Marquee light - powered by?

[Stingray]

The cab I'm working on is a circa 1982 Midway Blueprint cab if that makes any difference. This cab still has the original light fixture in it, which I'd like to use. There are three wires going into it -black, blue, green. The blue wire appears to be the hot wire. One of the others is obviously ground, what's the third? Is a built in light fixture powered by 110 ac current, or is powered by a lower voltage from the power supply?

Or is this like asking "how long is a piece of string?" You'll have to forgive me, I'm a car guy.  

-S

[APFelon]

Green is known as the field ground. It has no current going to or from it. It is the same as the third prong on some appliances plugs. Someone can probably explain this better than I could...

APf

[Stingray]

Okay, that makes sense. Any idea what kind of current to apply to this?

-S

[Brad Lee]

If its the original light the info may be in here
http://www.arcadedocs.com/vidmanuals/B/Blueprint.pdf
(from KLOV)

[Stingray]

Here's the relevant page from that manual:

http://www.stingrays.dk/arcade/bplight.jpg

It doesn't help me any, but maybe it would mean something to one of you guys who know more about these things than I do.  

The one in my cab does appear to be the original fixture, looks just like the one in the manual.

-S

[Ken Layton]

That's a common Midway light fixture same as used on Galaga, Ms. Pacman, Tron, etc.

Wire it as follows:

Black: 120 volts ac (hot)

Blue: 120 volts ac (neutral)

Green: frame ground

The mating connector is an AMP brand Universal Mate-N-Lock 3 pin which you can get from Mouser.com as their part number 571-3507661. The pins for it are Mouser # 571-3505501.

[Stingray]

Thanks Ken! That's what I needed to know.  

I have the mating connector, but thanks for the information.

-S

[Ken Layton]

I just repaired one of these exact light fixtures last night on a Ms. Pacman. It had an open ballast.

This fixture uses F15T8CW fluorescent tube and an FS-2 starter.

If testing the ballast, a good one will read around 25 ohms of resistance.

[Stingray]

Hopefully it works, but this is good to know if it doesn't.

-S