EASY/CHEAP LED Case Lighting.....

Originally Posted by Ramsey77 

Preview:
Getting pretty good at this soldering business

My homemade helping hands:

All soldered and shrinked:


This leg starts here:

Goes around:

Then down:

Then it finishes here:

And this is really all you can see of the 2nd leg, which goes all the way around the perimeter of the inside:

I will post some of it lit up later today.

Originally Posted by Ramsey77 

This is where you want to cut BETWEEN:


Flip it over and just cut through the paper backing ONLY with a razor/exacto blade, and remove to expose the adhesive backing:


Now being very careful, with a light touch, score the adhesive and gently scrape it forward with your blade. You don't want to cut all the way through the copper ribbon:

Now take a push pin, and push it through the circles completely:

Two nice round holes to accept your wire:

You can leave the leads long, you will trim them after they are soldered:

I recommend everyone make their own pair of "helping hands". It is just some wire/rod with some gator clips soldered on the ends. I pinch them with a pair of vice grips, then pinch the vice grips in a vice:

This is where most people fail when soldering. You must "Tin" your iron's tip with a little bit of solder. It helps transfer the heat to the pieces you want soldered:

Add solder to where the arrow is pointing. Try to put the pool of solder that you tinned your iron with right underneath the hole/wire. The new solder should suck right down towards the heat, and make a nice pretty soldered joint for ya. Let it cool for a few seconds, then trim the long lead on the bottom as close as you can, then slip over your heatshrink, heat, then move to your next one:

This is the easiest/prettiest method that I have learned the hard way.
Edit: I soldered simple 3 pin fan leads to the ends of mine, and am using a typical fan controller to adjust/turn off. I think this is the easiest way, with the least amount of clutter and wires.

Originally Posted by ELEKTRIK_BLUE 

are you able to cut these to size? if so i may pick up some.