nova matrix (not bright at all)

[clickhea]

are these lights suppose to be bright?  how bright?

mines connected now to the 12v powersource from my pc and if the light in my room is on you cant even tell its lit.

[clickhea]

room light on:




room light off:

[clickhea]

anyone?


randy?


did i get a defective light?

[Ginsu Victim]

Have you checked your power source to make sure you're pulling the proper voltage?

[clickhea]

yep, put a meter up to it

yellow wire 12 v dc

red wire 5 v dc

with the 2 blacks being ground

the light is hooked to the yellow wire.

and i have it about 5-6 inches inback of the marquee.

[Neverending Project]

Are all the LEDs lit?

[RandyT]

5-6 inches isn't far enough away.  The LED's are very wide output, but even so, you are concentrating the light in a small area.

It may also be that the material your marquee is printed on is too dense.  Is it special transmissive material or just laminated paper?

It's also a fairly wide cabinet, so you may find that two units are necessary to get it as bright as you would like it to be.  You may be expecting too much in a well lit room.

RandyT

[Ginsu Victim]

Not sure if this will do any good considering your problem, but you could try some foil tape in your marquee space to reflect the light more.

[clickhea]

yeah i tried some of the foil tape wasnt working out well at all


if i moved the light back even further wouldnt it get even dimmer?


another light fixutre is an option for the future i guess.


btw yeah its pretty wide, it had to support the 27 inch tv

[Ginsu Victim]

I use an "under-cabinet" fluorescent from walmart. Like eight bucks. Works great.

[shardian]

I use a $1 double light fixture, 2 CFL's and things are fine. I haven't seen a use yet for fancy, expensive marquee lights. Of course, my cabs aren't mint condition either. 

[clickhea]

yeah i wish i had known that these lights dont burn bright enough and i woulda went with a cheap light fixture instead.

maybe i'll just rip out the nova matrix and buy a cheap light fixture instead of dishing out another 20+ bucks or whatever it is i paid for this thing

[RandyT]

yeah i wish i had known that these lights dont burn bright enough and i woulda went with a cheap light fixture instead.

Those cheap light fixtures are just that.  Expect to replace them about once every three to six months (if you leave them on constantly). 

If you factor in the aggravation of changing out not just the lamps, but the entire fixtures on a fairly regular basis, I think you'll find economy in the LED solutions.  This is the reason the industry has shifted toward them, and you'll not find them at a lower price than the NovaMatrix.

But for high light output "on the cheap" where long term durability isn't an issue, it's hard to top the $8 fluorescents.

RandyT

[Turnarcades]

Evenly spaced, cold cathode tubes do a good job lighting marquees.

[RandyT]

Evenly spaced, cold cathode tubes do a good job lighting marquees.

They do, but individually, they are not brighter than a good LED strip.  They are also high-voltage devices that rely on often cheap power inverters to do the power conversion.  These inverters are usually the weak point in the system, and while the lamps are usually rated for high numbers of hours, they are about half that of LED's and the inverters usually die long before that time.

RandyT

[HaRuMaN]

I replaced the normal incandescant bulb in my MK cabinet with a CFL bulb, and that seems to work fine.

[csa3d]

for what it's worth, I too bought a NovaMatrix light, and was a bit let down by the amount of light.  I then removed it, and sprayed the inner marquee area with metallic paint to reflect it back, and though it helped some, it's still fairly insufficient.  I've written the issue off as being a "whatever" letdown.  They run cooler, last longer.. yada yada still not the same.  Don't know that I'd purchase another and run two, but my guess is it would increase the light amount.  Worth the money to do that.. ehhh.. 

This is probably a general LED issue.  I'd be curious to see a cold cathode tube of equal size go up against the NovaMatrix led bar.  I suspect the cold cathode would win personally.

-csa

[clickhea]

def a let down. espically for the price i paid for it.

i love your products randy, its just this one isnt up to par imo.

[Namco]

I'm not sure what kind of fixture Randy's talking about that needs replacement every 3 to 6 months, but this fixture has been in my cab since the 90's:



It's just a simple light fixture with one bolt holding it on from the back of the panel. With two 25 watt Compact Florescent bulbs (make sure to get the white ones labled "daylight 6500k") it burns very bright. It's all on my thread here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=73101.40

[clickhea]

that doesnt heat up your marquee at all?

