Alright, so the other day I decided to give my old Deco a little visual upgrade. I wanted a flashing blue light, kinda like those fancy routers you see in the movies. Here’s how the whole thing went down.
Getting Started
First, I had to gather my stuff. Obviously, I needed the Deco unit itself. Then, I grabbed:
- A blue LED – just a standard one from my electronics kit.
- Some resistors. I wasn’t totally sure which one to use, so I grabbed a few different values.
- Wire – thin stuff, easy to work with.
- Soldering iron and solder.
- A small screwdriver set – gotta get inside the Deco, right?
Cracking it Open
This was probably the trickiest part. I carefully used the screwdriver to open up the Deco’s casing. Took some patience, didn’t want to break any of those little plastic clips. Be gentle! Once it was open, I took a good look at the circuit board to find a good spot to connect the LED.
Wiring it Up
I looked for a power source on the board, somewhere that looked like it would provide a consistent voltage. It took some poking around, but I eventually found a spot that seemed right. After testing, I soldered one end of the resistor to that power source. Then, I soldered the other end of the resistor to the positive (longer) leg of the LED.
Next, I soldered a piece of wire to the negative (shorter) leg of the LED. The other end of that wire, I soldered to a ground point on the Deco’s board. Making sure the polarity is correct is super important.
The Moment of Truth
I found the spot can setup the flashing light. Double-checked all my connections, then I put the Deco back to gether and plugged it in. And… bam! Blinking blue light, just like I wanted. The default is a solid blue light.
It wasn’t perfectly smooth, kind of a quick blink, but hey, it worked! I played around with different resistors to change the blinking speed a bit, which was kind of fun.
Wrapping Up
Honestly, it was a pretty simple project. The hardest part was probably just opening the Deco without breaking it. Now my router looks a little cooler, and I learned a bit more about messing with electronics. Definitely a win-win!