Lighting is all up!

Projects
#1

I have my first BlinkStick inbound and preparing to start going crazy with lighting up my custom PC and my desk. Of the bat I have 2 questions.

1: I want to integrate into my current leds. Does anyone know what NZXT is using here and if its possible to make blink stick talk to them? http://i.imgur.com/2QATZT9.jpg

2: I am trying to source some 3mm through hole leds that will work for part of a custom chain I am making. I can find 5mm but 3mm seems to be nonexistent.

I also plan on leveraging the WSL (windows linux subsystem) on some of this stuff if I can make it work right. I’m still beating WSL into submission.

#2

Hey Aaron,

welcome to the forums.

  1. What are the specs of the NZXT? Is it using WS2812 LEDs?

  2. There seems to be no 3mm version. I´ve found a tipp at the hackaday forums, maybe this could help:
    http://forums.hackaday.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5520

#3

I have no idea what NZXT is using, that’s why I added the pic above and I haven’t found a comparable led strip with the same pin layout. I am going to assume they are in the same family since they are addressable.

I did get a little headway over the weekend intercepting the the hex values sent from the software to the controller.

I caught that post, looks like there are quite a few options when you start using fiber as light pipes. That solves a lot off issues and gave me a few out of the box ideas to add to my water cooling set up

#4

Aaron,
do you have more info about the NZXT type? I´ve found about versions HUE and HUE+. You can test it connecting the BS Pro to your strip like this:
5V to +5V
GND to GND
R to IN

#5

Still waiting for my stick to get here but will try as soon as I get it

#6

Been meaning to post back here but I have been slammed with life and other things building this computer. Yes that worked just fine. I’m going to yank all the NZXT stuff for the exception of the fan’s which will get hooked up to the Pro.

Tomorrow I will have all my stuff to build the breakout board for the 3 channels which I need since I have 3 different led setups in the PC.

One channel will be dedicated to the strips for the accent lighting. I think there will be 30 maybe up towards 40 there.

Another channel is dedicated to all the 5mm WS2812 going into the water cooling parts. 3 in the reservoir, there are 6 which all shoot light inside the tubing at every connector. I also have a special drill bit for acrylic so I can bore out the 3mm holes on the CPU block to 5mm, that’s 4 more. 13 total 5mm. I may add a few more later but that’s enough to get the bulk done. I’ve decided that trying to chain all the 5mm’s together doesn’t makes sense. I will have a 6 led chain for the cpu block but I am running the DI and DO back to the board and just chaining from the board connector there. Should make for some cleaner cabling.

The last one will be for the NZXT fans, 24 leds in that circuit.

Looks like I’ll be picking up a couple of flex’s soon. I want to back light the pc case which will be wall mounted and also the monitor. Hopefully I can make 32 leds work on each. Anyways, some cool and tasteful PC lighting coming real soon.

#7

Still have a bunch more to add but for the most part the water cooling loop is done…

1 Like
#8

Great stuff Aaron, I like it !

#9

The above was using some modified version of Diff’s lavalamp code.

This I did line by line with a lot of sleeping, not so elegant but it works

Code is here: