As many of you already know around here, I got my own arcade cabinet last year. I haven't really done much with it lately, but then I got the idea of lighting its buttons with LEDs (it uses Happ translucent buttons). I figured this out by opening up a (broken) button and seeing that there's plenty of free space inside it, more than enough to mount an LED, and the translucent nature of the buttons would give an interesting lighting effect :).
First I tried normal LEDs but they didn't give enough light to be even barely visible, so I got some high-intensity LEDs (red, green and blue) and success! ;D
I started by drilling two small holes in the base of each button (with a 1 mm drill bit, used for printed circuit boards) for the two LED leads to poke through, then disassembled the button and inserted the LED in place, bending its terminals on the outside and securing it with a drop of hot glue. Then it was just a matter of reassembling the buttons and soldering cables to each LED.
It's not hard, but it's really tedious. For 12 buttons I'd need 24 wires, that means 48 wire ends to cut, strip and solder to :o.
Also, at 30 cm per wire, that's 60 cm per button, and by 12 buttons that's a little more than 7 meters of wire :o!
I didn't want the LEDs to be static and boring, so I've built a small, quick & dirty light sequencer out of a 555 timer chip and two 4017s to make the lights cycle in a circular sequence. Also I added a potentiometer to the 555 to make the speed of the sequence adjustable :D. The effect looks really neat, especially in the dark ;D.
And of course, here's the video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJEvFyGygvY
The looks seriously awesome!
Whoa, man, that's totally RAD! ;D
Awesome. :)
Dude, that's f*ing awesome! You're one talented mofo! ;)
Another question, little bit OT: What camera did you take to movie with?
Panasonic Lumix DMC-LS80. I don't like it very much (my defunct Nikon was much, much better :'() but since my Nikon is still broken, this one was borrowed from a friend.
Wow, thats very very impressive.
Wow! That's awesome!
BTW: Thanks for the friend invite :P
It's very cool, but I think it would have been nicer if you had've arranged them so they lit when pressed.
I'm sure he can do that, too.
But that light sequences look good when the cabinet's not in use.
I guess I'll have to visit you should I ever travel to South America. Is that ok? :D