Cold Cathode power supplies

Riggy · 18 Jan 2011 at 13:06

Hello,

I'm currently planning my set up and how things are going to be set up on my desk. I've got white walls and I want to include Blue lighting behind my monitors and from the top of my TV which is mounted above. Now my problem is, I can only find Cold cathode lights that have molex sockets on the end.

I don't mind getting my hands dirty and trying different ways of supplying power to them. I'm just wondering if there something I can use to supply all 4 light's with one plug? an old laptop power supplier/charger? I'm not sure how I'd go about changing it though

Thanks
Rig

Syx · 18 Jan 2011 at 14:04

If they just have Molex connectors then you'll need to determine whether the lights are using the 12V or 5V line - and then just supply them the voltage. Connect them up in parallel via a junction box and depending on the current draw you could power them off a plug in transformer as you suggest.

PhillyDee · 18 Jan 2011 at 18:19

Every cathode I have seen runs from 12V, you could poke a molex out the back of your case from the slot, or you can get proper breakout pci covers for this.
Thats the easiest way! Apart from that, you want a 12V power supply.

Riggy · 18 Jan 2011 at 21:59

I have been thinking about it, I think I will go for the just plugging them into the PC power supply. I think overall it might be a little easier, I'm just going to have to extend the wire, the cable for a couple is going to have to be nearly 6ft long.

gazz · 19 Jan 2011 at 10:19

99% of ccfl psu's run on 12 volts, running 2 x 12 inch tubes on one psu pulls about 600 milliamps, (i use them in my motorhome, use less power than normal flourescents and brighter, and can be dimmed simply by reducing the input voltage)

no problem to exten the input cables, just dont try to extend the output cables to the tubes, as the psu is fussy about that, plus you need silicone wire rated for 600 volts minimum, as that's what the tubes run on, tho only 5 milliamps, but it's a high frequancy AC supply, hence why it's fussy about cable length between the psu and tube.

for a psu, you could run them off the computers 12 volt rail, or you could use a wall wart (plug in psu as used for charging phones etc) just fine one that puts out 12 volts at around 2 amps, (******s sell plenty, or ebay, or your junk drawer as lots of home items use a 12 volt wall wart)

just be sure to get the polarity right, i.e. + to +, - to -, a ccfl psu ment for a computer should have a yellow and black wire to the molex plug, yellow is the + 12 volts, black the -.

but if it's other colours, then black is almost always -, red is usual for +, but that's 5 volts in a computer, hence why a computer ccfl psu may have a yellow wire.

i used to have a couple of blue ccfl's behind the louvre doors of a wardrobe, the doors were painted metalic silver, and it looked great with the blue light oozing out of the louvers,