I got a HDD dock from startech.com. It works great and does everything I need. The problem is it has the brightest goddamn blue LED I have ever seen. It is so unnecessarily bright. My eyes hurt looking in the same direction as it. What the fuck should I do? Return it? De solder the stupid ass LED? It works great aside from this one issue.
Edit: I opened the thing and drew with sharpie on the LED. It’s bearable to look at now.
Tape
The problem with that is the LED also functions as the power button.
i had a monitor like that once. big bright af blue power light baked into the power button, bottom center of the bezel. blue led was the ‘new’ thing back then. the barton-era matching pc (which i didn’t have) had a larger matching button on its front. if you know your '00s pavilions, you know the ones.
it was horrible. that monitor lived its entire life with a black piece of paper taped over the whole switch and light. i was not saddened when it finally gave up and failed to turn on. i was more annoyed that it took 15 years for it to fail.
Press on the tape?
The problem is it’s a weird recessed button.
Nail polish might work.
Loose piece of tape … then press on the weird recessed piece of tape
Tape a dry bean into the recess.
LMAO, maybe next time
I would find this very annoying.
Mask off the dock one spray of spray paint in just the LED resses
Yes but also I’ve just put electrical tape over many an item.
The RGB craze is the worst.
Yeah it sucks that I sleep in the same room as my computer. It’s damn near impossible to find a case without RGB.
Last pc i built i had 1 hard request, “I don’t want a damn xmas tree in my pc.” girl laughed and the only light is from the heat sync :(
This is where black electric tape can be your best friend.
I bought a keyboard from ThinkGeek that had an LED that would hit me right in the eye. A little piece of tape and that keyboard served me well for years.
I am also a hater of unnecessarily bright lights. In your shoes, presuming I’m happy with the product otherwise, I would paint over it with a bit of nail polish.
You can get polish in any color you want these days, and it’s very cheap. It dries fast and it comes with a very small brush. You can apply one coat, see if the led still shines through too much, apply another coat 15mins later once the first layer is dry. Repeat.
Edit: seeing the photo I realize the shape it has. Be careful with the polish if you use it, one coat or two probably will be okay on the inner surface but don’t add more or the button may get stuck. Also wait extra before even daring to test button functionality, you don’t want the button scraping off semi dry polish.
I might just open the thing and paint over the actual LED.
That’s a good idea if it’s an option
I opened it up and coated it with a sharpie. It’s good enough.
Blue LEDs are the worst offenders. No need to return it as long as you keep a bit of black tape ready. If you still need it as an indicator, you can use layers of yellowish tape. The one used while painting your walls works great. Masking tape it’s called in English.
Likely not, it seems wasteful if the product is otherwise good in all other important regards. I’d just cover up the LED with tape or paint.
Taped over with electrical tape. Couldnt care less.
You could dab it with a little paint or glue or something.
I suggest getting something like LightDims: https://www.lightdims.com/index.php
lol, I know this pain. about 20 yrs ago i bought a shiny new pc case and expected the red leds, it had 2 super bright blue leds that were either solid on(power) or flashing(drive activity), this pc was next to my bed pointing across my bed. the entire room was lit by these and hard blue circles were projected on the wall. ended up taping a cardboard strip over them.
I either tape the things with Isolation in dark to see nothing or the Painters-Tape which is yellow and partly lets light through.
But colored isolation band lets the light through a bit too.
I’ve not returned an item over it, but I’ve often wondered if there was a market for a company which de-LEDs items.
some good ideas here already. i just wanted to suggest that if ur going to open it, the option of adding a small resistor in series is also there. thatll lower the current going thru the LED and make it darker.
When I opened it there was room for the LED and not much else. It was soldered directly to the board. I did consider it until I saw inside.
My monitor had a bright blue power LED smack in the middle of the lower bezel. I took it apart on day one and brutally ripped out the LED, only then did I ever connect it to my computer.
I’ve had good success with small pieces of electrical tape cut so that a very small part of the LED is still exposed.
