Lighted Pushbuttons - Standard Happs? Electric Ice? Translucent?

[Q*bert]

I am going to play around with led lighting of my buttons.  I have a SlikStik Classic CP...

I will use an LedWiz and MaLa as a front end since it supports these.

I would love to save some money and use my existing standard Happ buttons, but I don't know how practical that is.  I see that there are some 5mm leds available on eBay that have up to 50,000 mcf output, but I don't have any idea if that enough to show through the opaque buttons, or how much they will light up.

So any opinions on these options would be greatly appreciated:

1)  Can you use standard opaque Happ buttons with leds?  If so, how bright should the leds be?

2)  Are the GGG Electric Ice buttons nicer than translucent Happs, or vice-versa?

3)  If Electric Ice buttons are good, are the RGB drives really useful?

4)  For those of you who are using leds, now that you done it once, how would you do it over again?

Thanks!

[squirrellydw]

GGG Ice buttons are more white but have a nice glow.  The RGB drives a great if you want different colors, you can just use them.

[Silver]

1)  Can you use standard opaque Happ buttons with leds?  If so, how bright should the leds be?

Yes you can, this is what I plan to do.

I've tested by drilling a 5mm hole into the base of the button (where the cherry switch pops in). This creats a tight fit for a 5mm superbright LED, and there is space to bend the LED legs out above the switch. I bought a pile of 12000MCD lights off ebay for peanuts and they make the buttons glow.

Obviously:

1) not as bright as using translucent buttons. But I can always upgrade in the future

2) No RGB LED's as I am using coloured buttons.

With the lights off, the buttons glow very well. In brightly lit rooms, it is not as impressive

[Q*bert]

Thanks for the replies.   I have ordered an LedWiz, a bunch of super bright leds, and one Electric Ice w/RGB Drive.  I'll be able to try all the options and decide after seeing the actual results.