Introduction: 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.
Add a LED to a Flash Drive
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Step-by-step tutorial on how to add a LED to a USB thumbdrive. Useful for color coding drives for archiving files.
35 Comments
15 years ago on Introduction
Was the LED welded to the power source or what?
Reply 15 years ago on Introduction
Never mind, sodering iron.
Reply 12 years ago on Introduction
OMG! I used to play the bass clarinet! Monstrous instrument!
Reply 12 years ago on Introduction
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.
13 years ago on Introduction
what would be the best led to use for this project? add an ebay link for some major cool points
14 years ago on Introduction
Here's the video on another site:
http://helpfulvideo.com/video/show/2593/how-to-add-a-led-to-flash-drive.html
14 years ago on Introduction
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.
Reply 14 years ago on Introduction
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.
Reply 14 years ago on Introduction
I still dont know why the video wont play...
14 years ago on Introduction
Its L.E.D, not led :P
15 years ago on Introduction
combine with resistor in this Instructable Smallest USB LED
so the led doesn't burn out
Reply 15 years ago on Introduction
he used a 5v led and the power source was 5v, so it doesn't need a resistor
15 years ago on Introduction
What kind of jump drive did you use?
15 years ago on Introduction
at turkey where every single letter is short
15 years ago on Introduction
i do
15 years ago on Introduction
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.
Reply 15 years ago on Introduction
hi, i wanna do this, which ones the data rail?
Reply 15 years ago on Introduction
Here's a pinout for USB. You can use either the Data + or Data - depending on how you wire the LED and transistor.
Reply 15 years ago on Introduction
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.
15 years ago on Introduction
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