Hard disks and activity LED Macintosh SE

[MacPlus2300]

I’m working on restoring yet another Macintosh SE, and I found that the system had been upgraded with the maximum ram amount, as well as a quantum prodrive LPS. The drive was put in without an activity light, and the original is not present in the case. I am wondering if there is any way to make my own or get a replacement activity light.

 

[Phipli]

I’m working on restoring yet another Macintosh SE, and I found that the system had been upgraded with the maximum ram amount, as well as a quantum prodrive LPS. The drive was put in without an activity light, and the original is not present in the case. I am wondering if there is any way to make my own or get a replacement activity light.

Yeah, you can make your own. It was missing from mine too, but I had a hard disk and a SCSI2SD in mine so I did this :

For a single colour one, just buy an LED, and solder a... say a 2.2k Ohm resistor in line with the +ve pin. Buy a Dupont style cable with either 2.54 or 2mm ends depending on your disk's connection, then cut it to length and solder it to the resistor and the other side of the LED using heat shrink tubing individually on each side to avoid shorts with other components. Use a standard LED panel mount collar to fit it into the hard disk bracket.

 

[Phipli]

Basically this, but with Dupont connectors:

https://ebay.io/m/b1WlPO

It says 12v, but would probably be fine because you don't want it too bright (I've made that mistake and the activity LED lit a circle on the far wall )

Panel mounts could be alternatively like this :

https://ebay.io/m/KlnhyZ

 

[MacPlus2300]

Basically this, but with Dupont connectors:

https://ebay.io/m/b1WlPO

It says 12v, but would probably be fine because you don't want it too bright (I've made that mistake and the activity LED lit a circle on the far wall )

Panel mounts could be alternatively like this :

https://ebay.io/m/KlnhyZ

well i have a ton of these LED's pulled from 486 and pentium systems that used activity LED's that were connected to drives directly, so i should be able to adapt one of those, and just solder directly to J2 on my drive. from there i could either superglue or tape to the original light pipe.

 

[Phipli]

well i have a ton of these LED's pulled from 486 and pentium systems that used activity LED's that were connected to drives directly, so i should be able to adapt one of those, and just solder directly to J2 on my drive. from there i could either superglue or tape to the original light pipe.

If I remember correctly... I don't think it directly connects to a light pipe on these. It mounts on the drive bracket and just points at it?

It's a couple of years since I looked. If you have one from another computer it should just work except for needing a panel mount collar thing. Assuming it is a round 5mm LED.