I don’t see any images and I’m way to much of a novice to get it with just the text.

Wow this is sweet…cheers Pasterler0

Wouldn’t it just be easier to set up your projector to shine Gforce http://www.soundspectrum.com/g-force/screenshots.html into your case. Gforce dances to the music better than a couple LEDs do.

Hey, nifty idea. Have you thought about putting some kind of timing chip in there, or a potentiometer to have them produce different effects? How about some sort of sound resistor, to completely remove the need to plug it into your soundcard at all.
Best wishes and neat idea.

sound resistor…you mean like a microphone?

Awesome project! You have inspired me to create one for the audio montior out on my home reciever.

Nice!
I like it, but could be great if we can share the plug connector, because I only have 1 sound output in my pc.

oh yea, and i know that it isn’t a problem with the led. i’m thinkin maybe i got a bad tip31? if you could help, i’d appreciate it. thanks!

well im ashamed to admit it but the problem was user error (i had it coming from the red power wire not the yellow, i think red is 5 volts?) anyways, it looks awesome. thanks for the tutorial, and if you would like to see a video of my lights in actions, then let me know. thanks again!

I wouldnt mind seeing some more videos, maybe a bit better quality. Im planning on giving this a go :S

I wonder if this is possible….

Take the output from the PS2 connector, break the audio signal into its component frequencies, 31hz -> 16kHz and send each isolated frequency to an individual LED so that you’d have something looking like a graphic EQ!!

I have been thinking about doing something like that for awhile, but still cannot figure out how to isolate individual center frequencies before sending them to their respective LEDs…
-adam-

On your chart here: http://static.flickr.com/35/70733363_7bc5873491_o.jpg you are showing 2 wires going to the 12V. Is this the computer power itself? If so, where would i connect the wires to the power supply?!

Would it be possible to do the same thing (blinking leds) but connect them to the serial/parallel port and use a winamp plugin? I don’t really like that the soundcard has to give power to the leds…

The way I have the circuit hooked up (the same as the diagram I think), the led’s are receiving constant power from the battery source. Is there something else that should be happening here?

Cool idea, Pasteler0! However, I have had a few problems with LEDs being dim or burning out with the circuit you provided, so I created my own variation. I have put up a schematic and a video on my website at http://www.runtimeerror.net/blinky/index.html if anyone is interested.

Hey, thanks =) I am not sure how well my variation will work with others though. On my desktop, I have a relatively high-powered soundcard and turn up all volume controls to get the best result. However, my circuit doesn’t seem to like my laptop. I will probably move to an op-amp design as soon as time becomes available.

Finished it, with two channels, and stuff!
(two sides of the tower, used one circuit on each channel. 16 led’s on each circuit, with two led sharing one variable resistor )( so I don’t fry the TIP31… And can make some cool effects too! )

Too bad my camera is dead.. Never ever let a friend loan your camera!

Revolution: All transistors have a “turn on” voltage, meaning that a signal has to be at a certain voltage before it can be detected and therefore amplified. So, your volume needs to be at a certain level for the sound signals to be detected, and that’s why the softer sounds aren’t audible.

Ray: You can drive 6 LEDs if you put all of them in parallel. I use a battery, so that’s why I only use one or two to have decent battery life.

To William

First of all this is a great site and thanks for the how-to but i havieng a problem the leds ( i used 1.7v RED x4) and put a 220ohm resistor in frount of them (is this needed?) the leds work great on steady power and they at first didnt light up at all then something happened and they are very dim but still no blinking. any help would be greaty appreated

Hey, To get the right resistors to use with the leds, u need to calculate the ohm needed for your type of leds, R=(12v-1,7v

Hey, To get the right resistors to use with the leds, u need to calculate the ohm needed for your type of leds, R=(12v-1,7v

hi, i want to do one of this but i dont quite get the scheme… the power comes from the PC power, that will be the 12V but why the 12V splits in three cables in that scheme? i get that part where you put all the leds together with a cable and then to the middle pin in the switch and one of the pins of the switch goes to the middle one in the Tip31 but then what? where do i solder the and – 12V? i am confused… please someone explain it to me just a bit more in details… i already have all the materials needed. thanks

i’m a bit confused. it looks like it doesn’t have a posotive flow of energy in the schematic, and where do you hook it up to. maybe i wasn’t paying attention but please email me more specific instructions. thanx [email protected]

Hey Brian!!! is there any way you can send me some pictures of your LED set up it looks a lot better.. but i cant understand exactly what you did, if you could send the picutres to [email protected] that’d be great. You probably wont get this but if you do please send them! haha thanks again

I tried to replace the TIP31 by some other transistor .. BC548C
works but kinda weak .. the leds turn up only whe the music is very loud
how do you think if i chenge the voltage from 5V to 12V .. it will be better ?

