LED tube? Use in a PC ?

[YarwoodUK]

I have a blue LED tube that my dad has given me, only I'm not sure what voltage it runs on (I know it isn't 230/110)? Is it safe to plug it in on my PSU ?

The ends are raw/cut and don't have any connectors and there's no writing on the tube about spec..

The 2 cables are blue and brown, so which are positive/negative?

[turbohans]

well, LED mean light emitting diode, so it will only work hooked up one way. As far as the voltages I'm not sure but I doubt it uses that much.

[YarwoodUK]

Yea, I was just worried incase it blew my PSU or something like that, well I've tried it and the LEDs aren't even bright enough to light up a quarter of the case, so I put it in the bin :D

[psionic98]

depends.. its either 12v or not.. it wont blow up your psu to "test" it outside the case.. just use the bare wire against the black/red of a 12v line.. or if you want to try lower use the 5v..

worst case is you overpower the leds and htey pretty much die.. or it wont work at all.. most likely it was in a car or something and probably works on 12v

[jdsparks21]

post some pictures and specs please so we can further answer your question.

[jmdixon85]

Did you connect the positive of the LED's to the red or yellow cable of your PSU? Sounds like you may have connected it to the red (5 volt) line of the PSU

[antipesto93]

you could get some of those LED light strips :)

[jdsparks21]

you could get some of those LED light strips :)

yeah but if he already has this there and it will work then why not right?

[YarwoodUK]

Thanks for the replies, I've now already tried the LEDS, and they are really dim, so I've thrown them away, and I think I am going to go for some LED strips, any recommendations?

[jdsparks21]

dim? Are you sure you had enough power to them? LED's don't go dim over years :D

[YarwoodUK]

Yea, I tried it on my fan controller aswell so I could raise it, but it was just as bad.

I think it's the tubing that was making it dim as it was like 5mm thick

[turbohans]

look at this. Frozencpu's lighting section (http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l1/g6/Lighting.html?id=5bKIbhSy)

That site has lots of cheap nice stuff along the lines of what you are thinking here.

[thideras]

Are you sure these aren't CCFL's? Please post a picture of what you have or link to something that matches it exactly. The CCFL's run at ~600 volts, so a straight connection from your power supply isn't going to light them up and could cause damage to the PSU itself or the lights.

We shouldn't even be discussing what he "should" do until we know exactly what he is using. Anything else is dangerous.