dreamcast sd card reader (help)

[macabre]

I've been collecting the parts to do this for a while. I was going by these two diagrams;

A layout, and a design.

I have all the parts, but only have 5mm LED's handy. Is it ok to just not use LED's in that design? Or if I use one, will it draw too much power?


Also, I was wanting to make this a bit smaller than what the strip board will allow me. Is it possible to just carefully use wire instead of the strip board?

[Endymion]

You don't need to use an LED at all if you don't want to. If you think about it, with this mod the memory card could be accessed a lot. I don't know about you but I hate lights that aren't necessary. I was driven to make my PC in a minimalist fashion because of this. So I'd personally leave it out. If I had something inobtrusive that would match the Dreamcast theme well, an orange of just the right shade and a small size, then maybe. Maybe. An even better idea might be to set it in or near the clear arrow jewel at the front of the drive lid, that way it would look like it were made to operate there. But yeah, if you are having trouble with this just leave it out, it's not required in any way.

All you need to do to make this work is connect everything up. If you can do this entirely with wires and secure it in a way that nothing shorts or comes loose, then you're awesome and go ahead and do it that way. I would try to work with a small board of some kind mostly for neatness' sake, but as with the LED situation it's entirely up to you.