Our power here is really limited, but we are fortunate to have Monk Johnpaul to help out when it goes awry. Recently our main generator was acting up and he asked if I would help. Of course he was just talking about holding tools because aside from moral support and tool holding, I am mechanically lost outside of pinball.
As he was fixing a worn connector in the generator, I suddenly saw a quick flash of blue light, and in that moment Johnpaul reverted to his French roots, making an almost cartoon-like howl as he jerked his hands away and the word “MERDE!” rang out sharply in the room. It turned out he had forgotten to disconnect the battery that stored excess power and was shocked. He and I both. But mine was a different kind of shock, as I hadn’t heard Johnpaul swear before. With a sheepish look, he shook out his hand, then disconnected the battery and continued with the repair. The episode certainly reinforced the idea to leave such repairs to Johnpaul.
It turned out that wasn’t the only idea reinforced that day. As I was playing the Jurassic Park Premium in my quarters, I couldn’t help but notice how unrealistic the bright white electric bolts were on the playfield. I had just seen the real thing and it definitely had a bit of a bluish cast. Should this have bothered me? Well, not really. But it did, and by now you know what that means.
I set about making a bracket to modify the color of the lighting for those bolts to give them more of an electric blue cast, so the lesson of Johnpaul could benefit pinball as well. The bracket became a bit more complicated than I intended because there is an insert between the bolts, so I could either make two brackets with one bolt on each, or one bracket with a gap in the middle to allow the light for the insert to pass through unmolested. I chose the single bracket approach. The resulting bracket simply slips over two of the posts on the LED light board and effectively makes the electric bolts a Johnpaul-tested electric blue, no “MERDE” exclamation required.
Viva la France!