I just got 1977 pinball machine and it is a bit dull lighting wise. what i want to do is have LED strips along the sides of the playfield and in the back box. They will respond to the different switches the game already has which are closed when the ball hits them. the FX (i.e. flashing/chasing/other)would be short bursts, nothing too complicated. its a pretty simplistic machine with a small amount of switches compared to modern machines.
This is the idea:
-I power on the game and the LEDs go to a default color and solid light much like the normal incandescent lighting already does.
-This default state is constant until a different switch is closed somewhere on the playfield.
-Pressing the start game button makes the LEDs do quick FX and return to default to correspond with the short melody the machine plays.
-When the ball drains, another sequence is triggered.
So how would I wire this to an arduino and what am I in for programming wise?
I believe you would not have much problems with using an Arduino in this project. For the strips if you want to do color change/FX I personally would recommend WS2812B strips, they are reasonably priced and only require 1 pin for data (although they are kind of power hungry little beasts so you have to make sure you account for that when powering them), and there is a library readily available for them (Neopixel library).
After that I believe it would be a matter of connecting the switches (of course I do not know what sort of voltage level these switches operate at so you may have to take measures to get the voltage in a range workable for the Arduino) to input pins of the Arduino and keep an eye on when the switches are activated, each different switch can trigger whatever function you like to make the lights respond. There are quite a few examples of light effects out there so I do not think you would have any issues creating the effects you desire.
