Technics 1200 LED KIT

[DJBOJAN]

I am looking forward to your guide lotus, I'm going to use it when i do my LED installation. Stopped by Radio Shack the other day to see what kind they have and pricing, I think i may order online.

[swine]

You might find that superbright LEDs are too bright for the 33 / 45 buttons, as they fire straight up at you. Especially in the dark.

DTR is right about the superbright LEDs being too bright. I put superbright ones in and it was a mistake but I solved it by sanding down the face of the LED with pretty rough sand paper. They are still a bit bright though.

[Badger]

I would love to swap out the lights on my 1200mk2s with some purple or blue LEDs, especially since one of the pop-up lights went out years ago.

However, I'll freely admit it: When it comes to equipment as precious as my turntables, I am terrified of soldering.

Lots of people are great at soldering. I'm not one of them. I would rather spend extra to buy a kit to fix them up with no soldering than risk damaging my Techs.

For those of you who have had experience with the kits from technologytransplant.com: How easy are they to install, and how long do you guesstimate that they would take someone without a lot of experience at taking things apart? (I am good at following instructions; I just suck at soldering.)

Thank you very much!

[DJBOJAN]

I feel like that kit would take quite a while to reach you as it is coming from China...and the soldering does take some work but is doable..with step by step instruction on kits from Ebay..

[djlotus]

Those kits are amazing and usually arrive within a week of ordering. I especially like the double SMD pop up lights.

[DJBOJAN]

Looks like Lotus has better knowledge about them than me..

[djlotus]

The main reason I like the kits is the pop up lights come with a PCB which has a new switch and resistor built in. Make sure you have ring pullers to properly remove the horse shoe washer and the rest is cake. Another good thing about those kits is they come with 2x types of pitch light. A solder-less one and a solder one. So if you mangle the posts on the existing one or cut them too short you can still replace it with a solder in one.

To the point of the super brights being too bright, they are. But, I love them that way.

If you have never taken your table apart I would set aside about 2 hours for the first one, and 30 minutes for the second.

Also, if you use the kits, be careful not to mess about with the SMD target lights too much as the wires tend to break off the PCB if you do, and you will find yourself soldering anyway.

I would love to swap out the lights on my 1200mk2s with some purple or blue LEDs, especially since one of the pop-up lights went out years ago.

However, I'll freely admit it: When it comes to equipment as precious as my turntables, I am terrified of soldering.

Lots of people are great at soldering. I'm not one of them. I would rather spend extra to buy a kit to fix them up with no soldering than risk damaging my Techs.

For those of you who have had experience with the kits from technologytransplant.com: How easy are they to install, and how long do you guesstimate that they would take someone without a lot of experience at taking things apart? (I am good at following instructions; I just suck at soldering.)

Thank you very much!

[DJBOJAN]

And you can always modify the light later if too bright.

[CC Ricers]

When I replaced the strobe LEDs in my 1210 to blue, the blue ones turned out to be the super-bright ones. I'm not sure if this is because most blue LEDs tend to put out more light than the red ones, but whatever the case may be, I only needed 2 of them instead of 4 to get the desired brightness.

This meant that two lights were removed from the strobe PCB and the circuit needed to be completed manually.

I soldered the new lights to the 1st and 4th spots, making 2 and 3 completely unused. Then I also added small speaker wire to the back of the PCB to bypass the unused spots to complete the circuit, because there wasn't any metal connecting them. This solution worked and the lights are bright and stable.

[DTR]

I soldered the new lights to the 1st and 4th spots, making 2 and 3 completely unused. Then I also added small speaker wire to the back of the PCB to bypass the unused spots to complete the circuit, because there wasn't any metal connecting them. This solution worked and the lights are bright and stable.

It's obviously worked ok for you, but just a word of warning. By taking two LEDs out of the chain, there will be a bigger volt drop across the limiting resistor, leading to a higher current through the remaining two LEDs. That could shorten their lifespan. It's probably a moot point as superbrights are usually rated higher than conventional LEDs anyway. And the circuit was probably under powered to begin with. Just thought I'd point it out though