Ok, I have some questions for those of you who do the modding. I've done my fair share, but I'm delving into more electrical work in this current one to let me have neat cable runs and all that good stuff.

I know some of you have done a cmos clear toggle switch. I have a 3 position switch, but am trying to figure out how to connect it to the prongs on the mobo. How did you guys do it. I have a integrated circuit socket I'm planing on choping up that I hope will fit on the pins but I want to see how others have done it as well

Is silver solder the best for electronics work? I think it is, but I never remember these things, I have normal and silver solder. Just want to know which to use.

And the switches I found are 3a @ 120v AC. Will those work with DC for the cmos switch and CCFL lighting switches? I can get 3a @ 12v DC switches if the ones I mentioned already won't work the best.

Thanks all for helping out

I don't know about the CMOS toggle switch thingamajig...but silver solder is the best. Silver is the best conductor of electricity...its valence electrons are just itching to leave the Mother Atom

As far as which switches to use...DC for DC/AC for AC. You can't mix 'em.

EDIT: Seems to me you only need a two-position switch for CMOS. Save and Clear are the only options.

I thought so with the solder, but for all I know I could have been thinking of something else

Ok, figured that was the case with switches, back to radioshaq then...

Well with the CMOS, you should need a 3, as there are 3 pins. You need the center pin bridged with either the left or right pin for normal or clear. I had to think about that one for a few minutes myself before I decided it was a 3 way switch.

I used solder but only on the switch part, and silver. I a small clip that is used for electricl work I found at a local electricl and industrial supply store to solder onto the wires of the switch. Then I simply slid those over the prongs on the CMOS jumper and this way it is not 100% permanent in the PC and I did not have to solder over my MB or in my case.

The clips are similar to the banana style inside Molex plugs but smaller if that helps. Otherwise if you don't mind soldering onto the MB go ahead.

I think I saw someone once that mentioned using two jumpers (only 3 out of the 4 holes used) and glued them together, attached them to the wires and then plug n play.

boo

WintersFury is right, you need the three positions. Basically you are masking what the jumper looks like witht he wires. On normal (non clear) setting the two wires are selected and closed. On "clear" setting the middle stayes closed but the other pin is activated (closed) and the previous one opened.

boo

I was looking for something like that, but couldn't find anything like it. By chance do you have a pic of this thing?

I'm not going to solder it on to the mobo, might need to get it off. I found a integrated circuit plug (Think old ram and stuff) that I'm going to try and see how well it fits the pins. As it has plugs on one side and pins on the other so I'm hoping it'll work nice and easy

Why can't use mix DC or AC switches? They are just wires completing a circuit. You want a SPDT (Single Pole, Double Throw) switch for your CMOS.

Don't worry about using silver solder. It makes no difference since there are plenty of other areas which will caeate resistence.

Ahhh..."I see" said the blind man

It is protected and shielded in my PC, but I know it is a 2.54mm "molex" type connector. I believe this is the same thing from a company on the web:

http://www.alliedelec.com/Search/SearchRes...522F9803D2F617F

The ones without images I believe are them. But I would simply call that company and tell them what you will be attaching it to and they can confirm it (or direct you in the right place). This online company seems to have a lot of what my local store has, so they prob have em too.

boo

True, it's a simple circuit but you're talking about different resistance/voltage values between AC and DC. Switches are rated based on those values and if you mix n' match, you could mess something up.

They are both 3A switches but with different voltages. Different voltages mean different resistance per ohm's law. 40 ohms for the AC switch and 4 ohms for the DC switch. Different resistances will make a difference as to how much current the switch can handle in relation to the voltage. Basically, 3A AC is not the same as 3A DC because of the different resistance values. It may not happen, but if he puts an AC switch on a DC circuit, he could have an electrical arc.

Another way of looking at it is this: DC has greater conductance than AC. Conductance is the inverse of resistance so 4 ohms becomes 250 mS while 40 ohms becomes 25 mS. 3A DC running across a 40 ohm AC switch is going to encounter greater resistance and may arc depending upon termination.

Electrical rule of thumb...never mix n' match DC and AC components.

just use your standard 3pin fan extenion lead and put the jumper on that

ive done this with an old motherboard, fan extention lead is what i used 3 pin fits right over the ccmos. as for the switch it should look like this ish.
//
____//____
|_________|
|| || ||

sorry for the poor asci art its my first attempt.

basically the middle wire is attached to the middle prong, and the wire that will be attached to the normal position to one side and the clear position is attached to the other side. The switch itself only has 2 positions. Clear and normal. its also quite a good idea to attach a push button in the clear loop to actually clear the cmos just to make sure that you want to clear it and dont go flicking things by accident. (just a two poition ON OFF switch or button)
if anyone wants me to do some paint drawing to make all this a little clearer then i will.
EDIT:ok it dont look right ill do a paint piccy.

i found a spare internal speaker cable works really well, right connector and not to big or intrusive.

Ialso fed them in the cabling for the front switch and leds as mine is mounted up front

whoops a little small will resize later got a lecture to go 2.

I had actually thought of trying that but figured the pin spacing was different. That just made everything easier Thanks for the info!

Now I just need to hit up RadioShaq and get me some new sweetches... Then chop apart an old fan

And that button idea is a good one... That way when being transported or looked at by people who have compultions to flip switches if it's fliped nothing bad will happen.

yer i got it from a article done in custom pc (dont know if u get this in the us.) its a good magazine has a few of these good little guides.

For future electricial work, I recommend ordering from a site like www.mouser.com. Parts are usually a lot cheap and they have a huuuuuuuuge selection. They do charge shipping but it'll end up being cheaper than RadioShack if you start buy a larger number of parts.

The prices actually seem fairly similar to RadioShack... And with switches and all, I like to be able to see the size of the switch and all that stuff. Reading how big it is never gives the full effect as seeing it first hand.

And I'm usually looking for specific sizes of the switch body / arm itself and wouldn't trust ordering that stuff online unless I really had to.

I was routing my wires through some chrome sleeving that is not forgiving to plastic molex's and the metal connectors I used on the end of the wire are half the size of a 3-pin fan molex; so I figured out it would be much easier to do it the way I did for me rather than trying to remove those small damn pins from a fan controller :eek:

It's whatever will work the easiest

boo

Who said anything about removing connectors? I'm going to cut the wires off at the fan

hi - thats a great idea - would anyone have a much bigger picture for me to use and try this -

what would be great is if someone made it for me and i buy it from them

if anyone is real handy that way - that would be a good service for the members - i am sure alot would like to just buy and plug it in -

anyway - if theres a bigger picture and more detail instructions for me

that would help me out alot - i like this idea - and maybe use a push button - i could see people switching things up and down and mess my system up --

thanks -

Here is a PDF guide on how to make one