Chad Krause

A small blog about my projects

Make your own Corsair iCUE LED Strips!

Corsair iCue is a cool program that allows you to customize the RGB lighting in your case. But the Corsair-branded LED strips are not only expensive, but they also don't fit every application

Fortunatly, making your own is easy enough, provided you have the right tools

Tools Required:
  • Soldering Iron
  • Wire strippers
Recommended tools:
  • Molex Crimper
  • Hot glue gun
  • Multimeter
Materials:
  • WS2812B LED Strip
  • Double sided tape
  • Wire (26-20 awg) (24awg recommended)
  • Molex 0050579403 (female connector housing)
  • Molex 0016020102 (female pins) (at least 3 but get plenty in case you mess up)

Optional:

  • Molex 0701070002 (male connector housing)
  • Molex 0016020114 (male pins)

All molex connectors can be found on DigiKey

Guide:

I won't bore you with long details. This tutorial is for people who kind of know what they're doing with soldering and crimping, but need a good direction on what to do. If you don't know how to crimp and solder, you can look it up on youtube. There are better tutorials on youtube than I can give you

Step 1:

Measure LED Length

Measure how many LEDs you need. I recommend keeping it in 10s but it's unnecessary and I didn't end up doing that. The iCue software has them configured for 10s

Step 2:

Cut the LED strip to length

Cut the strip to length on the copper pads. Normally there is a scissor icon where you need to cut

Step 3:

Measure out wire length

I measured out the length I needed, then doubled. You'll need 3 wires of the same length. Optional: twist wires together with drill. Clamp all three wires on one end with a vise or a pair of pliers, then stick the other three in the drill. Spin the drill until all the wires are twisted nicely together

Step 4:

Strip wires and solder

Strip the wires, tin the wires, and solder them to the LED pins. Hopefully you know how to solder, if not there are plenty of tutorials online. I used the same color wire, so it didn't matter which one went where. We will use

Step 5:

Hot glue both ends of the LED strip in the case

Some strips don't have the waterproof case. I recommend you get the ones with it, but if not you can skip this step

I have a pictures this time:

Step 6: (Most important to get right)

Crimp wires and put in housing

You need to now 1. strip the wires, 2. crimp the female molex connector on, 3. repeat for each wire

Once they are crimped on, it's important to put them in the housing in the proper order.

You need to put the wires in the connector housing this order:

Notice where the connector is on the pin and which side is facing up.

Use the multimeter's continuity or resistance setting to test each wire to ensure they're in the proper location

Step 7:

Install in your case and plug in

Self explanitory. I used Gorilla Glue 2-sided 15lbs clear tape. double side tape every 6 inches or so and in the corners

Step 8:

Configure iCue

Go to your Lighting Node, and configure the channel you set up. Mine is on Channel 2. Should be RGB Strip and then the # of strips connected is equal to (round_up(number of leds / 10)). I have 38 LEDs on my strip, so I have 4 strips

In your lighting channel setup, you can select/deselect the number of LEDs you have. I have 38 so the last 2 of the last strip are deselected. Hint: Hold CTRL to select multiple

Hope this helps!






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