Cold Cathode Tube in Maplin for eru13.99 Q...

Vexorg

Maplin's have cold cathode tubes in various colours for 13.99, the package has a little circuit board with it, is anyone familier with this item, and is it suitable for installing in a pc?.


Thx.


V.

PPC

Yeah it should be.
The circut is the inverter.
You could buy the same set from CPC if you have an account and it'd cost you a bit less iirc.

phaxx

Oh, are these the ones with the seperate thin tube and power supply, or an all in one packaged thing, large clear tube?

Vexorg

its a thin tube with a power inverter - (small circuit board) i dont know how you might wire it up to the power properly and safetly so I left it be.

A friend was in with them yesterday and said they have a full kit for a pc, including the proper 4 pin molex plugs for the pc and some velcro straps for attaching them for eur36 for 2 tubes, a blue and black light (uv i think). not bad if you dont have to do any work with it.

Dingatron

i dont know how you might wire it up to the power properly and safetly so I left it be.

Anyone know how to install these? My mate got me one the other day and I've never installed one before. Will I need additional bits and pieces or is it straightforward enough?

Mork

Cold Cathodes are a doddle to hook up. The tube is connected to a small invertor board/unit which then connects to your computers PSU using a standard molex connector.

It should come with some self-adhesive velco pads so that you can attach the tube and invertor box to the side of your PC.

Hope this helps.

-Mork

phaxx

The ones I got from Maplin in August weren't like that - had to find my own velcro, solder my own connections. Thank feck for superglue, is all I have to say.

Dingatron

Looks like I got the same cathodes as you phaxx. The inverter isn't even in a box. The DANGER! HIGH VOLTAGE sign does scare me a little. I have a input conector with a one end going into the invertor and no conector on the other ends. Red(live) Black (ground) I asume? What should I connect it to? A molex 4 pin plug in to PSU or a MOLEX (three-pin motherboard) connector into the mainboard?
Also whats the best way to enclose the inverter?

phaxx

I got my inverters in boxes, unfortunately I quickly discarded them and never thought of using them to keep the damn things in.

Instead I got a long strip of velcro, cut it, stuck electrical tape on the underneath of the inverter, superglued velcro to that (because sticking velcro to a PCB didn't work very well!)

For the ends of the tube itself, I cut a small square of velcro, sat the end of the tube and wire on it, smothered it in superglue and waited. (Took quite a while, actually.)

Of course, soon after I did that, I was reading this board and saw a picture of PPC's case - he left the inverters in the boxes and just taped them onto the case. Grrr.

For the connection, connect the red from the inverter to the yellow (+12v) on a molex connector, and black to black.

You could connect it to one of the fan outlets on the motherboard if the have the connector, but I'm not sure what sort of power these things drain so I'd advise against that.

On a related note, I was fiddling with rearranging the two tubes in my case while it was on. I knocked the dodgy connection I had, and when the lights came on again one of the hard disks shut down and restarted, presumably due to the power taken by the tubes when they started. This happened several times and the HD wasn't in good shape after that, bit of corruption

If you can't find a spare molex plug, you can strip a little from one of the leads from the PSU and solder a bit on there, just close it up safely with electrical tape afterwards.

spooky donkey

Wow 14 quid i have got to get me one of these.

Oh on the spare molex plug you can get a molex splitter that gives you an extra plug i have one of these im my system already.
I`ll need to get another now.

Dingatron

Thanks phaxx. I'll use the PSU molex connector as I have a splitter. Not too happy leaving the inverter open so I'll have a look at that. Me off to get some superglue :-)

spooky donkey

I as in maplins in Blanch today looking for one of these lieele jobbies and they dident have any at that price. The had cold cathodes at 17.99 and they dident seem to have the inverteds.

They must have sold outa the cheap ones hopefully they will get them in again.