If you ever wanted to buy LED lights for your stand up targets, you have noticed that by the time you buy all the ones you need, they come out to about $150 a game.

How about building some for .19 cents each?

First you need some 1/8" "unbreakable" Lexan.

This sells for $4 a square foot at the hardware store. A square foot could make over 140 targets, so ask if they will give you any Lexan scraps for free.

Those square targets some in different lengths, but they are all the same height. Cut your Lexan into 3/4" strips, and then you can score it with a razor and snap any lengths you need. Some games like AFM need 2 different lengths in the same game.

5mm LEDs fit snugly (without glue) in a #12 drill bit hole.

Drill all your holes while the plastic is still in long strips, as it's dangerous to drill small pieces of anything.

HOLES.jpg

Get some high brightness LEDs from Ebay or Tayda.

8,000 MCD should be plenty bright.

Note there is a flat spot on the LEDs, this shows the Neg side of the diode.

Push the LEDs into the holes in your Lexan.

Connect the two bottom (-) leads together to one side of the power wire.

Connect the (+) side of those same LEDs to the (-) of the LEDs above them.

Connect the (+) side of the above LEDs to two 100 ohm 1/4 watt resistors (I know I used 120 ohm in the picture - close enough for Jazz).

Finally connect the resistors to the other end of the power wire.

Because the GI lighting circuit is AC, you don't have to worry about polarity. If you were connecting these lights to DC, the wire connecting to the resistors would be (+).

WIRING-DIAG.jpg

Plug in the lamp board to whatever power you have in the shop (here I just had a 4.5 volt battery pack).

Crazy bright light, and not even full voltage.

LIT-UP.jpg

Clean the metal strip on the back of the target and the face of the LED array with 99% alcohol.

Using some 3M double sided VHB (Very High Bond) tape, apply the array.

Make sure the edges of the array do not interfere with the switch face. Once the VHB tape is on for 24 hours, it is never coming off.

That's it.

19 cents latter (less if you get the Lexan for free), you have super bright stand up targets on your WH2O, AFM, CC, PZ..........

DONE.jpg

Red, Orange and Green LEDs are usually 2v or so, but Blue might be 3 or 4v or higher.

There are many online LED resistor calculators to find the resistor value for the oddball LEDs.

http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz

I cut the strips on the table saw to 3/4" wide.

Then I drilled the holes.

Then I scored the lengths and broke them with welding pliers.

The Lexan has some flex to it, so it is not brittle like Plexi

welding 5.jpg

http://www.taydaelectronics.com/

2 cent, ultra bright LEDs (and many connectors for B/W games)

I just made them in my hotel room, so no game here to install them on.

Love you too.

lol

front or back?

I'll take some shots when I'm back in my room for you.

Cell phone does not know how to focus that close, but you get the idea.

IMG_20131024_222823.jpg

For the smallest of the "3D" stand up targets I used 3mm LEDs rather than the 5mm.

Space is tight as there is only .82" of space inside the target face, so the smaller LEDs were called for.

small-green-target.jpg

Yes, the Shadow battlefield is almost black in a darkened room.

Try lighting the yellow targets with Warm White rather than yellow LEDs; as yellow LEDs tend to look a hair greenish in practice.

You would have to find some clear round targets, like from an old Bally or something.

Super easy, just connect them to the switched bulb leads.

Post some clear pictures of what you propose.

Post a drawing of what you want to do.