(Topic ID: 144044)

*SOLVED!!*Anyone know how to wire a battery powered plasma disc?

By balboarules

8 years ago


Topic Heartbeat

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  • 22 posts
  • 10 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 8 years ago by Starscream
  • Topic is favorited by 8 Pinsiders

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#1 8 years ago

I have one of those plasma discs on my T3, but it is battery powered, I saw a picture of the back of a modified one, with 2 wires going to a molex connector, I am thinking you would have to wire resistors in the wire to get it down from 5v to 3v, there is a free connector in the front of T3 that has 5V available.. I get lost on the whole resistor/math thing... And I am pretty sure a GI would not work to jump off for this.

Thanks for any help!

Steve

#2 8 years ago

Many people who have tried have found that the cheaper discs throw out a lot of electronic noise and sometimes lock the MPU or make the speakers buzz.

I have some cheap ones from Meritline that I was going to try with an isolation transformer, but I never got around to it.

#3 8 years ago

Oh.. well that would not be good..

Thanks Vid.

#4 8 years ago
Quoted from balboarules:

Oh.. well that would not be good..
Thanks Vid.

You can get a small isolation transformer for $1 from surplus sites.

Try hooking it up without and see if yours is noisy or not.

Best use of plasma disc ever:

#5 8 years ago

I'm using them in a mod I'm doing, that has been backburnered for a while. But we built some custom circuitry for it, and we're not powering it off the GI.

#6 8 years ago

Vid

By chance do you have a link to one of those? I am not familiar with them. That was cool with the pop bumpers using them!

Thank you
Steve

#7 8 years ago

I have the one that the guy from England sells on my Refinery Met Pro and it works great. It's a battery powered one that he mods and sells. In the wires coming out of it, under shrink tubing there are a few "bumps" so I know there's something under there so that's where it's been modded. I opened up the battery case and there's just 2 wires soldered to the battery terminals. Mine causes no problems at all with the game.

#8 8 years ago

IMG_9352.JPGIMG_9352.JPG

I installed one in my space invaders pin. Here it is running only on battery power. I could never find a way to lengthen the wire leads that go to it. Those wires seem to be an integral part of how the plasma disk runs and the wrong size wire or the wrong length of wire seemed to make it an operable. Ultimately I removed it.

#9 8 years ago
Quoted from balboarules:

By chance do you have a link to one of those? I am not familiar with them.

Usually they are at All Electronics, but I just checked and they are OOS right now.

#10 8 years ago

Mine is running on the 2 batteries, using the sound activation, but the batteries die so fast.. I figure the modded one has some kind of resistors in the wire to reduce the voltage to 3V, but this is out of my league.. Could something be made out of a 3V power cord and plugged into the service outlet?

#11 8 years ago

I am using the one from England in my met also and it looks very good and I have no interference in met but I did in st and had to pull it

1 week later
#12 8 years ago

Ok, because I am persistent and just could not get the idea out of my head, and tired of changing batteries every few days, AND not wanting to spend 60-100 bucks for this, I FINALLY solved it..

I figured it was worth a 5.00 gamble

ebay.com link: itm

What I did was take the end off the wire with strippers, there was a red and black wire in the cable (nice and simple), I hooked my meter to the positive and negative wires with alligator clips, got the correct 3V as this was a 3V power cord.. I soldered the wires to the battery terminals on the top side of the unit (after testing with alligator clips to make sure it was working), and BOOM, it worked! 5.00 solution I just plugged it into the service outlet, the back panel where the batteries go I just had to cut a small piece out so I could put the back one with the wire there now, and then mounted it. Soooo if that helps anyone who was interested, I posted the link to the EBay item I used for this.

Steve

#13 8 years ago
Quoted from balboarules:

Ok, because I am persistent and just could not get the idea out of my head, and tired of changing batteries every few days, AND not wanting to spend 60-100 bucks for this, I FINALLY solved it..
I figured it was worth a 5.00 gamble
ebay.com link
What I did was take the end off the wire with strippers, there was a red and black wire in the cable (nice and simple), I hooked my meter to the positive and negative wires with alligator clips, got the correct 3V as this was a 3V power cord.. I soldered the wires to the battery terminals on the top side of the unit (after testing with alligator clips to make sure it was working), and BOOM, it worked! 5.00 solution I just plugged it into the service outlet, the back panel where the batteries go I just had to cut a small piece out so I could put the back one with the wire there now, and then mounted it. Soooo if that helps anyone who was interested, I posted the link to the EBay item I used for this.
Steve

I don't get it. Isn't the service outlet 120v. Didn't you have to use a 120 to 3v converter?

#14 8 years ago
Quoted from MustangPaul:

I don't get it. Isn't the service outlet 120v. Didn't you have to use a 120 to 3v converter?

That's exactly what he posted a link to.

#15 8 years ago
Quoted from snakesnsparklers:

That's exactly what he posted a link to.

I forgot to look at the link. My bad.

#16 8 years ago

Why can't you wire the battery terminals to the GI and put a resistor in line to drop the voltage?
That way the disc would power up only when the game is on.
If you use the service outlet, the disc will always be on...

#17 8 years ago

Well, it is sound activated, so unless there is sound it is not always on. I suppose I could have went that way, but I am not a master at resistors and their values, so I took a shot at something I knew more about.

#18 8 years ago

Also, I just put a Gizmo board in the game, I had a 7 strip LED on the apron to lighten up the flipper area, after installing the Gizmo that strip no longer worked, so I spliced it into one of the coin door lights and it came back on. I put Gizmo in 5 game and all 5 lost that added strip, so wired each one to a coin door light, all working now... not sure if it would have affected the disc.

#19 8 years ago
Quoted from balboarules:

Well, it is sound activated, so unless there is sound it is not always on.

I tried that setting with the one on my Met and it wasn't loud or long enough for it to work that way very well. Mines always on.

#20 8 years ago

If anyone knows exactly what resistors needed to step down the voltage to directly wire to the GI please post it because I'd love to add one to my game too

#21 8 years ago

I have wired these up to GI no problem. Use 2 diodes to half wave rectify the incoming voltage. Solder one diode banded side out the positive terminal of the plasma disc battery spot, Solder the other diode banded side in to the negative terminal attach each diodes to different terminals of a GI socket. Comes out to roughly 3 volts DC.

#22 8 years ago

Any pics of the setup I could copy?

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