USB room lights/cathodes?

Vegeta · 27 Mar 2006 at 14:43

Hi, I want to light up the back of my desk via a USB device, i've been looking around the web and the only thing I can seem to find is small USB lights - these would be ideal but i'm guessing their not powerful enough to provide sufficient light, is there any product out there that I can put into USB ports and get a lot of light out of to light up the back of my desk?

Dreadi · 27 Mar 2006 at 14:59

i was looking round OcUk's modding section earlier and they have some external lights and EL string, try looking in there.

edit - Sunbeam SL-R Strobe Light - Red (CM-050-SB)

Vegeta · 27 Mar 2006 at 16:35

Yeah i was conned by this stuff aswell, so I bought some of it - it produces no light at all - just lights up enough to see a small line of blue.

Dreadi · 27 Mar 2006 at 16:47

the EL string? aye, it doesnt look amazing for giving off light.

have you looked at the sunbeam light ?

Vegeta · 27 Mar 2006 at 17:02

Ohh right sorry havent tried one of those, how could I use this via usb? Is it possible? What kind of light does it give out says its red?

fiShBoNe · 25 Apr 2006 at 17:26

hmm i just got some of that EL String stuff too
doesn't seem to give much light at all
and the inverter is giving a really loud and high pitch noise
is this normal??
whats are the chances of returning it?

Vegeta · 25 Apr 2006 at 17:54

Hi, yeah mine makes that stupid noise also, I couldnt be bothered to return it though.

Borden · 26 Apr 2006 at 07:39

I've got some Antec USB lights and they give off quite a bit of light. I have two of them, each about 2". You can get 12" ones as well

Vegeta · 26 Apr 2006 at 12:01

cheers thats exactly what I was looking for but didnt know it existed.

Messiah Khan · 26 Apr 2006 at 13:34

Ive just finished an art piece in my room, which ive mounted to a mdf board which is offset from the wall and mounted a cold cathode behind. I simply used a normal pc cold cathode and soldered a couple of molex plugs to some wires so that the power lead is removable. I also removed the switch from the pci backplate and mounted that at the bottom of the board for easy access. The thing is wired up to my server as the server is on 24hours a day.

Yewen · 26 Apr 2006 at 17:17

Have you put anything around the molex cables to stop them being pulled or hoovered?

Hoovering over a live molex cable does not do the PSU any good usually

Messiah Khan · 26 Apr 2006 at 22:48

Hoover? I don't usually hoover my walls, lol

The way ive done it, is to attatch a female molex to the art piece, then two male molex plugs to each end of a piece of thin two core speaker cable, which is routed through a pci plate into my server. This allows the female molex to be glued flush to the back of the board, near the switch. The power cable can then be removed if I ever need to move the art piece. I did toy with the idea of hiding a microphone and webcam behind there as well, and have it as some sort of hidden surveilance thing.

Edit; To answer your post, nope I havent wrapped anything around the molex plugs. I suppose I could put heatshrink tubing around them if I could be bothered. But they seems strong enough by simmply soldering the cable to the molex pins and reinserting them into the molex plug.

Vegeta · 26 Apr 2006 at 23:29

Dont suppose you've got pictures of your art piece, just curious thats all.

Messiah Khan · 26 Apr 2006 at 23:58

Fear my oh so 1337 camera!

Thses pictures really arnt good at showing what the light looks like at all. If I remember I might steal my dads camera tommorow and try and get some decent photos taken.

Yewen · 27 Apr 2006 at 00:07

Oo that looks nice actually!

Was expecting it to be naff, as most Cathode related antics are but that is very tasteful.

Messiah Khan · 27 Apr 2006 at 00:14

Cheers Yewen

Cost me enough in the end; 1 pack of decent thick matt paper, 1 black ink cartridge, 3 tins of black spray paint, 1 small pot of black paint(After the spray paint didnt work at all), 1 board of Mdf, 1 length of wodden batton(for bracket) and 1 cold cathode. Im quite pleased wit the result though.

Yewen · 27 Apr 2006 at 00:26

Wow, I only just noticed its not one sheet of paper!

It does look something, I want one now; but of my msn display picture.

Messiah Khan · 27 Apr 2006 at 10:41

Yeah, I was going to do it in Rastobator, but in the end I just printed it directly from Adobe Illustrator, as I wanted to keep the crisp lines. As for the cold cathode, I might end up mounting another one behind, to give out more light. That should be easy enough as there is a spare plug off the inverter thats mounted at the back. At the moment ive got the one cathode mounted horizontally in the centre, but i might try moving that one further down and have the other one mounted vertically at the centre, so that it gives off more light to the sides.

Mark A · 27 Apr 2006 at 19:02

Ive done something similar, ive put 2 cathodes under a shelf that my monitor sits on. I did it to light up my keyboard at night and it works a treat. I was going to use a power adapter but decided to plug it into my pc via a rear pci molex plug thingy. Ill post some pics later if anyone is interested

Mark

Vegeta · 28 Apr 2006 at 02:07

looks really nice that mate.