Austin, TX
One of the areas that I thought could use some improvement on my Star Trek LE was the Warp Ramp LED. I finished this mod tonight and detailed the event on my Blog @
Pinball-Mods.com. Specifically; I always thought the two SMD red LED didn’t quite fit where it was placed in the machine. Here's a photo of the install which I borrowed from Kawydud in this thread:
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I'm not sure what's going on in this picture... I'm not sure if his camera blurred the leds; or if he was running some diffused LEDs. On my machine; the LED is a "retro" blub-style with a clear round lense.
The plan was to “replace” the LED round lens with a laser cut lense which duplicated the artwork on the insignia’s plastic. To this I disassembled the plastic by removing the four screws… and took the plastic to my HP scanner where I scanned the art into my computer. Then using Corel Draw, I traced the Red Arrow from the plastic art. I recreated the arrow using red; then added the black border around the plastic to block light and give a round area to mount the new LED. Once I had the recreated arrow; I broke it into two laser cut pieces. One would be cut out of the matte/diffused Red acrylic which was used on the Stern Star Trek Pop Undercaps. The second would be cut out of 1/8″ opaque black acrylic – this piece serving as an outline for the red piece and support from the LED.
I took these files to Techshop.ws where I laser cut several of each piece for experimentation later at home. Once the laser cutting was complete; I used the black cad files to laser etch some 1/4″ plywood to act as an assembling aid/surface. When I got home; I used the plywood and some wooden toothpicks to clamp the two pieces together:
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I then cut the round lens off the original LED using a new XACTO knife and then using some two part 5minute epoxy; I glued the lamp to the new lense:
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I allowed the epoxy to cure for about an hour. I then reinstalled the plastics and the new LED assembly:
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I’m really quite happy with the way this turned out. It defiantly spruces up the warp assembly. IF I had any critism on this... I wish the Matte Acrylic would have done a better job of diffusing the light... but overall; I think it's much better than the original bulb.
Limited units in-stock now at:
http://pinball-mods.com/oscom/product_info.php?products_id=36