You have an awnsome blog i liked the howto’s and the mods *thumbs up* !!

This is a pretty sweet project! I bet you could pretty easily hook this up to some high duty inductors and beef up the transistor and use a whole string of christmas lights instead of LEDs >=D

Put a small (200ohm or so) resistor in series with the LEDs. Your design is bad as it is right now.

No, actually this is a very good Idea. dont knock it.
I actually was messing around with this idea a little bit, each LED has resisitors each different sizes, so I tried it and each light lit up to different beats and sounds, so I thought that was pretty cool,

so then Im like hmm how can I make this better, I came up with adding capaciters the biggest capacitor went on the smallest resistor and vise versa, so then I tried that, and now its so cool,

when I play a song each light still lights up to its own beat but now they fade out, the higher beats fade faster and the lower beats take like a 1/2 second longer!

see what you can come up with

here are some images Pasteler0 hope you think there cool

can you post these on your site sometime?

Hello Dima,

If you are trying to make it so the lights stay on you don’t need a tip31,
sometimes schematics arent easy for province but if you mess around
you’ll get the hang of it, and make sure your lights voltage adds up to
12v or lower,

I my self are using a tip41a, its alittle stronger but I like it because the
the lights tunr of alittle more often but in my opinion looks cooler.

good luck Dima

Hey pasteler0 I figured out you only need the 1 wire from the tip going to
the p2 if you hook it up to a stereo, , just some I thought was cool,

Hi!

Ever tried to read smth about current limiting resistors, which should be added to this “lovelly circuit” for it not to be able to blow your transistor/leds/sound card?

Try googling for “electronix basix”

Otherwise this circuit is quite a beast (w/o those resistors, i mean).

hello pasteler0,

I’ve made the device according to the schematics you gave although I slightly modified it to include a switch that could toggle the left and right channel inputs from the p2 jack such as when the right channel is selected, the circuit does its job while it turns off and acts passively when the left channel is selected.

I have a few observations though. First was the first LED was off. I don’t know if it’s busted or not. Since it is connected in series with the others, an open LED would definitely cut off the power for the remaining part of the circuit. And last was that the LEDs don’t light up at the beginning of a song specially when the PC was recently turned on. Could you help?

hey, where do you even GET the P2 plug? if you can get it online, can you please post a link? tried looking EVERYWHERE! right now im resorting to taking apart old headphones just for this >

This is pretty cool idea. I just post on other blog about LED controller. I think if we develop with this design, we can have more option such as changing color and chasing color or mix color somehow. I just got all these idea from
http://www.lunaraccents.com/technology-programmable-LED-controller.html

This website is pretty good but they will take so long time for the prototype. It is better just to get some idea and work on your own!

i can’t figure this out, can someone please post a detailed picture of their completed led sound blinkie. I really want to put this in my car, but I’ve been two whole weeks here and there trying to figure this out. I am going crazy with this. can someone please draw a layman’s type diagram

Hey all,
In response to the questions about different LEDs for different frequencies, if you have a decent/modern sound card, you can make two different curcits…one for your subwoofer and the other for your front speakers. This will make them flash to the different frequencies.

Hey there, was wondering, if I connect the P2 jack into the headphone jack of my computer, where would the audio come out from? Wouldnt it just light up without the sound playing in the background? All i understand is that there wont be any loud music when I play a song, but just a couple of flashing LEDs?

