First, the fun part. What does this do?

It uses signals from the Pinbits/Eli TRON Ramp Lighting kit and synchronizes additional lighting mods to the ramp lights. You can use it to control toppers, speaker lights, undercabinet lighting, ColorDMD, etc. Here's some video of it in action.

I designed this nearly a year ago, but I was never able to offer it as a kit for a few reasons.

1. I was not able to get a good idea of how much interest there was.
2. I did not have the time to get a cost estimate together, so I was unable to set a price.
3. I did not have the time to build boards, and I didn't think there was enough interest to have them outsourced.
4. My game has a beta version Ramp Lighting kit, so I could not be sure it worked with the production version.
5. My game only has a ColorDMD, no lighting mods.

Recently, however, Nelly contacted me about wanting to build one himself. In short order, he had his working, and it's the one shown in the videos above. That solved questions 4 and 5.

Over the past few days, I have put some estimates together, and we have settled at a price of $50 for the controller board. You will still need a power supply and cabling for your lighting mods, but all of that is either available elsewhere or easy to make. We will explain this more later.

We would now like to get a good idea of how much interest there is. In order to make this work, we really need solid numbers, so please don't commit to one if you don't really want it. If you want one, please send a PM either to me or Nelly. Soon, we will set a cutoff date for commitments so that we can start building.

Nelly has offered to handbuild a small quantity, but if it turns out that the numbers are high enough, I will handle outsourcing them.

Here's picture of what you'd be getting. The price will be $50.
377975.jpg

See the two connectors on the left, J4 and J5? Those are compatible with existing LED strips, and they work basically the same as the LED controllers you get with speaker lights, toppers, etc. It will replace controllers like the one in the picture below, and it can control the same types of devices.
20120614113437.jpg

If you look at the video above, you will see that during Light Cycle Multiball, the colors alternate blue and yellow. Nelly has his topper and ColorDMD connected to one of the outputs and his speaker lights and topper to the other. You have the option of doing something similar. If all you have is speaker lights, you could hook the left one to J4 and the right one to J5, and the speaker lights would alternate out of sync with one another. Basically, you get to choose how you connect your lighting to the two outputs.

If you are connecting a ColorDMD, you can buy the "ColorDMD SIGMA / Speaker Light Kit Interface Cable" from http://www.speakerlightkits.com/Accessories.html or you can build your own cable.

This drawing is an attempt to show some options for how this can be hooked up. Cable (1) is the ColorDMD cable that is available at SpeakerLightKits.com. Cable (2) is a "standard" splitter that is available from many places, including Amazon.com.

unnamed.jpg

The difficulty in putting together a kit comes from all the options. Since we don't know what you'll have hooked up to it, we don't know what splitters and extension cables you'll need. Also, depending on how many mods you have hooked up, you might be able to use the game's 12V, or you may need an external power supply.

Links to some sources for the cables. You might also want to talk to Nelly, since he has more experience with the cabling than I do.
(1) http://www.speakerlightkits.com/Accessories.html
(2) Just one option, this may be available cheaper elsewhere. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0077IPRAG/ref=s9_psimh_gw_p60_d0_i5

Extension http://www.amazon.com/Escolite-Extension-cable-strip-3-3ft/dp/B00RMUS31Y/ref=sr_1_10

NOTE: DugFreez has notified me that the pinout of different LED strips can cause the colors to be in a different order. We assume +GRB with the current firmware, and that's the order that DugFreez has kept all of his speaker lights and toppers. Mods from other vendors might have a different pinout and would need to be compensated for by rearranging the cables or a different firmware load on this board.

NOTE 2: It seems you also need two connectors for speaker lights, so I squished another splitter into the picture.

From what I understand, it is in progress, but this mod is not limited to ColorDMD. Even after there is a multi-color ROM for TRON, this will be able to flash speaker lights, toppers, undercabinet lighting, etc. You don't even have to have a ColorDMD installed to use it.

I've added your name to the list.

