Day 4

After a lot of consideration on how much wiring would be involved to use the existing wiring and lights, as well as how much power that would take, I've decided to opt for using battery powered LEDs. LEDs use 80-90% less power, so in battery mode I could light the entire playfield for many hours and just a few rechargable AAs. I spent a few hours researching LEDs and all the possibilities and prices. I ordered two sets of 20 white wide angle Christmas LED strings. I plan to glue gun them into the GI playfield holes and light some of the special colored lights under the playfield as well. Each set will run on it's own double A battery pack... in the end I will probably add more lights and try to power them all through one larger battery and switch set up.

Now the question remains how many of the various colored special lit areas on the playfield should I light and how to do it. I will probably light a few with the Christmas lights for their colored effects. I found blinking LEDs on a few electronic websites, I'm thinking about swapping out a few bulbs on the Christmas light strings and see if the blinking LEDs would run on it. This would be ideal, it would be the easiest way to wire and power strategically placed blinking lights under stuff like "extra ball when lit."

I've also been toying with buying two simple electronic kits of chasing LED lights like this:


These come unassembled for under $10. I could modify them during assembly by placing the LEDs on 12" wires instead of directly on the boards. Then I'd wire the blubs under the two clocks made of colored numbered plastic pieces on the playfield. The result would be the clocks would be lit by an ever spinning circle of lights and have a pretty cool effect. This is just an idea I'm brainstorming, I wouldn't do this until I have the main lighting done and the contstruction side of the table completed.