My beloved National RX-7000 with the lights it deserves. 

Plus illuminated Cassette window.

Nicely done !

nice touch there a e

yeah love the light on the deck, cool

Good job AE 

Nice. This is one box that I really want but have to save up

Great work and great photos.

That is one Totally Classic looking BBX !! the lighting really sets it off big time.   I too love what you did with the photos.  NOW.. JUST HOW did you do one photo to load up on here and have it change to the lighted one from unlit ???  Inquiring minds wanna know.

I think it's a GIF file rather than the usual JPEG flavour. GIFs can be animated whereas JPEGS cannot, as seen here to great effect

That's cool! They're flashing like Christmas  lights.

that's really nice AE,  great job.

Now that's how it's done. Bravisimo!!

love the deck lamp -

wish all boxes had those

Yes. They are GIFs. GIFs file can be animated with multiple images in each frame, like a video. I shot the photos with the camera on tripod. One with LEDs off and next one with lights on, without any disturbance to the camera position. Lot of patience required to shoot in the low light. Camera should be in manual mode to keep the light level almost constant, with and without illumination. Then use any freebies available like Microsoft GIF Animator to generate the flick. In order to see the animated GIF, it needs to be opened with any Browser.

I used warm white LEDs whose illumination is like incadescent bulbs rather than the blue-ish cool white LEDs commonly available, for retaining the retro look.

awsome!!! just bought one from peppin... how did you do that??

Its pretty simple to fix the dial light in a RX-7000.

Do you open up boxes and can do minor repairs?

yes we can, please explain AE_Stereo.

if is easy I think we can manage.

would love that mine would be lighted like yours.

Unlike many other boxes with dial light, RX-7000 has a dedicated On/Off switch for the light. And the power supply point is readily available there, without even removing anything. So it is very straight forward to fix the LED. When you open up, the whole thing is at your finger tip to work with. The wire terminals to the existing dial light can be traced to the board, soldered on to two pins.

I used white LED Strip with color like filament bulbs, not the Bright bluish white LEDs normally available. LED strips comes with its own resistor for 3 LEDs connected in series. Either use the same or find out some resistor which will work with the LED you buy to operate on 12V. Take help of your local electronic component dealer or GOOGLE.

You need two LEDs for the tuner dial and one or two for the VU meter. For Cassette door another one is enough. Make a temporary setup outside to find out resistor values and LED combination to work on 12V. 

Open up the box. Remove the Cassette cover by snapping out up. Apart from the back side screws, there are few on the front side. One behind the Tuner knob. There are two big hexagonal Nuts on two of the rotary faders (Treble control & Rec Level control). Remove all the rotary knobs, you will see them. No need of removing any on-off switches.

There are acrylic sheets on top of both Tuner dial and VU meter dial. Hold a lighting LED (with a button cell battery) perpendicular to the edge of the acrylic sheet. You will see the mesmerizing lighted dial. You will know where to fix the LEDs now. One each at both end edges of the tuner dial and VU meter dial. You may have to remove the foil tape at one edge of the VU meter slightly.

Now make the LEDs & Resistors into a wiring harness with sufficient length of wires, with two leads going to the original lamp power terminals. You can even twist the bare  wires  on to the terminal pins, without soldering. Before connecting, find out the polarity (+-) of the terminals. Original bulb will work with any direction, whereas LEDs work with correct polarity only.

Fix the LEDs to the edge of the acrylic plates with a Hot glue gun, unless you can think of a fixture to fix it. Make sure that there is no short circuit happens from the new LED circuit you have made. Insulate all exposed areas, soldering points and LED tips.

great info, thanks so much AE,  

so i finally got my 7000 from hong kong. and had it open, so i trace the wires too the lead. desolder them. and add three led strips with resitor too that lead and walla?? where did you put the one for the deck?? uder the heads??

Just stick the strip on the cassette door frame!

ah.. i see.... will have too clean it up first.. recommend any strips too buy?

i guess i could use the existing wires for the old lamp too. and just hook on too those? saves desolder and resolder right?