Speaking about the speaker lights that just light around the speakers... they will work fine no matter what the trim ring is made of. Especially when using the Kenwood speakers that have the light silver speaker cones. Having said that, the light from the light kit will show up much more and the light kit will have more impact if the trim ring allows light to shine through it.

Most of the time these have been plastic in the LE games from the factory, but others (Led Zep LE light blue and The Munsters / Jurassic Park / Rush LE brass / gold) have been metal. I don't really know what was in The Mandalorian LE. I believe it was black plastic, but even being plastic....the black will usually not allow any light to shine through it. The ones used in Rush LE are the same part as was in The Munsters LE (and Jurassic Park LE for some reason) and are metal. So they will not allow the light kit light to shine through them.

A person could get my gold mirrored speaker surrounds to get past that. As I have them etched to allow light to shine through them. The mirrored acrylic material usually is a light blocking material, but with the etching that is not the case. Here is a video of what the Rush LE trim ring would look like (on the right) opposed to the etched gold mirror surround (on the left).

Doug (SpeakerLightKits.com)

SpeakerLightKits.com actually. I hope you don't take offence to the correction as I have actually had people get mad when I have done that in the past.

Doug (SpeakerLightKits.com)

SpeakerLightKits.com

The coin-door ball save is a setting in the menu.

When it is turned on....it makes it so you can open the coin door, remove the glass to retrieve a stuck ball, let the ball drain and when you put the glass back in and close the coin door.......it will relaunch the ball that you lost and let you continue playing that ball.

It can be thought of as opening the coin door as a pause button basically, and as mentioned, it's good to have on for when balls get stuck.

To clear things up a bit:

There are people that have speaker ADAPTERS that allow a person to mount 5.25" speakers on SPIKE 2 4" speaker plates.

What I sell are 5.25" speaker PLATES to mount 5.25" speakers in SPIKE 2 games. They are not adapting anything. They are a replacement speaker plate. You take out the old ones and you put in the new ones. No adapting.

The rest of what I have to say is based solely on the LOOK of the speaker mountings.

If you are using the 4" speaker plates, either with 4" speakers or with 5.25" speakers with the help of an adapter....you are best keeping those 4" speaker plates covered up. The speaker holes are off center in the rectangle grill area and they have those craptastic looking bars running through the 4" speaker holes. So, leave the speaker foam in there to keep them covered or have a design mounted on the grill to cover them or something.

If you want to show off your speakers, make sure they are 5.25" and you have them mounted using the 5.25" speaker plates. Otherwise...it's going to look crap.

Doug (SpeakerLightkits.com)

If you have or are planning on getting the Expression lighting from Stern and don't mind doing the 5.25" speaker upgrade if you do not already have 5.25" speakers, I would hold out to do that and get the Ninja Camp Expressive speaker lights. They really add to the effect of the factory Expression lights and combined, make a powerful interactive light and sound experience.

If you are just wanting some great looking speaker lights that light the entire grill area (and you are not looking for switchable flame colors), I would get my Deluxe SPIKE 2 Speaker Light Kit. It has individually addressable LEDs, 358 different color / color transition patterns (8 of which can be saved on a DIY / favorites list for easy access or auto switching), all at a lower price ($85).

Except for the instances I just mentioned (Expression lighting or wanting switchable flame colors) if you are looking for a fully lit grill type, SPIKE 2 speaker light kit with the most available options, my Deluxe SPIKE 2 Speaker Light Kits have that covered.

Doug (SpeakerLightKits.com)

What? No shout out to me for pointing out, to you, how useless the notches are on the front of the factory 5.25" speaker plates? Don't you remember asking me about the notches and you not even being aware of them or what they were? I sent you some pictures and explained that the plates didn't need them, and the plates may look better without them. It was just a few months ago, about the time you were saying: "Let me be clear, we have no interest in being in the speaker light business" when asking various questions about my speaker lights. Then you asked for one of my light kits that you put on your test bench and put through its paces with seeing how it worked and how much power you could pump into it before you fried the light strips.

It seems pretty weird that you would do all of that when you went out of your way, unprovoked, to say: "Let me be clear, we have no interest in being in the speaker light business" when it is now obvious, that is exactly what you were interested in doing.

I have often communicated with Pinwoofer Dan over the past 4 years. Usually with one of us or the other having questions to make sure our mutual customers don't have any compatibility issues with our products....and they never have. All of our products work nicely together without issue. So, I really had no reason to be suspicious of him when he would ask questions or asked for one of my light kits. Sadly...that was just me being a trusting dumbshit, as he was using that info and my goodwill to step on my toes and start selling his own speaker lights. Evidently, his "Let me be clear" rang true to me, when his statement about having no interest in getting in the speaker light business was clearly not true.

Doug (SpeakerLightKits.com)

Nice! The Ninja Camp Expressive Speaker Lights are a more accurate use of the Stern Expression Lights for the speakers. The Stern Expression Lights are 2 rows of 24 bulbs on each side (one row below the other). The Ninja Camp Expressive Speaker Lights have 2 rings of 24 bulbs on each side (one ring behind the other). This makes a perfect 1 to 1 light show pairing between the Stern Expression Lights and the Ninja Camp Expressive Speaker Lights. So, if you get a solid color sweep down one side of the cabinet with the Stern Expression Lights, you are going to get a solid color sweep around one of the Ninja Camp Expressive Speaker Lights.

