Hello everyone!
This is not much of a guide as such, but I am sharing my experience so that perhaps people can learn from my findings and find some inspiration for their own projects.
I got inspired by some other threads across the web to add some DIY LED strips to my case to liven it up a bit. The majority if not all of my parts inside my case are currently black. I quite liked this for the fact it is themed, but it made things a little dull. Buying and fitting a cheap LED strip with driver/remote control is easy – but I really did not like the use of a remote control. I hate having another piece floating around my desk, not to mention having to neatly place the IR receiver somewhere in line of sight for it to work. In addition, the sticky backing on most LED strips tend to let go after a month or so according to some people. Another issue is heating – you preferably need some heat sinking to keep your LED strips cool and thus increase their lifespan (read: not decrease).
My advise on what LED strip kit to buy? I still don’t know. I spend weeks scouring through the internet to find that magical value for money kit. Ultimately, I just had to go with one that ticked all the boxes in regards to reviews, product details, correct use of the English language(!) and price. I ended up paying 15 quid for a reel of 5m RGB 5050 @ 60LEDs/meter – including 44-key IR remote, power supply and LED controller. It works fine for me – but you can always get unlucky.
So the first thing I decided to do differently from most LED strip guides is to use a aluminium profile to fit the LED strip into.
These profiles look neat, keep the strip in place, act as a heatsink and most importantly can be fitted with a frosted diffuser. This diffuser helps smooth out the typical ‘pixelated’ look of LED strips. Using these profiles also lets me remove the LED strips from my case without having to mess with the sticky tape. The LED strips are still stuck onto the aluminium profile, and might come lose as well, but at least they are held in place by the profile cover. After soldering on some wires, doing some cheap cable braiding and connector fitting, this is the resulting LED strip assembly:
The aluminium profile that I bought came with 2 clips that wrap around the profile with a countersunk hole for a screw to fix it in place:
For any Enthoo Pro users out there, I found that these mounting clips can be fitted to the bottom of the case (window side) by taking out 2 self-tapping screw that fix the feet of the case to the chassis. By replacing it with a slightly longer one and some washers, the mounting clips fit perfectly in the centre of the space available between the PSU shroud and the side of the chassis. There is up to 20mm of space available, which means that a profile of 16mm like the one I am using fits perfectly – saved me a lot of effort with drilling and measuring! Here is a picture of the LED strip assembly fitted inside the case – notice how the cable can conveniently run into the chassis through a gap between the HDD shroud and the front fan.
This way, the strip can not be seen even with the panel removed when looking from the side. I figured I would place a second strip at the top of the chassis facing down to get some more light in the case. This time however I did not have mounting clips available (only got 2 with 1m of profile
), so I had to go with tie-rips in true DIY fashion. Turns out that two small tie-rips (that came with the Enthoo Pro case accessories) look a lot better than those mounting clips anyway. This way, the LED strip assembly is perfectly flush with the chassis and does not cause the strip to ‘stick out’.
You could probably fit more LEDs around the case, such as at the back of the HDD shroud, but I was quite contempt with just the two strips.
As I mentioned before, I dislike the use of the remote control that came with the LED kit. Instead, I opted to create my own solution using an Arduino Uno, six TTL MosFETs, a protoshield and a lot of wires. This way, I can control my LEDs in whichever way I want. More importantly, I can control them with an app on the computer rather than some annoying remote! Word of advise, if you are looking for cheap, don’t go this route. After I had bought the necessary components and tools to do this, I might as well have bought something like a NZXT Hue+. But if you have things like a soldering iron, solder, wires and heat shrink available – you could probably make it worth it. The Arduino Uno is probably overkill, but it was the cheapest I could find with USB serial communication.
If there is demand I can add a quick guide to how I made the LED driver circuit. Ultimately, it’s just 6 MosFETs wired up to the PWM pins of the Arduino, allowing full control over the RGB channels of both strips individually. Nothing fancy here – you can even buy a ready-to-go RGB driver shield for Arduino if you want too.
