Suitable LEDs for normal Happ buttons?

[rhoelsch]

On a whim, I decided to purchase Andy's LED harness when I got my trackball from him.

[itguy]

On Oscar Controls' LED Driver page follow the link to Erik Ruud site.  There's a resistor calculator you can use at the bottom of Erik's page.

[cholin]

Theres a site to buy LEDs at www.lsdiodes.com
There's a resistor calculator at www.metku.net under modding.
I have a thread about LED brightness that hasnt gotten any real answers or pictures in the "Everything Else" section.  I plan on lighting buttons too, but I also plan on putting LEDs under my panel to light parts up.

At lsdiodes, a very bright one only costs a good 90 cents, whereas the cheaper ones cost 45 cents.

[johnnysmitch]

I have a thread about LED brightness that hasnt gotten any real answers or pictures in the "Everything Else" section.

I must admit, I didn't see/read your LED brightness thread, but to try to help you out, I used the blue ultrabrights from LS Diodes to light my buttons/trackball/joysticks, and I liked the brightness.

[cholin]

Wow how inspiring.  Sounds fabulous.  Im going with white LEDs though and Trimoor knows what Im planning to do and he said 3000 mcd is enough, so Ill go with those.  Damn though dude that looks nice at night.

[Buddabing]

Theres a site to buy LEDs at www.lsdiodes.com
There's a resistor calculator at www.metku.net under modding.
I have a thread about LED brightness that hasnt gotten any real answers or pictures in the "Everything Else" section.  I plan on lighting buttons too, but I also plan on putting LEDs under my panel to light parts up.

At lsdiodes, a very bright one only costs a good 90 cents, whereas the cheaper ones cost 45 cents.

I got 11000 mcd white LEDs for .26 each shipped on ebay. Check user "besthongkong."

[cholin]

Whoa thanks alot, cant argue with the prices, or the feedback ratings.

[Trimoor]

But you can argue with quality.  I haven't tried either, but I've heard some of the cheap ones don't produce a very good beam of light.  Often the white LEDs have plenty of blue spots in them, resulting from cheap manufacture.  You probably won't notice a difference when they are diffused though.  Yet another ominous thing to think about.

johnnysmitch, are the lighted buttons translucent or opaque?  What color are they when unlit?  And is that a space invaders game being played where a coin door would normally be?

[cholin]

I remember seeing that project before.  He scratched the design into plexi or something by hand and lit it.

[rhoelsch]

Geez, I was figuring I would get a lot of superbrights replies, since everyone talks about them.  Theoretically speaking I guess that you can go with the brightest you can find that'll fit into a pushbutton body...I mean, you can't really go too bright, can ya?

...oh, and johnnysmitch, that panel's the purdyest darn thing I've seen in a while!  I'm assuming those aren't white happs--they look too good...

[cholin]

You dont NEED superbrights if you dont want them, perhaps if they cost more than you want.  That looks great at 11000 MCD and I'm going to pick up some of them myself!  Probably like 50-100 Blue and 50-100 White.

[johnnysmitch]

Actually, yeah - they are just white Happs pushbuttons (opaque - they're the player start buttons). They light up quite nicely.

As far as the besthongkong LEDs on ebay - I've bought a bunch of them too - they're good as long as you buy a bunch more than you actually need; the price is great, but they're not very consistent in brightness/quality. I had to test them before using them when I put them into a project - around 1 out of 5 were dimmer than expected.

Finally, that's just plexiglass that I carved a space invaders scene into and edgelit with CCLs. Wanted to do something unique on my cab...

oh, and thanks for the compliments!

[cholin]

Can you link me to the site that tells you how to illuminate microswitch buttons.  I swear I bookmarked it, but I can't seem to find it!