Illuminate your PC - Part 3

Illuminated flooring by Skorchio

One of the best-looking lighting mods you can add to your PC is to illuminate the mid-section. It's particularly popular with SilverStone TJ07 owners but it never gets old and adds even more pizazz to your already fantastic-looking PC. Forum user Skorchio shows us one way of doing it using electroluminescent panels as part of his fantastic Filtration mod.

Stuff you'll need:

• Electroluminescent panels - from £16 each at Earlsmann
  
• 4mm Acrylic - around £4 from Trent Plastics
  
• Frosted Window Film / Diffusion paper - around £5 WindowWallpaper
  

The best way to create an illuminated floor for a computer case is by using electroluminescent panels . Electroluminescence is the process by which materials are made to give off light by being exposed to an electric current.

EL panels are made of 3 layers, the top and bottom layer are transparent electrodes and the middle layer is a doped semiconductor that emits light when current is passed through it. Due to this arrangement you can cut holes and shapes from the panel and it will still work providing you don’t cut the visible electrode on the back of the panel, and you seal all the cuts with clear tape.

I opted to use two A4 sized EL panels to cover the floor of the case costing £40 each, a custom size would be will in excess of £200 but you don’t then have the challenge of hiding the visible line where they overlap.


The first job was to test that the EL panel worked. Using scissors I carefully cut along the panels so they where the right width for the case. I then sealed the cut edge with clear tape so it didn’t short if it came in to contact with any metal.


Next came cutting the holes for the cabling and tubing to pass through, I used a new sharp crafts knife and slowly cut the holes finding the best way was to not apply to much pressure and go over the same line multiple times until you got through.


Once the panels where shaped and cut it came to the nail biting moment of turning them back on to see if they work, hey presto. When you purchase and EL panel they come with a mains powered inverter that lucky runs from a 12V feed. All that was required to get this to work from a computer PSU was to open it up and solder in a molex connector. I opted to solder to the back of the original power connector so I could use the mains or the PC to power the panels .