Swapping the LED in your DreamCast
This is perhaps the simplest modification one can make to their Dreamcast, but be forewarned it's not without it's peril. Anyway, today we're going to be changing the color of the light in our Dreamcast. It's rather simple to do, you will need a soldering iron and some solder, and whatever color LED you want to glow in your dreamcast now - one of those blue LEDs would look very nice indeed but since I'm poor I will be using a recycled Green LED from a computer case.
You'll also need a phillips screwdriver, and a DreamCast that will be your victim - in this case we'll be using Daisy, from the "I took my Dreamcast apart" article. Speaking of that article...
Step #1 - Take it apart
Take your dreamcast apart following the instructions (and warnings!) found in the take your Dreamcast apart article, following up to Step 2a. The Maple board is the one we'll be working with so you don't need to remove any of the other stuff. If you're done with reading that article, you should have just the maple board and the other supplies we said you'd need right in front of you.
Step #2 - Removing the old LED
This is easiest done with solder braid or a solder-sucker, but if you're careful you can just melt the solder and pluck the LED out without burning up the pads on the PCB (this is a warning for those of you who aren't terribly observant). Anyway, the idea is that the LED that is in there needs to come out. If you don't know how to remove components from a PCB, you should probably find an old PCB from a TV or a computer that you can practice on first, lest you ruin your dreamcast.
Oh and one more thing, pay attention as to which way the LED was in the board - you should see a flat side on the bottom of it, but in case you don't, look at the angles of the metal inside it.
Step #3 - Installing the new LED
Remove the LED from whatever packaging it was in, and ensure the leads are straight. Be very careful with any bending of the leads, as they'll break easily at the very base of the LED and render it completely useless (they make great prank tic-tacs with just a bit of modification though).
Hopefully when you removed the old LED you left two clean holes for the legs of the new LED to pass through. If you didn't, use a bit of solder braid, or your solder sucker to clean them up a little. If you don't have either of these, clean the tip of your iron, melt the solder again, then clean it again. Repeat as necessary.
Paying attention to the polarity (ie, the direction) of the LED, pass it through the holes all the way so it sits flush against the PCB but can wobble just a little. If you're not sure which way you're supposed to put it in, either because you forgot or you raced through the instructions too fast, simply look for the flat side of your LED. Then, find a K on the PCB - or if your Maple board is different to ours and isn't labelled, turn the board over, and look which hole goes to the ground, which will be a large fat area of track, as opposed to a thin track - and put the flat edge to that side.
Bend each of the legs over, and snip them off so there is about an eighth (1/8th) of an inch of leg laying against the board - make sure they're not laying anywhere where they might touch another track or pad. Now, clean the tip of your soldering iron, apply the tip so it's touching the pad and the wire, count to one and apply just a little solder.
Step #4 - Put it back together and test!
Figure #1
Now, you should simply be able to put the Dreamcast back together using the instructions found in the take your Dreamcast apart article. At the time of writing I haven't finished that part of the article, so just follow the instructions for taking it apart, only in reverse. Now, plug your Dreamcast in and cross your fingers. Hopefully you should end up with something like the one to the right.
Now if I could just remove/cover up that ugly mess that an errant kid with a sharpie made, Daisy would be quite a looker! (ie, stay tuned for a case-modding article sometime in the near future)
Links
- Break your DreamCast? eBay another one!