I just bought two of every led I could find from every seller, had apx 10 sample bags in front of me, and spent a few days mucking around til I found the perfect choice/choices.
whiote in white inserts, red in red, white in yellow (never yellow/looks awful) and match colour of insert to colour of led.
purple n pink inserts also like white as well.
flat top white is best all round, or red, green etc, but flat tops are best for inserts.
I leave flashers original or u go blind.
I found 5 in 1 leds too bright, again blinding.
only other leds I buy are the toothbrush sideways looking ones for inserts that have a pcb mounted sideways.
Re buying in bulk, I see terry from pinball life. buy 100 a time n watch the money come right down.
mark from melb does deals too if u screw hard and ask for the same price as terry I think I buy the toothbrush ones from cointaker, but again in BULK or its too expensive..
I just bought 1000 (one thousand) of each type n colour I wanted n got a huge discount. spent a few grand, but it was the only way to led out 40 machines.
then u need valium after all the farking around putting them all in.lol
That's a lot of LEDs
yeh, it was the only way. I didn't mention, I also rang around to a few friends (3 or 4) and asked if they wanted 50 or 100 or a few hundred of a certain LED, or if they wanted to cash in on the bulk order pricing, and all said yes. therefore, it was LEDs galore and it was like xmas day when the big boxes chok o block turned up. I still have boxes full of them which owe me not much money at all. At the time I was doing a lot of high end commercial jobs and had the coin to do it. Spending a few grand at once seemed crazy, but its a lot better than paying $200 to $300 for those kits that some sellers sell with the map showing where you should put them. Sharing in a bulk order is still the best way to fully LED out a few machines.
Its also great to have so many options with so many diff types of leds. Pricing has come down like everything else which is good.
I will add, I do NOT led any of the brand new sterns I buy, just no need to in my opinion. The machines are only on when I play them, so they don't get real hot for long, and the BNIB sterns seem to not even need them cause the inserts are so clear and the std bulbs are very very bright. Older dmds need leds mostly, but new sterns, not needed unless stern adds them at factory.