My Book 250Gb Mod: Customized LED Color

This is my first instructable. Actually, it is my first soldering project since 8th grade and my first attempt ever at soldering with SMT components (as may be apparent). As such, it is not overly complicated or difficult. Good fun though.

My motivation was fairly simple. A good friend of mine bought both a green and a blue My Book because they just look cool. He really wanted a third one, but Western Digital only makes two colors. His birthday was coming up and they were on sale at Best Buy, so I figured what the heck. I grabbed a green one, took it home, and ripped it apart.

Step 1 Getting to the Inards

Getting the cover of this thing is a major pain. No screws, just some really long, annoying L-flanges keep it in place. There are also some tabs that catch on some of the vent holes, but these are easily depressed.

The easiest way to separate the flanges is to gently pry the cover away with one screwdriver and push the flange down with another. Using this method I was able open the enclosure with minimal damage to the plastic.

Comments

[Yerboogieman]

you can also find old white ones in cellphones and mp3 players(that dont work mind you).

[R2kone]

Very nice instructional. I have been thinking about swapping the LEDs in my 250 for a set of blue ones. I am also going to throw a 750 in it at the same time. Where did you order the LEDs from?

[firdawsi]

Thanks. I ordered my LED's from Mouser. There is a link to the exact ones I got in a comment below.

[Da_Fudge]

VERY cool. Good how you explained the problems that arose in your project, and how you got over them. Keep up the good work :)

[RiddleOfSphinx]

I wonder if mine would be the same then, since I have the clear kind and not the ring :-S. I'm sure it would be similar,though. I might try this sometime and add green instead of blue :D Thanks :D

[LyleUppingham]

I'd actually like to know if there is a way to play with the visualization thing that the LEDs do. its like when you process information on your computer and the mouse pointer goes to the hour-glass, the front of the my book has like 4 different patterns that it does when processing info. I wonder if there is a way to have that constantly flashing... it would go well with music

[SpikeBrain]

I'm thinking about buying a My Book as well, waiting for them to go on sale. Could you post what kind of LEDs are needed? That would save a lot of work, thanks.

[firdawsi]

You'll need some 2mm x 3mm, 2volt, SMT LEDs. Here the specific ones I used: http://www.mouser.com/search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=SML-LX23IC-TRvirtualkey69600000virtualkey696-SML-LX23IC

Good luck and give a yell as to how it goes. Btw, if you're patient, I've seen the 250 GB versions go on eBay for around $70 (+shipping).

[westfw]

Cute. I didn't even realize they came in different colors. I like the fact that you documented the things that went wrong, and your fixes for them...