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Best way to light an Orange Translucent Button?

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Tiger-Heli:
Kneivel recommends matching the LED and button colors here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,30565.0.html (Not contradicting Rdagger, just adding info to the thread).

KillerArcades:
IMHO, the most important thing is to make sure you have the same LED's in all of your orange buttons for consistency (and have the resistors all the same, if possible with your wiring setup, etc) - otherwise you'll get different shades of orange in the different orange buttons.

I would prefer to have all my oranges the same color, then have one or two slightly different than the rest.

As for where to buy them, there's lots of places, everyone's inventory is always changing though, I got all of mine from a seller on eBay for really cheap.

As for the question of "how" to light them though, I prefer to have my LED's shining perpendicularly to the wall of the button. As opposed to shining up from the bottom. Less chance of going blind ;) and then the angle of your LED doesn't have to be as wide since the light gets dispersed pretty well throughout the plastic of the button. Though, if you do this, you'll need to plan on two led's per light, otherwise the light will appear stronger on one side, etc.

However, it seems from what I've read, that there are some easier 'pre-made' solutions for mounting LED's if you're willing to risk your eyesight and light them straight up from the bottom. So, you should get good results either way. For me, using all clear buttons, I got much better coloration by shining my lights in from the sides.

rdagger:

--- Quote from: Timoe on June 06, 2006, 07:07:52 am ---So you would use white even with the blue buttons?

--- End quote ---

Not necessarily, in the pic above I'm using a white LED for the orange and blue LED's for the blue buttons.  The blue LED's change the hue of the blue buttons, but in a cool sapphirine way.  You can buy orange LED's at SuperBright LEDs. They will probably illuminate the buttons in a different shade than the white, but it might work ascetically.  Try to get the brightest LED's, but they don't have to have the exact same luminous intensity because you can always adjust them with different resistor values.  I prefer wider viewing angles for a more uniform light distribution.

I built an RGB transparent button illuminator that can be set to any color.  It is based on Whammoed's Lightmite.

MARINE1142:
My trans buttons do not look like the ones mentioned here. Mine have a base with threads for the nut to lock it on the CP has a spring in the middle with the top of the button comes over the spring and inside the base with two ears that come out the bottom. If you drilled a hole in the sides of the base woudnt the LED get caught up in the spring? If any one has these buttons or can tell me how to light them I would be most thankful.

Tiger-Heli:
MARINE1142,

Sounds like you have the new transparent Happ buttons that Shawnzilla had produced about 6 months ago.

They look like these: http://home.earthlink.net/~shawnmuller/fxbuttonsproducts.htm , right?

Easiest (and priciest) way to light them is with an RGB Drive shown here for about $3.50 - http://groovygamegear.com/webstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=240

Alternatives are drilling a hole in the bottom of the button to mount them.  Also someone (?) was working on a nylon ring to mount them horizontally on.

Search for the FX Buttons thread as it was discussed a lot in there.

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