(Topic ID: 21733)
Linked Games
Stargate
Gottlieb, 1995
Topic Gallery
Rio Rancho, NM
That is a million times better than the incandescent rope, IMO. I understand that people will still want the factory look, but that translite looked a LOT better with cool white LEDs than warm white behind it when I had my Stargate......blue just fits it, and the blue kinda matches the event horizon anyways.
Quoted from absocountry2:Where did you get that light? Mine is out and that might be the best option.
The short answer is I made it. It was kind of a hassle so I'm trying to find an easier way that would work for most other owners. Basically I bought LED strip and a driver from Mouser, and then stuffed the strip into a tube from Lowe's. The cost was about the same as the conventional one.
As far as looks go, Frax is right that I used blue to match the event horizon. I understand the desire for the factory look, but when it comes to lighting the original designers were limited by cost and availability of lights. If blue LED rope lights were cheaply available at the time, they might have used that instead. Either way, to each his own.
My problem with it right now is that it takes a long time to fade off. My machine came without the ropelight so I don't know if it's supposed to turn on and off during the game, but if it is, it doesn't. If it's supposed to stay on while the machine is on, there's no problem. If it's supposed to blink or anything, I'll have to come up with a fix.
My only concern would be reflections off the playfield glass. Those LEDs are quite a bit brighter than a normal incandescent rope light. Do you find them distracting at all while playing?
7 months later
rancegt, how did you get it converted to DC? Did you have to use a rectifier? I believe the ropelight is AC not DC .... Either the guy before me cooked something wierd up .. or ....
Beauharnois
5 months later
Quoted from thewebexpert:rancegt, how did you get it converted to DC? Did you have to use a rectifier? I believe the ropelight is AC not DC .... Either the guy before me cooked something wierd up .. or ....
Does anybody know the answer to this? The power to the rope light on the game is what +16VDC?
Redisham
That does look very nice indeed. Can we have a photo of it in the daylight with it off so we can see what it looks like unlit.
It should flax on and off as viperrwk says, but depending on how you've got t hooked up, that should be a very easy fix indeed.
Good stuff.
The rope light is driven off the 20VDC line and is controlled by SOL21 (Q22) on the driver board. There are three 3.3 ohm 7W resistors in series in the circuit for the existing light. To get it to work with SOL21 you could make your own LED strip, remove the existing resistors and use the inherent resistance of the LEDs wired in series. The problem with this is that you probably could only use about 7 blue LEDs or 13 red LEDs (rough calculations assuming 3.3 and 1.8 forward voltage drops respectively.) I'm sure there are others who have better ideas on how to do this though.
If someone did make an affordable color rope light that was plug and play I'd be interested!
viperrwk
Quoted from viperrwk:If someone did make an affordable color rope light that was plug and play I'd be interested!
viperrwk
Wouldnt we all....
I'm glad you guys like the blue light. I never have gotten it to switch off and on properly like the regular rope light does. I didn't modify the machine at all to make this work. I think that getting the lights to turn on and off properly would require some light modification of the driver board.
As far as power goes viperrwk is mostly right, but his math is based on diodes in series. The trick is to use several parallel circuits. This was my first attempt, and I actually removed it and used a blue LED rope light that I bought from Walmart and modified heavily to match the LED's to the power at the connector. I had to cut open the tubing and modify the rope light wiring. I added a volume pot in series to make the brightness adjustable.
Here's an online calculator to figure out how to configure your LED's to your power source. The value that you plug in for the current will control the brightness of your LED.
6 months later
Tilburg
Quoted from Dutch-Mac:Just finished the first step of my project ... multicolor led ropelight !
Nice! How'd you do it?
And after you did it did it contribute to the garbage display problem you're having? Or was that pre-existing?
viperrwk
Does you rope light go off and on with the game modes like the orginial rope light does? By the way it looks great!
Yes it does ... It also has a remote controller so you can adjust the color to your liking or just set it on rotate so the colors will change automatically. You can dim or brighten the lights and change into a lot of different colors. Pics above are just 4 examples of many. Also there will be a led strip underneath and at the back of my SG so it will create a colorful surrounding in the same amount of possibilities.
I did a similar mod to my DEST. The chase light rope was fried so I made one with blue LEDs. I tested the power output and padded each line with the proper resistor, as per the calculator I used, and the chase lights work fine and look much better too. I love the idea of using the color changing rope light. I have one complete with remote. Now I know what I'm going to do with it! Thanks for the great tip, Dutch-Mac.
Just finished the first step of my project ... multicolor led ropelight !
Where did you get your LED rope light? The Sylvania model I have is a light strip, not a rope that's round. The only ropes I've been able to find are 1/2" diameter, which is a bit too thick.
Post edited by PinPall007: tried to select a quote, but it didn't print properly.
Quoted from Dutch-Mac:Just finished the first step of my project ... multicolor led ropelight !
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Quoted from PinPall007:Where did you get your LED rope light? The Sylvania model I have is a light strip, not a rope that's round. The only ropes I've been able to find are 1/2" diameter, which is a bit too thick.
This is also a led strip and not a rope light like the original one that was in it. It is fitted on a specially made woodpanel with mirrorglass to cover up any wiring. By the way I wanted all led lights but to keep the focus on the new rope light we decided to leave the normal bulbs in it, beside the ramp railing that is.
After the led on the inside here some pics from led on the outside of the SG. These lights are also controlable the same way as the led inside the SG. The guys from Ipinball did a great job on this part of the job ... ! Thanks Toni.
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IMG-20140418-WA0004.jpgThanks for the great pics. I really enjoy being able to see how other pin owners work on and customize their pins. Nice job!
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