Light-Emitting Diodes and The Powers That Be

Out with the Old in with the New

I took a close look at the lonesome LED sitting in the NES switch module. The poor bugger had to go. It served its purpose for over 26 years and was about to be replaced with newer, smaller, more powerful versions. The motherboard LEDs were coming to take its place. It was time for the vacuum plunger and soldering iron of doom.

The LED didn't put up much of a fight. It must have know the end was near. I heated up the solder with the iron and used the vacuum plunger to desolder the connections. It's retirement was quick and hot.

The motherboard LEDs looked just small enough that they should be able to fit into the gap left behind by the NES LED. Unfortunately, looks can be deceiving. They were just a bit too big for the hole to be comfy. A quick modification to the flanges and I had enough room to situate them angled towards center. I was hoping the lights would combine nicely in the plastic mount when seen from the front of the case. Some quick hot glue and they were in their new home.

Wired up and wrapped up

I now had a bit of a mess of wires running to the switches. I added some heat shrink tubing to the mass to give them a clean bundled look.

The mounted DC/DC power adapter

Now that I had the LEDs figured out, I focused on getting the DC/DC power adapter plug mounted on the back of the case. After all, what good was the HTPC if I couldn't plug it in. The plug came with a small nut to be used for mounting. It was a bit too small for the existing AC adapter hole in the back of the NES so I added some small washers to help keep it in place.