Tron Pro - LED Fibre Optic Pinball Lighting similar to Tron LE

[swinks]

I should really be restoring pinballs but recently I played the Tron LE pinball and really blown away by the lighting on the ramps - giving the machine a cool effect. Without the lighting effects the Tron is nothing that special so I got thinking surely this could be done on other pinballs like my Whitewater in the future other than the fluorescent or EL wire effects.

After some research I worked out what Stern must have done - though their's is better with a programmable lighting control, but I am not buying 400 to 500 units so my one unit is still cool for starters.

First thing I went with is that the tubing is a fibre optic lighting cable (3.5mm dia) in a clear sheath which makes the total diameter 5mm with a reasonable tight radius ability that is side emitting (important to get the effect along the length of the cable). I got 10 metres (minimum order) from ledlighting in australia which worked out to be $65 for the cable and $18 for delivery from Sydney. below is the link.

http://www.opticfibrelighting.com.au/solid-core-fibre-cable.html


Then after some research of led illuminators the chinese make all these gadgets for a reasonable price called led light engine. Since I am experimenting I went for a cheap one to make sure it can do the job with in reason. See the below link of the one I went with - 16W super led light engine which can produce 13 colours with a remote so you can lock in one colour, one gradual change between all 13 colours or jumping between each colour atr $72 including freight. The blue, green, purple, red and yellows are quite effective though for some reason my camera can't determine the green and purple. The light engine comes with an adaptor (locks on to 20mm dia) which you can tighten around 75 tiny strands like in those old fashion lamps but with the side emitting tubing I will have to make a custom little 20mm bush with 4 x 5mm dia holes in the centre to poke the fibres in. I plan to cut the fibre tubing into 2 lengths to suit 2 ramps and then poke both ends of each fibre tubing into the adaptor that way the intensity would be a bit more with the light going into 2 cables at both ends ...... hoping anyway this helps the intensity. below is the link of what I got.

http://www.aliexpress.com/fm-store/801489/209894418-342675686/16W-RGB-LED-light-engine-Free-shipping.html

I will report back in a few weeks time after some experimenting:
after fitting a custom bush and
determining the tightest radius playing with heat (as the side emitting fibre optic tubing is plastic not glass) and see what that does to the light travelling down it after a tight radius.

Anyway it is a possible way to get a fixed or gradual or jumping lighting effect to standard Tron ( though won't be programmable) or a pinnie that you want to pimp out. There is a 45W led for double the price so this would make the difference with intensity straight up.

Here is a photo of the parts and another with the cable sitting on my Whitewater with a full 10 metre length with both ends just poking in the light engine - though there is a big difference when the cable is inserted on a slight angle compared to being held in centre - but I had to take the photo so not enough hands. I did turn the pinball on and the effect is lost a little with the GI lighting etc, but hopping with the adaptor, shorter lengths of cable and sitting around some ramps will make a difference.

[Cow Corner]

Pinballdecals have a 8 point led mod that sits under ramps and comes ina few different colours, I have seen it on a wh20 in blue and it looks fantastic.
I have just ordered one for mine.

[swinks]

Yeah I have that one on mine in blue, looks good. Check out Wottos home page of his WW with lights around the ramps - looks awesome though I think his is EL Wire.

[indazone gav]

On the Pinball Decals website in the pictures for the PDI glass the TZ has this lighting fitted. I emailed Joey and they are working on plug and play kits now:)

[Retropin]

Is the effect any brighter than EL wire?

I havent seen a TRON so dont know just how bright the RGB is, but if i was to do it, id be putting 60 or possibly 96 LED per metre RGB flex strips inside a frosted or opal acrylic tube.
There are 2 main types of LED strip available.. 3528 LED or 50/50... the 50/50 is 3 times the brightness of 3528 and is a 3 chip product rather than single chip.
50/50 LED will be approx 14W - just under 20W per metre

[swinks]

I couldn't tell you the comparison with EL wire as I have never played around with it. With this option you could go a 45W LED light engine which would in theory make the tubing much brighter - you would hope.

Here is a link for the TRON LE on youtube showing the effect of fibre optic tubing, though this one has a programmable board that times various colours and effects.

http://youtu.be/RNJg3wJboTA

Today I made a bush out of aluminium with 4 x 6mm holes as close as possible - this way I can feed two cut lengths of fibre optic tubing with each end going in to give it the best hope of being bright. In addition it keeps the end going in as straight as possible making sure the light enters it straight as it is surprising how much the intensity drops if you manually move it into the eye of the light engine.

This aluminium bush just slides into the cable gland supplied with the light engine and tighten up on to the bush not the cable.

Check out the bush below, apologies for the photo quality as the flash was lighting up the aluminium too much so had to go without on the 2 of the 3 photos.

[swinks]

Here are 3 photos showing no light effect and then 2 with a green and then blue colour, again sorry about the quality as I was holding the camera while it did a longer shutter photo take.

I had the lights on in the sunroom at 6pm so just was dark and had to take the photos with no flash (as the flash drains all the effect away), so hopefully you can see the effect.

Down at the local pub where there is a Tron LE near the bar has no direct sunlight and quite a dark corner so it is quite effective and on the net I have read once you play the TRON LE in a daytime environment with natural light the lighting isn't as effective. Though these photos are of one 10m cable with each each going into the bush I still think the Tron LE may have a brighter light engine. But at least I can install the fibre and always try a bigger light engine with minimal effort at a later date.