Turnough Posted July 17, 2003 Posted July 17, 2003 Hello! I am a great lover of thermaltake products however I dont think thermaltake have put that much thought into the 'coolmod' Basically its just a clear finger gaurd with some small Leds in place. The selling point is that it glows blue with the power on, and blinks red with HDD activity. All well and good except the fact that it replaces your case P/Led and HDD/Led. Worst of all they do not recomend running both. One of the best features about my case is the fact that it has an illumated power button so I'm finding it hard to give the 'Cool Mod' the credit it deserves. I have looked into powering the Leds straight off the PSU, but I've heard of people 'popping' the leds. If anyone knows of any way round this problem then please help. Thermaltake Volcano 9 with Coolmod Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Misled Posted July 17, 2003 Posted July 17, 2003 (edited) OK you could power the LEDs directly from the PSU but you would need a pair of current limiting resistors to keep from popping the two leds. But then you would also loose the whole gimmick of the LEDs flashing. You could also splice them into your existing LEDs and hope your motherboard can supply enough current for both. Personally I would pick up a couple of FETs and a pair of resistors and just build a real simple circuit to accomplish the last suggestion without worrying about stressing the motherboard, like this: Thermaltake CooolMod + Case LEDs Now everytime you case LEDs flash, so will the Thermaltake LEDs. Make sure you use a FET and not a BJT. Just stick with a 2N7002 and youll be fine. Choose your resistors for your LEDs like you would for any other LED mod off the PSU. Do a search in the forum for details... Edit: Here use this calculator... LED calculator Edited July 17, 2003 by Misled Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
General912 Posted July 17, 2003 Posted July 17, 2003 or you can split the hdd and power connectors with a two connector thingy. this could work with some modifications i think http://www.xoxide.com/3pinsplitter.html something like that would work great. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turnough Posted July 18, 2003 Posted July 18, 2003 Circuits are not my forte'. I don Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Misled Posted July 18, 2003 Posted July 18, 2003 (edited) Actually building a circuit to incorporate a thermistor could be slighlty more complex. The approach (or at least my approach) would be to use it to control the current to the base of a BJT with power for the fan at the collector and the Led at the emitter. Very similiar to the circuit I showed you except with a BJT in place of the FET. You would have to run the numbers and know a bit more about transistors to get it right (beta of the transistor, current calculations through the base,collector, emitter, saturation point, etc..). I think however you had in mind to use the thermisitor as your current limiting resistor for the lights themselves? Just for clarification for anyone reading this, a thermisitor's resistance increases (PTC)/decreases (NTC) exponetially with temperature. Depending on the thermisitor chosen you may also have to put a resitor in series to limit the current to the led when the thermistors internal resistance drops. If you plan on this approach you will need to look at both PTC (for the cold) and NTC (for the hot) thermistors and try to find a pair that transition at the same relative points and rates. I would also use a potentiomter in place of the resistor so you can calibrate it too as the PTC and NTC probably wont have the same rate of change of resistance and/or rating at 25C like we would like it to. Here's the circuit. I would use something like the Panasonic ERTD2FHJ802S for the NTC. Finding the right PTC might be kind of problem. Look for one thats about 500 Ohms at 25C and starts rising fast up to 8K or more at 45C. If you cant find one, Ill draw up a circuit using the NTC but it will be slightly more complicated (not much really). If you do this mod what will likely occur is you will have blue on when you first power up and as the temperature of the case around the thermistors rises you would slowly transistion into purple (both on) and finally red. It will stay red until you shut down and let the rig cool back down. You will also want to keep stuff away from the thermistors. They can get a little warm. Edited July 18, 2003 by Misled Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turnough Posted July 18, 2003 Posted July 18, 2003 That doesnt sound like a bad effect. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monkey6915 Posted July 18, 2003 Posted July 18, 2003 nice 3rd post but you dont have to go into that much detail its ok were not all rocket scientists just stay with like 50 or below words lol like me and welcome to the forums have a nice visit here daily with a cup of coffee or your choice of a alchoholic bevarage. Enjoy l8ter :) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turnough Posted July 23, 2003 Posted July 23, 2003 Would anyone be interested in producing a circuit suitable for me? I'l pay what its worth. Dave Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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