Project Log: Berserk - The Black Swordsman

[Hazer]

Your best bet is the 5V bus. That turn on/off with the power.

For the blue and purple: Wire them individually with a 150 Ohm resistor in series.

For the green: Individually with a 220 Ohm resistor in series.

hello hazer. well i tried powering up 1 led from the power supply, i know i know, im dumb it blew up the led and shut off my wii for a few moments.

Did you use a resistor to limit the current?

[2XElite]

ok. which one is negative and positive on the 5v? how would i attatch a resistor.. i dont know how sorry, im a noob at this. and no i didnt use a resistor because i don't know how to use one. can i just keep using 2 wires for each led from the 5v? or will that cause the wii to turn off?

 THANKS!

[Hazer]

Brakken has a pretty good guide with pics on how to wire up LEDs to your Wii motherboard.

http://modyawii.wiinewz.com

On the left goto Casemods -> Custom Wii Case -> halfway down he shows where to wire the LEDs to the mobo. He used a 68 Ohm resistor, I would use at least 100 Ohm. It will last longer.

[2XElite]

will doing that turn on 7 leds with a 100 ohm resistor? i want 5 blue leds 2 white leds, not bright but just white. would that work? sorry if this is so bothering hazer

 THANKS! 

[Hazer]

I just reread it. He is using one resistor for 2 LEDs. That will not work.
You need one 100Ohm resistor for EACH LED. Do not try to consolodate the resistors. If something blows out, it will take all of your LEDs out. Wiring each LED seperate guarantees that they will remain healthy and not effect each ohter.

[noah03ark]

firstly, i bloody f**king love this project


why?

i love berserk

the anime was..meh (it was the golden age..with a lot of stuff taken out)
the manga was.. yeah! i loved it, considering it was the official story, violent, inappropriate, and gory as hell

gutts is badass, and slices through everything w/ dragonslayer

this mod has my thumbs up approval for awesome subject matter

[Eddy04]

Interesting story for this next part. When I went searching for a clear case, I found one on Ebay for $20. It was a Hong Kong seller. I waited 6 weeks before emailing that the case never came. So after thinking I got ripped off, I went and found a US supplier for the XCM ii-chameleon. As it was, the case I ordered did not come with extra hardware or the base and I was going to have to shell out some cash for those pieces anyways so I ordered the CM case.


They both arrived the same damn day.....


Ah well. It turned out to be a good thing though. The Hong Kong case was crystal clear. The XCM case is slightly clouded, and they did it on purpose. They include LEDs and a DVD drive heatsink with a hole in it. I had fully planned to dremmel out a hole from the original heatsink and paint it, but this was just as well. They clouded case so that the lighting would show up better, but I dont need it. I preffered the crystal clear case. I only want the lighting to glow on the edges and the etches. I did find a good Berserk monotone image that would work great for the round hole in the heatsink.

 

This time, it will be harder to keep in the lines. The face of Gatts is of particular intrest. I did a test run on that same piece of scrap before going at the case itself. What I found was that for the face, I could etch the image in deeper around the nose and eye it it started to make a 3D effect.

 

And now to do the front LEDs:

 

My first real mistake. I tried using superglue to fill in the spaces left behind by the LEDs in order to reduce the occurance of bubbles in the vinyl. Some ran down into the etched area and I had to spend 2 hours using plexiglass scratch remover and polisher to remove it. You can see it just to the right of the face:



And now some test lighting and skin application:

 

 

The more I get done, the more I like how this turns out. There are three different effects on this. When the Wii is off, the case looks nice with the Red Chrome finish. When the Wii is turned on, the edge-lighting high-lights the red chrome during daylight. And in the dark, the lighting is pretty decent on its own.

Sorry for bothering how did you get the image to the case? You dremell it into the case? How it is possible to make such straight lines?
I would really like to know all this info. And could you PM me or add me how exactly get the led to light that way. Something about drilling the case a little and gluing the led. Please I would be very thankful.

[Hazer]

The very first post is about the best pictures I have for answering your question. To describe it better, First I printed out the image flipped vertically since I wanted the dremmeled etch to be on the inside but viewed from the outside.

Then you get carbon paper from an office supply store and you transfer the edges of your image using that to leave black guidelines on your surface. I also used an Exacto knife to scribe straight lines for better guidance.

The LEDs are glued in sideways. I would drill 3 holes just smaller than the diameter of the LED side by side in a straight line. I used a needle file to make those 3 holes one long oblong oval hole. I ebnt the LED legs 90 degrees and then sanded down the top and bottom to be the same thickness as the case. Lastly, I would hand file the LED to fit in the hole snug, and I used IP-4 Weldon (Plastic glue/adhesive). This stuff chemically melts and re-crystalizes the plastic so the rough edges become clear again. A couple of times it took 2 applications to make the LEDs completely clear again.

The effect this has is what you can see from this project. The case now becomes an entire lightguide for the LEDs. The emmited light will travel straight through the plane of the case and then disperse only when it hits an edge.

[Eddy04]

Does this mean that you sanded the LED all the way down to about 2.5 mm? I see.
I'm getting the materials the and I'll see if everything comes out well.

[Hazer]

Does this mean that you sanded the LED all the way down to about 2.5 mm? I see.

Yes. They were 3mm to start with.

Just a note here: Get some 1/8 in  (or 2.5-3mm) plexiglass to practice with first. Thats what I did, inclduing the etches. I did noth images twice. Once on a practice peice to make sure I would get the desired effect. It gave me the chance to see what techniques were sloppy and how to be more careful when I went to do the case itself.

PS: I dont have IM.

[Eddy04]

What do you mean by etches?

[Hazer]

The image in the round 'window' is an etch. It is a carved out image from the surface of the case.