ADDING LED'S TO YOUR CPU CASE
All You Will Need
tools: soldering iron, hot glue gun
materials: molex connector, 2 LEDs(colour of your choise), loom, zip ties, solder, wire cutter
Introduction: In this guide, you will learn how combine a spare molex connector and 2 LEDs to create a simple and effective lighting solution. Basic soldering skills are necessary, but apart from that, this mod requires very little experience (and very little money ).
I got these LEDs from a nice and cheap LED store. They cost only about Rs 10/= per LED.You could buy some at your local electric store or Hardware Kadey
Directions
A molex connector will have 2 ends to it: One male and one female. In the picture below, the plug that is on top is male, and the one on bottom is female.
The four wires: red, black, black, and yellow, have different voltages from one another. I am going to call the black wire nearest to the red wire the red black wire, and the other black wire the yellow black wire. The red and red black wire together should have around 5 volts.
The yellow wire, and the yellow black wire should have around 12 volts.
The red and yellow wires should have around 7 volts.
In this guide, we will be working with the 7 volts coming from the red and yellow wires (if the seven volts are evenly distributed to the two LEDs, that is 3.5 volts a piece, and the ideal voltage for the LEDs that I am using is around 3.6 volts. This may vary).
Start off by taking your molex connector and cut away the two black, middle wires at the female end of the plug.
Take those black wires and shorten them to about an inch or two a piece. They will still be connected to the female end of the molex connector. Once you have shortened the two black wires, use a exacto knife to strip the wires. To do this, lightly score the casing all around the wire until you reach the wire. The casing should now eaasily slide off, exposing the wire.
Once the wire ends have been stripped, twist them together and solder them. If you would like to learn the basics of soldering, please read this Soldering Guide.
Take a look at your LEDs. You will notice that the two LED legs are uneven. One is longer than the other. The length of the LED indicates it's polarity, or whether it is positive or negative. The longer leg is positive, and the shorter leg is negative.
Cut the legs of both LEDs so that they are about 1 cm a piece. Make sure that when the legs are cut, the positive leg is still slightly longer than the negative one.
After cutting the LED legs, stick them into your molex connector on the female end like in the picture. The longer leg of one LED will go into the hole with the yellow wire, and the shorter leg of that same LED will go into the hole with the black wire closest to the yellow wire. The shorter leg of the other LED will go into the red wire hole, and the longer LED leg will go into the black wire hole closest to the red wire. The picture probably does a better job of explaining this:
Once the legs are in all of the way and you are sure that the legs are making contact with the pins inside of the molex connector, plug it in and see if everything is wired properly. If you did everything correctly, the two LEDs will shine very brightly.
Pull one LED out slightly, and place a small glob of hot glue underneath the LED. Do this to the other LED to keep it attached to the molex connector. After the glue has a moment to cool, plug it in again and make sure that glue did not get in between the LED legs and the molex pins. If it does not light up, that probably means that some glue is getting in the way. Just remove the LEDs, and glue them on again.
Now, it gets easy. Take your split loom (hopefully it will be a nicer color than what I have) and wrap it around the wires. Once the wires are encased in the loom, zip tie the loom securely in place. To get the tightest clamp from your zip ties, first heat them up. This can be done by placing them in fairly hot water for about 30 seconds. Another faster and equally effective way to warm up your zip ties is to use a blow dryer. Blow some hot air onto the ziptie for about 30 seconds. After the zipties are warmed up, they are noticably softer. Before the zip tie cools off, zip it on as tightly as possible.
Now you are all done! You have a wonderful LED lighting solution for the inside of your case.
You decide where you place this in your case.
If you want to control the led add a switch,so you can on it at night : )
Last edited:
These are good for using unused USB ports, and they look cool, too! Have fun. 
