocker-switch-mod.html

All the LEDs are going to have their own molex connections. So, all I would need to do is get a molex splitter (a connector that turns one molex into 2 or three) and connect it to one of the molex cables on the power supply. From that point I would just install one switch on the cable from the power supply (buying modular, so it will be replaceable if I mess it up), that would turn on/off the power to the three molex splitter attached to it.

Sounds like it would work, no?
 
what kind of leds r we talking about?

why use a molex splitter and not ur own cables?

check these fans that I've modded myself











I used 4 leds (about 3V) on every fan connected in row
 
Those are some good looking fans you made!

There is a front panel fan with a switch on top of the case that turns it on and off.

I am buying a cpu waterblock that has two other LEDs, as well as a water res that has an LED. I want to make it so that all LEDs work off of the case's switch. If I can't get access to the wires on the case switch, then I will have the water block and res LEDs work off of one other switch.

I'm not really looking to mod the fans or the LCDs themselves. I just want to make it so that I can turn them on and off as needed.

Those
 
Ok, well, I got the case in finally, and looked over how they are controlling the front LED. The front fan's LED is powered from the same 3 pin fan connector (or molex connection, which I am not going to use) as the fan it is embedded into. It has to have a split in there somewhere which splits the power between the fan and the LED (image #3&4 of attached image).

I would like to be able to use this one switch to control the other three LED's that will be put into the case, eventually (when I water cool), which run off of a molex connection. Any idea how I could use this one switch, which is connected to the case already, to control all the LED's? If I need to create a new switch, I will, but I was hoping to keep the stock one - it's in a good location.

I'm ok with splitting/stripping/combining wires and soldering switches, but I don't know about which wires need to be stripped from the molex and stuff... I don't want to blow up my power supply.

Anyone have a good one off tutorial? I've looked online, but haven't found one.

Thanks.

led.jpg
 
it depends on the voltage of the leds. 3mm and 5mm leds (whatever color) r 2.8 - 3.2V.

if the leds r powered by a molex connector u should keep in mind that yellow/black wires provide 12V and black/red 5V.

if u r going to power up 4 LEDs with the yellow/black combination (12V) then u will have to connect them in a row so that 3+3+3+3 = 12V and add the switch in the circuit.

if u powering up 3 leds then u will have to connect them in a row with a 120 Ohms resistor
 
The LED voltage varies with colour. The RED ones only require 1.6v to start glowing. A voltage above 2.5v is not good for them.

The Blue/White ones require atleast 3V to start glowing. They can withstand upto 4.5v, For Green/Yellow the voltages are intermediate. So keep it mind when selecting the series resistor. The above information is from my experiance with LED.

elder_scrol said:
it depends on the voltage of the leds. 3mm and 5mm leds (whatever color) r 2.8 - 3.2V.

if the leds r powered by a molex connector u should keep in mind that yellow/black wires provide 12V and black/red 5V.

if u r going to power up 4 LEDs with the yellow/black combination (12V) then u will have to connect them in a row so that 3+3+3+3 = 12V and add the switch in the circuit.

if u powering up 3 leds then u will have to connect them in a row with a 120 Ohms resistor
Click to expand...

The LED diameter has nothing to do with voltage, but current through them may vary, it depends on the material/manufacturer.
 
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