Project Light & Water

RCA said:
Wondering if it's worth the hassle of getting some kitchen foil, coving it with cling film (so it's not conductive) and putting it behind the LEDs to try and reflect more light out.
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In a word no.

The LEDs you have chosen are standard lens types and therefore throw most of their light straight out front, in this case within a 30 degree cone.

To illustrate here's a very quick and dirty example of the difference using a different style of LED can make.

A flat topped 5mm LED.
flat.jpg


A standard lens 5mm
lens-1.jpg


The standard shaped lens bends the light and throws most of it out front, a bit like a car headlight, creating a very bright spot. The flat top has a more even light effect. SMD LEDs light up in a very similar way, perhaps even more even as the package has an even lesser effect on it.

At first I lit my case with a string of standard 5mms and I found it hard to get things lit up properly. Next I threw in a £3 30cm SMD LED strip and it made such a difference.
 
stueng said:
oh sorry I wanted pics with the right pannel off to see how you mounted the LEDs :)
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Ah, my bad... I'll try to get one for you know, be warned though, it's not pretty :p

Tealc: Ye,a wasn't really expecting it to do a lot, it's just something else I could do to keep me busy :p

EDIT: BTW, they're 3mm LEDs, as I wanted some extra space :p
 
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Liking the mess behind that motherboard. Considering the haphazard way they are positioned the effect is quite decent. The distance from the LED to the edge also allows time for the cone of light to spread a bit so that's a bonus.

How have you got all those wires hooked up though. Seems a lot of them.
 
Haphazard? :p The idea was mainly to have a fairly even ring all the way round, which seemed to work :)

As for the wires, each series bank of 5 LEDs is wired in parallel with each other (after about 10-15cm of wire (I wasn't sure how long I would need them when I soldered them)) into a molex connector to provide the 12V from the PSU :)
 
This is a great build - great pictures too. Love the build and the way you have used the space behind the motherboard! I want to do that to my motherboard with a strip of LED's but I don't have the space in a 650D really, and i might get a new motherboard soon anyway.
 
Thanks guys, actually in the middle of a slight upgrade (6950 is out, and got a pair of 7970s now) Along with a change of coolant (more red, less pinky-purple), and possibly a bit of general case lighting :)

I need to either get more braided cables, or braid some myself, as I ended up removing the 24 pin mobo cable, and the PCI-E power cables, as there was an issue with them (I'm assuming the pins weren't fitting properly) causing my PC to crash at random times.

I'll get some photos up when I get it done/when I have time!
 
hakank68 said:
may i ask which cable extensions youre using :)
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They were actually bought off ToxicTBag from the MM if I remember correctly, and the bags didn't have any manufacturer name on them, so I'm not sure! Unfortunately I had some problems with the extensions though, as I was getting regular PC crashes (I thought it was my PSU originally), but when I removed the extensions all was fine again. I'm assuming at least one of the pins isn't quite the right size, so isn't making a proper contact, but I haven't had the time to have a proper look yet.
 
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