Hi guys,

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you, Rick, and others who are waiting patiently. I've had a hectic year, our daughter Penny was born in July, meanwhile my business partner in my primary business was in and out of the hospital for the rest of the year with some serious health issues. Fortunately he's back to work and Penny is sleeping through the night so we're good to go on another run of panels!

This new run will have one important change incorporated, that being compatibility with ColorDMD panels. No connectors will be present on the middle part of the back of the panel so that the ColorDMD panel can sit flush against the wood.

The new waiting list is about as long as the first one, I think I'll be running close to 100 panels this time just to make sure I have enough for the latecomers. To that end if anyone out there reading this post wants a CFTBL backlight panel and hasn't yet put in a request to be on the list, you can still get in now before I start ordering PCBs, these are the longest-lead item and they have to be made in reasonable quantity to get good pricing.

I hope to be updating you guys and everyone else on the list soon with pricing and estimated availability for this next run.

BTW 7craig7 I've put you on the list!

Thanks,
Jeff

So for all those who are waiting, here is an update on the next run of CFTBL panels:

Bare boards are in! They look great and I've already hand-populated one board set to try out. The pics below show the result. I have the PCB fabricator tooling up to build the rest, and parts are arriving daily. Notice that the entire design is now connectorized, no wiring harness save for power entry. This means that everything will be concealed inside the panel, so there's nothing to interfere with ColorDMDs. Also check out how thin the boards are, only 0.020" thick! This will move the LEDs back a bit from the plastic and spread the light more. Plus the board is now white which will also help to increase light spread.

I do need to get my hands on a FF/Pinball Pro speaker set to determine if there is any interference there since people did have some issues with the previous revision. From the looks of it these kits come with an MDF mounting block for each speaker?? Is that true of both FF and Pinball Pro types of speaker kits?

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Hi again everyone, another update...

PCBs were run today, though I haven't gotten them yet. The speaker grilles are due in next week, and I am cutting plywood. As with all good things in pinball, this one has taken time, but at least we're in the home stretch.

For those who have asked to be on the list, I am going through my PM's to try and respond to each one. I have been swamped lately and haven't been able to check for a while so there are probably a lot of you waiting for responses. Sorry about that.

The next set of pictures I post will (hopefully) be of the completed first article of this run.

Thanks for your patience everyone!

Jeff

Just a quick update, everyone, not much time these days to pontificate:

CNC cutting last 4 panels (right this moment as a matter of fact!)
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Stack of panels ready to be painted
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The new batch of speaker grilles...
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Some panels getting t-nuts
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You've all been very patiently waiting, and I thank you for that. They are really almost done now!

Thanks,
Jeff

Hi all,

The wait is over! CFTBL panels are slated to start shipping this month! I'll be notifying the first shipping group by email (or Pinside mail, whichever I happen to have on file) in the next 2 weeks. The emails will include payment instructions and a serial # to help me match up people with panels.

Here are some pics of a finished panel. You'll see in the pictures below that there is a new component added to the design, a light block to prevent bleed from letter to letter over the Starlight sign. This, in my opinion, was needed because of the change over to the white circuit boards, and because the boards are now further back from the panel plastic. While this spreads the light out more and fights "hotspots" in the lighting, it does also give the light more opportunity to bleed over to neighboring areas where it doesn't belong. With the addition of the light block the sign looks much more crisp during animation.

What's really cool is the view from the inside of the panel - no wires save for the power connector! Everything is wide open for ColorDMD to lay down flat with no interference.

Thanks for your patience, everyone. This has been the biggest batch of panels yet and I've brought some other people into the process so we can get LED panels for some other titles out there as well. TZ is a likely next game but others have been discussed. Suggestions are welcome.

Jeff

Panel with (original) speaker panel plastic overlaid
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Panel with speaker panel removed
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Light blocking insert in action
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Back of panel - no more connectors
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