The next step was to find a place for the Arduino to sit out of sight. I had taken the lower HDD cage out of my case anyway for the sake of airflow, which now created a perfect little area for the Arduino. After some back and forth, I found that I could use one of the plastic skates(?) to mount the Arduino on for the following reasons.
Pros:
* Plastic is not electrically conductive and thus wont need stand-offs to mount the circuitry
* The skates can be removed from the case with 2 simple screws
* Out of sight looking through the window
* In reach when removing the back panel
* Situated just below the fan but with the MosFETs pointing out in the flow of air, ensuring they do not overheat
Cons:
* Permanent damage to the skates, although if it not visible with the HDD cages fitted anyway
So with the decision made, I screwed the Arduino to the plastic skates using two self-tapping screws (had no drill available, so I made pilot holes with a knife
), with the USB and power connectors pointing to the front of the case. This way I could easily route the cables out of sight and out of mind.
Because I did not want to run the 12V needed for both LED strips through my case directly from the PSU, I modded the power supply connector that came with the LED kit to a Molex cable, and plugged it into the Arduino. I then got the 12V supply from Arduino’s Vin pin so that I could make a single 4-core wire (per strip) run from the Arduino to the LED strip. Disconnecting the power of both strips could then be done easily by unplugging the power cable.
And that is it! Some cable management later here are the results. The LEDs are a bit brighter than the pictures show, but I do personally wish they were a little brighter. It probably does not help that my PC is a pitch black void of components. My camera really does not like taking pictures of light sources
I also wrote an app using the IDE from ‘Processing’ to control the lights – you can really do anything to your heart’s content with the Arduino. I was thinking of using the temperature of my CPU/GPU to change the lights, but I am not skilled enough in programming to get this information programmatically. The Arduino has some EEPROM so powering on/off does not change the lights if you program it correctly. It was a fun and frustrating at the same time, as with most DIY projects, but the end result is always satisfying.
This is not much of a guide as such, but I am sharing my experience so that perhaps people can learn from my findings and find some inspiration for their own projects.
I got inspired by some other threads across the web to add some DIY LED strips to my case to liven it up a bit. The majority if not all of my parts inside my case are currently black. I quite liked this for the fact it is themed, but it made things a little dull. Buying and fitting a cheap LED strip with driver/remote control is easy – but I really did not like the use of a remote control. I hate having another piece floating around my desk, not to mention having to neatly place the IR receiver somewhere in line of sight for it to work. In addition, the sticky backing on most LED strips tend to let go after a month or so according to some people. Another issue is heating – you preferably need some heat sinking to keep your LED strips cool and thus increase their lifespan (read: not decrease).
My advise on what LED strip kit to buy? I still don’t know. I spend weeks scouring through the internet to find that magical value for money kit. Ultimately, I just had to go with one that ticked all the boxes in regards to reviews, product details, correct use of the English language(!) and price. I ended up paying 15 quid for a reel of 5m RGB 5050 @ 60LEDs/meter – including 44-key IR remote, power supply and LED controller. It works fine for me – but you can always get unlucky.
So the first thing I decided to do differently from most LED strip guides is to use a aluminium profile to fit the LED strip into.
These profiles look neat, keep the strip in place, act as a heatsink and most importantly can be fitted with a frosted diffuser. This diffuser helps smooth out the typical ‘pixelated’ look of LED strips. Using these profiles also lets me remove the LED strips from my case without having to mess with the sticky tape. The LED strips are still stuck onto the aluminium profile, and might come lose as well, but at least they are held in place by the profile cover. After soldering on some wires, doing some cheap cable braiding and connector fitting, this is the resulting LED strip assembly:
The aluminium profile that I bought came with 2 clips that wrap around the profile with a countersunk hole for a screw to fix it in place:
For any Enthoo Pro users out there, I found that these mounting clips can be fitted to the bottom of the case (window side) by taking out 2 self-tapping screw that fix the feet of the case to the chassis. By replacing it with a slightly longer one and some washers, the mounting clips fit perfectly in the centre of the space available between the PSU shroud and the side of the chassis. There is up to 20mm of space available, which means that a profile of 16mm like the one I am using fits perfectly – saved me a lot of effort with drilling and measuring! Here is a picture of the LED strip assembly fitted inside the case – notice how the cable can conveniently run into the chassis through a gap between the HDD shroud and the front fan.
