Focusing LED light through fiber optics...

[HaRuMaN]

Basically...  I'm trying to light up a clear bubbletop with one of Randy's RGB LED's, which at 5mm, is too big to fit.

Is there some sort of housing I can plug the end into, and run fiber through the hollow shaft and into the bubbletop?

[Franco B]

A 5mm LED should fit into a Seimitsu LB-39 bubble top no problem (assuming that the ball top you are using).

You should just need to remove the shoulder with a file or grinding wheel etc until it goes in.

[HaRuMaN]

Hmm.  I'll have to give that a shot.

[HaRuMaN]

Ok, so I shaved off the shoulder, and it goes in now...  but the way the 4 wires are arranged (in a straight line) and the size of the LED itself is causing problems.  Anyone have any bright ideas?

[Franco B]

I see you are using RGBs, I havent tried using a RGB but my thought was to bend the legs into a square shape to get the wires in a better posistion to go down the bore in the shaft. I think you would also need to drill slightly deeper into the bubble top to allow it to sit a little higher to give an extra room for the wiring.

Needless to say you will need to use thin gauge wire to get the four wires down the hole. I think you bought a hollow shaft of Luigi didnt you? I'm not sure what size he bored his out too but I drilled mine 3.5mm and countersunk the top end to the thread diameter to aid insertion/mounting . Mine also have a slightly reduced length of thread to allow a little more room.

3mm four leg RGB LEDs (not the two leg flashing/pulsing type) would help but I havent seen any.

If getting four legs down is impossible it may be possible just to wire up and insulate three of the legs and then leave one of the outer legs with no wiring/insulation and let that rest against the inside of the bore. You could then use the shaft's conductivity as the forth 'wire' and then just solder a wire onto the bottom/base of the shaft.

I've also been thinking about your idea for fibre optic cable. I thought that if it works then it could also be an easier solution for tangle free lighting. Ive ordered some 3mm OD 48x0.25mm core cable to have a play with. I'll let you know how I get on.

[HaRuMaN]

Yeah, I bought from Luigi, his are not sountersunk on the end (I wish they were).

I'll try bending the wires to form a square.

I wrecked one LED already (at least they are pretty cheap).  I ground down the top of the LED to make it smaller, but I went too far, and ended up somehow killing the red and green circuits.

I do have some super thin wire (stuff used in HO railroads to make telephone poles) and some shrink tubing.  If I get it to work right, I'll post pictures.

[HaRuMaN]

I did try fiber optics as well and was not impressed.  My problem is getting all the light from the LED into the cable.  A lot of the light is lost radially...  If I had a way to get most of the light running through the fiber it might work well.

(I used a TOSLINK cable and chopped it in half for this test).

[Franco B]

Yeah I think you need to block out as much light as possible around the LED so it all gets directed down the fibres. I think heatshrink and/or liquid electrical tape would do a good job.

I have been looking into it a little and you from what I gather you need to cut the cable with a hot blade and then polish the fibre ends to enable the best light transmission. It advises polishing it to 12 microns before polishing it down to one. The highest grit I have at home is 1200 which IIRC is 9 microns. I'm going to try polishing both ends with that and then maybe getting some higher grit if that's not satisfactory.

[HaRuMaN]

Hmm.  I may try that.  I have some heatshrink I can use.  I'll also try the hot knife & polish method.  I'd really like it to work out that way, it make things a lot simpler than mounting the LED in bubbletop.

[Franco B]

Yeah it would make it much easier

What diameter is your TOSEC cable? Do you know what diameter the hole is too? I'm guessing that Luigi would have had them drilled 3mm. Mine are 3.5mm and the outer sheath of the cable is 3mm so I'm hoping there should be enough clearance for it to spin freely, even if the cable is bent 90 degrees. Are you going to insert the cable right up into the ball top? I think that would provide the best lighting.

Let me know how you get on. I ordered my cable last week but It hasn't turned up yet. The seller is going to post some more if it doesn't turn up, fookin Royail Mail 

[HaRuMaN]

Well, the cable I used is TOSLINK, so its a 1mm fiber.  Maybe that's the issue, too.  If I had a bigger fiber it might work better.  I need to measure the hole in the shaft, I'm not sure what they are.

Yes, I'm putting the cable directly into the balltop.

[Franco B]

Yeah I think you need to get the biggest size fibre(s) in as possible. The biggest I could find with a 3mm sheath was the 48x0.25mm fibres. Your 1mm diameter cable should give an area of 0.789mm˛ whereas mine should give 2.356mm˛.

If you cant find any larger cable and mine turns out to be decent I can always send you some over.

[HaRuMaN]

Cool.  I'm gonna experiment some more when I get home from work.  I'm getting excited about this project.     The RGB LED looks amazing when I stick it in the balltop and light it up (minus the shaft).

[ArcadeBliss]

So have you guys had any luck with this. I am in the process of planing my control panel(s) and LEDS lighting of the joysticks is a must. Just not too many choices out there though

[HaRuMaN]

So have you guys had any luck with this. I am in the process of planing my control panel(s) and LEDS lighting of the joysticks is a must. Just not too many choices out there though

You can use a plain 3mm LED no problem with the existing shafts & bubbletops.  Its the 4-lead RGB-LED (5mm) that's an issue.

