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How do you power an LED?

T

TehYoyo

n00b
Joined
Jun 1, 2012
Messages
46
I'm specifically looking to power an LED inside a hard drive...meaning it would have to be a 1 or 1.8mm individual LED.

Can I just use a battery? Apparently I'm supposed to use some kind of inhibitor?

I'm really looking to run the LED inside of a super-clean case...meaning I really want the cabling to be super clean, if you'll keep that in mind.

Thanks!
 
Varies by LED, typically an led (those bought in bulk on eBay) is around 3.3-3.5v, you'll need a resistor if its a battery like a 9V. , two AA's would power an LED that's around 3v.

You can also splice a power supply cable or a SATA power cable and run the led with a resistor (not sure of the voltage in SATA)

Why do you want an LED in the Hard Drive again? As far as i know, there are no transparent hard drives where and LED would even show?
I wouldn't reccomend disassembling a hard drive in any case...you need a clean room to do so

Maybe you meant hard drive cage?
 
OK...I got most of that. Do I need it to be exactly 3.3 v (let's just assume that it runs on 3.3 v)? What's my leeway on that?

How would I splice a cable?

And I don't mean a hard drive cage :) I mean an actual hard drive. If you've ever heard of the Hard Drive Windows Mod, that's what I'm doing. I just want to add a coolness factor in by adding LEDs.

I'm taking proper precautions and have multiple drives to practice on before I dig into my own drive.
 
For a 3.3v, I think you'd be fine with two batteries of 1.5v each for 3v. It would light up, but at a lower brightness, i think it would still be pretty bright.

To splice a cable, you need to figure out which cable is the power cable, then cut it, strip a bit of that wire, then run another stripped wire and fuse it somehow into a "Y" (physical appearance of the letter) kind of fusion if you get the idea, one branch will power the LED and one branch will power whatever that cable originally intended to power... to bond the wiring...electrical tape will suffice, but soldering with heat-shrink wrap is a much better better option

and before you crack your HDD open get a fine spray bottle with water and spray around your working area to get the dust out of the air
that's the least you could do
 
Suprfire said:
For a 3.3v, I think you'd be fine with two batteries of 1.5v each for 3v. It would light up, but at a lower brightness, i think it would still be pretty bright.
Click to expand...
That's fine. Thanks.
To splice a cable, you need to figure out which cable is the power cable, then cut it, strip a bit of that wire, then run another stripped wire and fuse it somehow into a "Y" (physical appearance of the letter) kind of fusion if you get the idea, one branch will power the LED and one branch will power whatever that cable originally intended to power... to bond the wiring...electrical tape will suffice, but soldering with heat-shrink wrap is a much better better option
Click to expand...
Sounds complicated...I'll have to learn more about this stuff for future modding.
and before you crack your HDD open get a fine spray bottle with water and spray around your working area to get the dust out of the air
that's the least you could do
Click to expand...

People recommend using a shower...run it for twenty minutes in a closed bathroom. Should be more complete than a spray bottle.
 
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