Color Changing Digital PC Fan Controller

Step 4 Solder wires to the RGB LED's.

I used flat ribbon cable for this.  You need 4-wire cable that is thin enough to wrap around the fan without too much work.  Ribbon cable (not the really flat stuff, but like IDE cord type wire) is very good for this as you can tape it to the outside of the fan.  Use pliers to bend the leads from the LED at a 90 degree angle.  Keep the bend close to the base of the LED so that it won't stick out of the fan or obstruct the fan mounting holes.

After bending, carefully solder the 4 wires to the 4 pins of the LED.  Don't leave the soldering iron touching the LED for a long time as LED's are sensitive to heat and you could burn out one or all of the colors, rendering that LED useless.  In case this does happen, try "zapping" the non-functioning LED with 5 volts (no resistor).  I had the blue LED on one of mine not work, but after hitting it with straight 5V for like 5 seconds, it started working and works fine now.

Clip the excess leads and put tape or glue around the connections to protect them.

Repeat until you have 4 RGB LED's that have wires coming off of them.  Make sure you know which wire goes to which (test them with a battery, the longest pin on the LED is the ground [cathode] and the others are red, green, and blue, find out what is what with a battery and remember it or write it down).  Test to make sure all the colors light up when connected as well.