UV lighting

[pduan87]

I got a DFI Lanparty board and am interested to get a UV light to make it glow Does anyone know if there are any lights that will plug into a fan header? Also, any recommendations for a particular light and online/offline place to purchase it from? My case is one of those Antec SOHO clones so its nice and roomy.

Sorry if there have been previous threads on this but "UV" is too short to search. Thanks for all the help

 

[SarverSystems]

All CCFL can potentially be plugged into a fan header. However, you 2 main obstacles to overcome first.

#1 is to make sure the motherboard can support that big of a current draw on that "port".
#2 is to make sure the motherboard doesn't auto-adjust the fan "port" according to temperature. It would suck to have your lights dim as the case gets cooler.

So, in a nutshell, I would advise against it. Just bite the bullet and plug em in to your molex connectors like they were meant to be.

 

[guzmanistan]

I buy my stuff from Newegg and FrozenCPU. I've always been happy with their service. Of course, check Newegg first then check around with places like SVC, Xoxide,...etc. I've stuck with the logisys and the vantec UV cathodes. I'd have to say I've been overall happy with them. They're DEFINITELY not as bright as other cathodes (like blue and whatnot) but if you've got UV reactive stuff, it looks great. I've got a lianli 6077b and ive got 2 12" lights on one inverter near the case window, and 2 4inchers on the top.

Just don't think that these lights are going to lighten much up, becasue they don't give off a lot.

oh ya...id have to say ive never seen an inverter with a fan plug.
hope it helped

 

[pduan87]

I buy my stuff from Newegg and FrozenCPU. I've always been happy with their service. Of course, check Newegg first then check around with places like SVC, Xoxide,...etc. I've stuck with the logisys and the vantec UV cathodes. I'd have to say I've been overall happy with them. They're DEFINITELY not as bright as other cathodes (like blue and whatnot) but if you've got UV reactive stuff, it looks great. I've got a lianli 6077b and ive got 2 12" lights on one inverter near the case window, and 2 4inchers on the top.

Just don't think that these lights are going to lighten much up, becasue they don't give off a lot.

oh ya...id have to say ive never seen an inverter with a fan plug.
hope it helped

You mean the UV cathodes are not as bright as the other cathodes right? How many do you think I'll need for a midtower case? 1 on the bottom will be enough or will it be too weak? It's basically a nicer looking clone of this:

http://www.computerhq.com/Antec_Performance_II_SX1040BII/SX1040BII/hardware/partinfo-id-4484.html

 

[guzmanistan]

thats a lot bigger than mine
how much of that side is actually shown by the window? under bar by the psu? i prefereably don't put the lights on the bottom because if you want them to shine onto other things in your case, itll get covered up by your video card and stuff like that. I got two velcro'd to the metal of the side, one on the left side is horizontal, and one to the top vertically. it all depends how big your window is.

 

[BellaCroix]

One CCFT will barely be enough for a LanBoy if you're really looking to "light up" the UV reactive items in your case.

Not only are UV CCFTs not bright (hense "blacklight") they don't have very much "range" to the effect. Big, fat, automotive, neon tubes may but not CCFTs. Also, the light does not reflect as well as visible spectrum lighting. I tried an expiriment to see what would happen if I used the exact same CCFTs in a silver case vs an identical case with black Akasa sound dampening material: the effect was almost the same.

For a full sized case, using UV CCFTs you're really not going to get away with less than 4. At the very least 2 12"ers and 2 4"ers.

Of course, the automotive neons (try AutoZone, Pep Boys, Murray's, etc) are +12v devices and with a little wire cutting, electrical tape, and spare parts you could easily mod that to run in your case and would make much more light... then maybe you could get away with one (maybe two) tubes, but they'd be harder to conceal.

edit: also, regarding CCFTs that plug into a fan header: Every CCFT inverter I've ever seen is designed to run off +12v. Check to be certain that the fan header you're looking to use is able to deliver constant +12v of power. Do not use a dimmer switch/fan controller. If it's on your motherboard be sure to turn off any kind of automatic fan control. I've heard people say they've used fan controllers like dimmer switches for CCFTs but I wouldn't risk it. Just use a Molex... if you're out of them, get a splitter.

 

[superkdogg]

Is there a reason that you don't want to use a 4-pin molex to connect? That would be your best bet and even though you may not have any free on your psu, most ccfl's are designed as pass-through so you could connect them to basically anything else (personally, I don't run fans and lights on the same physical line as the cpu, but that's mostly superstition).

If you go the auto neon route, you're looking at a lot of time investment (relatively) and probably not saving any money (probably more $) as well as not connecting to a fan header on the mobo (without re-wiring).

If I were you, I'd be on xoxide.com or another company in the "Where do you buy your stuff" thread and just order a few ccfl's. They're relatively cheap and adding 4 different lights for example would be less labor-intensive than going to the car parts store and making some mods.

You'll want to take measurements or know what will fit where in your case and have an idea of how you want to wire it, but basically adding uv lighting is as plug and play as you can be. Have fun!