led dust cover

[kink192]

just need some clearance on something, i plan on doing a dust cover mod with the ram expansion pak using 2 green 3mm leds, if i have them on the same + pin2 but different grounds would it be the same brightness or would it be duller?

[coulonkid2012]

im pretty sure lt be the samejust test it out

[kink192]

im gonna test it i just wanted to check here see if anyones done it before

[rocky]

well if you use the same power source and different grounds it will be the same as using one ground but if you use 2 different power sources it will depend on how much power is going into the leds.  So if you connect them up to the same positive the second one will dim it a little but not very much to make much of a difference

[kink192]

so it would be like running them in paralel?

[rocky]

so it would be like running them in paralel?

Yeah exactly

[kink192]

ok thanks just wanted to make sure before doing it.

[seikene]

from which pins would you put these? I was planning on seeing what I can do with the RAM expansion, or at least a GBA game I don't use, and I can't find out the pins I need to wire the LEDS up to

[kink192]

+=2
-=3,im pretty sure its 29 [3 to the left]
those would be the pins. i mostly use 2,3 and have a 5mm going straight up and filing a hole for it to poke out through in old gba games. more so a lit dust cover for my brothers phatty. im going to do a good one for him with the saphire case since his phat is blue. what i want to do is green glowing dust cover since my ds is black it would look so kool, then possibly do a trigger mod with green leds in the future. can i use 3mms for the triggers or do i need to use smd

[seikene]

+=2
-=3,im pretty sure its 29 [3 to the left]
those would be the pins. i mostly use 2,3 and have a 5mm going straight up and filing a hole for it to poke out through in old gba games. more so a lit dust cover for my brothers phatty. im going to do a good one for him with the saphire case since his phat is blue. what i want to do is green glowing dust cover since my ds is black it would look so kool, then possibly do a trigger mod with green leds in the future. can i use 3mms for the triggers or do i need to use smd

Wow, using a sapphire case? That would look pretty hot BD. So pins 2 and 3 (opposite directions to each other) right? Just need to be sure, I messed up a ps1 memory card, by confusing the pins >.<.

[kink192]

pin 2 going to the left -> and pin 3


   (_)
   | |
   | |
   | |
[][][]
1 2 3

[seikene]

Ahh, perfect! I'm going to try it out later today , btw, how do you end up figuring out which pins to use?

[kink192]

i did it on accident really. i was trying to stretch the led all the way over to 29 [didnt feel like making a splice] and i really wanted to play beyblades, the game i was using, si i just stuck em in pins 2,3 and played and i was like wow kool this works so i filed a hole at the top of the game cart and played like that.

[seikene]

Very nice XD , hmm, I'm gonna have to ask someone if they can show me how to figure out the right pins though, heh.

Off-topic= I wonder what happened to that show....

[rocky]

Here are the pins I used

[kink192]

sucks the bored in the dust cover doesnt have any lil holes like the web browser and gba game carts do. did you just solder them on to the points or use the conductive pen you talked about in the tut.?

[rocky]

well I just cut away the green coding up on to and put conductive pen down.  but the best way to do it is use copper conductive tape with conductive pen

[seikene]

Weird, I placed my LED (UV 3mm btw) in slots 2 and 3 as you mentioned, my ds would turn on, the light would turn on, but then it would turn off, like it shorted out. I did it like 4 times before it didn't do anything. So now I'm wondering if I need to use a new LED or is it just that I needed to put a resistor in there? Oh and how would I do it so that I can connect 2 LEDs to different sides of my GBA cart? (which is an actual game that I don't play anymore)

[kink192]

i think you burnt out the led. id say throw a resistor in there. theres another ground on pin 29 so your can make a wire splice  and stretch it over there or run them in series.

edit: one more thing, is hot glue conductive? i see it used alot to hold stuff in place and was wondering if it is conductive

[seikene]

Hot glue isn't really condutive. In fact, it should be a good insulator, since it is close to rubber.

