Adding LED Strip Lighting to an Arcade Cabinet

[cedricvale]

Hi everyone,

I’m looking at adding LED strip lighting to an arcade cabinet and was wondering how others here have approached it.

I’m mainly interested in practical things like choosing 5V vs 12V/24V strips, powering the LEDs from the cabinet, and routing the wiring so it doesn’t interfere with the controls or other electronics.

For those who have added LED lighting to their cabinets, what setup have you found reliable? Any particular issues with power supplies, heat, or controlling the brightness/RGB effects?

Interested to hear what has worked well for other builds.

[Zebidee]

If you just want to light up a few buttons, often 5v is sufficient and some keyboard encoders (e.g. IPAC) may even include a 5v header for button LEDs.

If you want a few lights, like behind the marquee art or similar, you should probably go with 12v.
It really just comes down to Ohm's law, W = V * A. The LEDs demand a certain amount of power, so as the volts go down the amps must go up. 12v power supplies are commonly available, and are standard for arcade cabs (cab DC power supplies usually offer +12v) and PC power supplies.
In an LED strip the LEDs are wired in parallel, which means each LED gets full voltage and has it's own current limiting resistor. The more LEDs the more power required.

Heat is less of an issue with LEDs, but they can still get hot in enclosed spaces, as can their power supplies. Good cab designs keep these things away from other stuff, allow for air movement and ventilation. In some cases fans be appropriate.

If you want RGB effects and brightness controls, there are specific devices available for that.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking at adding LED strip lighting to an arcade cabinet and was wondering how others here have approached it.

I’m mainly interested in practical things like choosing 5V vs 12V/24V strips, powering the LEDs from the cabinet, and routing the wiring so it doesn’t interfere with the controls or other electronics.

For those who have added LED lighting to their cabinets, what setup have you found reliable? Any particular issues with power supplies, heat, or controlling the brightness/RGB effects?

Interested to hear what has worked well for other builds.