A500 keyboard LED question.

[riccofl]

Is it possible to take the LED from a old A500 keyboard and then use it with a PC motherboard.

Like for example HDD activity and power on?

Does it matter about + and - for the voltage? Anyone know if it is the same voltage Amiga Vs. PC?

Cheers.

[koaftder]

yes, yes , most likely

You can test the polarity of the led using a 9 volt battery.  :lol:

[Piru]

A friend told me the amiga leds are likely to burn if connected without extra resistor.

[koaftder]

->>a friend told me the amiga leds are likely to burn if connected without extra resistor.


Whats the fun in that?

[riccofl]

What kind of resistor should I get? Thanks for the reply, by the way.

[Piru]

->>a friend told me the amiga leds are likely to burn if connected without extra resistor.


Whats the fun in that?

?

[Piru]

The friend spoke about 330 ohm one.

However, now that I think about it, this probably was when connecting PC mobo leds to amiga mobo (power, floppy, hdd).

In your case it would be connecting amiga leds to PC source, so it probably is different. I guess you could just try and see what happens, first with the resistor (and if that doesn't work, without). Worst that can happen is a burnt led.

BTW + and - do matter, if you get those wrong way the led won't lit.

[riccofl]

Awesome, thanks.

How do I connect the resistor to the led, on the plus? Just one resistor pr. led?

Have been looking on-line, but can not find any info on how much voltage the led needs. By the way, do you know how much voltage a PC motherboards sends out to the HDD led?

[coldfish]

LEDS are the same across the board, you can* use one from a device in any other device.

Be aware different colours operate on different voltages (roughly 2 - 3.6V) and LEDS are polarised.  The safest, easy way to test polarity is to use one of those 3V coins cells (CR-2032 or CR-2016) for short, 1-2 second tests.  (Ignore the earlier, moronic comments about using a 9V batt)

The newer Blue and White LEDS require more current than older red and yellow devices.  So swapping in a blue to replace a red can be problematic occasionally.

*Putting the LEDs fron an A500 keyboard into your PC is a simple case of getting the polarity right as PC HDD and POWER jumpers supply current for standard LEDs (which the A500 ones are just longer with 2 dies built into one package) without any additional resistors.

Good luck!

Learn more:

http://www.ledmuseum.org/

[riccofl]

Many thanks. It works. Just had to ask in here first before I started to make a mess. Amazing.

[voytech]

Hi!

Using A500 LEDs for hdd/floppy activity monitor in a PC, cool idea, but it would be quite hard to mount it on your keyboard like "Ami style" unless you would put some additional wires..

 and

It would be much easier to take the A1200 LEDs, I think- there are no chips on the 'LED mobo'. You just connect the wires and it works instantly..

Good luck with your experiment
send some pics of your work..

 

[Generale]

What an odd idea. Still not without its merits I guess.

For some reason this makes me imagine a slight rewire of the AT keyboard hack, and alteration of the source to use an a500 keyboard on PC. Now that would be weird, and cool.
It'd be the antithesis of my a500, which has no leds at all.

[riccofl]

...been snooping around to see if I could get the Catweasel IV to work with a keyboard from the A500.

Pics will come...one day, soon I hope.