Hello Pasteler0,
i tried to make that circuit but it just don’t work.
The guy in the store gave me TIP41, is that matter?

thank you.

can you tell me where you got the 3.5mm plug or p2 plug?

hi! this is a very cool stuff. im kinda amature with circuits. i just want to ask about the 12v output. correct me if im wrong is the yellow wire in the diagram is also the same yellow wire in the molex of the power supply? and how about the black one? kind a bit confuse.

thanks in advance! ^_^

i want to know that web camera wich connect computer with out wire. and that camera is 1kilometer frome the computer but connect with computer with out any wire

I can’t get this. I do all that the scheme says, but it still don’t work. the lights work if I turn on the swich, but wont work if i turn on the tip31

This is funny no Resistors are all. you can’t do it.. unless this is high powered LEDS. i mean you can blow leds just connecting stright.

i don’t see how this works with out. resistor and with out proper voltage supply to led/transistor

hey what ever happens my comp wount got screwd up right?????
just want to be safe

will this work for a laptop or is it stricly a desktop thing

Hi! I want to connect a cold cathode light to this circuit. Is it possible? And how I can increase the output of my minisystem, because the blinking-leds doesnt work with it… Sorry about my bad english, Im from Brazil…

Thanks!

Hi! I connected a cold cathode light to the circuit, but the light blink to weak…How can I increase the power of output of your system?
I will put some videos of my blinking leds working in my room on youtube..
Thanks!

Would you know how to set up something similar for the car radio or even for a stereo in a bedroom?

i made something like this go to- http://www.lochtefeld.rocks.it

i have 12 LEDs

ill try and be more specific. I want to take on of the mpy port face plates and put 4 led’s in it, 2(red) right channel 2(blue) left channel. i understand the schematic on this page, but i do not understand how to throw a second set of lights in there. I also really like the idea of the resistors, and i liked how smooth the other video looked. (brians) so if anyone could tell me how to hook this up… i would be very grateful.

Er sorry, TIP31 transistor.

thanks, umm is an LM317T the same as a tip31? it is an adjustable voltage regulator…

i dont know too much about resistors regulators transistors and the such…

Hey guys,

attempting to do this in stages but cant even get it to work with a battery and no switch. The circuit works without using the P2 as shown here:
http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/1999/img00881ak8.jpg
but even though i know there is sound coming through the P2 (im using a male-male extension to get it working first) i get no light when going through it:
http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/4267/img00891rz3.jpg
Any help would be great, either on here or to lellis2k@hotmail[dot]com

This is awesome im going up to radioshack tomarrow and im gettin all the stuff!

what does a tip31 do?

Can i use a mono p2?????????????????????????????????????????????

i i had another idea, is it possible to do the exact same thing that you did but replace the leds with a dc voltmeter? Just another cool little toy for the sterio.

i did it the exact same as you, but the tip31 part of it will not work. also i would just like to say that my tip31 looks different than your, slightly, how do i know if i bought the right one, by looks?

I was wondering if a pin 32 will work as they are easier to locate in Canada.
Also can you use a 12v battery instead of the computer and a resistor to protect it

Is there any difference in power from an ipod jack and a soundcard jack

This is great man,
Just found this site and will continue browsing, came from I’ibles.

I’m pretty new to electionics but I think I could handle this.
I want to connect a load of LED’s, like 60, and stick them around my monitor…

Would this be possible, if so, how?

dude i cannot find a tip31 component anyware is there any other common components that work the same or am i out of luck

Ok Well i have tryed 3 different looking like tip31 components (Dont think tip31 is sold in the USA.) and only one half way worked. i will find the compontent names/numbers and post them later.. is their anyother known compontent?

Can you maybe give better instructions ? im trying to make one that runs on a 9 volt battery and have been unable to even start from your diagram and your pictures are not any help either. Is there any way you could do a simple step by step ? It wouldnt need pictures just a nice text document to compliment this would be great. If anyone who reads this has what i need please email it to johnathon007[at symbol here]aol.com

Oh, and I don’t understand the battery, if I want to use a 9V battery… Where does it go and do I need resistors to the LEDs? Transistor? Thanks.

Hi,
I’ve already got the circuit going just as you designed it. However, I’m trying to get it to work with an Electret Microphone. Any ideas?
Thanks!

is there any way to add additional leds?

