LED lamps- whats the go

[Wotto]

Excuse my ignorance , but after seeing some more pics of pins with LED kits I am getting interested in this, but no little about it. I have read another thread that says blue looks great and I was thinking of doing something with WH20.

I am assuming that you buy the globe to match the colour of your insert?
What about GI lighting - White LED's or can you / should you do a 'colour thing' in place of the white bulbs ?
They just plug in like normal globes ?
They operate on the normal circuit , no need for any other adjustments anywhere, fuses etc?
Just plug and play - right ?

What did you have for breakfast this morning, what colour undie you wearing 



Thankyou in advance

[MartyJ]

Excuse my ignorance , but after seeing some more pics of pins with LED kits I am getting interested in this, but no little about it. I have read another thread that says blue looks great and I was thinking of doing something with WH20.

I am assuming that you buy the globe to match the colour of your insert?
What about GI lighting - White LED's or can you / should you do a 'colour thing' in place of the white bulbs ?
They just plug in like normal globes ?
They operate on the normal circuit , no need for any other adjustments anywhere, fuses etc?
Just plug and play - right ?

What did you have for breakfast this morning, what colour undie you wearing 



Thankyou in advance

Hi Wotto,

Generally when I put in any order from RTBB - Greg is automatically reaching to the LED stocks!


Basically yes, most pinball insert colours are available.  I've made my own kits (only for T2, 1/2 done for LAH) from RTBB.  Basically I just got what ever the insert colour was.  Clear inserts - with a white LED are awesome.  Greens / blues are fantastic.  The reds don't seem to have as much 'pop' to them.  In the LAH, rather than go a red LED, I put a white LED in and it was a little brighter.

G.I - Not yet.  I think LED's are too bright for playfield G.I.  There a diffused ones available, but until they hit the shores I have not used them.  I've put some white onces in the G.I lighting behind the translite, mixed with normal globes to highlight arnie etc..Looks great.  I did the same on my Police Force - just were the police lights on translite are (blue) I put blue led's in.  Heaps better...

They operate 100% normally.  NO mods requried at all.  Less heat and last for a very very long time.  Of all the ones I've bought, only 1 DOA.
Just plug and awe!  - although with the 555 globes - on the plastic base of the globe - there are the two wire contacts.  Sometimes you need to give these a tweak out (just bend slightly to outside edge of globe) - only a tiny bit, just to make better contact.

-Toast and blue.

[Wotto]

Thanks Marty - great info.

Will start working out colours, qty's.
I hear what you say about GI but - behind these blue targets are 5 x GI white lights.
Would I put blue LED's there?

This is where the 'unknown factor comes in for me, as blue LED's in a spot like that may make the targets look outstanding but may not light up the mountain 'glow' as much ??????

[MartyJ]

From my experience too, don't go by what the manual says re globes.  Both times they have been wrong.  Now I will visually check each one  - to make sure..

The LED's produce a very 'sharp' light.  If those globes are facing out towards the blue target - I would go blue.  However , I don't think they would be able to light the mountain area as well.  I've found the #555 & #44's tend to mostly light out from the front - not sides too well (if this makes sense)..

Your river inserts - will be a hyper white colour and really pop.  Sometimes it is trial and error to.  Maybe just order a couple extra (in white) of whats in the mountain and give it a test.  I still think you would need difused white to get the same effect.

[Chuck]

LED's produce a very harsh light compared to bulbs.  It's kind of like comparing a high-output flourescent to an incandescent bulb.  Plus pinball machines duty-cycle the lights.  This means they turn they on and off very quickly.  So quickly in fact that regular bulbs don't have a chance to cool-down (turn off) where leds will turn completely off.  The causes leds to flicker.  Personally I think led lights look awesome in certain machines, demolition man, t2, t3, and other "futuristic" machines.  I don't think they look good in machines like white water, fish tales, etc.  Now, a few strategically placed LCD in those machines look great.  On my TZ I have leds that when not lit are frosted white globes.  When lit they are red, yellow,green, etc.  These are awesome for mode start lights imo.

Now all this is my opinion.  What I would suggest is that you buy a dozen or so light and try them out to see if you like them.  Definately do this before you spend 100 bucks to replace all the lights in a machine.

[MartyJ]

LED's produce a very harsh light compared to bulbs.  It's kind of like comparing a high-output flourescent to an incandescent bulb.  Plus pinball machines duty-cycle the lights.  This means they turn they on and off very quickly.  So quickly in fact that regular bulbs don't have a chance to cool-down (turn off) where leds will turn completely off.  The causes leds to flicker.  Personally I think led lights look awesome in certain machines, demolition man, t2, t3, and other "futuristic" machines.  I don't think they look good in machines like white water, fish tales, etc.  Now, a few strategically placed LCD in those machines look great.  On my TZ I have leds that when not lit are frosted white globes.  When lit they are red, yellow,green, etc.  These are awesome for mode start lights imo.

