LEDSvsC.C.NEONS

[altec]

Whats better?

[ZeD]

LED's if ya get the right ones are brighter, take less power, are physically smaller so more can be placed strategically. They are safer.

Cathods and readily available, usually plug and play, are usually large at 12" but also available in 4 and 6" sizes.

[Frakk]

I agree. Led's can be very bright if you have a couple, and you can place them wherever you need them instead of a bigger tube. Also if you read this (http://www.casemodgod.com/ccfl_inverter_rant.htm) you might concider LEDs for safety reasons as well. That comp looks like it burned for a couple minutes and there are debates if it actually happened. I think it is very possible, there are thousands of volts within a cathode supplied by the inverter.... and that can cause some serious trouble. Well anyways, my vote is on LEDs, but cathodes might fit different designs better. If you use cathodes always put them far away from valuable parts, in the top of the case, behind the mobo tray or in an empty drivebay. :)

[ZeD]

Thanx frakk thats what I meant when I said LEDs are safer, I could not find the link to that article at the time of my post.

[altec]

Yes neons are dangers. You can crack them then you have to deal with gas and glass. I think we all have been shock by are neons lol. And yes the B.B.Q :(

[Frakk]

its not the cathodes that blow up. only reason they would blow is huge pressures, but I dont think there is any in them, just filled with gas and couple thousand volts(and almost insignificant amounts of current and thatswhy they are not dangerous). its the inverters that are dangerous because you have fairly big currents with 12V plus you have the inverted high voltages. I dont see this often, actually I've seen only 2 or 3 sofar that actually caught on fire. They usually just stop working. These people blowing up on them might have modded them or did something to make them blow up. Theres no need to be worried, just take the precautions and put the inverters in a safe place and turn them off when you dont need them.

[altec]

its not the cathodes that blow up.

We and me didn't say thay would but the gas thats inside one of them is not to good for you.............

[Frakk]

if they dont blow up then y do you care whats inside? :) they are not poisonous and even if they were, there wouldnt be enough gas (of any kind) in the tubes that could harm you in an average size room.

[ack ack]

are there other uv lighting options other than cold cathode though?

[ZeD]

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.

[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 :D

[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. 8)

[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. :rolleyes:

[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.

http://www.whisptech.com/archive/images/mixed/picofuse.jpg

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.

http://www.whisptech.com/archive/images/mixed/squaredled.jpg

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.

http://www.whisptech.com/images/mods/chenuvfront/ledswork.jpg

http://www.whisptech.com/images/mods/chenuvfront/ledsglued.jpg

http://www.whisptech.com/images/mods/chenuvfront/litgrill.jpg

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. :)

[Guttenaffe]

That pic of the capacitor that exploded, there are a few thing he said that were wrong:

1) Electrolytic caps will only explode when reversed in polarity, they will get hot and short out when they're is to much voltage so that it can arch from plate to plate through the dielectric.

2) That "wad" of material you see is the dielectric; in that case it was paper with non-conductive (and non-flammable) oil.

As to the case with the fire, hmm prob was a short near flammable material from his "modding" I'd surmise to say that it was the high-voltage of the inverter and the glue on an exchanged (not the one that came with the unit) Velcro strip or double sided tape that caused that fire. I'd have to get a closer look at that case to be 100% sure. The sheer nature of CCFLs are not that dangerous I'm more concerned with the electrical noise they make.

Though there are always shady products out there, just because you have the cheapest CCFL and it works for the most part as some other name-branded ones does not mean they have the same quality control and problems such as these can occur. That fire might not have been his fault but yet again it could very well have been.