Molex Lights (Fireflies)

I did something stupid today; I promised myself to get one of those Molex Lights regardless. And what is a Molex connector? If you're familiar with opening and servicing a PC (and also successfully closing it back again) you will, at most times, fiddle with the cables from the power supply unit. And so, you will touch those 1 inch square plastic connectors that is used to connect to the hard disk and what nots. These connectors were made from a company called Molex.

And how did it happen? I could blame it on the Internet, I suppose but in actual fact, its all my fault. This happened when I was looking for a blue CCFL for the Polar Lights NCC-1701-A Warp Nacelle and from one link to another, I ended up searching for this Molex Lights aka Fireflies. Its nothing more than an ingenious design. In a nutshell, its just a very thin circuit board with surface mount resistors on it. And what this thing does is to make the Molex connectors light up. So, for someone who likes to modify their computer, and with lots of lights in there, this is the perfect item.

I finally tracked this thing to a local shop via
lelong.com.my. No sense getting this from
eBay. And their nearest shop was in SS2.
At the moment, they only have red and
greed LEDs. I was looking forward to
Blue or White.

So, for RM20.00, I got six of these in the package.
Note how small they are. And if I really wanted, I
could desolder and swap the LEDs with white or
some self-flashing LEDs. Provided I can find them
in Malaysia as these LEDs are the smallest SMT I
have ever seen. (OK, they are those, I think, meant
for Mobile Phones)

Anyway, the darn things were so small, I had to take
them using a macro lens. And since I do not actually
have a macro lens, I decided to improvise. (Note to self-
Do not aim this at the Sun when taking photos......).
Using the Art of Kiamsiap, got the shot. But you know
the saying, "You get what you pay for", its alright as I
did not pay anything, wahahahaahaah!

OK, this is the first shot. Not bad, eh?

And the subsequent shot. You can see the distortion
now. What I want to show you is that each of the 4
holes are actually using through-hole technology.
You can also see the small current limiting resistor
in the middle with the LEDs on both sides.

OK, here is a better picture. This time, I used a much
higher resolution and then crop it.

Anyway, this is how you install the Fireflies. Just slot
in to the "MALE" side of the Molex connector.

And this is how it looks when you switch on your PC.
Mind you, since the darn thing fits so well, I had to
sacrifice a small safety pin and turn it into a hook just
to get it out (because this is a normal PC with a normal
casing which means, you cannot see anything inside)