***PROJECT Spiderman***

Need some help with the LEDs I want to use in the head. I'm wondering how these would work.

http://www.thermalfx.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=T&Product_Code=5UBWHITE


Someone sent me this tutorial, but I'm not very familiar with using this type of stuff.

http://www.metku.net/index.html?sect=view&n=1&path=mods/hdd_eyez/index_eng

Anyone here who is really experienced with custom electronics should help me out. I'm going to use white LEDs and I want them to glow with the HD activity. If not then I will just run them off the main power, but I still need some help in figuring out what type of LEDs to use.

I was just using those LEDs as a reference.

I think it would be really cool if I could have the eyes go from blue (when HD activity occurs) to white (when idle) if that is even possible. Making that happen would probably be a pain in the arse, but who knows. I'm sure someone knows the proper way to get it to work.

And yes I do own a soldering iron. I'm just not experienced with making custom electronics. I've done some simple stuff when I worked in recording studios, but that was vasically de-soldering and re-soldering newer parts. Easy stuff really. This is a totally different ballgame.
 
DirtMerchant said:
I think it would be really cool if I could have the eyes go from blue (when HD activity occurs) to white (when idle) if that is even possible. Making that happen would probably be a pain in the arse, but who knows. I'm sure someone knows the proper way to get it to work.
Click to expand...

I dunno about how to make it "switch" to white on idle.....except for having the white LED's running all the time to keep the eye's lit up (power LED) and then have a second set of blue LEDs isntalled next to them hooked up to the HDD LED so that they blink and mix with the white when the hard drive is accessing. If you wanted you could sort of cover the white LEDs with something to make it more of a faded color, as Spiderman's eye's aren't naturally an intense white, and it'd help the blue show through more if you had 'em blinking while the white was on.

Just a thought.
 
Well I seen this guy do a mod with LEDs, where they would fade in and out in a chain. It was like a meter of sorts. I was thinking that there might be some way to set it up where I could get a steady volatge to the white LEDs, then when the HD had activity the blue LED voltage would cancel out the white LED voltage and make them glow instead.

Something like that. :) I dunno. I never did this kind of stuff before.
 
i know how to do it (i think)... you will want to use a flip-flop ic for what you are talking about.

be back in a minute or 30 with the ic # you want from radio shack.
 
starhawk said:
i know how to do it (i think)... you will want to use a flip-flop ic for what you are talking about.

be back in a minute or 30 with the ic # you want from radio shack.
Click to expand...

Cool. Any help is appreciated. If I can get this to work I will make a tutorial for others to learn from.

I'll be sanding and prepping the case for paint today. I'll be posting up more photos later on tonight. Keep an eye on the thread.
 
:D that was fast...

74hct273 is the flip-flop chip you want. this thing is the electronic equivilent of your basic spdt toggle switch. it flips to a channel when its input changes, then flops back to the first channel it was on when its input changes again.

:rolleyes: thing is that this baby runs on 9vdc (as i recall...) so it's gonna be real fun piecing together a psu for this thing off of the 12v leads of a molex connector.

if i knew the pinouts for this thing then i could scribble up a circuit for you in ms paint... but that's on the back of the package and it's not online :( so no help there.
 
starhawk said:
:D that was fast...

74hct273 is the flip-flop chip you want. this thing is the electronic equivilent of your basic spdt toggle switch. it flips to a channel when its input changes, then flops back to the first channel it was on when its input changes again.

:rolleyes: thing is that this baby runs on 9vdc (as i recall...) so it's gonna be real fun piecing together a psu for this thing off of the 12v leads of a molex connector.

if i knew the pinouts for this thing then i could scribble up a circuit for you in ms paint... but that's on the back of the package and it's not online :( so no help there.
Click to expand...


Hmmm. Sounds interesting. I'm sure we'll work something out. I have this worklog going on three different websites right now. So I'm sure the collaborative effort will produce some good answers.
 
like i said... get me a diagram of what pin does what and i will get you a schematic.

it'll be in ms paint tho so it won't look too good :rolleyes:
but hey... it'll do the job.
 
starhawk said:
like i said... get me a diagram of what pin does what and i will get you a schematic.

it'll be in ms paint tho so it won't look too good :rolleyes:
but hey... it'll do the job.
Click to expand...

Take a look at the photos I posted of the Spiderman head. I want one white and one blue LED in each eye.
 
I have another idea, actually two.

You could have white LEDs connected to the power on to light up the eyes (maybe medum-intensity leds) Then connect high-intensity blue LEDs to the HDD activity. Thus, when the HDD is active, the blue would drown the white (higher intensity). I think it is a simple solution that is worth exploring.

A more complex solution would be finding 2-way LEDs. These leds have more than 2 legs so they change colors depending on the circuit that is active (like the light on many CD-burners out there) the challenge would be to find one that is blue-white.

Post a quick question in the electronics forum to see if you need resistors with the high-intensity LEDs and/or if the LEDs should be in parallel or series (or to make your life simpler, to draw a diagram for you ;))
 
Ozone77 said:
You could have white LEDs connected to the power on to light up the eyes (maybe medum-intensity leds) Then connect high-intensity blue LEDs to the HDD activity. Thus, when the HDD is active, the blue would drown the white (higher intensity). I think it is a simple solution that is worth exploring.
Click to expand...

I thought that's what I just said..... :p
 
Ozone77 said:
A more complex solution would be finding 2-way LEDs. These leds have more than 2 legs so they change colors depending on the circuit that is active (like the light on many CD-burners out there) the challenge would be to find one that is blue-white.
Click to expand...

this was actually what i was thinking of... wierd stuff can easily be found on american science & surplus' catalog (www.sciplus.com)... i will look, see if they happen to have those.
 
Here are some updates on the mod so far.


I've done some sanding and some painting. I am still trying to figure out what I want to do with the window mod. I haven't made up my mind if I want to do a window with an etch or if I was to do a custom window design. I will have to do all of my cuts before I paint.

I also still need to figure out how I'm going to get my Spiderman head working.

Pictures are hard to use when gauging the quality of the paint, but these pieces turned out really well IMO. I really like the colors I chose.

The top 5.25 bays will be painted blue and the bottom 2.5 bays will be red. Both paints are a metallic anodized looking color.


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I almost bought one of those cases for my 4 year old for christmas, but got in a bad car accident on the 3rd. so it got put off for a while.

I just bought a replacement for my mini dragon, so he'll be getting that instead. I'm also going all out spiderman on it.

I'll definitely be watching this one to see how it turns out.

Good Luck.

BTW, how many different versions of this case are there? I've seen the silver, black, blue, some with red head, some without, etc etc. That's part of the reason i didn't buy the case earlier. I wasn't sure which I'd get, and if the webbing on the face was removable to paint behind. the other was that it's not an actually marvel liscensed case. Gotta love the upside down batman symbol on the side window.. cheap chinese knockoff.
 
Love the colors!!! What kind of blue and red paint is that bud? It looks great! :)

Lawdog
 
so far so good! any more updates and what are the results of the contest, if you have decided yet. LUK
 
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