New Life Games Tech Forums

Anyone have any knowledge of the toppers listed on Ebay.  Found a nice Game King Plexi but don't know much about those toppers, connections, lighting and such.  Both are advertising $10 off with first purchase so that would get the two items into somewhat of a affordable price range.

Mike

If you're referring to these ...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SUZO-HAPP-IGT-RGB-Polygon-Slot-machine-Topper-P-N-91440600-NEW-/121209229283 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/SUZO-HAPP-IGT-RGB-Polygon-Slot-machine-Topper-P-N-91440600-NEW-/121209229283)

... they're being sold by Junkman1.  I do not believe the parts are included to hook them to anything.  Besides the odd power requirements, you will need a PCB too.  The one on Suzo Happ includes a PCB with their toppers.  The PCB controls the rainbow light around the edge.

To see the missing PCB, refer to this post, which has a more complete kit ...

http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=25829.0 (http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=25829.0)

:Dave :88-

Sounds like that is one I need to stay away from, becoming a plug and pray kinda guy.  Not looking to do heavy engineering over a topper.

Thanks for the feedback,
Mike

After doing some homework, it appears one will need $114 more plus shipping to get Junkman1's polygon toppers working.  Here are the missing parts:

1 Power Supply $39.95
http://na.suzohapp.com/gaming_products/topper_boxes/80-0071-00 (http://na.suzohapp.com/gaming_products/topper_boxes/80-0071-00)

1 Power Harnesses $9.99
Base: http://na.suzohapp.com/all_catalogs/topper_boxes/95-2866-00

1 RGB Light Controller PCB $56
IGT USB: http://na.suzohapp.com/all_catalogs/accessories/93140546

NOTE: There are two other less expensive styles of RGB light controller boards for $24 that appear to require a different power source (2-pin).
IGT Standalone: http://na.suzohapp.com/all_catalogs/accessories/685-E02-00
IGT Synchronized: http://na.suzohapp.com/all_catalogs/accessories/685-E03-00

1 Topper Base $8.00
Flat: http://na.suzohapp.com/all_catalogs/topper_boxes/95-2862-00
Round: http://na.suzohapp.com/all_catalogs/topper_boxes/95-2863-00
Arch: http://na.suzohapp.com/all_catalogs/topper_boxes/95-2864-00
Slant: http://na.suzohapp.com/all_catalogs/topper_boxes/95-2865-00


The RGB controller boards (the main part to make the rainbow rim lights work) aren't available from Suzo-Happ until January or February, so there's no way to verify this yet.  So, depending on how much a polygon RGB topper is worth beyond $114 plus shipping without a guarantee this will even work will give you an idea of how much to make an offer on Junkman1's toppers.

Hope this helps!  :Dave :88-


[add] For reference, Suzo-Happ sells the topper with the PCB for $330.  Base, power and harness are still required.
http://na.suzohapp.com/amusement_products/topper_boxes/95-2852-00?SS=ON (http://na.suzohapp.com/amusement_products/topper_boxes/95-2852-00?SS=ON)

If the image of the RGB controller board in this document is the same as the $24 controller boards, then you can see the 2-pin power plug, which I would assume means a power box of some kind is needed.

http://na.suzohapp.com/images/pdf/10406000.pdf (http://na.suzohapp.com/images/pdf/10406000.pdf)

My toppers will be gone by then.. one way or another..

Looking to dump what I have.. $40 each.. if someone takes all 125 I have left...

Thanks
518-469-1055
Steve

I heard back from Suzo-Happ.  They will NOT sell any of the missing PCBs for these toppers.  They only sell them to IGT.  Further, they do NOT have any other board that will sell with them.

I am now working with Kiesub on a product that controls LEDs in the same way the PCB does.  Kiesub actually sells to Suzo-Happ, so I'm at the source now.  Will keep everyone updated in case they want one of these toppers.

Steve - I'd suggest dropping the price significantly ... perhaps $10 as originally suggested by other folks on the forum.  Right now, they're only worth the candle on top.

:Dave

does the toppers get its commands from the slot machine? if not a control board for the lights shouldn't be to hard to build.

Thanks but I'm getting $50 sending them to public auction.. Not sure what they are doing with them..lol
Casino's have bought some and have had no issue.. they must have access to the igt parts too... ???
Local casino keeps coming back for more...

Las vegas Metro showed up at my place looking for 69 of these toppers that where stolen...Then didn't say from who.. though I expect IGT.
I proved mine where legit.. They are still looking..

These things are just bad all the way around.. lol

Still have a pile of these forsale ..

Well of course you do!  They don't work.

SouthernSlots offers the same thing, only fully working, for just $34.95, half of what you're asking for your non-working toppers.

http://www.southernslots.com/happ-polygon-rgb-topper-brand-new/ (http://www.southernslots.com/happ-polygon-rgb-topper-brand-new/)

Not sure about that.. There is no part number listed..Maybe those came from me?

I can't find a contact to find out what they are, and how many does he have.. Maybe I buy him out?

Thanks for the lead !

Lowered my to 25..( southernslot will thank you later ) they seem to be moving pretty good there. Already made a ton of money off these.. time to dump them..

After reading all the threads and links,  The toppers Junkman have may be diff. type than what the sothernslots has :103-.  The junkman looks to have the newer style and missing the programmed boards,etc. to make them work.  The others look to be more home owner user friendly,  The older style of these type of toppers in polygon.  I guess buyers have bought these recently from the southernslots and confirmed they work?.  I also seen a post about 69 toppers missing?  That could be some of them- :103-.  I bought a few things from south.s. and it was all ok.  My opinion is just that,  A opinion as I am no expert but just getting reamed for someone else's woes constantly. 

junky is so full of himself , its xmas time to give that crap away. he still try to sell those inserts as  bally kits on ebay

Typical "Ebayer" .. that can't read.. " If it is not in the photo, it is not included "
That means............. "If it is not in the photo, it is not included"

And Buzz.. I paid like $180.. For ALL OF THEM.. was 130+.. Yea.. I made a ton..lol.. and now ebay is at $25.. and I will start phase 2.. feed the auction houses.. a little at a time.. And make even more.. No BS.. Just how it is.. Deal with it the best you can.


Did I ever tell you folks..  That I like to argue? lol..

Just lowered all listed kits ( or glass , top glass, software.. what ever you call the pieces. ) to start at auction at $25. over 70 listings...here..

http://stores.ebay.com/Southwest-Liquidation/_i.html?_nkw=conversion+kits&submit=Search&_sid=1807549 (http://stores.ebay.com/Southwest-Liquidation/_i.html?_nkw=conversion+kits&submit=Search&_sid=1807549)

Well then that makes you one of the biggest liars we've had on this forum. Month six weeks ago you were telling us about all the BIG bucks you spent on all this shit, now you say you got it for next to nothing, by the way that's what it's worth " next to nothing "  Your a whole lot like a bad case of VD, difficult to get rid of !!

Oh I love a good battle of wits but it's really no fun if your opponent comes to the contest half armed, or should I say comes to the contest as a half wit.

 :259-  nice buzz

GO Buzz GO !!

lol.. gotta love this place.. I need to remember to come here when I get bored..

Buzz.. you must be old and it's showing.. your memory is lacking as is your responses.

Not sure what a lot of money is to you.. so it safe for me to always say to you that EVERYTHING cost a lot of money.. or I may insult you by telling you the 6k plus in profit so far.. is just a engine for one of my hot rods..

And as you know by now.. this is not a one time fling, as my sources continue to bring me pallet loads of casino crap.. Money is money.. a sale is a sale.. no mater if it is Junk or gold.

You insults are childish, and really stupid. Just because you have the balls to post a insult, does not make you cool, or wanted. To smarter folk, you sound like a hillbilly wanting attention.. Have some..

I question your "sources bringing pallet loads" as everything you have listed came from the ONE Ceaser's auction. For that I say, raise the BS flag, BS!

But your statement about paying little for the polygons is true. Watched the auction live online myself and know what you paid for everything. Remember one pallet of polygons you picked up for $35(plus auction premium, sales tax, etc.) Those of us who knew better didn't bid against you. They're all yours.
You should have made a profit by now even if you sold only a handful to unsuspecting buyers (like at public auction houses) who didn't know they had basically nothing but a pretty empty box.
Good luck unloading the rest, some idiot will buy them.

most came from that auction.. pallet loads delivered to my door by caesers. Not BS. first auction they delivered 42 pallets, 2nd auction was less like 30 pallets, 3rd I grabbed myself 8 pallets.. because I let a friend buy all the 22 pallets of slot crap.. and he is making crap loads of cash. .But I was and am slammed.. I spent over 30k there.. and that was 7 ( or so)auctions ago. ( commercial/industrial )

.. and the recent 6 pallet delivery came from a scrap yard.. ( you can't make this shit up..lol).

Keep connecting the dots.. and you'll find I don't BS. I may toot my own horn , and talk too much, and say too much... but I don't BS..

As Judge Judy would say, you never have to remember if you don't lie..lol

I think I'm turning a new leaf.. no more boxes of parts for me... some boards and chips too.. no money in it, unless it's the game board.........takes too much time.. It all sells.. but time consuming.

I've been reading all of the drama about these for a while now. If Junkman wants to send me one for the cost of shipping (that he has listed on ebay), I can see what it would take to build a cheap controller for it. Those that know me here, know that I like to  :79- projects like this.

If Junkman doesn't want to send you one, I'll send you mine.  Thanks for taking on the project!  :Dave

as i already said a custom controller shouldn't be too difficult for someone that knows what they are doing if we are lucky the ring has the led driver on it and all we have to do is send it the commands.

Well, I'd say ok.. except it's possible I may be selling the business this week...... Ya know what.. send me the address .. I'll try and get one out to ya.. for the benefit of the guys that use these..

Thanks.

PM sent with requested info.

UPDATE: I bought one of Dave's polygon topper from SouthernSlots.com and it works perfectly!  It's completely different inside.  Not at all like the aforementioned polygon topper in this thread by Junkman1 and on Ebay.  I'll post pictures if anyone's interested or you can email me. 

You will still need to purchase a base, harness and power supply separately (unless you want to install without a base and make your own harness with 12V/3A AC adaptor). 

Here are the links ...

Polygon topper $34.95 plus shipping (same as Suzo-Happ for $330) -
http://www.southernslots.com/happ-polygon-rgb-topper-brand-new/ (http://www.southernslots.com/happ-polygon-rgb-topper-brand-new/)
NOTE: Also includes a USB cable if you want to connect to an IGT host for complete game control of unique colors and flashing patterns sent from USB host (host obviously not included).

Topper bases $9.00
Flat top = http://na.suzohapp.com/all_catalogs/topper_boxes/95-2862-00
Round top = http://na.suzohapp.com/all_catalogs/topper_boxes/95-2863-00
Arch top = http://na.suzohapp.com/all_catalogs/topper_boxes/95-2864-00
Slant top = http://na.suzohapp.com/all_catalogs/topper_boxes/95-2865-00

Harnesses $9.99
IGT Molex = http://na.suzohapp.com/all_catalogs/topper_boxes/95-2866-00
NOTE: The candle plug is 4-pin Molex (with 3 pins active) in a square shape (as opposed to the alternative 6-pin Molex plug).

[ADD 1/8/2014]One more harness is needed to power the back light LEDs for the plexie.  I will post as soon as I identify.[/ADD][/color]

+12 VDC 3A Power supply $39.95
http://na.suzohapp.com/all_catalogs/topper_boxes/80-0071-00 (http://na.suzohapp.com/all_catalogs/topper_boxes/80-0071-00)
NOTE: This has a plug rather than a Molex to plug directly into an outlet.  I believe Suzo-Happ also sells a version with a Molex to go into a switched power Molex plug in your machine in case you don't have an extra outlet in the machine.

$34.95 + $9.00 + $9.99 + $39.95 = $93.89 + shipping

That sounds like a fair price to me for this kind of topper, but I'm also the one that spent $125 for a Game King topper. LOL!

Hope this helps!  :Dave :88-

Good to hear. What sort of light pattern does it display?

<edit> Not 5 minutes after posting that I had not heard from junkman1, fedex dropped off one of his toppers. More info after I get into it.

The pattern was extremely varied.  Perhaps I could send you the topper I got (or just the board) if you want to see about replicating it.  At a minimum, I can send you a close-up, detailed picture of the board.

PM sent.

