Poor Man's Pinstadium

[Marvello]

Loving my Alice Cooper but wanted to see if I could add a little extra light on the cheap. Inspired by Wayne's thread https://www.pinballinfo.com/community/threads/portable-pinstadium-alternative.44412/ I bought some colour changing LED strips from Ikea and some right angled 15mm plastic from Wickes.

The LED strips were £12 each (they do warm white ones for £8) and come with sticky mounting pads and clips/screws. The plastic was £2.45 each.

The LEDs can rotate between colours, smoothly transition or stay on one 1 colour.

I might look for some different mounting plastic so I can magnetically attach them to the side rails.

All pictures are taken in pitch black, the first one is without them on. As usual the photos are over saturated but they look better in person.

Not the most elegant solution but not bad for £29.

 

[lee riley]

Mmmm

 

[Pick Holder]

I am going to make cheap alternatives to pinstadiums at some point. Find a different way of doing it!
Must say I prefer this idea to the actual ones you purchase.

Be good to use an arduino and addressable LEDs, taking triggers from flasher lamps and and other things activated on playfields. Easier to do on an old fashioned game that uses transistors to switch but a bit harder with node boards!

Also considered looking for some more powerful UV LEDs - I bought some of jukebox last year but they are not bright. But over a playfield its a good effect. Stern should do something on this line.....

Thought about using transparent plastic for a defusser to stop you seeing the reflection of the LEDs on the glass. Which bugs me a bit.

Anyhow - good job for less than £30!

 

[M4carp]

Bang for buck right there

 

[AlanJ]

I am going to make cheap alternatives to pinstadiums at some point. Find a different way of doing it!
Must say I prefer this idea to the actual ones you purchase.

Be good to use an arduino and addressable LEDs, taking triggers from flasher lamps and and other things activated on playfields. Easier to do on an old fashioned game that uses transistors to switch but a bit harder with node boards!

Also considered looking for some more powerful UV LEDs - I bought some of jukebox last year but they are not bright. But over a playfield its a good effect. Stern should do something on this line.....

Thought about using transparent plastic for a defusser to stop you seeing the reflection of the LEDs on the glass. Which bugs me a bit.

Anyhow - good job for less than £30!

100% agree - t's all easy with arduino ws2812b strips, also get the lens caps for the leds to widen the scope. Easy to add feature light effects with arduinos. Its now so easy to sort your pinstadium, gi rbg, backglass effects. etc. I've been working on a whole rgb thing for my EM machines. Work in progress.............

 

[Horsey]

I don't know if it would help but I tinkle with magic tricks and use really small and paper thin magnets.
You could glue them to the inside of the angle and remove them easily enough when lifting the playfield. They cost about 6quid.

Great effort though

 

[Marvello]

I don't know if it would help but I tinkle with magic tricks and use really small and paper thin magnets.
You could glue them to the inside of the angle and remove them easily enough when lifting the playfield. They cost about 6quid.

Great effort though

Cheers for that . I hadn't really thought about mounting them under the glass but might have a look the next time the glass is off.

 

[Colywobbles]

I’ve done this a few times now with a couple of older pins like STTNG, TZ & one of my HS2 all for under £20 inc magnetic tape and all mounted under the glass so you get no glare back in your face.
My TH came with a set of the newer $300 pinstadiums and that’s what spurred me on to make them. In all honesty just the simple floodlight effect of them is more than enough and you don’t really need the fancy colour effects and flashers IMO

 

[PBrookfield]

You guys might want to consider having a word with @Wayne J - he's tread this ground before (including magnet attachments etc) and if you've got more than one machine you'd like this kind of lighting on and would like a set that you can move between machines then I'd guess he can sort you out

 

[Marvello]

It does seem puzzling why all Pins aren't designed with adequate GI lighting. I've been playing ACNC for 5 weeks now so additional lighting isn't critical, just something I wanted to try and if I don't like it I'll find another use for them. Yellow, orange or blues seem to work best, or the slow transition between colours for a different effect, though I don't want it to interfere too much with the in game lighting. Dimmable lights would be preferable.