Alright so the last thing to do to this machine is the LED conversion. Practically every other arrangeball I've seen uses the wire based grain of wheat bulbs. This one however used bayonet based incandescents. The original sockets were significantly corroded and most bulbs were quite dim due to poor electrical contact. In the past someone tried to improve the connection by soldering the sockets directly to the circuit board and the pic shows all the old solder blobs. Well I don't want to deal with finding replacement bulbs and having them burn out over time and I don't want to have to worry about bad electrical connections again and LEDs eliminate those issues. This means I had to come up with a different mounting style as opposed to reusing the silicone cups for the normal grain of wheat mini bulbs. As can be seen in the pic there are 4 plastic standoffs on the rear of the matrix to provide clearance for the original bulb sockets. Also visible are the 16 holes where each bulb's light entered. My solution was simply to use plastic rod cut to the correct length to make up the difference. I placed the LED atop the rod and secured it with a strip of tape then soldered the resistor on one side and xtra wire on the other. The bottom of the rod has another strip of tape and is secured to the circuit board with a brass screw and washer on the opposite side. The original bulbs sat about a quarter inch behind each opening and sort of lit the number indirectly. Now the LED actually fits inside the cavity and is a dramatic improvement over the original.
Of course getting a good photo of a lit LED is just about impossible as it looks too bright and washes out the number but in person, its great.ImageUploadedByTapatalk1360368981.703796.jpgImageUploadedByTapatalk1360368999.332668.jpgImageUploadedByTapatalk1360369017.497480.jpg
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