Activity Lights For Bank Of 20 Hard Drives

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drever44
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Aug 17, 2011 6:13 am

Activity Lights For Bank Of 20 Hard Drives

Post by drever44 »

Hello

I would like some input on a project that has been haunting me for some time now, i have done the google thing several several times, it seams that the more i look the more the project changes, yes i know i cant decide what is the better approach to this, so what started out as a simple row of 20 led's has evolved into a matrix if you will.

i have 20 SATA 2TB hard drives in a custom made case, my understanding is that i can use pin 11 (which i think is a floating ground) from the power cord of each drive for the activity led http://pinouts.ru/Power/sata-power_pinout.shtml.

what i have in mind is 20 columns of 5 led's, sounds simple enough, however as the first drive is accessed periodically the bottom led in the first column should blink normally, as the drive becomes more and more active such as longer reads and such the led will lite up solid similar to the factory HDD activity light would be on the front of a standard computer. What i would like to do differently is, the longer the drive is active, or the longer the led is on solid, say every XX seconds the led above it will lite up as well and so on until all 5 led's are lit up in the first column, sorta giving an idea of a time frame of how active the drive has been. Now for when the drive is no longer active i would like the led's to go off one at a time from top to bottom say every X seconds, in a shorter amount of time between led's then they were lit up.

kind of like an equalizer would display the output of the sound. i really tried to explain as good as i could, i am not shire what something like that would be called or even if it exists, but lol i want one.

So that is the idea, after more time with google and youtube and many other sites as well i am at a cross road as to do this with a led matrix or perhaps a lcd display, ether way the finished product would be similar, oh and if i do go the led rout, they will have to be the smaller dimmer ones, i don't want to get blinded by this thing every time i walk past it, also it must come on and off with the computer and have a manual off on switch as well.

i have some pics of this project on my facebook http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set= ... fcc&type=1 i plan to upgrade it to all sata drives. The older ide drives are limited to 750 gig and run about 180.00 bucks a pop and only "IF" i can even find them.

well thats it so please be gentile, any links or comments will be greatly appreciated. :wink:

uhe
 
Posts: 178
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2007 4:50 pm

Re: Activity Lights For Bank Of 20 Hard Drives

Post by uhe »

IF pin 11 works (google told me to look here for *vendor specific* -> 2.3.1.2 or *vender specific* -> 6.3) I'd say you need a microcontroller that reads pin 11 (optically isolated might be a good idea) and tells the LED matrix what it should display.

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