Im just wondering. Roughly.. what do you think the cost to do this is?

hey did it. works great. now i want to connect it to my car system.
could you tell me in brief what to do. was thinking of connecting it to the speaker.but not sure how. hope you can help.

looks awesome. going to try soon.

salve voleo sapere che come si chiama il componente tip 31 per pterlo aquistare

I’ve tried doing a similar project to this, but could not get it to work. The reason, I was told was that the audio output (I was using an Ipod) probably had a smoothing capacitor wired across it, and there wasn’t enough voltage to turn on the transistor. Checking with a voltmeter confirmed that the output was less than the transistor’s turn-on voltage. I assume the author’s computer headphone jack had no such capacitor, so it worked.

It could also be that I used a smaller switching-type transistor, I don’t know, maybe I’ll give it another shot with the tip31.

very cool, i ended up using 2 9volt batteries in place of the 12 volt from the PC, and i have 4 extra bright white 5mm LEDs it blinded me for a minute when i was recording it to send to my friends LOL.

very nice work keep it up!

Dan

seemed to work pretty well. we modified ours for both left and right audio though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC5GVLcgZUs

hoping this wont blow out my soundcard though as I have heard. im a little cautious as i dont have expert circuit knowledge.

i did it but something wrong when i plug it sound quality is bad

Yap, this is very intereting.. But.. In local shop with eletronics there si not tranzistors like TIP31C… So, can I use some other or?

I can put a resistor instead tranzistor??

can you use this on the scanner light by jest replacing the LEDS with the scanner neon

Patrick said, “That looks quite a dangerous schematic to me… ”

I don’t want to blowing up anything, so can you (or anyone else) help me to make this circuit safer instead of just alerting about the danger?

THX

I’m new to electronics and have built some really lame dancing to music LED circuits, none of which worked very well. This looks simple to building, but I’m not sure what a P-2 connector is or where to grab the 12 volts. Can I sue in place of the P-2 and USB on 5 volts with a standard PNP or NPN transistor in place of the TIP31 and wiring the LED in parallel?

Hey I was curious if I could use this circuit with 5v of power instead. Will that still work? I am using MaxM LEDs and an arduino control board and I was going to try to put your circuit in between the two sot hat I can also have the LEDs flash with music. The MaxM LEDs have a max of 5v. Will this still work with the lower voltage?

Now it’s time to put everything together in the box, as you can see in this picture, it’s not very organized, but after closing the box, it’ll look much better.

Dear DanielAndrade, i was wondering if you could help me. i’ve wired the whole thing as you’ve show. the leds light up fine when the switch is on position 2, the lights are static. but when i put it to the first position it turns of. i have some really heavy metal music playing at the loudest possible volume and i manage to get it to light when i connect the black from the led to the third leg of the tip31. Is there a simple way of testing weather its the tip31 or the p2 plug.

Thank you
Ahmed

hey i followed all the instruction and its working. but not good in my pc though because the lights where very dim if i connect it to my pc. when i connect it to my iPhone the lights were bright enough…

any help?

lol i made the same thing but i used a Cold Cathode but it didnt worked u think the TIP31 doesnt have enuough power for that??
Looke Here : http://www.fotos-hochladen.net/spa0429idyg7at5.jpg

Very cool!! Simple but great..

Hello, I am all new to this shit. Have ordered all that I need for this project, but I am already looking at the next one. The tip31 lets power to the leds throug when the volume get high enough. Is there other transistors like the tip31 that has other sensitivities (they lets power throug at different volumes). Then it would be possible to build cind of a volume measurer of some sort. That would be awsome.

Thanks for any answers=)

Hi Daniel, basing on you layout looks and the Orephik

http://www.orephik.com/projects/LED/index.html)

I carried out a program for making printed circuitsand circuits board (PCB)the following diagram with leds in paralell:

http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/7904/strereoleds.jpg
My doubt is how calculate the transisttor base ressistance (R21 and R22).
Q1 and Q2 is a TIP31 transistor , all ressistances are 510 ohms and the leds with a voltage between2,8-4 volts being the intensity 20mA.
The 3 pins connector is the audio jack stereo 3,5″ 1º ground 2ºL (left) 3º R ( right).
The other connector of two pines is a power input 12volts, that of the positive an the below the negative.

Will all these dataand could calculate the base ressistance of transistor.

Thank you very much closely LUISFRAN

2 position switch which model you’re usana why I bought a not aki but it is equally yours?

Hey! I just started to work with leds, so im no good with em. I just want to ask if you could take better pictures of your project, so i could see all the cables. Im from finland and no good english. Ty!