how to wire up translucent buttons

[grayxx]

hi guys
ive bought some translucent buttons from gremlin sloutions, they are blue colour and come with the led and the resistor, im not to sure how to wire them up i know i connect the resistor to the positive lead of the led, and that wire end to the positive wire of the power supply, and then wire the negative ground to the negative side of the lead, BUT im not sure what i can use as my power supply can i connect these 2 wires up to the micro switch that is on the bottom of the button? or is this no good?? all help much appreciated.....

[SeanCyrusTowel]

2 reasons you can't hook them up to the leads on the button:

1) not enough voltage (you'll need to use wither the 5v or the 12v from the computer, not sure which, but I'm sure someone here knows)

2) the light will only be on when you hit the button and close the circuit

Edit: Of course connecting the wrong voltage could fry your LED.  Perhaps you should check with the person you bought the buttons from

[Toonces]

You can't hook up to the button as all the button does is pass ground which is 0 volts. You'll need to run +12vdc from the power supply to your LEDs. You can use one of the +12vdc lines on the same power supply in your cabinet (yellow wire on one of unused hard drive power connectors if you are using a pc power supply). Run the neg side to one of the ground points (black wire on an unused hard drive power connector).

[grayxx]

You can't hook up to the button as all the button does is pass ground which is 0 volts. You'll need to run +12vdc from the power supply to your LEDs. You can use one of the +12vdc lines on the same power supply in your cabinet (yellow wire on one of unused hard drive power connectors if you are using a pc power supply). Run the neg side to one of the ground points (black wire on an unused hard drive power connector).

ok so i can run the buttons from my pc power supply, so ive noticed i have a couple of spare hard drive connectors, if i just cut these off and there is a black a yellow and a red wire, do i connect the YELLOW wires as the POSITIVE and 1 of the BLACK wires as the NEGATIVE? would this be ok?? and are these lines comming out of the power supply 12 volt? my leds came with resistors also.....

[rdagger]

ok so i can run the buttons from my pc power supply, so ive noticed i have a couple of spare hard drive connectors, if i just cut these off and there is a black a yellow and a red wire, do i connect the YELLOW wires as the POSITIVE and 1 of the BLACK wires as the NEGATIVE? would this be ok?? and are these lines comming out of the power supply 12 volt? my leds came with resistors also.....

The power supply will work but make sure you have the right resistor for the voltage.

[grayxx]

thanx rdagger for the reply, not sure what yu mean by run the leds in parallel??.....

[Toonces]

To run the LEDs in parallel you wire the +12V to each LED's positive leg and ground to each LED's negative leg. Series wiring would be the leg of one LED connecting to the leg of the next LED. More than likely the resistors you received are for 12V operation. Yes, it could be 5V but most vendors sell them for auto applications at 12V. If you can post the value of the resistors I can tell you the most likely voltage. To find the value, compare your resistors to the chart here http://www.elexp.com/t_resist.htm  you can also try the resistor calculator here http://www.webcalc.net/calc/0231.php

If the resistors are 470 Ohms or 580 Ohms (or somewhere around that), then most likely voltage is 12V. If they are around 100 Ohms then it would be 5V.

Hope that helps,

Toonces

[jopenner]

In addition to all of the great information offered to you, you may also want to consider purchasing a splitter to plug into the power supply in your computer.  This way you still have a proper connector in your computer that can be quickly reverted to what it was intended for.  Then just hack into one of the lines on the splitter (pigtail).

John

[MovingTarget]

In addition to all of the great information offered to you, you may also want to consider purchasing a splitter to plug into the power supply in your computer.  This way you still have a proper connector in your computer that can be quickly reverted to what it was intended for.  Then just hack into one of the lines on the splitter (pigtail).

John

Way ahead of you.  Already hacked a pigtail out of a junk case so I wouldn't have to destroy a lead coming off my PC power supply.  Great idea though!