Atari volcano buttons

[Master Phruby]

I have a Kangaroo cabinet with atari volcano start buttons on it. From what I understand Kangaroo never had light up start buttons like Millipede and other games had. The buttons don't have two additional wires for the leds. I wondering if it is possible to wire up the leds to blink when a coin is inserted. I assume it would be similar to Dig Dug.

[doubledown]

The schematic for Kangaroo indicates that the P1/P2 start volcano buttons are the non-illuminated variety.  So you would need to #1, swap those out with the illuminated type, and then #2 figure out how you wanted them to illuminate (and how to power & control them).  Either on, all the time (easiest), or on, only when "credits" are present...I remember some other Atari games (Super Breakout I believe...and others) did this.   On all the time would be the easiest, obviously, as they only need constant 5VDC to power them.  To illuminate them only when "credits" are present, that may be significantly more difficult.  The Atari games that did this, would have had programmed logic to control this, as well as dedicated outputs at the PCB to wire them to.  If none of this exists on the Kangaroo boards, you'd have to get a bit creative.  

[Master Phruby]

That makes sense. I'll see about lighting them always on. Thanks!

[doubledown]

If you don't know already...Arcade Shop has reproduced these buttons and cones/bezels...if yours are the non-illuminated versions, and you want the illuminated versions: HERE

 

I used them on my Mouse Trap controller (with the silver cones/bezels):

 

 

 

[Cebus Capucinis]

On 7/16/2020 at 9:55 AM, doubledown said:

The schematic for Kangaroo indicates that the P1/P2 start volcano buttons are the non-illuminated variety.  So you would need to #1, swap those out with the illuminated type, and then #2 figure out how you wanted them to illuminate (and how to power & control them).  Either on, all the time (easiest), or on, only when "credits" are present...I remember some other Atari games (Super Breakout I believe...and others) did this.   On all the time would be the easiest, obviously, as they only need constant 5VDC to power them.  To illuminate them only when "credits" are present, that may be significantly more difficult.  The Atari games that did this, would have had programmed logic to control this, as well as dedicated outputs at the PCB to wire them to.  If none of this exists on the Kangaroo boards, you'd have to get a bit creative.  

I'd imagine you could kludge something up with a relay on the coin up circuit that ties into them. Tap into one of the wires for the coin circuit and have that control the relay, which then goes to an illuminated volcano button. It's more work than it's probably worth, though, because you'd then have to figure out a way to create a circuit that goes back to the relay and turns it off either once the button is pushed or the game is over, and doing that without some logic to control it would be very difficult.