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Add A LED To A Flash Drive

video Add A LED To A Flash Drive

Step-by-step tutorial on how to add a LED to a USB thumbdrive. Useful for color coding drives for archiving files.

38 comments

Aug 14, 2008. 9:45 PMbassclarinet23 says:

Was the LED welded to the power source or what?

Aug 15, 2008. 8:41 PMbassclarinet23 says:

Never mind, sodering iron.

Jun 19, 2011. 9:54 AMsk8erguy181 says:

OMG! I used to play the bass clarinet! Monstrous instrument!

Jun 29, 2011. 6:15 PMbassclarinet23 says:

I used to as well. Had to give it up though. It had a nice sound. I didn't like the high-pitched sopranos as much.

Oct 29, 2009. 6:22 PMGuynamedthomas281 says:

what would be the best led to use for this project? add an ebay link for some major cool points

Sep 1, 2009. 6:22 PMPuddleOfMudd25 says:

Here's the video on another site:
http://helpfulvideo.com/video/show/2593/how-to-add-a-led-to-flash-drive.html

Feb 21, 2009. 9:02 PMtanmanknex says:

I cant watch the video, so i tried to do it on my own using the schematics that GITRGR8 kindly gave. In a nutshell, I made sure the polarity was correct, and that I used a 100K resistor. I connected the LED to the VCC and GND, and i plugged it in. The second the flash drive connected with my laptop it shut down. What did I do wrong and why cant I watch the video? Could it be that the wires touched the metal casing and shorted it? But why would that cause my CPU to crash? P.S. My laptop is fine.

Feb 21, 2009. 9:09 PMtanmanknex says:

Nevermind, i just read that if the USB power jack is shorted out, then most laptops shut down to protect the motherboard otherwise it'd get fried and your computer would die... i am SO glad they put that in otherwise id have a dead laptop.

Feb 22, 2009. 8:20 AMtanmanknex says:

I still dont know why the video wont play...

Jan 16, 2009. 5:04 AMcornflaker says:

Its L.E.D, not led :P

Mar 27, 2008. 7:50 AMtaco_guy93 says:

combine with resistor in this Instructable Smallest USB LED
so the led doesn't burn out

Aug 30, 2008. 5:13 PMbomberman3 says:

he used a 5v led and the power source was 5v, so it doesn't need a resistor

Aug 15, 2008. 8:42 PMbassclarinet23 says:

What kind of jump drive did you use?

Jul 5, 2008. 4:08 AMblckthng says:

ingenious man!!!!!!!!! but whats a 'led'?(that question isnt necessarily answerable.)

Feb 5, 2008. 2:49 PMothertonywilson says:

The pronunciation of an LED is not like Led Zeppelin... It is pronounced ELL EEE DEE. This is because the letters in L.E.D. stand for Light Emitting Diode. So it is an abbreviation, and not a word. Just for future references...

Feb 11, 2008. 2:02 PMCyberBill says:

Scuba, pronounced Skoobuh, is an acronym as well ( Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus ). Just because its an acronym doesn't mean you have to spell it out. But yeah, I've never heard anyone pronounce it like lead.

Apr 18, 2008. 3:32 PMDELETED_craz meanman says:

(removed by author or community request)

Jun 11, 2008. 10:03 AMDerin says:

i do

Jun 11, 2008. 5:37 PMDELETED_craz meanman says:

(removed by author or community request)

Jun 13, 2008. 1:06 AMDerin says:

at turkey where every single letter is short

Feb 24, 2008. 7:11 PMschimmi says:

i'd say that if it's more than a few letters you can pronounce it if possible

Feb 11, 2008. 2:38 PMothertonywilson says:

Oh, thanks. Yeah, not all acronyms need to be spelled out, but there are certain ways to say them.

Feb 4, 2008. 11:47 AMGitarGr8 says:

Instead of using the 5 volt rail, you could have used one of the data rails. That way the LED would blink when you are transferring data.

Apr 23, 2008. 1:00 PMtankboyben says:

hi, i wanna do this, which ones the data rail?

Apr 23, 2008. 5:05 PMGitarGr8 says:

Here's a pinout for USB. You can use either the Data + or Data - depending on how you wire the LED and transistor.

Feb 11, 2008. 2:05 PMCyberBill says:

I'm pretty sure if you hooked up an LED over the data rail you'd make the USB drive no longer function (as you are essentially shorting out the rail to ground) You'd have to hook up a small transistor with the LED hooked to power and ground, and then you'd be OK.

Apr 23, 2008. 1:03 PMtankboyben says:

does anybody know the voltage of the micro L.E.D.'s that are already on some drives as id like to remove one and change for a different color one, help much appreciated, cheers

Mar 24, 2008. 5:13 PMiSteam says:

What size (mm) LED did you use?

Feb 4, 2008. 12:50 PMScott_Tx says:

5 volts will probably kill an LED pretty quickly and you forgot to mention the polarity.

Feb 4, 2008. 2:34 PMnf119 says:

Its that Amps that kill not the Volts. High voltage in reverse bias might kill, but thats usually happens only if you switched the polarity. The voltage that LEDs are rated with is called the voltage drop - this voltage is always constant no matter what the supply voltage is. This is the voltage potential across the LED, thus resistor values are calculated by: (Supply Voltage - Voltage Drop) / Current Rating

Feb 5, 2008. 7:48 AMuguy says:

Who calls them LEADS?

Feb 5, 2008. 3:15 PMnf119 says:

IDK, I did say it.

Feb 5, 2008. 12:40 PMScott_Tx says:

People who think 5 volts is ok for Leads :P

Feb 4, 2008. 1:13 PMdpg10 (author) says:

The 5 Volt LED wont burn out from receiving 5 Volts of power. its designed to handle that power load. Also this video wasn't intended to teach you about LED polarity, rather the polarity of the components in the flash drive so that you could soldier a LED in it. Hence the diagram of the thumb drive with the polarity.

Feb 7, 2008. 2:32 AMPatrik says:

Yeah, but where the heck do you get a 5V LED? The high power white or blue LEDs tend to max out around 4.5V or so. Much lower than that for other colors. So if you suggest this "for color coding drives", you shoudl definitely cover current limiting resistors as well (and yes, LED polarity...)

Feb 11, 2008. 2:03 PMCyberBill says:

Most 5v LEDs are just smaller LEDs with a built in current limiting resistor. They make 12v LEDs the same way. You should be able to pick up a 5v LED at Radioshack or on any online retailer such as digikey or mouser.