Part 6 - Drive Activity Lights
The Macintosh IIcx/ci case has two lights on the front panel. One is the hard drive activity light located in the upper right corner above the floppy drive slot, the other is the power-on light located in the lower right corner below the floppy drive slot. But, what I wanted was to show CD-RW drive activity, hard drive activity, SuperDisk activity, and a power-on light.

For the CD-RW, I decided to use the original hard drive activity indicator. But, the light pipe had to be reversed from its normal orientation, otherwise it would interfere with the drive tray. Even so, it ended up interfering with the metal drive case and part of the interior plastic structure of the drive. I measured where the light pipe would interfere with the CD-RW drive and, after making sure none of the deleted pieces was required for proper operation, cut away the case metal and interior plastic.

	CD-RW metal housing modification. Rough, but it works.

	CD-RW frame modification. Test fitting with LED (cats chewed on the cable, but it still works).

The hard drive was to be located next to the CD-RW drive at the same height, so I cut a slot for another light pipe on the opposite top side of the case front from the CD-RW drive light. The light could have gone anywhere, but I thought it would provide aesthetic balance with the CD-RW drive light.

For the SuperDisk activity light, I drilled a hole in the power-on light pipe that mounts at the bottom of the case. The LED would simply be press-fit into the hole.

I thought a back-lit Apple logo would be nice for the power-on light, so I popped out the aluminum Apple logo by pushing a thin metal rod through the hole just behind it. I enlarged the hole to accept the end of yet another light pipe, the angled portion cut away and the end smoothed. The (5V) LED that would fit into this light pipe would be hooked directly to one of the floppy drive connectors coming from the power supply.

Then, I glued tiny plastic strips as spacers around the hole. The spacers would raise up the Apple logo badge and let light shine out from underneath it.

The last steps involved removing the LEDs from the CD-RW drive and the SuperDisk drive and replacing them with headers that would accept connectors from the LED/cable assemblies.

	CD-RW drive modifications.

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•  Introduction  •  Planning  •  Patterns and Templates  •  Case Preparation  •  SuperDisk  •  CD-RW  •  Drive Activity Lights  •  Rear Panel  •  Switches  •  Test Fit  •  Cable Management  •  Painting  •  Final Assembly  •  Gallery  •