Macro Case by macroman

Hard Drive and Power LEDs

I like to see my hard drive activity lights, but the design of the indicators on the Lian-Li are difficult to see when I am sat at the desk. So I decided to add a “mimic” to one of the drive bay panels.

This mod involved drilling a 1mm hole into the leds, inserting a fibre optic cable and running it up to 1mm holes drilled in the drive bay panel. Because the fibre is flush to the panel it can be seen from virtually any angle in front of the case.

Drive bay panel and old optical lead used for the fibre optic. If you look closely you can see the marking line ready for drilling on the right hand side of the panel. Two 1mm holes drilled: one for the power led, the other for the HDD led.

The fibres were stripped back and super glued into the holes. They were then fed through a hole drilled in the side of the panel and a grommet was used to protect the fibre so it wouldn't get cut or scratched.


Here is a close up of the HDD led with a 1mm hole drilled - normally I would drill head on into the led for maximum light transfer, but in this case that would interfere with the case facia when refitted. The fibres fitted into the leds and fastened to the metal work using stick-on cable ties.


Here's the finished job before and after replacing the case front facia: