New Life Games Tech Forums

I have a BB cabinet and a brand new WMS topper. I can see where to plug in the regular top light, but I can't find a power source that fits the chase lights. Is it in there somewhere?

If I remember correctly when I plugged my topper in, there are three wires hanging from the topper, one is for the candle, a 12 pin molex(could be 8), and the other is a 5 conductor plug (only 3 wires are used on it).  The problem is that there is only one 5 conductur socket in the topbox distribution panel, and it is being used by the ballast for the top box flourescent fixture.  You need to make a Y cable to connect both, the flourescent light in the topbox and this topper.  I bought the parts from mouser and made one up.  The chase lights plug into the 12 volt molex socket in the top box distribution panel.  I can take a picture of my Mom's setup tomorrow when I go see and post it here.

Thanks for the reply. The (blue, black, yellow) wires for the chase light and back light have a label that say DC. So, they are 12 Volt DC and will work off of the larger wires for the top box lights?

Is the black a common ground and the blue and yellow separate 12 volt leads?

Pictures would be great! I also need to figure out a way to make a mount...

Just noticed where my lights are plugged shows as switched AC power. So, that wouldn't work if the chase lights are DC?

I will post a picture tomorrow.

Here you go.  You can see that there are 3 (4 if you count the grounding braid) coming from the topper.  One is just an extension of the candle and connects to the 6 pin molex.  Second is a 5 pin plug that uses 3 of the wires, green, white and black, and it is basically 120v mains that drives the fluorescent light in the topper.  3 is the 12 volt 8 pin moex (yellow and black wire).  You can see my home made power splitter with the brown cables.

Thanks for posting those. Unfortunately, my bottom-right connect in the top box is 6-wide and not three. Any my topper connection is much smaller than yours. Perhaps there are a few different possible configurations...

The bottom wide is actually a 5 conductor single row molex.  There are 2 that go unused (pins 2 and 4).  You probably have the same connector.  Now the topper connections is another story.

You're right. I see that it's 5 wide in mine and yours. What concerns me is that the topper wires are clearly labeled DC and that port seems to be AC...

The 5 pin single row molex is used to power the flourescent bulb inside the topper, and it is a mains 120v ac.  The chase lights on mine are 12 volts DC.  It uses the connector on the bottom left, which is an 8 pin dual row and has 12 volts dc coming out of those pins.  You could just connect the wires up to a 12 volt power supply and ignore the blue connector to see if it fires up.  If it does, then you could just make a harness to convert your plug to the 8 pin one.

Here's what I've been able to discern so far about that connector. On the bench, I was able to use some of my RC airplane charging equipment to determine the yellow is positive for the LEDs @ 12v. The blue is positive for the back light @ 24v. The black is a common negative.

In the top box and the bottom-left connector. Is the top row positive and the bottom negative for each connection?

If you look at the picture on my post you will notice that yellow is the bottom pin.  That is +12v the black is ground. You can always use a multimeter to verify.

Awesome. Thanks to some guidance and trial and error, I know where to get the power from and what's needed for the topper.

rickhunter, do you know the part number @ mouser for the plug that goes in that bottom-left port? I can't seem to narrow it down on their site...

For the benefit of any others that may attempt this, here is what you need and how you do it.

From mouser.com you need:

571-7949548 794954-8 RECEPTACLE HSG 8P
571-15863151 1586315-1 SOCKET 22-18AWG

From left to right as you're looking from the back side of the plug; top row, pins 2 and 3 are both negative (black); bottom row, pin 2 is 12v and pin 3 is 24v.

Twist both top row black wires together along with the black wire from the topper.

Put the 12v wire (bottom-left wire of plug) to the yellow of the topper.

Put the 24 wire (bottom-right wire of plug) to the blue of the topper.

Plug in and enjoy!

Here's a pic of the final product.

And a link to a video: https://vimeo.com/78850602

I also had to make my own mount out of cheap speaker mounts, a couple of bolts and washers and a 1x4.  :208- Hey, it works.  :89-

In that lower picture it looks like you got the 1x4 properly grounded with that wide braid....... :31-

Ha. Yeah, that's just the wires from the topper feeding through a channel in the wood and into the machine.   :155-

Just some info on Nashional's WMS topper

There are two types of toppers out there for the Bluebird, the one Nashional got is actually for a Bluebird 2
it comes with a 3 pin molex connector and uses 12v , 24v and grnd as was previously stated,
typical power in a BB is RED 5v, Yellow 12v, Blue 24v, black is ground
and if this topper had of come with the base, it would not have fit your BB1, its much smaller and made for the BB2 top box,

Looks great  :89-

Wes