Custom coin door LED lighting tutorial

[ids]

I have a four player coin door, in which I've replaced the default coin reject buttons with blue/red ones to match the over all colour theme of my cab.  Unfortunately, the blue does not let much light through with the default lighting options, connected to the PC's 12v supply.  In fact, it appears as though there may be no lighting at all.  I know superbrightleds sells plug-in replacements, but I was in a "build your own..." mood    The plan is to use some of LED's I have lying around.  Here's how it looked before the upgrade:



In this tutorial, I'm going to transform the above, to what you see below.  Note that the red is dimmer below for two good reasons: I haven't done the upgrade on them yet, and I've dropped from 12V to 5V for the LED's.



As you may be aware, pictures do not do justice to the real thing.  The lighting is almost uniform and a perfectly bright glow - just what I was looking for.  And you'll have a lot of control over how the lighting looks and its distribution, as we'll see.

We will start with a small proto-board as a base for the LED's - this is where I began, but anything you have lying around should do.  The key to this is the thickness of the board - which fits well into the lightbulb plug.  Initially it's just a bit loose, but when we're done, it is snug and sits well.



From this, we need to cut pieces on which mount the LED's.  Here's a pic of the cut board end and my first attempt to make this work:



The final result looks like a mess here, but we'll get a better view of it later on.  Above you see I have cut the end off the proto-board, and then cut a strip from that.  I don't have exact measurements, but the width is most important - make it much the same as the base of the bulb being replaced, as it is going to have to fit into the same slot.  The next picture shows a freshly cut piece (note that I've since had to shave a bit to narrow it - it was having trouble getting into the bulb slot).  Note also two slots cut into one end - these should align with the wiring on the original bulb base, and need only to be deep enough to fit a very thin wire, like the legs of a resistor.

[ids]

The next step is to prepare one of the power terminals for the LED board by wrapping the leg of a resitor (chosen to match your LED's) around the end, as shown here:

 

You'll want this to be tight - needle nose pliers might help.  Solder will also be used to help hold it in place.  As shown below, you will also trim the legs of some resistors - hold on to those trimmings.  One will be used as the other power terminal for this mini board (seen below).  Trim the short leg of each LED and solder to the resistors, as shown.  Make sure to put some heat-shrink tubing on the LED being soldered to the board here, there's no way to add it later.


   

Now, each bare leg of an LED goes into one of the holes along the top of the board (top being opposite to the two power terminals, and is also "up" on the pics above).  Push the leg through so just a bit is showing on the side with the copper pads.  Solder.

The other LED legs (the ones with resistors and heat shrink tubing) should now be soldered together at a common point.  This would be to the resistor fastened to the board, but before the resistor itself, so that all resistors run in parallel.

Take another piece of snipped resistor leg, bend it in roughly in the middle.  This piece will attach the other power terminal to the LED's exposed legs.  This is done by soldering one end to the terminal, and then the bent piece should touch all the solder points we did earlier.  Bad explanation, see pic below.  This pic is of the first one I attempted.  For the second one it was easier as the LED legs were lined up 4 in a row, unlike below.  Please excuse the sloppy soldering job.



Above you can clearly see the power terminals.  Don't worry at the moment about the orientation of the LED's - once installed you will orient them as needed.  A good diagonal angle into the coin reject button seems to work well (YMMV).  Below you see the first one installed, LED's oriented.  Next to it are original bulbs (running at 5V, so dimmer than normal).



another view, power off



Another view of the finished result (well, the two blue ones installed, red are coming soon).



For the red, I will use 3 LED's instead of 4, as light gets through them better.

Hope this helps, or at least entertains.

If you'd like more into, clarification, more pics, or anything else, please ask.

[Eddie_Brock]

Good Work, they look really good. 

Not to thread-jack, but I'd like to let everyone know about another option for anyone who already has a coindoor with existing lights similar to this:

These lights are 12v automotive "168" bulbs. There are LED 194's available (194 is universal, fits 168 socket) from almost any aftermarket automotive store. Each Bulb has multiple LEDs in them, and feed off the 12v line same as the incandescents. There's a big improvement over brightness, almost any color is available, and they are plug-and-play.

[ids]

Thanks.  I wasn't aware you could get them almost anywhere, but I had seen this: http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index.cgi?action=DispPage&Page2Disp=%2Fmini-wedge.html.  For anyone looking to brighten up their coin door, these (or equivalent) are probably worth buying - instead of doing what I've done.  However, I had a pile of LED's collecting dust, and was wondering if I could pull this off.  The result is a lot more effort than purchasing a commercial product, but it was fun, and allows for directing the LED's to get just the right look (not sure if that makes a difference in the end).  I was also able to experiment to determine just how many LEDs were needed to get the lighting I wanted.

Sometimes I feel guilty about buying a lot of "byoac" stuff, so this little project is one more item on the "built it myself" list. 

[bleargh]

Thanks.  I wasn't aware you could get them almost anywhere, but I had seen this: http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index.cgi?action=DispPage&Page2Disp=%2Fmini-wedge.html.  For anyone looking to brighten up their coin door, these (or equivalent) are probably worth buying - instead of doing what I've done.

I've got a few of those (the SuperBrightLEDS mini-wedges) behind my coin door, and they look awesome.

Thinking back, I remember having to place a minimum order before they'd ship to Canada, so I picked up a selection of different colours and brightnesses to try playing with it a bit and see what I liked best.  Since I only needed two for my cab, I'm pretty sure I've got more than a handful of these kicking around somewhere (shameless hint; PM me if you're looking for some in Canada, I've got spares).

[ids]

If you have blue and red, it might be worth doing a head-to-head comparison - and I too am in Canada, so shipping should be a breeze.