LEDSvsC.C.NEONS

[R/C Pilot]

I like the look of Neons. the light is more consistant. LEDs can be spoty

[ZeD]

I like the look of Neons. the light is more consistant. LEDs can be spoty

yes if they are aimed and enclosed, but if they are bare they provide a more consistant lighting effect.

[altec]

Yes LEDs can be had in UV. However by their nature they are not that bright, you'd need a few, I dont think I've seen superbright UV LEDs, I would get 3 times as many as you really need\want to give off the same amount of rays.

Thay make SB uv leds all most got like 500 on ebay lol.

[Frakk]

nice website altec!
WANTED-Some one to help with the site.-WANTED

[bigal]

....is the cold cathode. LEDs have their place, but the amount of light put out by a pair of cold cathodes really lights up the case. They are so cheap now; a couple of years ago you paid $15 to $20 for one fixture, and now it's less than $10 for a dual stick set.

[Xato]

aren't neons and cothodes at near vacuum filled with small amounts of gas... thus making them more likely to implode, which would cause no threat of throwing glass anywhere. But as seen in that article, it appears a faulty inverter was the cause, in which case he could probly claim insurance.

[bigal]

Exploding inverters is something I have not experienced, and I've used more than a dozen cold cathode kits. I've also used EL Wire kits, and they use an inverter too. Now it's possible for a cheap inverter to fail, especially if it's not quality checked at the factory for proper functionality. We are talking about very low current levels, yet at high voltage for the cold cathode tube. Perhaps there are installation reasons for the burned inverter incident (pinched wire, overheating from inadequate airflow. Maybe it was a random failure, but there are more devices in your case that can burn up. Have you ever seen a power supply explode? Capacitors can blow in many circuit designs, and there are plenty of them in a power supply, at high current levels.

However, I shall be more aware of the risk, now that I've seen the pictures. I will continue to use cold cathode kits, unless there are additional occurances documented and proven to be faulty design on the part of the inverter makers.

[Whisp]

I like using both LED's and cathodes. I have used many cathodes and have yet to have an inverter go on myself. I have seen an inverter short out but it was because of shoddy parts inside. As for safety there is a way to prevent damanging your case to the point of what so says that person happened to him (I sort of think something else happened but who knows but him lol) by adding some inline fuses. I myself grabbed some pico fuses after finding out how many amps the inverters use and place them between the switch and the power line to the inverter. Very simple soulution that will give some ease of mind. You do not need to use a pico fuse and I did because of lack of room and they are small and you can get capsules for the fuses and just soleder those on so you can replace if there was a short and such if it wa not inverter related. An example for like the dual 4 inch uv cathode kit from sunbeam is that they use 460 mA for the inverter on a 12 v line. For that I chose some 500 mA pico fuses that can handle a 12v load. I really wanted 520 but there where none. But that should do. Pico fuse shown below.

Anywys I find cathodes good for lighting up a lot of surface area.

Now for LED's. Not all LED's are the same when it comes to viewing angles so the difference can help in if you just want a spot lighting or more of an big area lighting. I once read an article and if you shave the led's so they are square they light up a good amount of area. Just becareful not to wreck them but it is possible and I have tested this.

Also the brightness in mcd is something else that needs to be looked at.

Now I noticed a question about UV LED's. I am not 100% sure if they are just violet/purple LED's or if there is something special about them but I have some ultra bright UV LED's. I actually used them in my last project and am working on an other part of a mod for the same case for the top.

Now when it came to these UV superbright LED's I found that they would light up the mesh and the round cables and such but only midly. The cathodes where more intense when it came to brightness. I also noticed that my fans that where painted with UV paint did not react.
I had a fan right behind the grill and the UV LED's right there and it just glowed purple. I thought maybe because of the closeness of the LED's but that was not the case because it didn't help with the other fans from a distance that I had done so there is one thing I noticed with the UV LED's.

Anyways hope that info was useful.

[fishies]

I like using both LED's and cathodes. I have used many cathodes and have yet to have an inverter go on myself. I have seen an inverter short out but it was because of shoddy parts inside. As for safety there is a way to prevent damanging your case to the point of what so says that person happened to him (i sort of think something else happened but who knows but him lol) by adding some inline fuses.

Brilliant. Not many people would think to fuse their system..

[bigal]

I agree on the inline fuse idea. I have not been using them, mostly because of the protection built into the power supply (fuse or fusable link). You also have the circuit breaker in the house, and there is a limit to the number of inline fuses you want to install with your components. Maybe fusing the cold cathodes is within that limitation. I certainly wouldn't fuse a CD-ROM, a hard drive, fan controller, etc.