Custom Cold Cathodes Guide

[R1P5AW]

Here is a guide to put switch controlled cold cathodes in your case. No electricians degree required.

 

This should be a pretty straight forward guide and someone asked in my worklog so I thought I would make it for all :thumbs-up:

 

This is definitely a DO AT YOUR OWN RISK project and can be done by anyone but you must do it right.

 

 

1. What you need (for reference I found the absolute cheapest prices I could on all these items):

Cold Cathodes - I bought red Logisys (sold at almost all PC stores- cheapest from "all_city" on eBay)

 

Rocker switch

 

Switch bezel

 

3' 22 gauge electrical wire (or better 1' red, 1' black, 1' yellow)

 

Wire cutters

 

Electrical tape

 

Soldering Iron (recommended)

 

An hour or so

 

Your mitts

 

~3 Mountain Dews (optional)

 

**This should cost you less than $20 (dependent upon Mountain Dew quantity)

 

1. Fit the switches

-pretty straight forward. The rocker switches push straight through the bezel and snap in (or you can forget the bezel and drill a hole in your case)

-for the switch bezel I fit it into a 5.25" to 3.5" adapter:

For tight fitment I had to bend around the back of the switch bezel to get it tight and secured

 

 

2a. Wiring

For these rocker switches there are three connections in the back 1 copper on top and 2 silver connections underneath it. The copper connection is our ground and the two silver are our hot connections.

 

-First we need to cut our wires and code them. Cut your wire into 3 one-foot sections and color code each end of the wires. We need 1' red, 1' black, 1' yellow (in my case I used blue). This is important as you must remember you COLORS!

 

-Now we need to wire the switch first. As I said earlier copper is our ground so connect your black wire to the copper connection on top. Next connect yellow to the middle silver connection and red to the bottom silver connection.

 

-I highly recommend you solder all your connections and cover with electrical tape or heat shrink. If you do not have solid connections you're cathodes will either light up half way or not at all.

 

Sorry for the crummy picture but here it is:

 

2b. Wiring

Heres how the Cold Cathodes come:

 

 

The switch has the molex connections connected to it and this all plugs directly into the inverter. Our cathodes also plug into the inverter.

 

Now that the wires are connected to our new switch you need to cut off the red and yellow wires connecting the Logisys switch to our molex connections and connect the red and yellow wires from our new switch to the molex and inverter.

 

This may sound confusing but this picture should clarify:

 

 

2c. After our new rocker switch is connected via our red and yellow wires to the loop we need to do something about the ground wire (black).

 

For thisyou need to splice the black wire running from your molex to your power inverter and create a "Y" type connection by adding the wire from your new switch.

 

 

 

3. Plug it in and give it a test:

 

 

Looks like we're good!

 

4. From here I got 1/2" "U" clips from the hardware store and sprayed them black. Then took a hot glue gun and attached them to the tubes so I could mount on top of my case b/c the velcro they come with really doesn't cut it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have fun with it and let me know if you have any questions!

Edited February 24, 2010 by R1P5AW

[Andrewr05]

 

 

Awesome guide!

[unknownuser200]

i would sugguest soldering the wires as well

[Psywar]

Awesome guide my friend!

 

Makes me want to hack up my case.. Well sorta.. I paid 300 bucks for this case, and I don't want to destroy it lmao!

[Jenova69]

How come you don't have any fans up top! just wondering

[R1P5AW]

Thanks for the comments guys and hopefully this helps - at least a little bit.

 

i would sugguest soldering the wires as well

Agreed. You need to make sure that your connections are solid.

 

How come you don't have any fans up top! just wondering

 

I'm getting ready to mount my GTX360 up top

[bp9801]

Looks pretty sweet man, nice guide. Now I just need to find my 5.25 to 3.5 adapter and get the rocker switches lol.