Cigarette lighter casemod
Saturday, March 25th, 2006- 4 pin male molex connector - you can’t cut this from an old power supply, those are female ends. You can pirate one from an old CPU or case fan, though.
- fuse holder - I had some around, you can buy one from Radio Shack or salvage one from somewhere
- cigarette lighter socket - I bought mine from walmart for less than $5
- one of your 5.25″ drive bay covers
I wired the molex connector up to some spade connectors, which then connect to the power socket. The spade connectors were included with the socket I bought. You’ll definately want to fuse this socket, you wouldn’t want to screw up your power supply if something went wrong with a device you had plugged in. In the worst case senario you could end up damaging your computer components too - so be sure to fuse it. No more than a 10 amp fuse, 5 would be better. I didn’t have any 5’s around so I used a 10. Oh yea, and be sure to use the yellow wire on the molex connector, not the red one. The red line is only 5 volts. I used wire crimps to hook everything together, but you could soldier it if you have lots of time. You could tape it if you don’t have soldiering equipment or wire crimps, but make sure it’s taped well enough that it won’t come apart!
Then - this is the hardest part - drill a 7/8″ hole in your drive bay cover. Actually this part is very easy if you have a unibit, a special drill bit for drilling holes in plastic and other soft materials. Otherwise you’ll have to use a regular 7/8 drill bit. It might be hard to drill a clean hole with that. Be sure to step drill it.
Then insert the ligher socket into the drive bay cover, and tighten it down. The socket comes with an outter ring you screw onto it from the back, this holds it tightly into whatever you are mounting it into.
Then install your cover back into your case, and plug the power plug into one of your available cords from your power supply.
The only small problem I’ve had is when pulling plugs back out of the socket, sometimes the drive bay cover wants to pop out of the case. This may or may not happen to you depending on how your case works. I might put a few drops of glue or something on there to hold it in better.