floppy drive blue LED mod

This mod has been done by lots of people before, so what better than the classic blue LED floppy drive mod as the first article in the modding section. Before we get started I must direct your attention to our disclaimer and point out that opening your floppy drive will almost certainly void its warranty and if that didn't resoldering some of it components definitely will. There is not that much that can go wrong with this mod but plugnpray.co.uk accepts no responsibility for any damage caused whilst carrying out this mod. That’s that out of the way, now to get on with the modding. The aim of the mod it to revamp a tired looking floppy drive by replacing the boring green LED with a nice high brightness blue one. Equipment Fine screwdrivers (philips and flat head) Soldering iron Solder Needle nose pliers Side cutters Components 3mm Blue LED (Maplin Stock Code GV65V) That was nice and simple, not many tools required and the entire mod should only take about 15mins at most. The next step is to find an unsuspecting victim. I have chosen this Mitsumi drive that has been in my machine for the past couple of years, this was only £5 from a fair so if I go wrong all is not lost. Now we have the drive we have to open it up, the first step with most drives is to depress the tabs that hold the front bezel on and it should pop off and end up looking something like this. As shown in the picture above, once the bevel is removed the LED that needs replacing is now exposed. I would not recomend trying to resolder in this state, so locate the screws that hold the bottom panel on and remove them. With a bit of sliding the drive should separate leaving you with something like this: At this point depending on your drive you may be able to access the LED to desolder it but in this case the LED is directly mounted to the circuit board which the motor assembly sits on, so it has to come out as well. Again just a few more screws and it comes away quite easily. In the photo above I have folded back the ribbon cable that connected the motor to the rest of the drive to make soldering it easily. That’s the disassembly finished now it is time to put the new LED in. That’s the drive apart now to change the LED which is really quite easy. All you have to do is place the soldering iron on the solder where it holds the legs to the board wait a second or so for the solder to melt and pull the old LED away. Now for the trickiest bit of the mod, working out which way round to put the LED in! If you don't have a multimeter the long leg on the LED is the positive one, which is really helpful I hear you say if the circuit board is unmarked like mine was. If you look carefully at the LED you will see a flat part of the LED this denotes the negative terminal, then make sure you checked which way around your original LED was before you removed it and line your new LED the same way round. Here you can see where I have desoldered the LED and on the right you can see the new LED with it legs bent to match the shape of the old one so it will fit in when we put it back together, mine was mounted to the surface of the board, hence the shape of the legs, different manufacturers mount them in different ways so just bend it so it will fit. Now just solder the new LED in, simple, snip of the excess from the legs and that’s it. All you have to do is reverse the disassembly process and you should end up with a perfectly functioning drive that looks a bit different. Here it is in all its glory, a very simple cheap and quick mod to make your machine stand out. Related Links Maplin Electronics EPE Online - Basic Soldering Guide