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Coin door and trackball lighting (wiring)
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isucamper:
It's time for me to light my Happ trackball and coin door returns.  I'm done a bit of searching to figure this out but I was hoping someone could double check my thinking so I don't blow something up.

First, the coin door.  My coin door has 14 volt bulbs in it.  I'm going to hack a molex connector to get 12 volts from my PC as described in this thread:  http://joelsgadgets.com/CoindoorPage2.HTML.  According to that link, it dosen't matter which side of the bulb goes to the 12v and which goes to ground because the bulbs are reversible .  I realize the 14V bulbs might be a little dim with only 12V powering them, but I figured I would see how it looks before replacing the bulbs. 

For the trackball, I've got a trackball lighting kit from Divemaster (thanks DM!).  Unlike the coin door bulbs, this LED has +5V and -5V labeled on the connectors.  I plan to connect these up to the +5V out and ground of my GPWiz40.  Does it matter which goes to which in this case?  Maybe I should ask if this will even work.  I'm a total electrical noob here. 
bkenobi:
Yes, LED's can only take power in 1 direction.  The difference between +/- in DC is a relative value between the two legs.  So, if you put +5 and ground on one way, you will get +5, but if you switch the contacts, you get -5.
Drakin:

--- Quote from: isucamper on August 07, 2009, 02:25:26 pm ---It's time for me to light my Happ trackball and coin door returns.  I'm done a bit of searching to figure this out but I was hoping someone could double check my thinking so I don't blow something up.

First, the coin door.  My coin door has 14 volt bulbs in it.  I'm going to hack a molex connector to get 12 volts from my PC as described in this thread:  http://joelsgadgets.com/CoindoorPage2.HTML.  According to that link, it doesn't matter which side of the bulb goes to the 12v and which goes to ground because the bulbs are reversible .  I realize the 14V bulbs might be a little dim with only 12V powering them, but I figured I would see how it looks before replacing the bulbs. 

For the trackball, I've got a trackball lighting kit from Divemaster (thanks DM!).  Unlike the coin door bulbs, this LED has +5V and -5V labeled on the connectors.  I plan to connect these up to the +5V out and ground of my GPWiz40.  Does it matter which goes to which in this case?  Maybe I should ask if this will even work.  I'm a total electrical noob here. 

--- End quote ---

I had done the same thing with my cabnet as far as lighting the coin doors but I had used 12V 194 bulbs that are used for the side markers of an automobile....Evidently though the bulbs draw too many amps because it would shut down my PSU, so I went ahead and used LED's from ratshak and everything works great now.

Just an FYI.
isucamper:

--- Quote from: bkenobi on August 07, 2009, 02:37:52 pm ---Yes, LED's can only take power in 1 direction.  The difference between +/- in DC is a relative value between the two legs.  So, if you put +5 and ground on one way, you will get +5, but if you switch the contacts, you get -5.

--- End quote ---

So do I hook the +5 up to +5 on the bulb and ground up to the -5 on the bulb?
Drakin:
I had used the 3.3V wires from my power supply for the led's, here is a site I used to get the pinout and voltages from the power supply.

http://www.smpspowersupply.com/connectors-pinouts.html

Juswt pick the correct voltage you need (being the +) any COM will work for the ground.

Hope that helps
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