Last weekend I completed a fun little project to improve the backbox lighting behind the backglass on my TNA.
Stock TNA uses a fairly dim white LED strip in a triangle shape in the center of the glass. Over time mine had gotten really dim so I decided to replace it with something that would give the nice BG art some proper full lighting.
Since TNA already used a 12v DC power source for the original LEDs installing new ones was a snap.
For this project I decided to go with 12v RGBW LED strips and a controller with a wireless remote so I could have full white lighting enhanced with color-tinting from the RGB setting on the remote.
I used this controller which was $5 or $6 more than the cheapest RGBW controller but I preferred a radio wireless remote vs infrared for easy of use and the connections on this thing were perfect for my needs: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B0756TNMJB
Here you see the white plastic brackets that held the original triangle-shaped LEDs in the game (already removed).
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I used an old USB cable for 4 of the required wires (RGBW) and a seperate red wire for 12v power.
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I use heat-shrink to secure the soldered wires to the LED strip and give it some strength (not yet installed/shrunk in the pic).
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Once I had the two LED strips wired up I cut some foil tape strips to use as mounting points for the LED strips.
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Here is a pic with everything assembled and ready for installation.
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I tested that my wiring was good by temporarily connecting the controller to the game power before installing it.
I removed the old white plastic clips and cleaned the wood where the strips would mount with rubbing alchohol.
Then I installed the foil tape to the wood. The foil tape acts as a secure mounting point for the often weak adhesive on the LED tape itself, and also makes it easy to remove later if desired.
Finally, installed the controller with the adhesive pad that it came with (again onto foil tape for ease-of-removal later).
Plugged it all in, booted the game, and went through the remote control sync process to pair it with the controller.
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One big problem that became apparent right-away was that the TNA BG didn't have a white mask layer to diffuse the light on it, so the individual LEDs where often visible and hot-spotting through the glass (sorry, forgot to snap a pic).
My solution for this, which worked perfectly, was to attach some semi-transparent vellum paper to the back of the BG. This acts as a perfect light diffusion layer and is often used to make inexpensive light diffusers for photography as well.
Finally, I tried various white light and RGB color setting options until I settled on one that introduces a slight amount of Red and Green tint into the mix to make the rich purple colours pop.
A straight white LED strip would also have been fine and much simpler to wire, etc. but the addition of the RGB provides an eye-catching tint to certain aspects of the art and also add some additional brightness which is appreciated due to the use of the vellum paper.
Zoom for clarity
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