Plus, if you already have a power supply for your speaker lights or topper, you may be able to use it instead of buying a new one. If you're only using a ColorDMD, you can borrow power from the game using a simple cable. If you have a ton of lights like Nelly, you will need a pretty big supply. One size does not fit all here, and we don't want to force people to buy a big supply that they don't need.

This particular implementation requires the Pinbits/Eli ramp lighting. I'm not sure if the LE could be fitted with that, but if so, and you were crazy enough to actually swap out the ramp lighting, this mod would work.

I also thought there was an LE synchronization mod at one point. Maybe I'm wrong.

It was pretty well hidden, but it is in the first post.

$20 is probably pretty close for parts, but that doesn't include the boards or assembly. If Nelly assembles them, all the profit will go to him to pay his slave wages. If I end up having them outsourced, there won't be any profit.

Sorry, but no, they will only work with Tron with the Pinbits/Eli ramp kit installed; no other games.

Here's some of the options for cabling shown in a diagram:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/lighting-mod-for-tron-ramp-kit-owners-gauging-interest#post-2339039

Added both of you to the list.

Nelly, since it looks like we're not going to hit the number of boards for outsourcing them, I'll let you decide when to set the cutoff date for commitments.

Yes, I posted that a while back in the original thread.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/colordmd-color-changing-tron-pinbits-eli-ramps-integration/page/2#post-1852625

You can purchase the boards from OSHPark, though they require you to order in multiples of 3. Also, the BOM is a bit rough. Nelly has said that he will help by providing info on what he ordered.

Eating Skittles?

This board only works with the Pinbits ramp kit, so it's just for the Pro. Sorry.

It's typical. When I was keeping pre-order lists for OCD stuff, I saw about a 20% dropout rate.

With those, it was more understandable. They cost more, and more time passed between when they pre-ordered and I finished them.

It looks like Nelly will be able to sell the ones he has remaining, though.

$50 really is basically zero profit, and if Purple were to do it in Canada, it would cost more.

I'm sorry I cannot help, but I'm already so busy, I'm lucky to play a dozen games a week.

That apron mod looks really cool. I'm really tempted to want one for my own game, but I'm trying to limit the projects I get involved in so that I can spend more time playing.

I don't really know. It would be a question for Eli. If the ramp lighting works with the LE, this would also work.

Everyone should try it at least once.

I'm not sure if this is the cheapest available, but you can't beat $12 by much.
http://www.amazon.com/SUPERNIGHT-Waterproof-300LEDs-Changing-Flexible/dp/B00DTOAWZ2/ref=pd_sim_60_6

Does it have four terminals on the end of the strip? You can get solid blue strips as well, so I'm not sure what Laseriffic used. If you get the above strip, you should have plenty left over to swap it out if you need to.

I usually get the waterproof more to protect against bumps than water. The bare LEDs just seem awfully fragile to me. I agree that it can be a pain to peel back enough of it to solder to the terminals, though.

Guys, please...

Sorry, no tricks that make it easy. I use a blade and carefully slide it between the strip and the coating, parallel to the strip. I then cut perpendicular to the strip to remove the small section of coating, making it easier to solder to. The more I do it, the easier it gets, but it's still a bit of a pain.

Ah, crap! I thought that strip WAS one of the combined type. Sorry about that. I'll take a look, but maybe someone else is better at picking them than I am.

If I'm reading it correctly, F11 is the fuse between the transformer and 5V regulator on the power driver board. The schematic shows this as F23, and the manual as F11, so I don't really know.

Anyway, 5V should only be used to power the microcontroller. I would look for shorts, and I would also make sure they haven't decided to power their lighting using the 5V on the board.

During LCMB, one output is blue, the other is yellow, and they swap about once per second. Any other time, the ramps match, so it's not an issue. When the ramps aren't lit, it defaults to blue.

The source code is available if you want to change the behavior. Mine, for example, turns the outputs off rather than blue when the ramps are off.