nes led lights, any help

Hello all i have an nes with the clear window i put in it.
Im looking to put the led lights in it but theres seems to be nothing on how to do it.
There plenty of videos and pics of the end resault.
So any help would be appreciated.
Thanks!
Scott

 

Pardon?

 

You know if you go on you tube theres like 50 diffrent vids of nes consoles with the square clear window on top.
and when they hit the power the insides light up with little led lights'
well id like to know how its done.

Scott

 

An example of a video you're talking about would help quite a bit.

 

Similar to this one?

 

I f this works, like this check out the end of the video.
I have the window in mine but i want the lights and need to know where to hook them up, what resistors if any to use,you know things like that.
Thanks
scotthttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XjrXdb_91w&feature=related

 

Why do people take a perfectly good machine and stick lights on it on the assumption that it makes it look somehow better?

You shoud look up LED resistor theory. It's not hard to learn.

For example if you have 5 Blue LEDs with a forward voltage of 3.3V and a forward current of 20ma then you would wire them up in parallel with 100ohm 1/4W resistors from one of the 5V lines.

 

Wow i figured this being a modding thread you would have known what i was talking about.
And maybe people do it to enhance the look of a boring run of the mill nes.
Now i posted the question on here to maybe get some help.
Not to be treated like a piece of shit who shouldnt mod their system (like the thread says).

 

You are almost asking the simplest question in electronics. Its almost comparable to "how do I put batteries in?"

Basically you just hook them up to a power source with the correct resistor. Very simple stuff.

Also, no one spoke to you like shit. Id recommend adjusting your attitude.

 

ok i apologize but i maybe i am a newbe to this modding thing. And dont know about resistors and stuff. Thats what i needed to know about. I will try another forum. Where i can get help with the simple stuff.

 

Yeah, it's not all that hard, it's just Ohms law, the power formula (or whatever it's called in English), and some basic understanding of Kirchhoff (spelling?). Jamtex example gives you the easiest way to do it, I do however suspect that you want to put as many LED:s in series as possible to reduce the amount of wiring, so it's a good idea to hook them up before the voltage regulator in the NES, to get as high supply voltage as possible. Also, this way we avoid loading the voltage regulator more than necessary, considering that cooling flange, it probably runs pretty close to its limits even without any additional load. The calculation would basically be the same, with the exception that the resistance would be dimensioned after the total voltage drop over all LED:s in the chain. I'll use Jamtex' example LED:s in my example too:

First of all, you need to calculate how many LED:s you can put in a chain. The total voltage drop can't exceed the supply voltage. Let's say you hook the LED:s up before the voltage regulator, and thus have 9.8 v to work with (if I remember it right, also, it might be different on a NTSC NES):

9,8 / 3,3 = 2,97. The closest integer below is 2, so we can chain 2 LED:s with a forward voltage of 3.3 v each and keep the total forward voltage below the supply voltage. Blue LED:s usually got relatively high forward voltages, if you choose another color, chances are that the forwarding voltage is lower, and you'd be able to chain more LED:s. I'd personally skip the resistor and go with 3 LED:s in this particular case, and accept a minimal bit lower light intensity, but that's supplementary. We'll go with 2 LED:s here for the sake of the calculations.

The total voltage drop over two LED:s will be 2 * 3.3 = 6.6 v, which means there's 9,8 - 6.6 = 3,2 v left to deal with.

The wanted current is 20 mA = 0.02 A

Ohms law gives:

R = U / I = 3,2 / 0.02 = 160 ohms.

Then you'll have to calculate the power consumption. The resistor power draw is negligible, so I'll leave that out:

P = U * I = 6,6 * 0,02 = 0.18 watts.

Pick a resistor equal to or as close as possible above those numbers you can get, in this particular case that would be an 160 ohm 0,25W one. Connect the two LED:s and the resistor in a serie (the order doesn't matter), minding the LED's polarity. Connect the ends of the serie to the power supply, still keeping the polarity in mind (if the AC has been rectified to DC where you connect your LED:s that is, if it's still AC, you can connect the chain both ways. I don't remember exactly if there's a separate rectifier, or if the NES uses the voltage regulator to do that. It's however easy to test, just connect the chain any way, if it lights up, you're good, otherwise just connect it the other way. You won't damage anything connecting it the wrong way around).

If you want more than two LED:s (which you most certainly will), just do several of these chains and connect them in parallel at the power source.

If you're gonna connect a lot of LED:s, you might also want to consider how much spare power you have to work with. This will be the output wattage from the PSU minus the [estimated] actual power consumption of a running NES. Make sure the total power consumption of your LED:s doesn't go above this. Another way if you want to play it safe could be to replace the stock PSU with a more powerful one, and keep within the wattage difference between the replacement PSU and the stock one.

There are plenty of guides on these subjects on the Internet, just google for "LED current limiting resistor" or something like that, and you should find any additional clarifications you might need. I even think I've seen a resistor calculator somewhere.

 

Cool thanks thats what im looking for!

Scott

 

No problems, good luck with your project! And don't forget to swap out the example values I used for the actual values of the LED:s you choose

 

hello man sorry for old thread reply but were you able to get those led lights? I have searching for these lights so can you help me out? Thanks in advance

 

Does anyone know if a 3mm blue led (20mA, 3-3.5V forward) be fine instead of the standard 5mm red led power light? I soldered it in and haven't had a problem yet. Also, what resistance is in line for the power light circuit? Thanks.

 

----

 

How important is the top heat shield? When puting in windows and lights it gets in the way.

 

The large thin metal plate can be discarded. They were there only because FCC demanded shielding on everything before companies could sell their stuff.

The worse that can happen is either your get noise on your radio or TV with aerial while NES is on, or NES seems to be stuttering and glitching due to strong RF interference. But if it works and you don't experience any noise issue, feel free to throw away the shield.

 

Thank you, that helps a lot!

 

Here is my progress with moddinghttps://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=996327236418200952#editor/target=post;postID=4598259333491903897;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=0;src=postname
Its been a rocky road