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New Product: Lightmite LB leaf button lighting module **Now Available**
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quarterback:
Okay, so I've come up with a solution that's like night and freakin day.   It's not a 100% solution yet, because it doesn't hold the button in place in the CP, but it sure is a start.    Take a look at these new pics from the top:






The green and the blue are basically the same intensity now.  The green color is better in real life than the pictures show and the only downside is you see a little bit of the LEDs themselves, so the light isn't quite as uniform around the button, but it's pretty darn good..

How did I get the change?  I flipped the lightmite over.     Well, that wasn't all I did.  I also used a thin 'wood panel' leaf switch instead of the thicker metal cp leaf switch.  Doing this with a metal CP leaves the entire underside of the button fully exposed.  I then flipped over my light mite and put the LEDs right under the button's bezel.

This is similar to the "Knievel" method, except without any translucent ring.  The downside of this is, of course, that the leaf-swtich isn't holding the button tightly to the CP itself.  But it shows that these greens can work after all.    The pic below shows the two buttons from the bottom and the difference between the lighting methods.



You can see the opposing lighting methods for each.  The green LEDs just weren't able to pump enough light through the entire green button's plunger to light up the top (and didn't even get close to putting any light into the bezel).  But by putting the LEDs right under the button itself, it's a freakin light show!

The key now is to figure out how to stabilize the whole thing.  I can go the Knievel way and either drill holes in my larger, white leaf switches, but I don't think I'll get the dispersion I need.  I'm going to try and come up with some alternative piece of something that will fit between the leaf switch and the bottom of the CP.


You might notice that there's something funky going on with the way I've mounted my blue switch. 



Since the Light Blue translucent buttons I have are the "long" (wooden CP) size, they don't fit correctly with the switch either, so I currently have two leaf-button plungers inverted and wedged between the leaf switch and the CP.  It's not a perfect solution but something like that enables the leaf button to be tightened down while still leaving the underside of the button exposed so I may just come up with some partial 'spacers' to wedge between the leaf-switch and the bottom of the CP.

Anyway, I'm just happy to see that the greens can be lit up to a completely acceptable level.
Cheers
quarterback:
More Success!

Okay, since I have a metal CP, the white leaf-switches that I have are thick, but they're also hollow.  I originally thought this would be a problem if I wanted to do a Kneivel style lighting setup because it wouldn't diffuse the light properly but, in the end, their hollowness is perfect for my needs.

Since they're hollow, I was able to cut a chunk out of each side and put the LEDs in at a it of an angle.  Here's a pic of just the leaf switch uninstalled



And here's one from the bottom of the cp.  You can see how the LEDs are at an angle instead of pointing straight towards the plunger:



This angling of the LEDs eliminates the problem where you can see the two LED 'lines' from the top of the cp.  Also (as noted in my previous post) lighting the green translucents from just beneath the bezel (instead of up through the plunger) is much more efficient.  In fact, it might even be argued that my dark green translucent is now brighter than my light blue one.

Below is a picture from the top.  I've tried to color correct it so you can get a feel for how good the green looks, but I still wasn't able to get the color to be as rich as it is in real life.  The main difference between the two lighting 'styles' is that lighting through the plunger lights up the very center of the plunger's structural parts while you can see in the green picture, the very center portion is actually dark.

This difference is negligable and I only mention it because it's the only difference I can tell between the lit green and the lit blue.  Both of them look freakin' great!

mccoy178:
Good job man!  I bet Whammoed is like,"right on!".  Thanks for the pics.  Noobs across the world are rejoicing! ;D
whammoed:
Good job QB.  Didn't think it would be so simple.  I still may eventually try the brighter leds the other way though, just for fun.

thanks!
Kremmit:
That is officially the first time I've ever seen one of the green translucents and not thought "Yuck".  Looks nice!
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