For the others here, on mine, the "back-light" LEDs require 24V. The back-light is separate from the light ring. The light ring has a bunch of LC541 octal drivers. From the data sheet it looks like you turn the different outputs (the LEDs in this case) on/off by sending these chips hi/low signals. As already noted, the one I got comes with no control board, so I will have to reverse engineer the ring.

Here is a quick picture of the inside of mine. The back-light is powered by the orange and brown wire. (24VDC orange is positive).  The main plug has 14 pins on it. 2 are for the back-light. Assuming that white and black wire are for the light ring power (I have not traced them out yet), that leaves 10 wires. Since the LC541 has an enable line, I assume some of the wires are to enable different "banks" to get a chaser effect. the rest I assume are to turn on/off the various LEDs. I don't think this will be too hard to figure out. I just need to be careful not to let the magic smoke out.   :50-

BTW, the candle has it's own separate cable.

<edit> Hmmm... As noted above the main plug has 14 pins. Two go to the back-light leaving 12. The plug on the light ring has 12 pins. However on the 14 pin plug, only 11 wires go to the light ring (one pin has no wire). But on the light ring end, there are only 10 wires (2 pins have no wire).  :103- Perhaps the 11th wire is a shield for the cable. On the plus side, less wires=less tracing.

Also, since the LC541 is a low voltage chip and I see no voltage regulator on the ring, I am assuming that one wire would be for +5V (and the white and black are for a higher LED voltage and common ground). So assuming 7 wires left, perhaps 4 are for the different banks and 3 for the different colored LEDs. of course this is all just guessing at this point.

Argh!!! I had a long post written and then the site wigged out and I lost it. :8-

Ok, here is the much shorter version. This may be harder than I originally thought. I have found more ICs on the segments. Some I believe are the transistor drivers for the LEDs (driven by the LC451s), but I don't know what the other ones are. They are too small to see the printing. Also the boards say 3.3V on them, so I'm not sure if it needs 3.3v fed to it or if one of those unidentified chips is a regulator. I'm not giving up yet, but this may take a little longer. On the plus side, there are some "test points" that are labeled (i.e. LED voltage) so that will help a bit. I'm really hoping I can just apply LED voltage and whatever voltage the board needs, and that toggling the rest of the pins hi or low will turn on/off the LEDs

Ok, now I am either making progress or completely confused. First, I was wrong about there being 4 LC451s. There is only one. The other 3 similar chips are Y5925 (16 channel LED constant current LED sink driver). That makes sense as there are 36 LEDs (on each of the 4 segments).

This is what I found tracing out that 12 pin plug on the light ring

Pin
1 Not used by cable
2 Logic ground
3 Logic ground
4 Logic ground
5 Not used by cable
6 LED VCC (voltage unknown yet)
7 LED Ground
8 LC451 pin 6 (A5)
9 Logic ground
10 LC451 pin 8 (A7)
11 Logic ground
12 LC451 pin 2 (A1)

I'm a little stumped at all of the logic grounds. And also not sure why they used those particular pins on the LC451 (vice something like A1,A2,A3).

Since there seems to only be 3 "control" lines, I'm assuming one is for red, one for green, and one for blue. This can give you a wide variety of light colors, but I don't see how it could do any sort of "chaser" sequence.  

None of the lines go to the 3.3v test point, so I am assuming it is generated on board from the LED voltage. There is a small power led on the board, so I guess the next step is to just apply some LED voltage and see what happens. Grounding pins 8,10, and 12 should do something.

email sent with picture of SouthernSlots topper.

Got it. Totally different than this one.

I'm having no luck with mine. All I got so far is the 3.3v power led to light up (besides the back-light). I have a feeling those 3 "control lines" are not just on/off toggles, but some sort of serial data lines. After looking at the data sheet for the Y5925 LED drivers, they need all sorts of clock and timing signals.

are your sure of the part number of the LC451. the Y5925 chips would be wired in series the data lines should be similar to a shift register.