I don't think the same can be said for the new knock-off on the block. I guess their claim, that it "follows" the Stern Expression Lighting is true, It is showing the same colors as the Stern Expression Lights and they are changing along with them, but it doesn't MATCH the Stern Expression Lighting like the Ninja Camp speaker lights do. I would say it is a bold, or maybe even brazen, attempt at copying someone else's idea, but not really well thought out.... especially if Stern implements some Expression Light coding that really differentiate the top and bottom rows of the Expression Lighting.

Custom SPIKE 2 speaker panels were previously done for Guardians of the Galaxy, and Star Wars I believe. Though, they were sold raw and the buyers had to get them coated in their color of choice themselves. I believe another well-known mod seller was supposed to pick them up and start having them for other games, but that ball seems to have got dropped somewhere.

I like quite a few of these designs that have been shown off and I was wondering about the round type designs (either of the Foo Fighters designs for example) and how they would lineup with the size and location of the 5.25" speakers and the 5.25" specific light kits. As far as the vertical alignment goes...that should be a no brainer unless something was severely overlooked when laying out the designs and how they fall on the panel. The harder part would probably be getting them aligned horizontally, but as it is, if the design area is in the same location as the factory honeycomb area, they should pretty much line themselves up, since the 5.25" speakers are made to center up pretty well in the grill areas.

Having said that, it's pretty easy for the speaker plates and LCD screen to not be centered on the panel. From seeing the picture that you have of your right speaker....I would say your screen and speaker plates are out of alignment. This can be a bit hard to tell depending on the angle that a picture is taken, but it looks like your speaker plates and screen are slid too far to the right. I'm expecting your left side would have the speaker ring far closer to the LCD screen side of the grill area than the right side is. This is an easier fix than it may first appear. All you need to do is....open the speaker panel and remove the nuts that hold on the 2 support straps to the speaker panel. Then loosen the other 3 nuts on each speaker plate. You will keep the speakers and LCD screen attached to both speaker plates. So, when you have all 8 nuts loosened or removed from the speaker plates....you can slide the screen and speaker plates back and forth together on their mounting slots to get them centered as best as possible. Then just tighten the nuts back and re-attach the support straps. Make sure you are pressing the speaker panel in toward the backbox as you tighten the bottom nuts on each side. I have seen this type of screen / speaker misalignment from time to time. I'm expecting sometimes from the factory and sometimes from an oversight during a speaker / speaker light install. It's an easy fix though.

On a related note, my Deluxe Speaker Light Kit (Type 12) should work perfectly fine on these custom panels as the CoinTaker light kits are a direct copy of them. My light kits are superior and, as mentioned, the original. Please do not support people that send off other people's products to get copied so they can make money off of someone else's ideas and designs.

Doug (SpeakerLightKits.com)

GotG Deluxe with custom panel (resized).jpg

I currently don't have any plans for anything like that, but I wouldn't count out the idea either.

Did you try it with the speaker foam removed? I think the round speaker lights look better without the foam in front of them. If you didn't, you might want to pull the foam on one side and see what you think.

SpeakerLightKits.com is on the case...

I just revealed this since the Foo Fighters Expression Lights were announced today. HIGH IMPACT - SPIKE 2 Speaker Light Kits for games with Expression Lights will be avaliable from http://www.SpeakerLightKits.com

No need for a speaker upgrade, as these will work with 4" or 5.25" speakers. I am not sure on a release date or price, but they should be significantly cheaper than any other speaker lights that use the Expression Lights for their interactive light show.

Here is a video I have of a proto-type set on a Led Zep LE. I'm not sure if the YouTube video will stay up, so I will leave a One Drive link of the video also.

https://1drv.ms/v/s!ApLozahRRppJhRj6EZBlJFi4lKwq?e=wF7Nf8

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask, but I'm not quite ready to spill all the beans yet. I just wanted to get this out there since folks have Expression Lights on their mind and I wanted everyone to know there was an upcoming alternative to the other light kits that work with Expression Lights that are currently available.

Doug (SpeakerLightKits.com - Home of the Original Pinball Speaker Light Kits)

Here's another bit about my upcoming, High Impact Speaker Light Kit for use with Expression Lights. As I have already stated, it will work with 4" or 5.25" speakers so no need for a speaker or speaker plate upgrade if that is not wanted. Having said that, this kit should be compatible with any 5.25" speaker upgrade you throw at it. If a person does happen to have 5.25" speakers, mounted as they should on 5.25" speaker plates, you can add my Deluxe 5.25" Speaker Light Kit (type 13) to make the SUPER High Impact Speaker Light Kit for use with Expression Lights.

This compatibility with the High Impact Speaker Light Kit will work with all existing type 13 light kits that have been bought from me. So, if you already have a type 13 kit, you are part way to a SUPER High Impact light kit already. Due to the design and its flexibility, the inner light rings can be situated in 64 different user selected positions. For example....both light rings running the same direction or each of them running opposite from one another. You can have the beginning and ending of the light strip and data signal at the top, right, left or bottom of the rings.....and as I said, running in either direction. These user selected positioning options only pertain to the inner light rings of the SUPER High Impact configuration. The outer, High Impact frames are designed to always be mounted and the lights / data signal running opposite from one another. I defiantly think having the rings running the opposite direction from the frames is the way to go, but I haven't decided if I have a preference on where to put the data signal break (it's on the bottom in the video).

These are still being worked on, but I am quite certain the High Impact Speaker Light Kit will come in at a significant lower price than the current Expression controlled speaker lights, while being more feature rich and consumer friendly than their offering are also. They should also be compatible with the cabinet lighting (undercab and behind the backbox lighting) that Mezel Mods is selling if someone wants to add that to their game....and, as I said, at a significantly lower price than the current offerings.

Doug (SpeakerLightKits.com - Home of the original pinball Speaker Light Kit)