Does anyone have a TRON Pro within a reasonable distance of Olympia, WA? I'm looking for one to experiment on. I'd trade one of the LCD arcade screens and you'd be first in line for getting any potential mod at cost.

The picture is 3W LEDs at about 1/2 power on 5 feet of cable. I think they might be enough for the ramp length when driven at full power, but worst case we could switch to retina destroying 9W LEDs. I won't be able to do a complete test for at least a week, probably two, because we don't make anything in this country and I'm waiting on parts. (Sorry the photo is so bad, it was a chewing gum and bailing wire sort of situation.)

green.jpg

_{Post edited by ecurtz : Changed title}

5mm

I don't actually have a TRON (I know, but I'm really "frugal") so if other people are willing to do it I'd be happy to just kibitz. As with the screen, I'm not really looking to get into the mod business, I was just thinking of getting information out there, and possibly doing a group buy for the parts where there is a significant savings.

My criminally neglected homebrew machine uses color changing inserts so I couldn't resist getting some stuff to play with when I saw the TRON ramps.

It is already color controlled, it has a RGB LED at each end, and you can turn those on and off very quickly to control the color balance, sort of like how a lamp matrix works, but faster. These pics are just solid colors, but you can mix them just like the LE ramps.

http://www.nuprometheus.com/pinball/tronhouse/red.jpg
http://www.nuprometheus.com/pinball/tronhouse/blue.jpg

Those pictures are using a driver that has PWM (pulse width modulation, the way it turns them on and off quickly to control color) built in, but it only goes to 150mA and the LEDs will handle 350mA. The more powerful drivers need a separate PWM controller, but it's easy to do on anything like an Arduino (a $25 programmable board that's super popular with hobbiests) Just that would be enough to cycle colors, but you'd need to add current sensors or something like a PIG to read the lights or switches if you wanted it to react to the game.

You can by light sources premade, but they have a bunch of features we don't need which really up the cost.

12 feet of cable (seems like a lot, the ramps can't actually be that long) 3W LEDs at 150mA.

I haven't figured everything out yet, but I will post all the information. I'll probably also do some sort of kit, or at least a bulk buy, because there are parts from 5 or 6 different sources to deal with. I just found the data sheet and it turns out that the driver I'm using can combine channels, so I can probably test it at full power this weekend rather than waiting for alternate parts to arrive from China.

Sorry for the lack of updates, there have been various delays due to both ordering parts and extreme stupidity on my part (I managed to fry BOTH the microcontrollers I had on hand because I knew for sure how a board was wired when in fact it was done differently.)

Just wanted to let everyone know the project isn't dead, and there should be some full brightness pics later this week when my replacement stuff arrives.

I figured out I could just plug and unplug each channel manually until I get some new microcontrollers to adjust them in real time. The photos are a bit brighter than it looks in person, but it's definitely better now that they are at full power. I think that when the cable is more carefully aligned and cut down the correct length they'll be nearly as nice as the LE ones.

350mA_2.jpg 350mA_3.jpg 350mA_4.jpg

Thanks for the measurements ChadNC. The LE owner who measured for me said 5mm but it's probably hard to get exact without calipers. The 5mm already looks big to me, I think it will be fine.

pinballlooking, most of the stuff is listed. Things are still in the design phase so I haven't finalized the parts list, but 5mm "side glow" fiber optic cable, 3W RGB LEDs, and 330mA per channel drivers in those last pictures. Then you need a microcontroller, I'm using (well, burning out) Arduinos right now, but that will probably change, heat sinks, cable glands, molex connectors, some kind of case and some high side current sense amplifier circuits (not tested yet) if you want to react to switches or lights. I'll do a mod and/or a bulk parts buy when everything is done.

Replacement Arduinos arrived so a new video with some color fades.

And a photo of the prototype LED housing and controller.

Prototype_2.jpg

I have a spool of fiber optics arriving this week, and ordered a batch of LEDs (which will be weeks), so I'm committed to producing something at this point. Hopefully I'll have time this weekend to work on the circuit boards so I can get those prototyped ASAP.

Yes, 2 LEDs for each ramp, and they are separately controlled so the ramps can be out of sync if we want.

I'm trying to get an idea on cost, unfortunately the component parts aren't cheap. If I have to guess I'd say in the range of $300 - $400. I'll have a much better idea in a week or two. (Yeah, edited that after 5 minutes - I forgot PCB cost, like I said, it's just a guess...)

I'd be happy to make you a kit with just a section of uncut cable when we get to that point. There will basically be a master and a slave version of the LED housing thing as well, so you could just get a master one if you wanted do a single ramp (I'm thinking of doing the top arch for my WIP homebrew machine.)

I have no real objection to people getting them without cable, but you'd be paying a premium buying your own in short lengths. I'm curious why you'd want one with no cable.

Doing a single source would be a bit less expensive (maybe $40?) You'd need the same amount of cable and much beefier LEDs and drivers. IMO being able to have the two ramps different colors will help make up for lacking the full integration on the LE. What do other people think?

They are controlled by software, so it's trivial to keep them in sync. I think there would be times they matched and times they went to yellow and blue, but they won't "randomly" change individually. I'm getting some microcontrollers with built in USB this week, those would be pretty easy to update if people wanted to tweak their own light shows.

Reacting to game modes is more complicated. I'm planning on adding PIG support, but I'd really like it to know what the current mode is on its own. I started reading up on "high side current sense amplifiers" or I might need to do something as cheesy as stick photo resistors next to the bulbs to read their states, I haven't gotten to that point yet. Immediate goal is to get the circuit board done ASAP so I can get that tested, I just started that tonight.