Wiring The LED's On An A1200 To A PC Case

[Nick2K4]

Hi,

Sorry to keep asking lots of questions but I'd like to ask for the help of people who have done this and succeeded without me doing it and blowing myself up (or my amiga)  :lol:

Anyway, I would like to know how I can wire my A1200 LED's up to my PC case. Does anybody have a guide similar to this one (preferably with pictures) that I used to wire my PSU correctly:

http://www.ianstedman.co.uk/Amiga/amiga_hacks/Amiga_Power_supplies/amiga_power_supplies.html

I'm assuming all I need to do is remove the LED's from the original circuit board and solder on the wires from the case LED's to where I removed the amiga LED's?

Thanks guys, all being well when / if I get everything working correctly I'll post the "Nick's Idiot Guide To A1200 Tower Building"  8-)

Nick

[Brian]

Check the A1200 led cable and you'll see that there are 3 together, then the "key" (missing pin), and then a lone whire. The A1200 use a common ground (the single pin) and the other 3 whires are for each led.

Now check the leds crom your tower and you'll see that they are of the same kind but only in pairs (2 pins). That's because they don't use a common ground so each led got it's own ground.

Now lets say you want to hook up HD to the HD led, the Power led to the power led and the floppy led to lets say turbo led. Then what you would need is just to get a 5 pin connector (such as the one sitting on the A1200 led whire). Then you connect the colored whire from each of the leds to the tower to pin 1, 2 and 3 on the connector and then you connect all ground cables together and put them at pin 5.

I'll do a quick drawing for you... after i've posted this.

[Nick2K4]

This board is amazing because the replies are VERY fast and really helpful! I've been on some PC boards and you can wait days before people are able to reply to your messages lol.

I think I understand what you're saying but wouldn't I need a resistor to stop the LED's blowing or should they be OK?

[doctorq]

Just put an 1 kOhm resistor on each of the coloured wires and you shouldnt get any problems.

I actually have a guide, but only in Danish, sorry.

[Brian]

I've whired my leds up to the tower and have had no problems what so ever but you could add a small 1K resistor to be on the safe side.

You got a PM with the picture now I hope.

[Brian]

Ow and the picture don't say what whire is what led so hope this helps:

o--- Common Ground
o
o--- HDD Led
o--- FDD Led
o--- Power Led

[Pertinax]

Or do what I did, desolder the leds from the 1200 led board, and solder the wires from the pc leds to the board in the appropriate places.  My 600 has got the fd and hd going to the same led, no seperate fd led.  This gives you ahrdly any hassle, and all the necessary resistors.


Jason

[fragment]

And if you are good in soldering then you can attach a PCMCIA activity led too

edit: see here.

[Nick2K4]

Thanks brian for your help and the picture that's helped me out a lot.

@ Pertinax

When you say you connect both of the floppy and hard drive outputs to one LED is that OK electronically? I might be thinking too practicle but if there is activity on both the floppy and the hard drive wont it push too much voltage through the resistor at once?

I might be off the mark as I'm not qualified in electronics or anything  :-(

This would be a better idea for me because my case is an ATX one and only has 2 LEDs for power and hard drive activity.

Nick

[Brian]

No problem, glad to help where I can.

I don't know about two leds as one... but why not get another diod and place it at the diskdrive where it's activity led usually shine trough? I did this previous to getting a HD diskdrive in my tower and it worked well though the fitting of the led was a little tricky.

[Brian]

Heads up...

I've managed to burn two leds on the tower so it's obvious that a resistor is needed for the leds. I know I've used a 1K in the past but I have very small leds in this tower and they refuced to work with a 470ohm resistor but 270 worked like a charm.

[Doobrey]

Yup,
 You always use a resistor in series with an LED. Unlike household lightbulbs, LEDs internal resistance decreases with heat. So they`ll work for a while, but soon so much current will go throught them they`ll burn out. The resistor just limits how much can go through.

 If you want to work out what value resistor to use, have a look at Metku Mods online calculator.

[blobrana]

HUm,

or you could just hacksaw the old 1200 case and fit the `amiga` bit into a free slot in the PC case...


See!

It looks quite professional too...
Just use the old pc case cover as a template to cut around.

[Nick2K4]

blobrana wrote:
HUm,

or you could just hacksaw the old 1200 case and fit the `amiga` bit into a free slot in the PC case...


See!

It looks quite professional too...
Just use the old pc case cover as a template to cut around.

That looks pretty neat blobrana!

In the end I decided to use the circuit board that comes with the A1200. Just de-soldered the original LED's and wired them up to my case LED's.

Works like a charm  :-D

I only have 2 LED's on the case so ended up going with the power cable and hard drive cable connected. The floppies I'm using have their own lights on and work fine anyway.

Nick