Yes I am sure. The Y5925s are LED drivers and I believe they are set up to "strobe" the LEDs to reduce overall current draw. Hence the need for a clock signal. with a total of 128 LEDs, the current would be very high if they were not strobed. But I don't see anything else (obvious) on the board that would produce the clock signal. I also got out my microscope and took a look at those remaining chips. They all have numbers on them that are "etched" vice printed. The numbers/letters on them don't seem to cross to anything, so no telling what they do. For all I know the first two could be a custom microcontroller and a I2C EEPROM with no programming. Hence the unit not doing anything.

MHH - 8 pin
Z176 - 6 pin
LA5#KE - 5 pin
A14G - 5 pin

I think this is a project that is going to go nowhere without schematics or some more technical data. I may be better off trying to bypass most of the existing circuitry and just try to drive the Y5925s directly with my controller.

I found this manual on Suzo-Happ ...

http://na.suzohapp.com/images/pdf/104-0xxxx-man.pdf (http://na.suzohapp.com/images/pdf/104-0xxxx-man.pdf)

One more thing ... I had NOT illuminated the back light.  I was so excited to see the rings work that I didn't even realize it.  The back light takes a 24V 2-pin connection, so one extra harness is needed.  I will add that to my post as soon as I find it.  :Dave

Dave, unless you know for sure it takes 24V, you may want to try 12V first.

The polygon topper that I have (Same as the topper as this thread ... http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=25829.0), came off of an IGT machine.  The backlight LED's are indeed 24 VDC.

Good to know. Since the rest was running on 12V, I though it better to be safe than sorry.

I agree completely.  I would do the same thing if I did not know for sure.  :89-

Hey folks..

Just a fyi.. Dropped a pallet of these at public auction. See ultimate auctions, las vegas. End of the month..

Also dropped a pallet of the barbershop toppers as well.. Just a fyi..

Will drop some kits/glass etc that didn't sell .. next week if I get a minute..

on the Y5925s sdi is serial data in and sdo is serial data out much like a shift register you connect sdo frome one chip to sdi on the next ship in searies so when ship 1 is done processing the sequence it passes it to chip 2 then chip 3 down the line. sdi on chip one is driven by the control board along with LE (latch enable / strobe ) clk and oe (output enable) r-ext is your current limiting resister.

Yes, as noted earlier, I figured the Y5925s were being used to "strobe" the LED outputs. However, the question is where are the clock, OE, etc, signals coming from? From outside of the light ring or from those mystery chips on the ring board it's self? Since there appears to only be 3 "signal" lines coming into the light ring, it would seem local that some of the signals are being generated on the board it's self. Unfortunately, I no longer have a working scope, so that makes things even more difficult. And as i mentioned, it's very difficult to follow the traces because they are covered in a fairly thick white coating.

What I was originally hoping for was all of the logic being outside of the light ring. For example, one line for red, one for green, and one for blue. Then having lines that enabled which bank of LEDs to light. That would allow for easy programing of patterns (i.e. chaser) while varying the RGB colors simply by toggling the first 3 lines in various combinations.  Unfortunately that is not the case.

your searial lines are probably coming off the buffer chip. start at the first y5925 and work backwards frome that it if goes to the buffer it is off board if it goes to the mystery chip it would be easier to drive the y5925 directly.

That's the problem, it's extremely difficult to follow any traces. And the mystery chips are at the far end of the board. But yes, I am thinking about just bypassing all of the mystery stuff and driving them directly.

you know 3 lines from the cable go into the LC541 octal buffer check the corresponding outputs to the serial inputs on the Y5925 sdi clk and le most likely just go pin to pin with a multimeter maybe you will get lucky.

Well, I received my topper from southernslots (that works), but one thing I don't really like is the back-light on it. It has 4 big LEDs, and when lit it acts like 4 spotlights on the plexi. On the jumnkman1 version, the back-light is a strip of LED's around the edge of the plexi with a special diffuser that makes the light more uniform. So, I am in the process of doing a modification of taking the working "chaser" boards off of the new topper and installing them on the older topper front. The front of the topper is slightly different, and it requires some very minor exacto trimming for the boards to fit. But all of the mounting holes, etc. line up fine. So I will end up with a hybrid of the two.  I'll post some pictures later.

