Annoying LEDs SB6141 Modem..

  • Thread starter Deleted member 88227
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Deleted member 88227

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I need to figure out a way to fix this issue at hand. The LEDs on this unit are extremely bright, in total darkness with just those lights on it lights up the room well enough to see pretty good. Especially the blue LED. That sucker is BRIGHT. Here is what I want to do.

1. Disable the light completely.
2. Dim the light so it's not as bright.
3. Change the color of the blue LED to a green LED that's not as bright.

If I'm lucky, we can do this with just a firmware flash/edit but I'm afraid I'm gonna have to take it apart. Any suggestions?
 
Electrical tape. (hockey tape is see through if you just want to take the brightness down a few notches)

Yes, seriously.

You can not modify the firmware on an active cable modem without the cable company getting SUPER suspicious, you'd need to keep up on spoofing the correct firmware to the cable company and it becomes a huge mess.

If you have soldering skills, that is your only other way.
 
Well I don't want the electrical tape visible on the outside, so I'll try to take it apart and see if I can cover it from the inside. Maybe even put some kind of tinted lens in front of it so it's not as bright.
 
Open the modem (if you own it, not renting it) and clip the single side on the LED...

Or use electrical tape. The lights may be needed should something go wrong to trouble shoot... so tape is your best bet.
 
I do own this modem, the one I just replaced I did not own but I was done paying (I thought $6) $8 a month for a cable modem when I bought a better modem for $90, so in about a year it'll start paying for itself.

Guess I can go ahead and just start taking it apart to see what I'm dealing with.

On a related note, where can I buy replacement LEDs for circuits? I'm pretty good at soldering, so I think I can easily just remove the bright blue LED and replaced it with a different one. Then I'll still be able to troubleshoot and what not, it would just be a different color. The blue indicates (looks up manual haha) ..


Well apparently its a blue & green LED. Blue indicates a high speed Internet connection with bonded downstream channels. Green is non-bonded downstream channel. They have the same for upstream too. The downstream seems to stay blue, while my upstream stays green.
 
What colour is the Modem casing?

Find some electrical tape the same colour (or closest to it) and place the tape over the front panel where the LED`s are.

Then take a sharp pointed object, (knife, scalpel, precision screwdriver, pretty much whatever floats your boat) and pierce tiny, almost pin-prick, holes through the tape so you can still see the LEDs should you need to but they won`t be strobing you towards full-blown epilepsy.

I know you say you don`t want tape visible on the outside, you could always do the same same thing but on the inside of the modem or just stick some on the ends of the LED`s with the same type of pin-prick holes in, just enough so you can see the light.

there are always options!
 
I usually use good old fashioned paper to dim LEDs. It diffuses the light but still lets some through and costs nothing. Just get the paper between the LED and the case. Nothing else to fuss with. Window tint or the "gels" used to color theatrical stage lighting would probably also work.
 
I bought this modem last week. Before that I turned down low the annoying blue light on the Xfinity X1 box through the software. So, what do I do with these even brighter Arris SB6141 lighthouse lights sitting on my tv stand? Well, I did not use tape or mess with the circuitry. Since all the lights are coming from the front of the box, I just turned it so the front of the box is pointing down. I also moved it down to the floor near the corner of the living room. Now, it is a soft glowing night light.
 
Just add a resistor to the LED, might be easier said than done if it's SMD though... just experiment with different values, maybe start with 100 ohm.

But if you're [H]ard enough that box should be sitting in a basement server room somewhere anyway? :p
 
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