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Add LED to Happ Comp Buttons
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RandyT:
As one who has done this a few times, you can forget coming to any real conclusions about how to light buttons based on photos.  If the photo has a pitch black background, or the area around the lighted part is heavily shaded, it's a bad indicator.  On a dark night, you can see a glowing cigarette ember from a mile away.  It doesn't take much to make anything appear lit in a dark room (which is also good to consider if you are going to use your cabinet primarily in a darkened environment).

The sensor in most cameras is just too sensitive to light, and will usually auto-adjust, making dim things brighter and bright things dimmer.  A high quality DSLR on full manual setting, with the buttons at the same level, with normal room lighting, a tripod and no flash might have a chance.  Otherwise, get a button of each color you plan to light, jam an LED in there and come to your own conclusions.

My experience with standard nylon has been that certain colors are ok, in that you can tell that they are being lit (usually just the centers of the plungers and whatever creeps through the gap), while other don't work very well at all.  Blue seems to be one of the better ones, while green....well, just forget about doing this with green :).

RandyT
saloonstudios:
Yeah, as far as exposure goes I know these photos are not an example of how bright these things actually get. I used to be a cinematographer and I'm still a photographer so I know exposure  :)
My concern wasn't how bright they got, but whether or not they were able to glow at all. I don't need buttons that will light my room I just want a cheap solution to add a little bit of flair to a CP. Thanks for sharing your experience though. I've never done one of these so I'm gathering as much info as I can-
releasedtruth:
The Happ LED solution drilled into the side of the button gives a very nice glow without blinding you from the bottom. Divemaster or Ponyboy can give you more info. I've been happy with the result, but they are a little bit bulky and the resistor bayonet can get a little difficult to work with.
Ond:

--- Quote from: WhereEaglesDare on August 14, 2010, 07:17:48 pm ---Can you see any light on the buttons when the lights are on?  I havnt seen this before, the one I saw just had it to where there was a small ring of lights around the button plungers, but your buttons look fantastic! 

--- End quote ---

You might mean my original mod posted here  http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=59359.msg971847#msg971847
darcyp:
i was going to post pics, but none came out too well. the best pic ive seen of it is endaars 4th picture.
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