Soldering and LED placement
Soldering and LED placement
Now place the LED in the hole and align it so that one leg pokes through the wire hole and the other goes in the opposite direction around the fan. Apply just a drop of super glue to keep it in place, keeping the drop small - only a tiny bit is required to stop it from moving and the goal is just to stop it moving, not lock it in that position for life (just in case you kill a LED, break off a leg, etc). Repeat for all 4 LEDs, having it so that the positive leg from one LED points to the negative leg on the next. Make sure that you leave some clearance between the head of the LED and the fan blades - give them a spin to make sure you haven't obstructed the fan's movement.
A (messy) hole with the LED sitting in it.
Next, cut off 2 lengths of shrinkwrap for each of the 3 lengths of wire which have had their ends tinned. Cut the wire to size to fit to join the LEDs, and then tin the ends. Join up the negative poles to the positive poles with the wire - remembering to have the shrinkwrap already on the wire ready (but not actually shrunk). Once soldered, shift the shrinkwrap into position and give it a blast of hot air. You'll have something similar, but a lot neater than this:
One of the sides before shrinkwrapping/insulating. Yours should look similar, except that the LED leg shouldn't be as long.
With 3 sides done, we need to hook up some power. This is where the trusty molex splitter comes in handy:
The molex splitter.
Grab the molex connector, and if you're using a switch solder it up to the positive wire. Shrinkwrap/insulate as necessary.
Still on the positive side, solder on your resistor (having slid on some shrinkwrap beforehand). Now with some longer wire, solder the red stuff to the resistor. Attach enough black to the negative side to bring it in length with the positive wire + resistor + optional switch.
A resistor.
Now hook up the positive side to the remaining positive LED leg, and the negative side to the remaining negative LED leg. Superglue some of the wire down so that any pulling on the wire doesn't directly pull on the LEDs - ripping off legs is not fun at all. Hopefully you'll get something like this:
Everything hooked up.
Lights, Camera...
Make sure everything is insulated. If there is some exposed wiring make sure that you cover it up, as the last thing you want is electricity going places it shouldn't be.
Then hook up the molex connector, and power it on. Hopefully by now you have something resembling:
Test-lighting the fan. Some colours have appeared more dominant than others in this photo.
Give the fan that last spin by hand to ensure that the blades aren't going to smack into the LEDs, and also check that the LEDs aren't moving. If they are apply a drop (just a drop) of superglue to stop them.
Now, apply some power to the actual fan itself:
Huzzah!And you're done. Put the fan grill back on, stick it in your case and enjoy.
For more pictures, check out my PCDB entry. Also, consider reading OCAU's other DIY LED Fan Mod article, for a different perspective. If case modding is your thing, check out the PC Database!
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