This way, the strip can not be seen even with the panel removed when looking from the side. I figured I would place a second strip at the top of the chassis facing down to get some more light in the case. This time however I did not have mounting clips available (only got 2 with 1m of profile
), so I had to go with tie-rips in true DIY fashion. Turns out that two small tie-rips (that came with the Enthoo Pro case accessories) look a lot better than those mounting clips anyway. This way, the LED strip assembly is perfectly flush with the chassis and does not cause the strip to ‘stick out’. You could probably fit more LEDs around the case, such as at the back of the HDD shroud, but I was quite contempt with just the two strips.
As I mentioned before, I dislike the use of the remote control that came with the LED kit. Instead, I opted to create my own solution using an Arduino Uno, six TTL MosFETs, a protoshield and a lot of wires. This way, I can control my LEDs in whichever way I want. More importantly, I can control them with an app on the computer rather than some annoying remote! Word of advise, if you are looking for cheap, don’t go this route. After I had bought the necessary components and tools to do this, I might as well have bought something like a NZXT Hue+. But if you have things like a soldering iron, solder, wires and heat shrink available – you could probably make it worth it. The Arduino Uno is probably overkill, but it was the cheapest I could find with USB serial communication.
If there is demand I can add a quick guide to how I made the LED driver circuit. Ultimately, it’s just 6 MosFETs wired up to the PWM pins of the Arduino, allowing full control over the RGB channels of both strips individually. Nothing fancy here – you can even buy a ready-to-go RGB driver shield for Arduino if you want too.
The next step was to find a place for the Arduino to sit out of sight. I had taken the lower HDD cage out of my case anyway for the sake of airflow, which now created a perfect little area for the Arduino. After some back and forth, I found that I could use one of the plastic skates(?) to mount the Arduino on for the following reasons.
Pros:
* Plastic is not electrically conductive and thus wont need stand-offs to mount the circuitry
* The skates can be removed from the case with 2 simple screws
* Out of sight looking through the window
* In reach when removing the back panel
* Situated just below the fan but with the MosFETs pointing out in the flow of air, ensuring they do not overheat
Cons:
* Permanent damage to the skates, although if it not visible with the HDD cages fitted anyway
So with the decision made, I screwed the Arduino to the plastic skates using two self-tapping screws (had no drill available, so I made pilot holes with a knife
), with the USB and power connectors pointing to the front of the case. This way I could easily route the cables out of sight and out of mind. Because I did not want to run the 12V needed for both LED strips through my case directly from the PSU, I modded the power supply connector that came with the LED kit to a Molex cable, and plugged it into the Arduino. I then got the 12V supply from Arduino’s Vin pin so that I could make a single 4-core wire (per strip) run from the Arduino to the LED strip. Disconnecting the power of both strips could then be done easily by unplugging the power cable.
And that is it! Some cable management later here are the results. The LEDs are a bit brighter than the pictures show, but I do personally wish they were a little brighter. It probably does not help that my PC is a pitch black void of components. My camera really does not like taking pictures of light sources
I also wrote an app using the IDE from ‘Processing’ to control the lights – you can really do anything to your heart’s content with the Arduino. I was thinking of using the temperature of my CPU/GPU to change the lights, but I am not skilled enough in programming to get this information programmatically. The Arduino has some EEPROM so powering on/off does not change the lights if you program it correctly. It was a fun and frustrating at the same time, as with most DIY projects, but the end result is always satisfying.