[kink192]

k just making sure so i dont short out the ram board lol. thanks guys for all the help.

[seikene]

Yeah, I was afraid of that, so I tried to do this on my Dust cover, and I used the SMD red LEDS, but they are so  annoying, I can't figure out how to solder those since they are so small. The size of the dust cover only makes it harder, so now I went and ignored that. I used my RAM expansion, used 1 UV 3mm LED and a 100ohm resistor, it works perfectly, except the light is pretty dim, and I don't know whether to use a lower resistor, or if the LED just blows and doesn't go too bright. Anyway I have 3 pics of it, and for some odd reason, I had to do this mod twice, since it worked but after turning it on like 3 times, it stopped working, so I switced the LED, and I tried using 2 LEDs, but I didn't get it right. Anyway, enough of me  (<- thats meant to be talking btw), here are the pics:

[kink192]

Yeah, I was afraid of that, so I tried to do this on my Dust cover, and I used the SMD red LEDS, but they are so  annoying, I can't figure out how to solder those since they are so small. The size of the dust cover only makes it harder, so now I went and ignored that. I used my RAM expansion, used 1 UV 3mm LED and a 100ohm resistor, it works perfectly, except the light is pretty dim, and I don't know whether to use a lower resistor, or if the LED just blows and doesn't go too bright. Anyway I have 3 pics of it, and for some odd reason, I had to do this mod twice, since it worked but after turning it on like 3 times, it stopped working, so I switced the LED, and I tried using 2 LEDs, but I didn't get it right. Anyway, enough of me  (<- thats meant to be talking btw), here are the pics:

nice its kinda hard to see them though. i noticed them on the right side of the dust cover. which would be better to use smd or 3mm?

[seikene]

I'd say SMD all the way if I knew how to solder them, it's smaller, brigther, and in this case, works better then the 3mm, which I used btw. I also need help figuring out how to solder 2 LEDs in series.

[kink192]

ok thanks. and to solder in series you take the + from one and splice/solder it with the - of the other, attach the unspliced + to the + source and the unslpiced - to the ground
leds v
(-) (-)
| \/  |
|+,- |   
|     |
|     |
-     +

[seikene]

Wooters! It worked, I've got like 10 pictures of BOTH, my RAM expansion dust cover, and my regular (black) dust cover, both with an SMD LED, which btw, is very annoying to solder with the wires if it's your first time or if you don't have the right steady hand or equipment:




These 3 top pictures are the with Ram slot, lights on



These 3 with the same ram slot, lighs off, and it's way cooler this way as it gets a smooth cool red glow



Those last 2 were with the black dust cover, lights off, since they are too hard too see in plain light.


Basically Kammo, you were wrong with the signs, it's 2=- , 3=+, I was wondering why my LEDs did not want to work after setting it up right w/o false contact. 

But in any case, if I was you, for the DS, stick with SMD LEDs, much brighter and small so it cuts off any other work like making space inside.

[kink192]

sorry about that. i get confused sometimes. lol. that looks really nice though, did you drill a hole in the black though? im liking the way the ram one looks i can just picture that with green. which leads me to this question, where can i find a good place that sells smd green leds in usa?

[seikene]

TBH, nowhere. You're gonna have to goto eBay and bid on some, they aren't too pricey compared to like LEDs in Radio Shack. Oh yah, I didn't drill the hole... I melted it, lol. I was hoping I didn't  the screw hole part, but it came out perfect, since the LED fits right between the hole and the space inside the case, and the ram to me was so nice, so of course I'm hoping to turn my DS into something like that, or else keep going with my other goal, the whole black/white thing. Thanks for the comments, btw.

[kink192]

my goal right now is to do a mirrored battery/charge led on the left side of the hing, green trigger, and green dust cover

[seikene]

I wanna do the battery one too but I have no Blue LED to switch with, so I might just switch the green and red ones, hoping I don't burn something out.