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[O/C]How to Add LEDs to Your Fans

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How to Add LEDs to Your Fans
by m0r7if3r
People regularly come through the cooling section of the forums asking for fans that match a certain color scheme and they’re willing to sacrifice performance to meet that color scheme. This article details a rather simple mod you can do to run those high performance fans in any color you want.
fanlights-1-300x225.jpg fanlights-17-300x225.jpg ​
Click to expand...
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Very nice article - thanks for your contribution m0r7if3r. :)
 
Excellent write up m0r7if3r. Its going to be a couple weeks until I can get around to doing mine on the GT's. I am hoping to find some red led's that will end up showing up fairly pink since that is what the wife loves, I'm not to trilled about it since I usually end up with her hand me downs. Antec 1200 with pink led's just don't seem right :bang head
 
m0r7if3r what mcd did you end up using to get that intensity? and are the one's that you used 30° to 40° viewing angle?
 
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http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3060681

those are the LEDs that I used...i know the stuff you asked isn't listed, but i'm pretty sure it's on the bag...alas, I have thrown them away. I'll make a trip to ratshack tonight and just check the specs. Those are pink LEDs that I used, btw, so you can probably sell your wife on them as pink LEDs and they don't look TOO emasculating.
 
You say in the article that you should leave about 2mm clearance from the fan to the end of the led and I understand the reasoning behind this. When you mounted your led's did you have much protruding through the fan casing? I looked at one of my Gentle Typhoons today that I want to do this mod on and they only have .8mm clearance from the tip of the blade to the casing edge so I would have to have the led flush with the casing in order to give clearance but I am wondering what that would do to the viewing angle pattern. I was thinking I could put a counter sink in there to barely open it up in order to retain the viewing angle if I needed to.
 
CgS Drone said:
You say in the article that you should leave about 2mm clearance from the fan to the end of the led and I understand the reasoning behind this. When you mounted your led's did you have much protruding through the fan casing? I looked at one of my Gentle Typhoons today that I want to do this mod on and they only have .8mm clearance from the tip of the blade to the casing edge so I would have to have the led flush with the casing in order to give clearance but I am wondering what that would do to the viewing angle pattern. I was thinking I could put a counter sink in there to barely open it up in order to retain the viewing angle if I needed to.
Click to expand...

That number was on my fan...I had figured mine was pretty close, guess not. The way I would tackle it would be grinding the LEDs (per neonblingbling's recommendation), if you're not sure about that, try test fitting it and grinding it without glueing it so you can see what it looks like...countersinking it could work, but I'm not sure how it would affect the ducting the casing naturally creates.

As for how far mine stuck out, it was a good bit, but if you mount them next to the connection to the corner of the casing, it will stick out but still be covered by the casing...you could also use more smaller LEDs which wouldn't protrude much if any, my choice of LED was dictated by the fact that I already had 2 of the pink ones (got em for a guitar mod I was doing and then didn't use em in the interest of battery life), so I just finished off the set.

@EarthDog: Thanks! Wouldn'tve made it up there if you hadn't spotted it :)
 
SecrtAgentMan said:
Now I need a thread on how to remove LEDs :p
Click to expand...

I'm sure that there's something you can do involving 3 sheets of paper, a lighter, and a circular saw (Disclaimer:I made those up...something to dissolve superglue/epoxy/whatever you mounted with would work for real)

MattNo5ss said:
Great job! :clap:
Click to expand...

Thanks!!! Thanks to you and the whole news team for everything!
 
ok, per your request, the LED specs (sorry it took so long, I built a computer tonight lol)

Intensity:2850mcd average 4000mcd max
chromacity: x=1.334, y=0.197
viewing angle: 30 deg
FW Corrent: 30mA
FW Supply: 3.5v (typical) 4.0v (max)
 
Thanks m0r7if3r, it appears that the ones you used are plenty bright. I just didn't want to end up with something out of a laser light show going off in my case. You have been great on this and I really appr. all the effort you have put into this.
 
No problem man, I've gotten gobs and gobs of help from people around here, I'm just paying it forward! I think this wavelength is dim or something, because white LEDs in a similar brightness range hurt to look at...if you get them at radioshack, just ask them to let you see the brightness, they let me do that (but the cashiers were 2 stoners...sooooooo)
 
Hope you don't mind me adding this m0r7if3r.

I took an old fan today to play with that I had laying around and removed the sticker using a pair of tweezer you can get at a hobby store.

tweezers.jpg

After removing the sticker you will see the ring that m0r7if3r is talking about (on mine it is plastic) and the split in the ring.

split.jpg

Using the tips of the tweezers I pressed down on one side of the split while holding fan blade itself with the other hand to keep the fan shaft in place, then you can get the tweezers to slide into the gap and grab one side of the retaining ring and lift the retaining ring out.

TandR.jpg

When you are ready to reinstall the ring you can use the tweezers to get it placed back on the end of the fan shaft then let the tweezers open enough to clear the fan shaft you can press down on both sides of the retaining ring to get it to go back into place. Then replace the sticker to keep dust out of the motor.
 
:drool: that would have been SUCH a good idea...man +1 to that. I just cavemanned it out lol. I used a paint scraper to get the sticker off.
 
:thup: yea, I had it drawn out like that at the very beginning of the project but I went with the method I went with for simplicity, and flexibility. Its really difficult to run the wires back out without having to do some channeling in the fans (or making it look ugly) and I just wasn't setup for that, I figured not many people would be. I've got a couple other things going on that I may write up (none of them have made it very far out of my mind yet lol) but that may end up getting integrated into the next one. Thanks for the comment :)
 
You may already be on to what I was thinking of doing m0r7if3r, When I make mine up I will send you some shots of an idea I have.
 
I was just thinking about adding LED's to my radiator fans when I was trying to fall asleep last night (is there a help group for thinking about modding to much??) and I gotta say m0r7if3r this is an awesome guide... will be trying this myself in a matter of days!
 
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