Lizardlick sells both hollow JLF shafts and different color bubbletops that will work with a 3mm LED.

[Franco B]

I tried the FO cable I had but I wasnt getting enough light though, even after completely enclosing the LED and FO join with heat shrink.

There is light at the end of the tunnel (excuse the pun!) though Haruman

[HaRuMaN]

I tried the FO cable I had but I wasnt getting enough light though, even after completely enclosing the LED and FO join with heat shrink.

There is light at the end of the tunnel (excuse the pun!) though Haruman

Oh, I know...   

[polaris]

I tried the FO cable I had but I wasnt getting enough light though, even after completely enclosing the LED and FO join with heat shrink.

There is light at the end of the tunnel (excuse the pun!) though Haruman

what colour heatshrink, if it wasnt white it would absorb light and have no positive outcome im thinking

[Franco B]

True, that may have been a factor although the LEDs I tested have a very narrow angle so I don't think it would have made that much of a difference using white heat shrink.

I think the real issue is that even the largest diameter FO cable possible (that you can get down the shaft) will not transmit enough light.

I have come up with a solution though that gives 100% brightness and its also killed another issue at the same time. I'll release it once I have played with tested it. 

[HaRuMaN]

 

[RayB]

Did you create a lens on the tip of the optic fibre? Use a heat source... lighter will do. Very gently and briefly heat the end until it melts and forms a sort of "lens".  It helps it take in more light.

[Franco B]

I didn't use a lighter but I did sand the fibres upto 1500 grit and then polished them. I did try the lighting before and after sanding/polishing and it did make it much brighter but still no where near as bright as it needs to be.

[richms]

Could you just use some acrylic rod and epoxy that to the LED and have the LED itself at the bottom of the shaft and the acrlic taking the light up thru the joystick shaft?

[Franco B]

Yeah that would have been possible but it would only have taken a couple of twists of the joystick to rip the wiring out.

I spoke to Haruman and found out he was using JLFs so I decided to have a go at modding them. In an ideal world, to get the best lighting we needed to get a 5mm RGB LED inside the end of the shaft/ball top. This has been impossible before because you can only drill a ~3.2mm bore because of the root diameter of the M6 thread.

The solution in the end was pretty easy. If you increase the thread size on the shaft you can also increase the size of the bore. An M8 thread has a root diameter of 6.47mm so that would allow us to drill a ~5.2mm bore which then allowed us to fit a 5mm LED (with the shoulder removed) inside the shaft.

Obviously the bubble tops have an M6 thread but luckily there is plenty of material in the inserted nut so I just opened the thread out to M8 to match the shafts.

As there was now a 5.2mm bore in the shaft it meant that we could no longer use the e-clip to keep the spring in compression as the e-clip groove diameter is 5mm. There is now only a 1mm wall thickness so a larger e-clip was out of the question. I decided to use some kind of sleeve and grub screws in place of the e-clip and I thought if I was making some kind of sleeve I may as well increase the length of it and add a 4 pole jack/socket for tangle free RGB lighting.

Anyway, here she is:



Obviously the adapter adds to the required CP depth but this wasn't as issue for Haruman or myself. I had previously modded a JLF and got the 4 pole socket flush with the end of the stock stick by redesigning pretty much all of the shaft components but this was not possible in this case as we needed RGB.

Even with the Nylon adapter, socket and screws, the new shaft assembly is 2 grams lighter than the solid stock one (56g). Once the LED etc is installed (I need to order some from GGG) I imagine it should weigh even closer to the stock one.

[Cornchip]

   I have to ask myself why this is something new. I posted this mod in your 'Franco's Custom Sticks - Carbon Fiber Fun' thread. Your welcome. 

 http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=88571.0

 Cornchip.

[HaRuMaN]

   I have to ask myself why this is something new. I posted this mod in your 'Franco's Custom Sticks - Carbon Fiber Fun' thread. Your welcome. 

 http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=88571.0

 Cornchip.

You have a 5mm 4 lead RGB LED in your Sanwa J:F bubbletop? 

[ArcadeBliss]

ok Franco, when can I buy the sticks or send you mine for modding? Your making my mouth water with all of this custom controlpanel goodness you're creating here.

Also an off-topic question, the Happ translucent buttons, are they the same as the iL translucent buttons?

[Franco B]

Apologies but these are not for sale. I was making a pair for myself and knew Haruman wanted some so I did his at the same time. I don't get enough free machining time to make enough of what I want to do for me anymore, let alone anything else. If there was lots of interest I could look at getting some production quotes but I haven't seen any interest and to get them made at a price that people would buy them I would have to get them in large numbers. Sorry 

If you wanted RGB you could try richms idea offixing a LED to the end of a 'standard' hollow shaft (with or without the rod) but obv you would have the issue with twiting the wires. If you wanted a single LED twist free version maybe you could try [Cornchips method] or maybe he could hook you up.

As for the Happ/Il translucents. I believe they are made from the same mould. I know the original FX Buttons were and I think they followed suit after that.