This thread is a great read. Thanks for all of you that have contributed to it. Would anyone be willing to build a set of removable lights, like the Xtremes, for me to stream with?

PM sent

With AUKraut’s guidance, I built a set of these and finally got around to testing them after my Elvira stream. They worked well. I also placed a diffuser on the strips. I have been using the old school line of sight sensor (I have a ton from converting my lights from line of sight sensors to WiFi) since these are mainly for streaming on location. Using the line of sight sensor is quick and easy since I don’t have to mess with setting up a WiFi sensor. Not as many color choices but enough to get the job done. I have found that when I stream, the camcorder does best with about 50% brightness on the white lights and then throw in a little yellow / orange / red.
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OK, so working with @aukraut, we added a set to my Gottlieb Robo-War. While I really like it, we noticed that there was 2 odd things happening on this particular game:
1) Even with the rectifier added, the LEDs strobe from time-to-time. Weird thing is, it isn't doing it all the time. It seems to come and go.
2) The LEDs never seem to turn all the way off. Even with the game sitting un-powered, the LEDs stay lit at around 5% power. I'm wondering if there's something in the Gottlieb circuit that is applying the smallest amount of power to the GI circuit at all times?

Any thoughts from the community here? Overall, I'm very happy but would love to do something to eliminate the strobing completely.

This is a Gottlieb 80 series pin. Have you done the recommended grounding mods? Lack of grounded boards from the factory cause all sorts of random electrical problems with 80 series pins.

Oh yes, I'm quite familiar. Every grounding mod possible has been done and a new cap is on the original power brick.

Can I get a little help here? It doesn’t seem like the relay is doing anything. I’ve tried 3 of them and all the same. If I connect the black RGB line to the in and out sides of the relay, the LEDs power on. Triggering it with a 5V wall wart does nothing. The LEDS stay on as of there is no relay there at all.

In one photo I show it not being triggered and LEDs on.

Second photo shows it being triggered by a 5V wall wart. Nothing happens. LEDs stay on.

Any help?

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Several things: the relay needs a + and - wire as input, with a + and - as an output. You are hooking it up to a black - wire on the 4 pin rgb strip and nothing else. You really don't want to use a 4 pin RGB with the relay, all you will dim is either R, G, or B if you hook up 2 wires. You only have 1 wire hooked up, black, which is just being passed thru and the trigger signal is ignored. It's as if the module wasn't installed at all.

You can use the relay to control the White on a RGBW on 5 wire LED strip (post 733), or you can use the relay to control a plain 2 wire LED strip (post 751).

Gotcha. Thanks. I was hoping for a way to have a relay just turn on and off with the GI signal. Is there another type of relay that will work with the 4 pin RGB strip in this way?

You could try a trigger module per color (black/blue, black/red, black/green), however you'd have to split the black 3 ways, and have to split the GI trigger 3 ways. I'd test it on a bench first before you put it in a pin....

Yeah. That sounds like more effort than I want to tackle.

I do have some of these from another project, would they work you think?

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Follow-up. I used the relay mentioned in the previous post and it’s working well. I tied the DC+ and DC- to power the relay into a GI light and used a diode to bridge between the trigger and DC- (essentially sharing DC- to make a low voltage trigger so that the relay is on anytime the GI lights are on). I then split the black wire of the RGB and have one side going to the common leg and the other to the normally open. Now when the GI is on, it turns the relay on, and closes the switch for the RGB power.

Thanks all for the ideas and guidance in this thread.

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Looks great. And a great game to use them on.

great work guys

Hey all. Curious. I’m working at building another set and decided to go the RGBW 5 pin route this time. In testing the strip, I can’t get both the RGB and the W LEDs to come on at the same time. It’s either the RGBs or the Ws. The pictures in the instructions clearly show them both on and I’ve seen others have it that way as well. What am I missing here?

Edit: Sorry the pictures are a little out of order, but what they show is turning on the RGB LEDs and then the W LEDs. They don't come on at the same time.

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If you are using the app you have to set it for RGB&W instead of RGBW:

Press and hold the device in the app menu. Select change device type. Choose RGB&W

That’s why I love Pinside. Appreciate the help!

Hey all. Back with another question. Any thoughts on why this is happening in my AFMr?

Setup:
MOSFET is triggered by being connected to GI light. Power for LED strip goes: wall wart - LED controller - MOSFET - splitter - LED strips.

