Machines With Leds ! Excellent Results. What A Difference. Photos.

[oldskool1969]

Even a bit of sacrilege ! I changed an EM with a few coloured GI LED's and inserted warm white LED's under playfield to give it the original look , I find this little change has ALL my mates and family playing it as it now really sparkles , Gilligan's  Island is hot and soon DR DUDE will be done ( more fluorescent colours required like the 80's )
I hope the pictures work out as this is all new to me
definitely cuts the heat and prolongs general life expectancy of components

/Users/andrewdolby/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Modified/2012/22:01:2012/DSCN0130./Users/andrewdolby/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Modified/2012/22:01:2012/DSCN0130.JPG

[philtech]

 You are doing far far better than me Brett.
It has taken me 5 weeks now to get 30% of the Fire Power 2 locked and loaded in LED.
I had to reverse polarity of all diodes, and swap over each wire on the bulb rails so the LEDS were of the correct polarity.
Grrrrr, it gets worse again having to solder a resistor across all Zener diodes inline to other leds on the play field.

 Got to say it looks a million already and everyone comments it looks brand new.   
Still questioning my sanity on this one though. LOL


Regards Phil...

[Caveoftreasures]

well done mate. keep going. changing a machine over to LEDs is like spray painting a car, once u start, there is no going back.lol

yes, it can be very time consuming and frustrating, but the results are definately worthwhile. I did a machine a week for 4 weeks, now onto another machine, and u do need a bourban n coke, and sometimes panadol after mucking around for 3 or 4 hrs non stop, night after night. 

would love to see some photos when u are done. thanks for the nice comment. 

[oldskool1969]

I am a sucker ! loving it as it makes you even more intimate with the machine !
her is DR DUDE which suits the bright colours and gaudiness of the 80's / 90's
I AM A GEEK !

[Caveoftreasures]

Yes, that looks great.   Led's just bring the inserts so much more alive than standard.   The visual difference is like making a 1990's playfield belong to 2012. 

[oldskool1969]

concerns were bought up about EM machines ! well if you keep warm white under PF and do some highlighting on the PF it makes a HHHHHUUUGGGEEEEE difference and people tend to be drawn to it and play it more ( as they should )
I must admit though that when I get around to doing 2001 ( 1971 GTB ) I will keep this all warm white purely for nostalgia value and I do find that using the sealed 44 base in this tends note to strobe as much ?? don'y know why !

[Caveoftreasures]

wow. what a difference. definately makes people gravitate to the machine when it looks that good. great job again. 

[philtech]

concerns were bought up about EM machines ! well if you keep warm white under PF and do some highlighting on the PF it makes a HHHHHUUUGGGEEEEE difference and people tend to be drawn to it and play it more ( as they should )
I must admit though that when I get around to doing 2001 ( 1971 GTB ) I will keep this all warm white purely for nostalgia value and I do find that using the sealed 44 base in this tends note to strobe as much ?? don'y know why !

 Very very nice mate and looks great.  I will post pics soon of my latest achievements in fire power 2 as it is mind blowing what difference the leds have made to the PF.
Thats an understatement, "the machine is ALIVE".!   Love it.
Painful but worth the effort thanks to Brett's inspiration, and for sure gets addictive. 

[Caveoftreasures]

UPDATE.

Here is the LED link you emailed about.

Cavey 

[Crashramp]

Hi Cavey,

I've been reading with interest this thread and I've recently finished installing ghostbusters LED's under PF on my DE Starwars. I was wondering if you'd replaced any of your larger flasher globes with LEDs? if so how do they look? I've tried a few myself but am a bit un decided. The ones I have changed defiantly make an impact but I think if I do one area of flashes I need to do them all. I'm not sure that this won't be a bit to distracting, any thoughts?

[Caveoftreasures]

I leave ALL flashers standard. I only change playfield inserts with Leds, I rarely change any 44 bulbs above playfield because LEDs in general illumination are too bright n distracting when playing a game and looking for the ball.

I find backbox can use LEDS for general illumination ONLY if u have a backglass and dont want to ruin it with std bulb heat etc. Translite games can keep std bulbs of all types. Std bulbs give a warmer nicer glow which spreads out more than leds in a backbox.

* Std flashers everywhere in the machine are best in my opinion.
* General illumination std is best for me.
* Only inserts to leds is best for me generally.

Std flashers n standard bulbs for general illumination give a wider spread of more light. Leds arent really required for flashers. Led flashers are too expensive and dont bring a huge difference to the table for my liking.

Everything LED is overkill. There is a compromise which works better by using a bit of new and a bit of old. 

 

[Olivia_jason]

i absolutely love the idea and look of led's so many pro's to doing. pissing of the heat and not having to change bulbs as often, looks modern, +++++++++++++

[Olivia_jason]

I am a sucker ! loving it as it makes you even more intimate with the machine !
her is DR DUDE which suits the bright colours and gaudiness of the 80's / 90's
I AM A GEEK !

nice machine mate

[Crashramp]

Everything LED is overkill. There is a compromise which works better by using a bit of new and a bit of old. 

Thanks for the feed back,  that's the way I was leaning also. Funny I thought they'd look great as flashes but when I tried them tonight I found them a little distracting, only had a couple in to. I also tried the backglass a few weeks ago but changed them back as well.  Under PF and in the pop bumpers on my machine they look great though.

[Wotto]

LED's = very 'game' dependent IMO.

I was doing the 'mix n match' with some LED and some standards for quite a while- ONLY under 'certain' inserts' in the playfield.
I do not put ANY LED's in backboxes.
I ALWAYS use LED"s in ALL flasher locations.

Recently however I re-tried some bright WHITE leds in ALL of the playfield GI for WH20 and it looks EXCELLENT , I had tried some WIDE ANGLE and FROSTED white LED's in the GI years back and didnt like it then , but now I have done the whole playfield in bright ( 4LED ) whites ( thanks greg  ) I would not go back, the game is heaps brighter overall and very 'brilliant'.

I liked it so much that I then did Monopoly the same way - same results - MUCH brighter and 'cleaner' looking.

All of this made my CFTBL sitting next to them look AWFULLY 'dull' - so I went off and did that too - BAD move.......as that game is so much more suited to the dimmer incandescent bulbs rather than the brightness of the GI's. Also, when the game goes into the Movie Madness / 2 ball mode the game 'seems' to dim ( my imagination  ) and the LED's in the GI wouldnt create that same effect. So I changed that game back and my CFTBL has incandescent GI, with SOME PF inserts in LED's and all flashers in LEDS.

On the other hand the T3 I got from Nino is CHOCK FULL of LED's everywhere and just looks outstanding.

So - as Cavey will testify, to get the best out of LED"s it takes hours and hours of experimenting back and forth until YOU feel it is the way YOU want YOUR game to appear.

My next title will also get the LED treatment 

The only disappointment with LED's is that while they look good in real life , they look god-damn AWFUL in photographs, the colours that ( in real life ) look nice and highlight certain PF area's, look like big green or blue BLOBS in most images you see. I have tried many different ways to photograph WH20 to show here and it looks SH&T in a photo