Red vs Green HD indicator light on SE

[man4mac]

I have an SE (my second compact - enjoying this new hobby) with an 800k drive and a 20mb HD. The machine boots up fine from the HD, but activity indicator light is red instead of green. Every compact I've used in the past has a green indicator light. My question is simple, is the indicator telling me there is an issue with the HD, or were some SEs just made with red indicators instead of green?

If it helps, when I verify the HD with Disk First Aid it says the drive has some "problems", but obviously, since its booted on that drive, it cannot repair them.

 

[Compgeke]

Some red and some green. All but one of mine are red.

 

[unity]

Some are yellow.

 

[Boctor]

Some are yellow.

My SE with the SE/30 logic board has yellow, though it was never actually plugged into the drive until I last worked on it. Now I can see the blinky light so I'm happy.

 

[Themk]

I have the yellow indicator in my SE. I really like it as it kinda blends in with the color of the case. Not sure I would really like a red LED, seems kinda distracting. Green would be okay, but yellow seems perfect. (BTW: my main PC uses a yellow HDD activity indicator light, so maybe I'm a bit biased )

Not sure what color is in my SE/30, the leads for the LED were clipped off, but the LED is still in place on the drive sled.

 

[man4mac]

The red is distracting. Totally looks like some kinda error. glad its not though.

 

[Johnnya101]

My 30 has yellow!

 

[Daniël]

My SEs are both red, from what I remember. It's not possible for it to change color to indicate an error, as it is a single color LED only, not one of those fancier multi-color LEDs.

 

[techknight]

Mine has blue. But only because I changed it

 

[man4mac]

So basically they just randomly slapped various color leds on there haha.

@techknight, do you remember what voltage led is used. Would be fun to swap.

 

[mactjaap]

I remember that my SE / 20 MB has a red light.

 

[spaceinvader12]

My 20MB miniscribe is red, my Quantum 500MB that's currently in it is yellow. If I ever get around to retrobriting the case, a blue LED does sound nice, but for now yellow matches the beigeish color it is.

I'd also be interested in LED voltages, there are quite a few interesting possibilities for color swaps.

 

[Scott Baret]

The MiniScribes almost always seem to have a red LED. I've only seen one with a yellow/amber, and it was in an FDHD model.

Quantum drives almost always seem to have a yellow/amber LED. However, I did see one with a green LED in a SuperDrive model.

I'm pretty sure the greens aren't factory standard, but they may have been used in some very late 1991 SuperDrives (yes, they made the SE into 1991 despite what Apple says on their website).

Almost all SE/30s seem to have yellow/amber, but then again, almost all seem to have Quantum drives.

Keep in mind: many of these drives have been swapped over the years, so nowadays it may be harder to ID the original HD, but this is how it was when these things were new. (I have a swapped out one on my desk; it has a red LED but a Quantum drive after the MiniScribe bit the dust).

I also have a custom blue LED in one of my SEs for the kids (and have a pink light to swap into one at some point). I decided to make each SE a different color to tell them apart better in that group--I have a red, amber/yellow, green, blue, and--soon--a pink.

 

[techknight]

Blue LEDs are about 3.2V and up to around 3.6 depending on make/model, etc... 

I had to change a resistor out though because most of them are 1K ohm + and you need to be around 330 to 470. 

 

[jefframsey]

My SE's HD light is yellow. Didn't know there were other colors. I like yellow. It feels more old school. In fact, imma call it amber. My SE's HD light is "amber".