Xmas LEDs

[Seven]

I have a couple machines with UV reactive paint and I've been trying to figure out a good way to light it with a UV bulb. I also think it would be cool to have LEDs going around the lip of a ramp but most of the LED strings (like the ones from Comet) are too wide to fit.

I was at Superstore yesterday and they have all their Xmas decorations out. One was a battery powered strip of 20 LEDs in various colours. $5 each. I bought a couple of their purple just to see how they looked. They are in the right wavelength to trigger UV paint.

They take three AA batteries - so 4.5v.

These suckers are quite bright.

I can't think of a reason why I couldn't use these in a pinball. Just drop the voltage from 6.3 to 4.5.

Thoughts?

 

[REVOLUTION]

You could probably tap into the 5v -- I'm not sure a 0.5v difference would matter (BUT, I'm not an electrical guy so hopefully one of them can verify this).

That said, UV lights do fade non-UV resistant inks WAY faster than direct sunlight will. I've owned a pin that was under constant UV at some point in its life.. it wasn't pretty (Demo Man -- All the reds on the PF were light pink).

 

[mwong168]

Seven if you want to looking for other UV led options you should check out this section on comet's website

http://www.cometpinball.com/category-s/1842.htm

You could probably tap into the 5v -- I'm not sure a 0.5v difference would matter (BUT, I'm not an electrical guy so hopefully one of them can verify this).

That said, UV lights do fade non-UV resistant inks WAY faster than direct sunlight will. I've owned a pin that was under constant UV at some point in its life.. it wasn't pretty (Demo Man -- All the reds on the PF were light pink).

It should be fine and will probably shorten the life of the xmas leds a little but won't be nearly as bad as tapping into say 12v.

I also remember seeing Brock's old Demoman with florescent pink rings and I immediately removed the two black light bulbs I could turn on if I had my main florescent lighting off. I was worried about things such as turning all the red art on my playfields or cabs pink.

 

[Seven]

I have some of the UV bulbs from Comet and other places. They aren't quite bright enough to really make things pop.

I've heard about UV fading paint. I wonder if manufacturers that used UV reactive paint on their playfield considered this? I probably have 4 tables right now with UV reactive paint (Rollergames, TFTC, WWF Royal Rumble and Batman Forever - off the top of my head).

I think the first one I'm going to try is red LEDs around the ramp on my Hollywood Heat. One string should make it all the way around.