Can I draw power from molex to this?

D

Danituss

New Member
So I would want to be able to change colours of my computer lighting and these would the trick, the thing is I really would not like to have some power brick coming out from the case just for lights, does molex connector provide enough juice for this to work? I have only little knowledge of these kind of power things...:confused:
Heres the lights
 
Yep pretty much, just make sure that the positive goes to the +12v (yellow) and the negative goes to ground (black) :P
 
Moding a Case with a led strip

Hi,
First you need to know the total load for you LED strip. If you use all 5 meters than it is 72 watts. You also need to know what the available power is. If you bought your PC from a MFG (Dell HP IBM) it may have been manufactured with a custom power supply that was meant to supply just the needs of that computer. Adding anything greater than 10% of the rated power of the power supply will either trigger a shut down or blow a fuse internal to the power supply. I say 10% because that is probably the engineered tolerance for the power supply.

You can usually solve this problem by installing a new compatible power supply (some MFG use propriety designs) that adds additional power for the twelve volt rails. Power is the product of voltage times amperage. P=VI. So 72 watts divided by 12 volts equals 6 amps. You can find a good explanation of power supply rails at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_supply_unit_(computer)#ATX12V_standard
Your current PS should be marked with the maximum available power for each rail or the maximum amperage for each. (you will need to remove the PS on some types to find this) Use P=V*I to change between the maximum current or maximum wattage. What ever the previous wattage or amperage at twelve volts you will now need to add what ever the LEDS need to to run. That will give you the minimum needed extra twelve volt wattage or amperage required for your new power supply.

So adding 72 watts (24%) to a three hundred watt total power supply will probably not work but adding 14 watts (5%) to a three hundred watt will probably be ok.
 
Last edited:
I doubt his Corsair Air 540 comes from IBM/HP/Dell and I hope he bought a quality PSU :)
Pretty awesome deal, 5M RGB LED strip for $30. Do you know the quality?
Some LED strips sort of lose their glow after a while :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top