Tricking out classic cabs. Is this a bad idea?

[MYX]

I have a millipede. I have spean a lot of time removing water damage from some previous owner. I have made this thing work again. Throuroughly cleaned the thing. I wanted to replace the fire button because it was cruddy. I have a standard black, but I went and bought a translucent green button to put in it's place. I did it to add a little something and kept it with the original color theme. My next thought was to take line off of the +12 volt feed and light the green button with a 555  or perhaps a 47.

Is decorating and keeping the theme a bad thing, or does this make it perhaps more desireable to a potential buyer as it is unique?

[MinerAl]

Something as thoroughly reversable as that should have no net effect on the resale value to a purist collector, and the bling might be the thing that tips the scales in some buyer's mind.

Go for it.

See if you can find a transluscent green track ball for it too

[ChadTower]

IMO, if you restore it from a trash state, you can do what you want with it.  Most would prefer you make it original but it does belong to you and you did save it in the first place. 

The general consensus among reasonable purists is that if you mod a classic cab in an easily reversible, nonpermanent way, no harm no foul.

[RayB]

Just don't drill any new holes through the control panel, etc and all is good.
Keep the old parts in a bag or box and leave it in the cab for the next owner.

[ahofle]

Reading the title, I thought you were going to be adding NoS stickers and a Toyota Supra spoiler to your cabinet. 

[ChadTower]

I did expect to see mention of ground effects and 15" subwoofers too, actually.   

[Glaine]

I think ArcadeFever prettied up his 1942 with illuminated pushbuttons and someother things. Looked something awesome.

[MYX]

Keep the old parts in a bag or box and leave it in the cab for the next owner.

Good Idea. I would not de-face any cabs. I did that once and still feel bad for it. Strictly superficial.

Chad, I was also thinking about my Black Knight. I have a goofy idea to light the flipper buttons magnasave. So, when the magnasave lights light up and blink, so will the magnasave buttons.

[ChadTower]

It's not a bad idea, actually.  The biggest trick would be wiring it.  Most of the direct methods would involve wiring from the playfield to the buttons, and obviously that's not a good idea.

[Glaine]

Or obviously you could put in an AC/DC adapter from the shack in there and call it done. Or if you have extras sittign around from old CD-Players, etc you might try wiring to one, just watch what voltage it is. You just strip the adapter prong off and attach those wires to whatever I need.

[MYX]

Or obviously you could put in an AC/DC adapter from the shack in there and call it done. Or if you have extras sittign around from old CD-Players, etc you might try wiring to one, just watch what voltage it is. You just strip the adapter prong off and attach those wires to whatever I need.

This would not work with in game events. It would just be an always on. But you are right old PSs to old stuff never gets thrown away in my house as they are used all over the place in my gizmos.

Hey Chad, if I went off the matrix...This is a bad idea? There are several runs with more than one light on it correct? I do not have my schematics here at work, but arn't the matrix lights just 12v? Or, I could go with an LED as there is more than enough voltage to get it on, I would just need to put a fairly significant resistor in line with it. 

[ChadTower]

You could probably just put some LEDs in line with the magnasave bulbs.  Doing it that way wouldn't require any tapping into the signal at the board level and putting a couple of LEDs on there (you'd only need two) without increasing the current draw any substantial amount.

I think the bigger issue doing it this way would be running the wiring in a way that didn't restrict raising the playfield and wasn't insane.  Obviously you could just run a line from the magnasave bulb but that's near the player end of the playfield, so to do it without restricting you'd have to run the wire all the way to the back of the playfield and then down the inside wall of the cabinet.

A second way may be to find what pin on what connector is sending the current for those bulbs and just tap it from that connector.  They must be on their own circuit since they flash out of sync with the rest, right?  Then you could run the wire through the bottom of the backbox like all the others.  The negligible current draw of the LEDs is really your friend here.  The challenge there is coming up with a good way of tapping it at the connector that isn't just jamming another wire into the IDC slot.

[MYX]

I am prob going to be replacing all the pins and female housings with the crimp trifurcon pieces. I am thinking that on those 2 lights (4 wires) I may put short wires (like 3 inches) at the connector and put a female shielded spade connector on the end. Then I can run the LEDs to a bundled set of 4 wires that will terminate in male spades. This way nothing is soldered and easily removable if necessary. Actually I should make the leads off the board run long enough that they extend into the play field box so I do not have to dive into the top box.

[ChadTower]

Sounds like a solid plan.  Good call on upgrading the IDC connectors, too, those things are complete toast waiting to happen by now.