Indiana Jones Jackpot Lights

This article was written by Jason (an Indiana Jones pinball owner from Melbourne, Australia). He has kindly given Pinball Fixers permission to use it on this web site.

Jay's Indiana Jones Jackpot Lights Mod

How to make the display panel jackpot lights work like the ones on the prototype pinballs

The Indiana Jones Jackpot Lights Mod for the display panel is complete!

The following pictures are a documentation of how "I" did the mod, Other people may do it differently.

You can do this mod by buying the kit, but I have a limited budget (who hasn't now days!) and all it cost me was 3 bayonet globe holders with diodes, 3 #44 globes, a piece of wood to mount them on and a 50cm (20inch) piece of Cat5 computer network cable of which I only use 5 wires (you can use any type of wire).

Sorry for the slight blur on the pictures as I have a crap digital camera.

The first thing to do is: TURN OFF THE POWER TO YOUR INDIANA JONES PINBALL MACHINE!

Open up the backbox, and drop the display panel down. (For instructions on how to do this, see: Opening a Pinball)

As you can see below on the Indiana Jones Power Diver Board, J133 is being used, I pulled out the red wiring loom from that location and plugged into J134 below it. I did this for ease of connecting the wires later on.

I also moved the yellow wired loom on J137 down to J138 for the same reason. This is perfectly ok to do and will not affect you IJ pinball in any way.

Pinball Fixers note: The plugs J133, J134 and J135 are all the same and are interchangable. The same for plugs J137 and J138.

I disconnected the speakers below and placed the screws and washers on each corresponding speaker magnet and left them inside the back box.

With the Dot Matrix Display panel in the raw, I was debating whether to completely remove the Dot Matrix Display from the panel and decided not to, as on previous experience with other removal of Dot Matrix Displays, they don't stick back as strong as when Williams put it on new and how was I going to protect the sticky adhesive left on the board from dust while cutting? So caution was taken when using the jigsaw.

After carefully removing the display panel plastic, I put a torch behind to show the light hitting from behind each of the 3 jackpot items. Notice the sticky section below the "ARK".

This is the display upside down, you will notice that a sheet of A4 paper is exactly the same width!

Place the sheet of paper over the top of the display so it covers the white rectangle which has the 3 Treasures behind.

Place some standard clear tape "lightly" on the sides. I found out the hard way when you use masking tape as below, trying to get it off the sticky adhesive was a battle as the tape wanted to rip and permanently stay. (I got it all off eventually LOL!)

Now fold the paper underneath the display panel plastic so it has a flush edge and "crease" it. This is important later on when you use this paper to transfer the "Treasures" onto the Dot Matrix Display panel later on.

Now as you can see inside my elaborate studio of graphic design (not!), I have placed a torch behind so you can trace the "Treasures" with a pencil. Do you like the coffee cups holding the panel? The wife didn't want bricks on the kitchen bench...

Now that you have the traced the "Treasures", take the piece of folded paper off the front display (and that tape off the adhesive!).

Now place the front display plastic lightly back on the Dot Matrix Display panel as if you were going to place it back on the machine.

With a pencil, mark directly below each "Treasure" underneath the Dot Matrix Display panel and transfer onto the back the width of each "Treasure" and the width of the rectangle display as I have done below. I have left the tracing of the 3 treasures as a reference.

Now with your pencil, put a small hole on each corner. We will use this as a guide reference for cutting later. This is important so you don't light up any other surrounds like the Typan's on either side of the treasures and so the light from each globe will focus only on the selected treasure.

As you can see below, I cut back about 4 to 6mm (approx ¼inch) on top of the paper trace so the "crease" can fit exactly to the edge of the Dot Matrix Display panel.

Now put some tape again on the sides to hold the trace firmly in place on the Dot Matrix Display panel and tuck the rest of the paper under the board as below.

Now using the pencil fill in the holes on all 3 treasures to leave an outline.

Now join the dots to give you a tight outlay of the treasures.

As I said earlier, I am leaving the Dot Matrix Display on, so this is where the masking tape comes in handy to completely seal up from any dust. Removing the Dot Matrix Display would be a safer option.

After I drilled some holes with a drill, then jigsawed to fit and "carefully" drilled next to the Dot Matrix Display, these are the results. I got a flat file and smoothed up the edges and I was happy with the hole location results as they did not impact with the typan's on each side.

The Ark still had the sticky piece on the bottom as shown.

Sticky piece now removed. This is not important as this will mostly be hidden by the steel U bracket holding the display on the backboard.

With the next step, the piece of wood I used raised the display by about 3mm (approx 1/8inch) so I tried to get as much of the Ark shown as possible.

Here are the holes. Filing them a bit will bring them up nice.

I "touched" the DMD with the jigsaw but no damage (too close!)

Now for the fun part, the mounting of the 3 lamps and wiring loom to the Power Driver Board.

I first cut a piece of wood the same length as the Dot Matrix Display panel and butted it up against it so as to cover up the holes we have just made. I then placed a screw at both ends. The piece of wood was about 3mm (approx 1/8inch) too wide but this is ok as there is still enough room to fit in the U bracket.

I then drilled with a small drill bit into the centre of each cutout.

Then using a 10mm (approx 7/16inch) drill bit, drill through and clean up the edges of the holes. This will make for a snug fit for the 3 #44 bayonet globes.

I then placed the globes in each holder and mounted them into position. You might notice that I placed a washer under each mount to lift the globe back a couple of millimeters (approx 1/16inch) so as not to touch the front Perspex screen.

This is the reverse side with the globes mounted in the centre of each treasure location.

This is the wiring set up that I did with a piece of Cat5 computer network cable. I then put some cable staples to hold the cables in place.

This is the schematic I used to wire the lamps and also the pins on the power board. I soldered the pins on a low heat as too much heat may possibly damage the pins and the printed circuit board behind.

On the Schematic above:-
5 = pin 2 of plug J133
3 = pin 9 of plug J133
1 = pin 7 of plug J133
4 = pin 4 of plug J137
2 = pin 2 of plug J137

For my project, I am using J133 and J137, as I previously said that I moved each red and yellow plug down to the next header below. So as you can see, there is a lot more room for me to solder the wires without any plugs or wires in the way.

Please disregard the colours of the wires. The colours have no relevance to any colour codes. These are just what is available in the Cat5 computer network cable.

The photo only shows where I soldered the wires onto the boards below. You could use also heatshrink to insulate the pins and wires.

Pinballl Fixers note: We recommend using proper plugs and pins for this instead of soldering directly to the circuit board. Soldering directly to the headers makes it difficult later on if there is a problem and the board needs to be removed.

This is the completed mod board with the pink Cat5 computer network cable loom going to the pins on the Power Driver Board on the bottom right corner.

Here are some pictures of the treasures lit up. Once you turn on your Indiana Jones, your game will take on a new visual that looks excellent!!

It is such a shame Williams left this feature out in the production.

I hope you enjoy doing this mod as much as I did.

Allow at least 2 hours to do this mod and take your time, you will enjoy doing every minute of this mod.

Cheers, Jason.

Thankyou Jason for sharing your Indiana Jones Jackpot Lights Mod with us! We hope all you Indiana Jones pinball owners out there have enjoyed reading this article, and maybe are considering doing this to your own machine.

If you need any help with this, feel free to ask us on our "Ask a Pinball Tech" page.

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