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Introduction:::...
There
aren't many parts of the PC that haven't been looked at
with a "modder's" eye. From case fans to case
screws, there are products available to replace the mundane
with the colourful, the boring with the bold, and the latest,
seemingly un-mod-able component to have its moment of fame
is the humble 4-pin Molex connector.
Most
of the recent Molex modding kits involve you taking off
the current white plugs and replacing them with either coloured
ones, or with UV reactive ones. The latter is great if you
have a black-light, the former is great if you have a case
light so you can see them, though neither are much good
unless you want tackle the fiddly task of trying to remove
the old plugs then refitting the new ones. Even if you do
feel up to the task there's the risk you'll cross your wires
and blow something important or expensive.
But
if you don't physically change them what else can you do
with them? Well how about lighting them up? In fact how
about lighting them up without the use of a single hand
tool and doing it in literally seconds?
Today
I'm looking at a nifty little idea known as 4-Pin Fireflies
from Tsoung Lea Enterprises, though they're also distributed
in the UK by Akasa under the name of Power Eyes and should
very shortly (within 48hours) be available from the Overclockers
UK site. With a pack of these in your possession you
can have your case lit up like the proverbial Christmas
tree with almost no effort at all. If you can open your
case you can fit a firefly!
The
packaging is as simple as it needs to be and in addition
to showing which of the 6 possible colour combinations you
have, it shows which of the 6 combinations are available.
I'm sure they did it that way for convenience but there's
nothing like showing you the colours you don't own for making
you want to try them.
There's
a short fly lead in the pack which is of questionable use
but does add an extra lighting point if you don't have many
available from your power supply. Then there's what looks
like a small and very colourful PCB with some tiny LEDs
soldered on them.
This
pic in fact a bank of five Fireflies and you simply snap
them off as and when you need them. The colour of the PCB
indicates the colour of the LED it hosts so there's no chance
of getting them mixed up.
5
Fireflies
As
you can see this particular pack is the 5-in-1 which carries
one of each of the five possible colours. The five main
colours available are:
- Red/Blue
- Orange
- Blue
- Green
- Red
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