<edit> here is a picture of the new style (southernslots) LED chaser boards installed on old style (junkman1) topper front. As you can see the white "insert" is the back-light assembly. This assembly clips into the old style topper front differently than the new style, so you can't just swap that part. The red arrows show where I had to trim the plastic just a hair for the chaser boards to fit without forcing them into place. You need to do it for all four boards. I suppose I could have shaved the boards instead, but did not want to risk messing them up. If anyone does this, just be sure to put some tape over the LED holes in the topper front so plastic shavings don't fall in. Total time to complete about 20 minutes.

The bottom part of the picture shows how the new style topper front is made. Since the back-light part of the back of the topper, the plexi alone just "clips" into place (red circles).

Both style fronts fit the same to the back half.

Click on pictures for larger view.

Oh, one more thing. The newer working chaser rings operate at 12VDC but draw less than a half an amp. The older style back light draws less than .2 amp. I found that using an old laptop (regulated) power supply that outputs about 19VDC works well for the back light as I don't like them blazingly bright. And you can tap off of that with a couple dollar 12V regulator to get the 12V for the chasers. In other words, you don't need a big honkin power supply for these things.  

 :331- :205-  I also ended up with a hybrid to get the best of both.  Only, I didn't trim with an exacto.  It was snug, so I just went with it.

And, the official word from Suzo-Happ is they do not have a 24v harness for this particular topper from SouthernSlots.  Fortunately, that's the easiest of all harnesses to make, so I tapped into the fan in the upper cabinet. 

For now, my project is complete and this is the most expensive topper I own. :96-

Many thanks to Poppo! :259-

:Dave :88-

Here is the email from Suzo-Happ regarding the topper from SouthernSlots:


And this is the email from Suzo-Happ regarding Junkman1's topper:

Glad I'm not the only one who decided to do that. I was really afraid of breaking a board, so I didn't want to force them in. And since southernslots seems to be out of them now, I did not want to break this one.


Since the mode and color buttons work on the southernslots version, I'm already working on that mode save problem. Step one is installing two push buttons on the outside of the unit to manually select the mode and color (which may be sufficient as I don't mind the "full demo" mode that it defaults to). The next step will be to use a some sort of cheap PIC controller to just automatically select the right mode and color combo when powered up. Probably only needs like 4 lines of code. Of course I always over do things, so mine will probably have an LCD display that shows what mode and color is currently selected and allow you to change it from the PIC, and it will remember the last setting at power up. 

If you're tired and need a nap, here's the sequence.  :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vspApeqnd7A (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vspApeqnd7A)

Interesting. Mine has a different sequence and has more  white and purple segments mixed in.

Nice topper 4 Dueces!
I see those polygons on IGT Red Hot Fusion machines at a local casino. They have them linked to one controller.
Wouldn't you know IGT has a hold on the controller so no one else can have one.  :37-
Wonder why Ceasar's had so many toppers and no controllers in that auction? :103-

Well I approve of most all of these posts,the effort,work etc. .  Some in the posts are inccorect but it is all working out.  That being said I have now aprox. 70 of these with inserts in them.  These will be a on-going and demanding item to come.  I myself like these alot.   :259- :331-.

deleted

Such as??

Hey Poppo,

Ignore Barry.  His post contributed absolutely nothing to this thread, no help, no insight, nothing, except his opinion, which no one cares about.  Instead, he used this thread to let everyone know that he as "aprox. 70 of these" (note "approx." abbreviated with only one "p") that he believes will go up in value, even though these toppers are starting to be replaced with LCD toppers now.  You may have seen his post in rebuttal to Junkman1 where he posted pictures of all of these toppers under a different user name?

Bottom line, it really doesn't matter because he won't sell anything anyway except some useless switches, buttons, wires, etc.

You've done a great job Poppo!

:Dave :88-

Ok, for anyone interested, here are some of the mods I made.

1. Removed all excess wiring (like USB cable, candle wiring)
2. Installed external mode and color switches.
3. combined chaser LEDs and back-light to only require one power supply.

Since most people would probably be mainly interested in #2, I will start there.
There are two normally open switches that control the mode and color selections. Of course these are located inside which makes it difficult to change especially since it resets to the default on power up. So, all that is needed is two normally open momentary switches. I got them at radio shack for under $3 (part number 275-1547 four pack, two black, two red).

