Is this under the playfield or in the cabinet (right side under the flipper button)?

Yeah...that's the one I am planning on using. I hope to run my wire back the cabinet and then up the main wire harness under the playfield so I don't have to disconnect. I haven't really looked into where to put the inverter under the apron, but they seem small enough that I should find room under there.

I put my inverters under the apron.

Here on my CV

IMG_0531.jpg IMG_0532.jpg // Error: Image 42624 not found // IMG_0538.jpg

I love the way these look. I may look into printing a heap of these things!!

SSSHHHHHH!!!

Man that CV looks good. All the incentive i need!

I'm the guilty party who posted the Dracula video and then didn't follow-up with the installation video. The main reason is I don't think the illuminated cards are a good choice for most people.

Each card draws almost 1/2 amp, almost 1 amp combined. If you wire both to the same 12 volt source or run two cards off of one DC to AC converter you are going to risk overloading the circuit. Even a single card could cause problems if you don't know what you're doing. (I've already helped two people through problems created by overloading a circuit with this product.)

It's not like your house where you can just plug in another lamp. Most pinball circuits are strained to begin with and adding 1/2 - 1 amp can easily put them over the top.

I also would not run two cards off of one converter until I see a spec sheet that shows the converter can handle it. Might be why it melted?

In the future I'll just add (non-intrusively) a couple of colored LED's under the apron. I always convert the GI to LED's so adding a couple more to the circuit won't be a problem. The only downside is a small bit of each corner of the card won't get illuminated. Other than that they should look almost as good.

As mentioned make sure the wires for the EL card are wrapped and can't short against the apron. Also don't bend the leads over 180 degrees to get them to fit in the apron card hole.

So what happens if it overloads the circuit? Blow a fuse? Fry a board? Melt the wiring? Fry the inverters?

I would say I'm going to be a prime candidate for it since I also will be having a LED backbox light board using the same 12v source.

Drawing too much current would probably first cause problems like you see on GI: burnt connectors. Secondly it could blow a fuse or fry a component.

My concern on the inverters is if one is rated high enough for two EL panels. I don't know that they're not, but I wouldn't set it up that way until I'd seen a spec sheet on the inverter.

I previously communicated with pinballcenter.eu and did not get what I felt where knowledgable answers to my questions, which makes me cautious.

Any of the above, although constant use would be the biggest problem. I've been running my Dracula under fairly heavy use for a couple of months with no problems. But every game is going to be different.

I would suggest two different 12 volt circuits to be safe. The only way to know for sure is to monitor the current draw on the 12 volt circuit during game play then add in the additional draw of the EL card(s) and you should still be well under the fused amperage for the circuit.

I really don't intend to scare anyone, but on the other hand unless you check the circuit as described above I would be conservative in the installation. Better safe than sorry.

EL panels draw a lot more current than LED's. Get a 12 volt power supply and plug it into the service outlet if you're going to run a lot of stuff.

Looks good!

Which plug was this exactly? Because that 12v seems to measure at 13.8v and is what actually caused my tron to catch fire and melt.

You're right, they look great and that glass is completely undetectable in the video. That is a beautiful SM.

Can't tell for SM but I used the 12V from coin door interface. Also two converters bind together to the interface. I placed them under the apron with a long cable. But I put a sticker on the Lockbar mechanism to remind me while lifting the playfield

Hey Terryb do you wanna give your installation instructions for Drac for people to use at their own risk? I just got some of these cards for my Bsd and would love a quick write up on installation.

I got a small get together tomorrow and was hoping to install these tonight

Yep. That's the one I used. It's 13.7v. My tron caught fire after a couple weeks using that.

I'd like a clarification on what you mean by your Tron "caught fire". Did anything on the actual machine actually catch on fire? Was there a flame? Or did the inverter just melt? Where was the inverter? After it was all done...what was the damage to the machine?

The whole room was smokey and smelled like something was on fire. The 12v line fuses popped. The inverter was so melted it was a solid piece of rounded plastic.

Good Lord

Look at the perimeter of the backside of those LED cards and see if there is any small black dot. If so, the card grounded out. Only other thing I can think is that the inverter shorted.

I actually have a 16' roll of cool white LED lights on the way to me. I really don't think it will work well for the cards. If you put the strips under those transparent cards I'm almost sure they will just leave lit dots under the cards instead of lighting them evenly.

Where did you have the inverter? Under the apron or somewhere else?

I installed these in my MB months ago... I wired them to the GI and thought they basically sucked because they were dim. I guess I need to look for a 12v to tap into...

Great site..thanks for sharing. I really like the custom cards...dont know about the GI under them?? I did order some cards and some green 1" flipper rubber for WWF upper playfield.

If there's a potential issue with grounds then maybe adding a fuse to the things would help.

Mike

www.HabosArcade.com

LOL - I just noticed they used my AFM cards I made a few years ago

Mike
www.HabosArcade.com

Just running things in my head.

Thier specs 6v-12v at 1W for each inverter. Good practice to have the fuse about 50% higher than the expected amount of amps. 50% or 2X (2W / 12V = 166mA) ~ 8.33 amp fuse.

Mike
www.HabosArcade.com

Well it sounds like the ones that are failing are having too much voltage pushed through them. Maybe need to run them on an 11 or 12 volt line. I was thinking of adding a separate power supply. Anyone have any idea on a good power supply that would work with these?

Do you have a metal or plastic apron on your Tron ? I have the plastic apron on my Tron and would think that my cards might be at least safe from shorting out. I just hope my Tron can keep up with all the mods I have installed, so far so good.

So I found a 12 volt source in the coin door that is unused and I got a reading on the multimeter of 11.84 volts. I'm not good at electrical stuff so this is kind of a silly question but I want to make sure I hook everything up correctly. The wires that I tested are an orange on one side and two black wires spliced together on the other side with what looks like one of the plastic connectors on the end of them that looks like the type you would find as an extra power source inside a pc. Common sense tells me the orange is positive and the two black are negative. What setting on the multimeter can I use to make sure that's correct? I'm sure this is a very basic question but I want to be sure.

On Williams you can pull pure 12v from the ball trough optos.

the problem had nothing todo with the apron. I had lined the card bottoms in electric tape.

how do you get an 8.3 amp fuse for a 166 mA draw?

I left the Williams cards in. Again, the stern location you described runs 13.7 volts. I told you it was too much before you installed. You ignored....You can find 8.9 volts if you measure two of those three wires in the harness. It's safer but a bit dimmer.

Hey Markmon what would you suggest on Bsd? The trough doesn't have optos on it just regular switches. Although I could use one of the optos on like the ramp or something?

Well apparently the two wires I found will not work. Tried to hook them off of it and it didn't light. Back to the drawing board

If anyone has some advice on what to hook these up through on bsd I'd love to hear it