Bought some LED strips

azibux1

azibux1

azibux1

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Joined
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UK
Hi,

I recently bought two 30cm blue SMD LED strips online

They are designed for cars, so I'm assuming they will just have two wires at the end (positive and negative)

So I also bought two molex to sata power cables

Am I right in saying that all I need to do is:

- Cut the sata connector off the molex cable
- Strip the yellow (12v) and black (negative)
- Solder the two wires from the LED strip to the stripped cables (testing them before hand to see which way round I need them)
- Electrical tape the connections
- Plug molex connector into my PSU and turn it on

Few questions:
- Have I mentioned the correct colours?
- Can I connect both strips to one molex connector so it only takes up one space in my PSU?
- It should be OK with my PSU right? I'm assuming so as they won't use much power but best to make sure


Hope you can help, any advice / tips appreciated :D
 
Yellow = 12v
Red = 5v
Black = GND

Connect via yellow to black for 12v supply, red/black 5V and yellow/red for 7v
 
Yep. You will want to carefully heatshrink the connections though, don't want to short on your case/components. Also, would be best to test on an old/cheap PSU before letting loose on your rig :)

Get some of these Molex to SATA adaptors to use as supply. Nice and easy to butcher

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CB-037-OK

Edit: I see you already did :o
 
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Do it right; no risk. Do it wrong; potentially house fire :D On that note, just invest in some heatshrink. I'd put a toggle switch in the circuit too, so you can run the PC with the lighting off. Mounting a simple toggle switch in a PCI bracket blank is a piece of cake. You could go all fancy and use nice chromed switches/buttons on a front 5 1/4 bay blank if you're feeling fruity. Also sent you a trust email
 
d_brennen said:
Do it right; no risk. Do it wrong; potentially house fire :D On that note, just invest in some heatshrink. I'd put a toggle switch in the circuit too, so you can run the PC with the lighting off. Mounting a simple toggle switch in a PCI bracket blank is a piece of cake. You could go all fancy and use nice chromed switches/buttons on a front 5 1/4 bay blank if you're feeling fruity. Also sent you a trust email
Click to expand...

Thanks for your help with all of this, I guess if I'm doing it, then I might aswell do it properly. I'm going to bed now, but will check out all these things tomorrow some time

What size heatshrink would I need (diameter)?

:D
 
At a guess 3mm 2:1 ratio shrink will do fine (I just have a big box of different sizes lol). Another thing that just came into my head is that if you are lighting a windowed area you can also use white crepe paper or similar thin paper to diffuse the light from the SMDs (they're cool running :D) so you don't have glaring spots, too high a brightness and big shadowy areas
 
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leds will only work one way so if you get the wires connected up wrong and they dont light just swap them over
 
wazza300 said:
leds will only work one way so if you get the wires connected up wrong and they dont light just swap them over
Click to expand...

This happened to me when I had just pushed the wires into the molex to test them. with both strips initially I had them the wrong way round, lol

I found out which wire was positive and negative then soldered them together and tested it with an old PSU as suggested, all was working fine, so I put them into my case

I put one strip at the back and one at the top, both as close to the window as possible

Here are some pics, let me know what you think, and if anyone wants any more pictures of whereabouts they are in my case then I can upload them :)










:D
 
Looks nice, anyone know if the LED strips OCUK come with the requirement to solder a molex on, and if the strips are linkable to a single connection?

I ask as I hope while I'm fitting the WC next weekend to put some LED's on the underside edges of my motherboard :)
 
pgi947 said:
Looks nice, anyone know if the LED strips OCUK come with the requirement to solder a molex on, and if the strips are linkable to a single connection?

I ask as I hope while I'm fitting the WC next weekend to put some LED's on the underside edges of my motherboard :)
Click to expand...

Thanks! :)

Can't help with your question though as I didn't get mine from OcUK
 
pgi947 said:
Looks nice, anyone know if the LED strips OCUK come with the requirement to solder a molex on, and if the strips are linkable to a single connection?

I ask as I hope while I'm fitting the WC next weekend to put some LED's on the underside edges of my motherboard :)
Click to expand...

Putting them on the underside of your motherboard would be a bad idea :eek: Unless you are 100% sure of insulation, the risks is a bit much for the reward. Don't know what ones OCUK sell but if you do a search for SMD LED tape you should you'll find this type. They can be daisy chained very easily and you can run loads off of one molex

@ azibux1 Nice work there ;)
 
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