The first picture shows where you need to solder a wire onto the existing switches. There is plenty of pad there to solder to, but you do need a small soldering iron and to be careful. I used a green wire for the mode and a red for the color. I could have used a smaller gauge wire, but this was handy. When the buttons are pressed, they simply apply a ground to the circuitry. Since there are other places to get a ground, I only needed to attach the two wires.

The second picture shows where I mounted the external switches. As you can see, the color goes to one and the mode goes to another. A common ground goes to both (more on that in the next posts)

You can click on any of the pictures to get a better view.

The first picture shows the two switches from the outside. I used black for the mode and red for the color.

The second picture shows where I tied all of the grounds together and installed the 12V regulator for the chaser LEDS. This heat sink already was used as a ground tie point, so I just modified it a bit. I moved the grounds to the other screw as show. So we have the green which was an existing ground that goes outside the topper and is now used for the negative 18-24V supply. As I noted earlier, I am using a regulated 18VDC which works well for my needs. The yellow is the existing ground coming from the control board. The two blacks are one coming from the negative side of the back-light and the other goes to the mode switches.

As you can see, I mounted the 12V regulator to the existing heat sink stud. This is convenient as it not only supplied the ground for the regulator, but also acts as a heat sink (although at the low current it won't get very warm). The output of the regulator (on the right) goes to the 12V input of the control board (existing red wire cut from cable). The input of the regulator has two wires. One is the positive 18-24 line coming from outside the topper and the other is the positive for the old version back light (see previous posts about that). So, the 18-24V comes in and goes directly to the back light and also goes to the 12V regulator supplying the control board.

So that is just about it. Everything works fine and one can still use the back light that came with it. As the first picture shows, there are two LED driver boards that are daisy chained together. The right side one has a plug that goes to the main harness (now removed) that has a black and a yellow wire. Contrary to any sort of standard color codes, yellow is ground and black is +24V. So when I pulled out the harness, I stuck another plug I had in my junk drawer that has a red(+) and black(-) wire on it, and plugged it in just so that I would remember what goes where if somewhere down the road if I decide to switch back to the existing back light. So all you need to do is wire these two wires like I mentioned in the previous post (negative to the rest of the grounds and positive to the input of the voltage regulator).

The last picture is just an overall picture of the whole thing.

Oh, and at 19VDC, max current is .49 amps (usually less depending on what pattern is running). That would go up a bit with 24V but any extra would be from the back lights.

Should I decide to use a PIC to select a specific and color on startup, I would simply tie into the lines I have for the external mode and color buttons, and just toggle them the appropriate number of times.

And of course if you want to use the candle, you can leave the existing harness in. The candle has a separate plug that plugs into the main harness, so one could also just extend the wires on the candle to keep it separate from anything else and/or splice the correct plug onto it for whatever game they are using.

Thanks for the very informative writeup and pictures.   :3-   :259-

Here is a picture of the unit lit up with my halfass homemade plexi (just a inkjet printed picture in front of the difuser to give an idea of what I am trying to accomplish. I still need to find or make some artwork that I like, and then decide how to do the plexi. Actually this "test" printout looks better in real life then in the picture. And it's hard to capture the true colors of the chaser lights with my cheap camera when they are in motion. Just wanted to show that it actually does work.

I remember not to long ago a contol board was sent free of charge for one of these to help a member repair their topper.  Bottom line is this man,  I like these and the games.  No need in being hatefull.  I thought this whole thread was a good one.  I had given you and poppo k+ last night.  The refrences you made were for other posts.  As Joey says,  This is just a forum. 

Just another FYI for anyone who wants to power one of these using the mod I posted above. This universal laptop power supply works great and is cheap.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/9-Tips-70W-UNIVERSAL-AC-DC-POWER-SUPPLY-LAPTOPS-ADAPTER-/140398091388 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/9-Tips-70W-UNIVERSAL-AC-DC-POWER-SUPPLY-LAPTOPS-ADAPTER-/140398091388)

It has the following switch selectable voltage outputs
DC15V                 
DC16V                 
DC18.5V 
DC19.5V 
DC20V                 
DC22V               
DC24V

The back light (both versions) needs at least about 18V to start to light up. But you can use the switch to set it for whatever brightness you like. 20V works well for my setup. Since I have a 12V regulator for the chasers tapped off of it, it doesn't matter what it's set for.