Bally/Midway light fixture hacked by previous owner

80scoinops

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Bally/Midway light fixture hacked by previous owner

Someone hacked up the cab's marquee lighting. The original flourescent marquee light fixture is gone and in its place are two ceramic, incandescent bulb holders, one on either side of the cab.

They cut the three harness wires leaving both sides of the red molex connector. The middle wire is cut completely at the fixture side of the molex. The black and blue wires were spliced to the first fixture, then they ran some lamp cord (?) from the first fixture to the second. A (burnt out) 40 watt bulb was in each fixture.

Q1 - electrically, is it safe to replace the incandescent bulbs and leave it as-is?

Q2 - marquee-art wise, is it safe to leave it as-is, or will the incandescent bulbs be more likely to scorch or damage (make the art flake off the glass) the marquee?

Q3 - even if all of the above are safe, I'd like to eventually put a flourescent tube back in there. Short of finding an original midway fixture, what's a good replacement, easy to install, etc.?
 
An incandescent bulb will create more heat and could over time damage a marquee. In a home use environment, the risk of that is probably a lot lower unless you leave the game on all day. I would put something like 25 watt bulbs in if you replace it, or go with the newer cfl bulbs that run a lot cooler. I use one in my NBA Jam since someone had removed the original fluorescent tube assembly and had a regular incandescent bulb in there. I wanted something that will run cooler for now until I maybe put a tube assembly back in it. Home Depot also has some kind of fluorescent tube fixture that I've seen others use as a replacement for a missing assembly. I'm pretty sure this is it...

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...splay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053
 
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The original flourescent marquee light fixture is gone and in its place are two ceramic, incandescent bulb holders, one on either side of the cab.

That's actually how Pac-Man and Galaxian came from the factory.

Edward
 
Thanks, guys!
I would put something like 25 watt bulbs in if you replace it, or go with the newer cfl bulbs that run a lot cooler. I use one in my NBA Jam since someone had removed the original fluorescent tube assembly and had a regular incandescent bulb in there. I wanted something that will run cooler for now until I maybe put a tube assembly back in it.
That's what I did for now too. :) I bought a couple of the 9w candle bulbs and installed them, they run cool to the touch and light up the marquee so well that I wouldn't notice if I didn't know they were in there.

ELutz said:
That's actually how Pac-Man and Galaxian came from the factory.
Cool, I had a Pac years ago but I didn't know if it was factory. The manual for this one shows the flourescent light fixture. There are also 3 screw holes in the top of the cab -- does that sound right for a factory install flourescent?

I'll try and post pics tomorrow of the wiring if anyone's interested. Thanks again.
 
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