HZXT Hue + Bitfenix LED strips!

[Enderman]

Welcome to my mostly successful mod of the NZXT Hue RGB lighting controller.

First I will give you guys a short story of how I got here:

 

I wanted to have pure white lighting in my case to fit my white colour scheme. The problem was that I also wanted to be able to turn off the lighting because my PC is on 24/7 in my bedroom, and the light would be extremely bright at night and not let me sleep. So some sort of control was needed. First I tried the NZXT sleeved LED kit:

It was controlled by a simple 3 brightness level switch in one of the PCI expansions slots. It was very cheap quality, and difficult to position the LEDs so they would light in the right direction. The controls were really cheap too, and the brightness flickered after a while because of the switch. Then I bought the NZXT Hue:

It is an RGB controller and as I expected, the 'white' was a bad mix of red, green and blue. I tweaked the levels of each colour as much as I could but I could not get it to a perfect white. Then I decided to buy some Bitfenix Alchemy white LED strips which are regular white LEDs, just what I needed, but they connect to molex power so they are on whenever the PC is powered on:

So after seeing the connector in the product pictures, it looks EXACTLY the same as the connector on the Hue LED strip! But how? The Bitfenix strip is only 1 type of LEDs white the Hue LED strip is 3 leds(red, green, and blue). I decided to try it myself because nobody else on the internet has done this before. I had no tutorials or instructions to follow. So here is what I did:

 

 

 

First I connected the Bitfenix LED strip to the NZXT Hue controller and turned the Red knob. SUCCESS it turned on! Then I turned the Green knob, and it also turned on! Then I turned the Blue knob...

Sparks and smoke started flying out of the NZXT Hue controller and everything smelled burnt. I immediately turned the Blue knob to 0 and removed the Hue from my PC. This is what I found:

As you can see, one of the components got completely fried. BUT the Hue still worked! (mostly) The Blue no longer works on the LED strip, and the blue LED in the controller is always on. But the Red and Green still work properly. After some testing with the multimeter I found that the two outside pins on the Bitfenix LED strip are actually bridged, and so are the two inner pins. When I turned on the Blue on the Hue controller it actually send power down on the of outside cables, while the ground is the other outside cable. So by turning on the Blue it shorted itself out. I should have tested this with a multimeter earlier...this is what allows the Bitfenix strip to be plugged in with no worry about polarity. So what I did was cut the Blue wire coming from the Hue, so that I would never accidentally short it out again and risk starting a fire. This is what it looks like after I cut the blue wire and removed the pin:

 

Now both Red and Green knobs on the Hue control the brightness of the strip, and can turn it on and off at the press of a button. This concludes that it is possible to use the Hue to control Bitfenix Alchemy LED strips as long as you never turn Blue on. (the cycle button will also turn it on and wreck your Hue) My recommendation is that you cut the Blue wire so that there is 0% chance of you accidentally frying your NZXT Hue. Here are some pictures of my PC with white Bitfenix strips (I put 2 in my PC):

PS I need to figure out the white balance on my camera. IRL it is pure white light

Thanks for reading! I will be uploading a video to my youtube channel soon as a video tutorial of how to do this. If you have any questions just let me know

[Unhelpful]

Not just me gusta... 

 

MEGA GUSTA!

[flibberdipper]

Too bad my Bitfenix strip shorted itself without any help from a controller, and it kinda started the snowballing and the ultimate downfall of my motherboard.

[Enderman]

Too bad my Bitfenix strip shorted itself without any help from a controller, and it kinda started the snowballing and the ultimate downfall of my motherboard.

Lol sorry about that

My bitfenix strips did not short, the Hue did because of the way the bitfenix strip is wired inside...

[Prokart2000]

that sub doe

[flibberdipper]

Lol sorry about that

My bitfenix strips did not short, the Hue did because of the way the bitfenix strip is wired inside...

Lucky.

[ReturnoftheMack]

Hello, I know this is an old thread, but I love this idea. Are you able to set the brightness level of the LEDs with this controller? Is it like a fade switch so to speak where you can dial in the birghtness level? Lastly, how has you experience been in the long term and have they shorted out at all?

[Enderman]

Hello, I know this is an old thread, but I love this idea. Are you able to set the brightness level of the LEDs with this controller? Is it like a fade switch so to speak where you can dial in the birghtness level? Lastly, how has you experience been in the long term and have they shorted out at all?

Hello and welcome to the forum

Yes you can change the brightness of each LED colour almost perfectly from 0 to 100%

And you can also change the brightness of all LEDs together with 5 different brightness levels.

 

My experience was great. No LED failures. Only problem was that one time I tightened a zip tie on the LED strip, which caused part of the strip to not light up. Removing the zip tie fixed this.

Basically the strip was not on a flat surface, and the zip tie was bending it around a metal rod (bending it horizontally, not the normal vertical bending which is fine)

 

The LED strip still works. My Hue controller no longer works to control the blue LEDs because I shorted it myself when modding it. This was completely my fault, not the product. Luckily the other two colours are on separate "channels" so even though blue doesnt work, red and green are still good.

[ReturnoftheMack]

Thanks for the quick reply. This seems like a great solution for anyone wanting bitfenix white LEDs(very bright) with the ability to make adjustments as needed. So as per your experience, I simply need to cut the blue wire to avoid any disasters?

 

Thanks again!

[Enderman]

Thanks for the quick reply. This seems like a great solution for anyone wanting bitfenix white LEDs(very bright) with the ability to make adjustments as needed. So as per your experience, I simply need to cut the blue wire to avoid any disasters?

 

Thanks again!

Yeah, you dont want the blue wire connected if you are using any non-RGB LED strips. Turning blue on with the bitfenix LED strip connected is what will short it.

Don't just cut the wire, but cut a small length out of the wire, like 5mm or something, so that there is no chance of the two ends touching. Just to be safe

cutting:                       ------- --------

cutting a piece out:    -----        ----

Then as a second safety measure, always leave the "blue" colour knob at 0

[ReturnoftheMack]

Man you have been so helpful. Your pics and pc look great. I will be doing this in a corsair 760t white. I really appreciate it and have a great day!

[Enderman]

Man you have been so helpful. Your pics and pc look great. I will be doing this in a corsair 760t white. I really appreciate it and have a great day!

You're welcome

Good luck!

[AddonCustoms]

I need to get the NZXT HUE, I keep getting requests to make my LED strips compatible, which I cannot do without having one.