LEDs in Plexi CPU block?

Oblivion · 25 Sep 2012 at 13:07

Hi,

I bought some "12v pre-wired single 3mm LEDs" with the view to lighting up my EK Plexi CPU block.

The LEDS are already wired with a resistor built in, and have a red wire and a black wire.

What is the best way to connect these up to a power source? Can i wire them to a free fan header, or is molex better?

Hard to find some clear guides on this online, but have seen many pics of people with plexi blocks and LEDs lighting them up.

Thanks

Divx · 25 Sep 2012 at 13:36

Personally i prefer to connect them directly to a molex or with a switch and then molex.
You could swap the molex for a 3 pin and connect it to a fan header i think, as long as the led is 12v and not 5v (i recently killed a few by not realising this). You can also attach it to a fan controller, but the led probably wont start to light up until the dial is about half way.

Oblivion · 25 Sep 2012 at 14:46

Great, thanks mate. This is going to sound very n00bish but what pins do i wire the red and the black wire to on the fan header? The pre-wire LEDs i have litterally have just a black wire and red wire coming out of them and no means of connection except hard wiring them in.

They look like this:

if its a 3 pin fan header, do i wire it to the two outside pins and leave the middle pin free?

I found a guide via google for connecting it to a molex but the wire on the leds is only about 15cm long and wont reach through to where my nearest molex is located, hence the fan header idea.

Divx · 25 Sep 2012 at 15:39

wire it like this, match the red and black wires. Ignore the yellow one on the end as thats just an rpm sensor. If all you have at the moment is the bare wires, you will either need to splice it to a 3 pin plug/molex, or crimp your own.

lots of guides can be found online and i think theres some youtube videos.
an example for the 3 pin (this is for an extension, but it gives you the idea):
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/t360468.html

If you are concerned that it will only reach the fan header, you could always extend the wires.

If you dont feel comfortable with this or its not worth the effort (getting the tools etc), I'd suggest getting another led that already has the connectors you need, they're only a few quid after all.

Oblivion · 25 Sep 2012 at 18:39

This is great, thanks so much!! Do you think i can run two 12v leds off one fan header using this method?

Tealc · 25 Sep 2012 at 19:22

You could run around 30-50 12v LEDs off a fan header with no issues. Standard LEDs generally pull 20-30mA and an headers are normally good for 1000mA.