When it rains Tron mods, it pours Tron mods. Next up: apron-mounted under-lit light cycles!
My machine had the big Hallmark light cycles on it when I got it. So, I had 1 leftover little light cycle. Years ago, at CCAG 2011 (www.ccagshow.com), I got a little die-cast light cycle that I believe had been packaged with a DVD or Blu-Ray.
These needed to be mounted somewhere. Not near the big ones, not in the way of anything, in a logical fashion, tidily, etc. I chose the apron, above the yellow & blue light cycles on the inlane return plastics.
Step 1: Drill holes for screws.
Step 2: Drill holes in the apron to mount them high & wide, out of the way of line-of-sight & ball travel. I weaseled weld studs through the wheels, from the inside out, & then put washers & nuts on the inside of the apron. This made the exposed fasteners nigh invisible.
Step 3: Underlight! I tapped into the GI for power. I wanted to use some flex stalk LEDs so that I could put the light body inside the apron & snake the LEDs out. I chose Pinball Center's NoFlix Plus because they had 2 LEDs per socket, the wires were long, & the LEDs were small.
http://www.pinballcenter.eu/catalog/t10-noflix-plus-yellow-superflux-p-395.html?language=english
http://www.pinballcenter.eu/catalog/t10-noflix-plus-blue-superflux-p-1439.html?language=english
Unfortunately, the wires weren't long enough--the light didn't show through the cycles, & they couldn't quite reach the wheel holes. So, I desoldered the wires at the LEDs & spliced in more wire length.
Step 4: Routing. I fed the LEDs through the apron, slit a rubber grommet to slide over the wires & to protect them from rubbing the metal apron wall. One in place, I used liberal amounts of hot glue to secure them & to tuck the wires up against the underside of the light cycle for protection from balls.
Step 5: Diffusing. The lights were too bright & shining up in my eyes. I tried several tricks: sanding, PTouch white label, White-Out, spray paint, etc. None of those diffused the light very well. I need something small, plastic, & round. LEGO!
P/N 4073: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=4073. I filed off the LEGO logo, left the top a little rough for diffusion, & superglued one to each LED: transparent blue on the blue cycle, & transparent yellow on the other. These look boss. They even create a series of illuminated concentric rings...very identity disc-ish!
More to come...
Thanks,
-Jason
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