Now all this is my opinion.  What I would suggest is that you buy a dozen or so light and try them out to see if you like them.  Definately do this before you spend 100 bucks to replace all the lights in a machine.

I agree 100% Chuck.  That why I like them in inserts mostly.  On the T2, all GI lighting is 100% factory.  In LAH, I don't think I would do any more.  I only repaced the globes in white inserts (white LEDs), the greens and a couple of spare white ones on the crane.  (also experimented with white in red inset).  As for the GI and rest of game, will be left as is.
I'm not sure about the kits you can buy from OS, whether they include GI lighting, or just playfield inserts and backglass.

One thing I found whilst experimenting is that if you have them behind stuff, ie mountains, plastics etc...if there are any inperfections with them (which they'll have) you will really notice...

[Wotto]

Thanks guys - then thats what I will do, grab some for the inserts and get a few spares and experiment.

I did plan to visually check each globe rather than just go off the manual as well.

Thanks for the info.

[vinito]

Note: I'm in the USA and we call globes "bulbs", so I'll try to use the Aussie syntax but I might slip now & then in the following post.......

I met up with some robotics buddies of mine today and we talked about this very thing. The subject came up because within the couple hours we were hobbying around and mixing games of pinball here & there, three #47 globes had to be replaced. This is in a game I just completed shopping out, part of which was installing new ones throughout the entire game, and I've already replaced ten or so within the past week. This crap just has to go. On a side note, I did start re-installing some of the globes with GE bulbs that were originally in the game and they are more reliable, but you just can't get good quality globes anymore.
 

Anyways, they both told me they bought some bright white LEDs somewhere off the net at 1000 for $10 (US). I'm going to find that source and get some to experiment with.
 

A couple thoughts:
1) Seems like maybe installing the right value of capacitor might blend the applied voltage to help make the LED light similar to an incandescent filament? I've seen plenty of devices that have a lingering LED glow until a capacitor is done discharging. Of course you don't want it to linger for seconds like that, but the proper capacitor value might work like a champ.
2) At that price, ganging two or three together to replace one bulb may help in terms of dispersing light in a less directional manner?
3) I wonder if it would be as simple as taking an LED to the bead blaster for a couple seconds to create a home-brew diffused LED for next to nothing? Hell, even a few seconds with some sandpaper would achieve a similar finish on an LED.

As I mentioned, I'm going to experiment with this, probably with the help of my robotics/electronics guru buddies, and see if something can be made to work just right. I have plenty on my plate that I'm behind on right now so it will be a while, but I'd certainly like to wean myself completely off those crap globes. The thought of not replacing them for several years would be music for the soul.

If I can make something work right, I'll just bust the glass off the huge bag of expired #47s I've got and solder the LEDs into that to make for easy installation. After a dozen or so, I'd guess the process would go pretty quick and you'd have enough to outfit a game in a half-hour or so. Probably have to make two or three different configurations to replace globes in different types of places, but if it will save burned out globe frustration, that's worth a lot to me.

[ajlaird]

If I can make something work right, I'll just bust the glass off the huge bag of expired #47s I've got and solder the LEDs into that to make for easy installation. After a dozen or so, I'd guess the process would go pretty quick and you'd have enough to outfit a game in a half-hour or so. Probably have to make two or three different configurations to replace globes in different types of places, but if it will save burned out globe frustration, that's worth a lot to me.

What about the drop-down resistor?

[dj10555]

Are we all going to have to move the LEDs now that bulbs are being phased out?

[Retropin]

Nope - ill always be using bulbs, reckon Tony would be too!

[Greg]

while I use them in my own  games ( well some of them)
I would agree whith Chuck, they don't suit all games

I do like the white 44/47's under the flat screen printed plastics

like on Scared Stiff  the result of using these to hi light the
flat plastics that have the lighting printed on them is outstanding
 also colour matching the stiff O meter is cool

on Fishtales I found that using a LED below the reel to hi light that and
the long mozzie plastic as well  was also very effective but there the only two LEDs that I used
on FT   the rest of that game will remain globed    not LED

tried a few on my T3 and didn't like that and the same as Whirlwind
and on my TZ I have the clock Millons  insert with a LED and no others

the best advise I can give  to any one thinking of doing LEDs
is instead of buying 10 or 20 LEDs  just buy a few to try and move them around
until you find what works and what does not work for your game


http://www.rtbb.com.au/catalog/admin/categories.php?cPath=22_119_133&osCAdminID=5eb993cc77ba0a2a6a32c592ffdf729b

[www.pinballcenter.eu]

Hello,

it´s all easy to install Led´s we have all in our shop
The newest Version is Noflix Plus, there you have no Ghostlight

[pinballist]

What about the drop-down resistor?

Thanks Andrew; while reading everyone's responses I had exactly the same question. I'm sure that anyone who has plugged a LED into a 6 or 12 power supply knows what happens ;)

Sorry if I'm being a total noob here but is the resistor built into the LED assy, oh and what about the older machines that run AC to the lamps?