Lets Light it Up!
With the male end of the LED strip exposed, I had a little fright when the male connectors touched the metal inside my case and sparks were emitted. I took a closer look at the male connectors and found that the pins actually slide off, meaning that the LED strip at the very end of the sequence will not have any exposed connectors.
Before you fire it up, you will need to download the controller software, CaseStrip from a Dropbox link I found in their Amazon listing.
You will need to install the drivers first, as CaseStrip uses a serial port, and the drivers diverts the signal to a USB port instead. Nothing fancy with CaseStrip, it has simple interface to let you choose the color, flash timings, brightness and patterns of the LED illuminations. Once you have set the LEDs to your preference, you no longer have to open the CaseStrip program again or load it at start up, the controller will remember your settings each time it is powered up, so you can detach the micro USB cable and remove it.
I placed the Dream Color PC Case LED strips right next to my Phanteks ones so I could compare between the 2. Whilst my Phanteks RGB LED strips had more LEDs per length than the Dream Color, it did not mean that it was brighter. The Dream Color strips had LEDs than individually were visibly much brighter, making up for having less LEDs.
Here are a few photos to see the Dream Color LEDs next to my Phanteks:
The strip on the far left is Phanteks, and the one in the centre is Dream Color. Don’t be fooled by the photo as it seems to show the Phanteks being brighter, it just seems that way due to the bokeh caused by the focusing of the camera.
Here’s a quick video showing some of the colors and patterns available:
