My CFTBL DMD Panel lighting mod begins....

[Wotto]

Thanks to the confidence provided to me by Beaky I trotted off proudly to Jaycar this morning and bought the resistors & LED's.......

I will show the progress and ( hopefully ) success here as follows......

One thing I didnt like about lighting the Starlight ( Drive - In ) sign lettering was that the LED's will generally just throw out a 'dot' of light, I have the Kansas pinball guide and will sand the tops of the blue LED's to help disperse the light but I still didnt like the idea of just a small hole for it to come through - so I am TRYING something different......

I decided I wanted to cut the lettering shape out of the MDF panel so that hopefully the entire blue area of the letter lights up evenly...so I had to figure out how to get the STARLIGHT lettering shapes onto the back of this panel so I could cut out the holes with my Dremel.......now I am sure there may be a way easier and shorter process that someone knows ..................but this is what I did....

I scanned that top corner of the and then printed and cut the starlight lettering




I made sure it was the correct size....




I then had to work out how to reverse this so I could place it in the correct spot on the back of the panel as I wanted to 'router' from the back , because at this stage my speaker grill was still in place....so I laid some clear contact over my printout....




I then transferred this to some thin card I had lying around and cut the shape out of the card......




And once I had that cut I again size checked it......




Then I measured where the lettering sat and was able to place the card in reverse on the back in the correct place.....note that I  again used clear contact to place it - the black markings between the letters helped me to show where NOT to cut as they represnt the area between the letters.




What I then did was to cut around the lettering using a sharp blade and I was then able to use the cut lines to mark out the lettering ( I had already drilled the holes the other day so thats why thay are already in the shot )




And here is what I have tonight - I will get a small file and smooth all the edges out nicely tomorrow....and keep the progress reports coming.
I have shone my small LED torch behind this with the DMD picture panel held temporarily in place and it shines nicely - hopefully I can make the LED's do the same thing but better.




Off to watch the Footy and LOST - big night !

[pinnies4me]

Interesting mod, keen to see the results.

And yes, off to watch Lost shortly too.. ..

[EricPinball]

Nice mod,hope to see fast the end result 

[goodolddays]

Looking forward to seeing how this turns out . I'd like to buy a CFTBL one of these days

[v8racefan]

Good work Wotto

As a CFTBL owner I'm watching this mod with much interest 

[Wotto]

A LOT more done to this today - took me most of the day to be honest....but I just plodded along......

I pushed all the RED Led's into place to see how it was all going to lay and get an idea of where/ how I could run all the Ground & 12v wires.....




As the Kansas Pinball guy said , the speakers gets in the way , I sliced up a spare cliffy post to make little mounts and I will put something around the gap around the entire edge of the speaker to stop any light coming through.



Once I was happy with how it was all going to sit I wired my little 'groups' of 4 RED Leds and soldered the resistor onto the correct end of the group - exactly as per Beaky's rules.....




After all the 'groupings' were done I wired the Ground ( white in my images ) and 12v ( Blue in my images ) and it ended up like this........




It was time to test this , so with the heart rate up a little I headed for the machine , connected to the pins that beaky said to and I saw this ....... ( you will note I have wired the yellow star in this first section as well )




I WAS ON FIRE ! and pretty happy with how I was travelling 

Next was the STARLIGHT lettering .......... this took a long time and was fiddly.......





Now the whole panel looks like this..........






Time for another test run ............. I should have put Sunnies on 




And here it is as a comparison  - unlit / lit.
I am glad that I took the extra time to router out the lettering and star shapes and also ground the LE tops flat as they light up REALLY nicely, at one stage in my tests the yellow star LED fell forward against the panel and it was just this VERY BRIGHT and noticeable yellow dot that looked friggin ridicoulous which told me that the STARLIGHT letters would have also looked stupid if you just drilled out a hole and put an LED in them.




I get quite a bit of light in the room from a large window , so I will take another shot later to hopefully show the tail-lights lit up better

I have to go and  tidy up/ tape the wiring in place and re-assemble the panel properly.


Wotto

[goodolddays]

Supurb Work Wotto 
It looks Excellent !! Well worth the time and effort I reckon.

Cheers
Dave

[Wotto]

OK - its all done.

Its always difficult to get good 'night shots' of pinballs but these are the best I can get you.
It looks quite good in real life.
It takes a LOT of time and effort to get it done - had I not been on holidays with 'not much to do' then I may not have done this mod 

I didnt light the moon - I might one day but I feel it would need an Ablaze LED globe firing at it and then that light would need to be diffused, it also involves cutting a cirular hole in the speaker grill - so all thats for another day.

For now enjoy these...............

The 'overall shot' doesnt really show the cars in much detail.....plus the reflection of the lamps in the ramp affect this photo....




Here are some more detailed looks.....




The STARLIGHT sign definitely looks 'the bomb'   ^^^and I am glad I did it as well as the star - I feel to just do the tail-lights would be a little pointless to be honest.




It's just like being at the old drive in 
I had also routered out these larger tail-lights to reduce the 'dot' effect - U can see it worked pretty well.




Once AGAIN a big thanks to Beaky for the drawings and PM's about the electricals mate , I could not have done this at all without your input.

To any other CFTBL owners considering this ( time large ) job , I have kept the scan of the STARLIGHT sign and can email it to whoever needs it.


Regards


Wotto

[beaky]

it looks great wotto.
well done

[el_timbo86]

That came up a treat!! Well done - great mod 

[pinnies4me]

Fantastic work mate, thanks for sharing it with us.

[tonyt]

Definitely time well spent Wotto, great enhancement

[EricPinball]

it looks great wotto nice job

[MartyJ]

Very cool indeed.

 

[ddstoys]

Well Wotto im not sure if i should thank you or be upset as you have just made more work for me.  That looks great and i will now have to do it to my CFTBL if i ever get time to restore it