When the game is off (by unplugging game so no power available - LED strips are plugged into outlet separate from game):
Transistor board LED is dimly lit as if it is barely being triggered and white LEDs are barely on. They should be off in this state and not sure why the MOSFET is showing that it is barely being triggered. There is no power at the GI light socket.

When game is on:
All works as it should. MOSFET is showing being triggered with a bright LED and strips are fully lit.

Thoughts?

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Any thoughts on this? It’s really strange (at least to me).

I have made myself the stadium lights, and I have had to notice that small amount of current is going to the led-strips, even though I have a remotely controlled power socket, where I can turn the power off. I do not know can such small about of current be harmful, but I would like not having any power there. I tried installing an isolating transformer into the mix, which seemed to stop the flow of such small current, but it did not work because mine was 350VA and I think it would be barely sufficent for only one pinball and I would like to have a solution for more pins and not to have a separate transformer for each of them...

What kind of solutions have you come up for it? Thanks for any info!

What machine do you have it on? I have it on a Sharkeys shootout and Nascar, its hooked to the power up by the coinbox and I use a remote controlled power/dimmer switch that I bought off ebay and have no power to the lights at all when switched off.

I have it on all my machines, well, except for AFMR. I do not see the light either on the ledstrip when I have turned off the remote controlled power socked, but when I press the led-strip with finger, there is light and also some tingling to the fingers. So some power must be going there.

Oh, most of the ledstrips have been power on from the service outlet near the coin box, one of the ledstrips on the other hand is powered by external power source.

I have made myself the poor man's stadium lightning before, but as I am not good at soldering, so I thought that perhaps it would be best for me to buy them readymade rather than do them myself via trial and error.

So, if someone is making the stadium lightning for sale in Europe, please send me a private message.
(Pinstadium would be an overkill and too expensive for me, I just need the stadium lights with black L-brackets, white light, a possibility to control the brightness via a remote and power the strips via pinball machine. Well, an option to have RGB-lights might be good for some pinball machines as well.)

I made a set the other day. It is really easy and you only need to solder 4 spots the positive and negative on the two LED strips. You can probably avoid even that as many strips already come with wires connected on the ends. The set I made I never even connected to the pin. I used 6v LED strips, an RF remote and an old cellphone USB power brick. Just plugged it in to the repair outlet in the pin. I use smart plugs to power cycle my pins. It’s easy enough to tap power from a pin and you don’t need to solder to do it.

If you screw up soldering the strips just snip off a couple of LEDs and try again. You can’t damage anything and don’t even need to go near the pin.

Does anyone run these on a Stern TMNT? The factory gi has a subtle flicker when dimming, and it seems to be amplified on the DIY stadium lighting. I'm hoping to come up with a way to minimize the flicker (when in the "dim" state), because they are otherwise awesome. It's certainly a fun/easy project to jump into.

You could try a relay like I show in post 861.

Does that work with him dimming? Or is it just on off?

It wouldn’t change how the LEDs work through the app, so they could still be dimmed. However the power to the LEDs would be on/off.

I have joined the club! I used the following:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CHGJNXG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s01
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NBC0NI9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00

I mounted them using velcro circles. It's also a bit too cold to paint so I just put a strip of electric tape on the LED channel for now, once it warms up I'll spray paint it black. I do also think this strip might be a little bit too cool so I've ordered a warm white strip to compare.

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I didn't like how blue the cool strip looked, so I tried out a warmer cool white strip I had on hand. It is 1000% better. This is a 4000k-4500k strip that had a water proofing membrane on it. It looks great once the membrane is off.

I also realized I don't really care about RGB features, so I've ordered a basic 3000k-3500k 12v strip to compare to. I'm wiring them to the rgbw 5 pin adapters though, that way I can easily switch in the future if desired.

Edit: For reference, this is the strip I have on the far right (the winner imo): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07K1G8JJX/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1

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I did a bit more playing around and found a setup I love. I'm mixing a cool white strip with a warm white (3000-3500k) strip. I hooked them up to two different color channels on the rgbw controller so I can control the brightness independently. The color turned out great. I'm going to make more of this exact strip for the rest of my games since it allows me to get pretty configurable.

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I really like the way the warm white strips look with the playfield. I have been using the warm white RGBW strips and love them. I am still trying to find a good diffuser and getting the diffuser away from the LEDs really helps. If anyone streams with the playfield lights, I have found the range of 35-60% on the WW lights is about right for streaming. The playfield will look a bit dark to the human eye but the playfield camcorder will pick up a bit more light than your eye. Here is a look at the mobile set I built for loaner games. I’m picking up a BSD soon and will be using these since you can’t really fit the playfield lights on the side because if the buildings. Here are the mobile lights in action on Whirlwind at about 50% brightness with a yellow/WW mix.

