Guide: H.D.D. Bicolour Activity Indicator

[GideonX]

Tired of seeing that HDD LED always shining? It's kind of bland so I decided to do something with more eye candy. I saw circuits in some other sites that used two LEDs, but I wanted to use a single bicolour LED that would change its colour depending on HDD activity. I also wanted to be able to represent both information using a single LED. The circuit is very easy and cheap to do, it doesn't require too much soldering, so any person with basic knowledge is going to be able to do it without any trouble.

H.D.D. Bicolour Activity Indicator

[divideByZero]

thats pretty wicked, does it go from green for no act, orange for some, and red for full. or is it only green for no and orange for act, or red for act?

[Mystic Pawn]

you lied skyline, maybe it'll look nice in my other case though.

[nOObee]

ya know, CRAP like this guide.....is the reason that GT shares the rare air up there with google and newegg on my personal tool bar in my mozilla browser.  nice work, Gid.

[GideonX]

ya know, CRAP like this guide.....is the reason that GT shares the rare air up there with google and newegg on my personal tool bar in my mozilla browser.  nice work, Gid.

i just posted it, nice work to Skylined

[TheM@trix]

Wow. How did you figure that out? And how did you fit it onto your front panel of your case?

[Skylined]

divideByZero: it's just red or green, no orange.

Mystic Pawn: lied about what?

nOObee: thx

TheM@trix: I know a lil bit of electronics, and after some tests I got that final circuit. viridius sugested me to do it with transistors, but I fell more comfortable with logic, and that's why I did it using electronic logic.
This case was an OLD AT full tower case which had 3 LEDs at front, Power, HDD and Turbo.
The holes were for rectangular LEDs, so I grabbed my drill and I've drilled 5mm holes.

As you can see in this pic, I've already drilled the two holes on the right side.

[Skylined]

Thanks Ed!

Here is the version for a single LED.

[AcidFire]

Hey skylined, i seem to be having a problem with this circuit, it only flickers the bicolors without switching them completely, but when i bypass the 4n25, i dont have any problems. any suggestions?

[Skylined]

Can you please explain everything that's happening?
I don't get what's your problem.
So please, explain every step...