[RandyT]

This is probably a general LED issue.  I'd be curious to see a cold cathode tube of equal size go up against the NovaMatrix led bar.  I suspect the cold cathode would win personally.

Speaking as someone who used to install three of them into a 12" x 20" face on 3D slot machines just to get them to almost appear lit (and repair them when the inverters failed), I'll take that bet

Most lighting issues are due to poor light distribution (too close or too far away), poor graphic materials (not properly transmissive / diffusive) and/or trying to light too large an area with too small a light source.  One big complaint I have seen on these forums is from people with standard fluorescent marquees in a home setting who think they are too bright.  If your cab is in the same room you watch TV in, it's pretty overpowering, especially if you like to watch in low-light conditions.  Most are happy with one NovaMatrix, but sometimes folks will buy a second to give it a little more punch if they have a wide cab.

I also wanted to make it clear that distance is important.  While having the light close to the marquee will indeed create a "hot spot" that is brighter, this is at the expense of just about every bit of possible illumination normally achievable with the areas outside of the hot spot.  If you look at the picture, in the dark room, the falloff of the light is almost a hard line.  This indicates a distance problem.  While it's normal to have some falloff at the edges, especially on such a wide cab, this hard edge indicates that the light is too close.

i love your products randy, its just this one isnt up to par imo.

You probably needed two for that cab / material / distance and you would have been able to forget about them afterwards.  Don't fault the concept of LED lighting (it's everywhere now) because you don't want to buy enough of them .

I'm not sure what kind of fixture Randy's talking about that needs replacement every 3 to 6 months, but this fixture has been in my cab since the 90's:

The "8$ under the counter fluorescent tube fixtures" that can be purchased at places like Walmart, Home Depot, etc..

I like the compact fluorescent idea.  But some folks aren't comfortable with 120v    Make sure you have it well vented as well.  They still put off a fair amount of heat in an enclosed box.
 
RandyT

[clickhea]

yeah i understand, i just wish i was aware that wider cabs woulda required 2 nova matrix's

[Namco]

that doesnt heat up your marquee at all?

In the summer, it gets quite warm, but that's in a 95 degree garage.. The monitor's heat probably generates most of the heat up there due to poor venting. Usually the bulbs are pretty cool to the touch anyway since I'm using compact florescents.

It looks like there would be hotspots in the picture, but that's just due to the aperture of the camera lens. In reality there is no hotspot:

[Namco]

I'm not sure what kind of fixture Randy's talking about that needs replacement every 3 to 6 months, but this fixture has been in my cab since the 90's:

The "8$ under the counter fluorescent tube fixtures" that can be purchased at places like Walmart, Home Depot, etc..

I like the compact fluorescent idea.  But some folks aren't comfortable with 120v    Make sure you have it well vented as well.  They still put off a fair amount of heat in an enclosed box.
 
RandyT

Aah, gotcha. You can't exactly replace the ballast or bulb on the cheapo fluorescent fixtures.   .

[FrizzleFried]

Most of my marquees are too bright!  These would probably work well aside from the fact that some of the cabs don't have a 12v line to tap in to.

When I use compact florescent lights I always get the 3w to 5w maximum (40 watt replacement bulbs).  They run very cool and last a long time.

[Level42]

I agree. I made the fault of putting 15W TL's inside my original cabs. Now (because I'm relatively tall, the light shines in my face. I'll definitely change to something else on my other restorations, just not sure what yet...
I like the concept of saving some energy by using LED lighting, on the other hand, compared to the rest of the cab it's peanuts and requires extra (12V) wiring.

[DaOld Man]

I used the nova matrix on my last jukebox build.
I tested it by hooking it to 12 volts, and it was very bright.
I used in the the juke mainly because I had limited space.
I did place it about 9 -10 inches from the marquee.
The marquee is not real bright. You really cant even tell that it is on in a lit room.
It does have a pleasing glow to it in the dark.
I used a marquee printed on computer paper, sandwiched between two pieces of clear plexi. One layer of paper, so I dont think the marquee is killing the light much.
If I have limited space again on a future project, i will probably used the nova matrix again.
But I dont think I will be using it on full sized arcade cabs. I really dont think it would be bright enough for that, and the cost does not give me the choice of using more than one on a marquee.