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Some great work out there.

Anyone selling kit?
Im not skilled at all to do that on my own.

I’ve got a few spares of the portable sets left over, but I don’t sell any of the internally mounted sets.

ebay.com link: Pinball Lighting Rails Custom Portable Light Solution for your Pinball Machine

what do you mean by internally mounted set?

do we have to remove the lighting if we work under the playfield? is it the same for pinstadium ?

Internal: Mounted under the glass to the top sides of the cabinet. They have to be removed (or in Pinstadium's case hung out of the way) to raise the playfield. Connected to electrics and electronics inside the pinball cabinet, but can offer GI Triggering and/or Flash strobing if properly equipped. While moveable between pins it requires much more work.

External/portable: Mounts above the glass to the metal side rails via a magnet. Totally external to the pin and can easily be moved from pin to pin. Usually do not offer any special triggering, but work great for pinball streaming.

I ordered a set off ebay the other day and will probably want another. Can we do a deal outside Ebay? PM me if so

These rock man. I hated pinstadiums because of price and functionality. Having to move them to lift the playfield and stuff is a major turn off and $500 is ridiculous for some light strips. Shooting a pm to get more.

since spooky games use rgb GI, is it possible to piggy back off a lamp for rgb signals or is it not strong enough to run a whole strip? Our rick n Morty is pretty dark where we have it and would be cool to have it change with gi instead of using relays etc for colors

Yesterday we had a game night and the stadium lights were on the whole evening. One on pin the light bars, which were attached with velcro, had melted the tape's glue and also had manage to melt the glue on the sideboard panel. So in essence the lightbar was trying to pull the decal away from the wall on the places where it was attached to the sideboard with velcro. I managed to fix the sideboard decals as they were soft and easily workable.

But how is that possible - how can the leds-strips produce such heat?

I guess the brightness setting might have been on some high position and also the other thing that may cause problems is that the L-bracket I used for stadium lights, is made of plastic. Aluminium brackets might be better to protect the sideboards from heat?

What are your thoughts on this - how could I make the situation better?

Thanks for any info!

Absolutely leds can melt glue, they produce significant heat. Not as much as incandescent, but they will definitely soften hot glue.

Thanks! I need to figure out how to put some insulation between the bracket and the velcotape pieces.

Any suggestions? Too bad I made my brackets out of plastic L-channel, aluminium would have been much better.
Might it be sufficent to cover the bracket with a black decal?

My suggestion is to use 3m backed mounting tape, 15 or 30lb. Clean with alcohol before adhering

But wouldn't 3M double-sided tape be difficult to remove, when one needs to remove the lightbars and get access to the playfield?

Oh, I thought you were talking about the led strip being adhered into the brackets. To adhere the brackets to the cabinet you should use magnetic strips. The leds won’t transmit heat to affect those. Velcro doesn’t have great glue on it. I use it to adhere my radar detector to the dash and in the summer the glue can turn into a soft mess.

I have been a bit against the magnetic strip, since it blocks quite a bit from the decal, once applied. The noname-velcro that I have been using is good in the sense that it can be easily removed if necessary. I do now know if those 3M strips with "locking mechanisms" would be better, but I am afraid that those could not be easily removed in case there was a need.

Here's a picture what happened with my lightbars: the glue with velcro-strips was soft, but the heat managed to soften also the glue holding the decal onto the cabinet. It did this on multiple spots where the lightbars were attached to the cabinet sides. And I was wrong, now it seems after all that fixing the decal to stay in place is difficult - maybe the decal lost its glue or something, since now it does not seem to want to stay in place anymore...

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With reference to my picture above - are there any alternative fastening methods for the lightbars than velco or magnetic tape? I have ordered some tape with the 3M dual lock mechanism, but apparently they are too sturdy and it will be impossible to remove the tape pieces from a decal, should the need arise some day.

Also I thought about adding the lightbars outside of the cabinet on top of the glass as one hobbyist here had done.

But I am wondering, has anyone created any poles onto which to attach the lightbars? That way the lightbars could be lifted up with the playfield too.

Please let me know any alternative ways of fastening the lightbars to the pinball machine to light up the playfield, thanks!