assistance for case lighting

[runLoganrun]

Hi,
I want to wire a dual 5mm led to a single 5mm led, and connect them to a switch, and prob a dimmer. other option- i found a 4 pin to 3x 2pin mini circuit adapter, i think this might be easier. the 4pin, of course, has two power leads, 5v & 12v i believe, how do i put a switch on this?
going to use either a basic rocker, or possibly a latching vandal switch.
is there a better way to do this?

what about the dimmer, will any fan type rheostat work?

thanks,
rlr

 

[Mohonri]

My reading comprehension isn't working too well, but it sounds like this is what you want to do:
1) Hook up two LEDs where you had one before
2) Hook them up to a switch
3) Use a rheostat to dim the LEDs.

To what power source are you hooking up the LEDs? If you're hooking it up to the motherboard power LED header, then you might or might not be able to do it--it depends on what color the LEDs are.

If, however, you want to hook the LEDs up to the PSU itself, then you'll have no problem tapping off the 12V and GND rails to power them. This LED calculator comes highly recommended. You'll need to know the forward voltage of the LEDs and their current rating. The calculator will even give you a nice picture.

As for a switch, you'll just want to hook the switch in series, so that it interrupts the circuit.

For a dimmer, a fan controller should work just fine as well.

 

[runLoganrun]

My reading comprehension isn't working too well, but it sounds like this is what you want to do:
1) Hook up two LEDs where you had one before
2) Hook them up to a switch
3) Use a rheostat to dim the LEDs.

To what power source are you hooking up the LEDs? If you're hooking it up to the motherboard power LED header, then you might or might not be able to do it--it depends on what color the LEDs are.

If, however, you want to hook the LEDs up to the PSU itself, then you'll have no problem tapping off the 12V and GND rails to power them. This LED calculator comes highly recommended. You'll need to know the forward voltage of the LEDs and their current rating. The calculator will even give you a nice picture.

As for a switch, you'll just want to hook the switch in series, so that it interrupts the circuit.

For a dimmer, a fan controller should work just fine as well.

cool, thanks,
i think i'm bagging the dimmer, i don't want too much nonsense on my case, i would like to switch off the led's though. what i'm doing is adding water cooling, so several of the components have led's, i basically just want to put them in a string, and have one switch for all. i don't know though, as far as hooking to 12v, don't i need to add resistors and stuff, maybe that's what that calculator is for, i haven't checked it out yet.

the other thing i wanted to do was put vandal switches in place of my pwr and reset, i need to replace them anyway, and those look really nice. I don't feel like dropping 28 dollars for a pre-wired one, but i don't know about the resistors for that, the mobo led i wouldn't need one for, afaik, but i don't know about the led for the switch, their supposed to come with a diagram. idk, i wanted to have 2 switches for the pwr/reset, and then 1 for fans, and one for lights, but for vandal switches that's like 70 dollars, just for 4 switches, and i'm not confident yet about wiring them. i'm inclined to get one of those really cheap momentary switches, for pwr, a couple cheap rockers, and stick the little reset plunger inside the bottom of my case, how often do you reset anyway, or use the power switch for that matter. i could then put the pwr/hdd led's on some alternative led that looked cool, or even put them on small discreet ones if i could find them. i still want to light up the case to some extent though, for the occasional uv fun, but def want that switched.

thx,
rlr