Modding LED's into Your PSU Molex Ends
Use
the needle tool (shown in the lower left of the first picture below) or other
pin removal tool to remove the 5v (red) and both ground (black) pins from the
molex end, there are tabs on the edge of the metal pins that you need to push in
to allow its removal. Take the dremel and remove the center plastic piece
(circled in red) from the molex to allow the LED to fit inside, sorry the
picture is so blurry... my new camera is better.
3mm LED's would fit right
into the hole you just Dremeled but at the time I couldn't find any, the only
LED's I could find in 5v were 5mm so some filing was in order. Hold the
LED with the hemostats and use the hobby file to square them off. Be
careful not to take too much off, constantly check all sides as you go and don't
go nuts by filing too hard or you can snap off the metal leads.
Solder the
LED to the base of the 5v and ground pins, take care to remember which side is
anode (+) and cathode (-) so that you solder it right and then after bending the
tabs on the pins back outward carefully cram it all back together. I used
some silicone around the molex to cover the bare LED leads. When the molex
ends were all outfit with their own LED I used some chrome loom to cover all the
wiring.
There are other ways to
accomplish this mod... at least insofar as the voltage of the LED is concerned,
if a 12v LED is used it can be hooked to that line (yellow wire) and a ground
(black wire) or you can add a resistor to the anode side to make the LED run at
5v (red wire) which keeps everything cleanly in the middle of the molex.
If you need to find the resistor value for your LED there are many LED
calculators on the 'net.
I did this mod to my test PSU
and it does look sweet, if I were to do it for my own case I would only put
LED's into the molex ends that hooked into my drives since they are the only
ones that would show through the side window. This mod is cheap and easy,
if you cannot hide ugly plug ends then you may as well turn them into something
worth seeing... sounds like some of the women I've known, LOL.
Happy Modding
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Guide written by ARTbyTROY
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