UV LED Fan Duct Mod

Electron Chaser · Aug 7, 2004

Well I decided that since I had all that empty space in the empty shell of a 120mm fan I was using as a spacer duct I would through in som LEDs to brighten it up a bit. and Really accent that big 190 CFM Delta I have pushing air over my XP-120. So here are some pics. I bought all the parts from All Electronics great site Archilochus "The fan man" recommended it to me. Anyway here are some pics.

Just got the resisitor soldered on.

Testing they work on a old AT PS I keep just for this purpose.

You can tell the UV really messes with the camera.

All epoxied together. Time to work on the wires.

Cleaned up ready for test.

Tested Good :thup:

Bench Test with the fan.

Installed with the lights on and Flash OOPS!

That is a little better sorry about the Grainy look it actually looks much better

Distance shot with the cover off. When I turn off the lights both the room and the case it looks really cool.

Nebulous · Aug 7, 2004

Nice!

What ohms are the resistors? I've got a couple of bright blue LED's and I was thinking what to do with them.

Electron Chaser · Aug 7, 2004

Nebulous said:
Nice!

What ohms are the resistors? I've got a couple of bright blue LED's and I was thinking what to do with them.

The Ohms vary with the operating voltage. Those LEDs run at 3.7V so I used 430 Ohm Resistors. If you give me the voltage on your LED I will tell you what Ohm resistor you should use.

Nebulous · Aug 7, 2004

Hmmm, I have no idea. All i know is i hooked 1 of them up to the Power LED pins of a mobo, and they fired up bright as heck, lol.

How can i find out what ohms they are? I've got a DMM to check with.

Electron Chaser · Aug 7, 2004

Nebulous said:
Hmmm, I have no idea. All i know is i hooked 1 of them up to the Power LED pins of a mobo, and they fired up bright as heck, lol.

How can i find out what ohms they are? I've got a DMM to check with.

Actually you need to know the proper voltage for them. Then you back into the Ohm need for stepping the voltage to you need from the voltage you started with using Ohms Law. You can Overvolt a LED and they will burn superbright. But if you hook up a 1.7V LED to 3.3 it will work for a while because they are pretty forgiving but they will burn out long before they should.

Nebulous · Aug 7, 2004

Ahhhh, gotcha. Oh well, that scratches that plan :bang head

. I'll just get a pack of new LED's and start the project off right. Thanx for the info

klath · Aug 7, 2004

I have UV LEDs, they are much much weaker than even a 4" UV cathode, how does yours light up? I'm pretty disappointed in UV LEDs, ah well.

Electron Chaser · Aug 8, 2004

klath said:
I have UV LEDs, they are much much weaker than even a 4" UV cathode, how does yours light up? I'm pretty disappointed in UV LEDs, ah well.

The UV LED's only Put out a scare amount of light. That is why I have 8 installed in a 120mm Fan. Because of the area of the light spectrum they operate in they can easily be washed out by other lighting. Which is why you always see blacklight used in a darkened enviroment. I chose them just to spotlight a certain area and they do a fairly good job of doing so as you can see by my Avatar. I will probably add some UV reflective paint in the future to my Duct I haven't decided on a color yet though. Suggestions are welcome especially with pictures

klath · Aug 8, 2004

I have blue LEDs under the windows to light up the etches while the insides of the computer is UV sensitive. That way, you get blue hues to the etches but you still get the nice contrast of UV on the computer components. I have UV LEDs outlining certain areas but they don't work too well.

Electron Chaser · Aug 8, 2004

klath said:
I have blue LEDs under the windows to light up the etches while the insides of the computer is UV sensitive. That way, you get blue hues to the etches but you still get the nice contrast of UV on the computer components. I have UV LEDs outlining certain areas but they don't work too well.

Could you post a few pics? I would like to see what the UV sensitive blue looks like.

klath · Aug 8, 2004

Wish I could, my friend with the digicam is out of town for vacation. Should be back in a few weeks but I doubt it would be important by then. Just think of it as really light blue approaching white. UV blue gives a VERY nice contrast. It's up there with UV green.

Electron Chaser · Aug 9, 2004

Cool!! Thanks for the info Klath.

DeViL_909 · Aug 9, 2004

UV light is really not suposed to put out much light. It is the UV reative things that will show you how intense you lighting is. Thats why it makes such a cool lighting effect becaue the case is dark, but the UV parts glow as if they were lit. The LEDs do not put out a whole lot of light, but if you have UV dye in your WC system you can put them on your res and blocks for a little extra glow.

safronz · Aug 9, 2004

That's really awesome! Looks nice, as well as your avatar

Where'd you get those UV LEDs out of curiousity? Online?

Oh and I saw my bf use this: http://www.bit-tech.net/article/68/ to calculate ohms. So maybe that's helpful. I just used my dad to figure out what resistors to get, but I'm lazy like that

Electron Chaser · Aug 9, 2004

safronz said:
That's really awesome! Looks nice, as well as your avatar Where'd you get those UV LEDs out of curiousity? Online?

Oh and I saw my bf use this: http://www.bit-tech.net/article/68/ to calculate ohms. So maybe that's helpful. I just used my dad to figure out what resistors to get, but I'm lazy like that

I bought these here and the resistors as well.

Mark620 · Aug 10, 2004

FYI, In general Blue LEDs use 3.5V-4.0V the same as white because white are actually blue leds with some phosphur added.

Check out http://www.superbrightleds.com

Mark620 · Aug 10, 2004

Electron Chaser said:
I bought these here and the resistors as well.

and Yes, allelectronics is a good place to buy from.

Black_Ops · Aug 12, 2004

just a word of warning, all the UV led's ive ever bought came with a UV light warning, it includes signs of UV over exposure, which include sore eyes, neasua, etc. UV led's produce alot of UV light which is not visible to the human eye. they should be used with caution. most uv led's are 3 volt 20-30 ma.

safronz · Aug 12, 2004

Are UV cold cathodes harmful to the eyes too? My mom keeps bugging me about the UV lights in my case and how I should wear sunglasses when I have the lights on.. uhh -right- like I'm going to do that...

Electron Chaser · Aug 12, 2004

safronz said:
Are UV cold cathodes harmful to the eyes too? My mom keeps bugging me about the UV lights in my case and how I should wear sunglasses when I have the lights on.. uhh -right- like I'm going to do that...

If it is true UV and not just some purple colored cathodes then yes. It doesn't matter the form factor just light spectrum it emits.

UV LED Fan Duct Mod

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