Joining the pinball world

arcadefr34k

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Been collecting vids for about 2 years, finally picked up a pinball machine yesterday. A Disco Fever! It is such a great machine. The flippers need to be rebuilt, lamps need to be replaced, and rubber rings need to be replaced. The backglass is in OK shape and the playfield looks pretty good. Anyone have any tips on keeping this pinball machine going? Also, I noticed the backglass gets hot because of the heat generated in the "backglass box." Is there a way to cool it down or is this normal? Thanks! -Josh
 

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Another cheaper option from LEDs is to check your current bulbs and see if they are #47 or #44 bulbs. If you pull a couple out of their sockets you can see one of those numbers stamped on the metal portion. These old machines came with #44's, but a #47 is the same size, it just runs cooler and outputs slightly less light. This in turn causes a lot less heat and a lot less stress on your power circuitry. In a dark room you're not going to notice the brightness difference, anyway.

I recently bought 200 #47 bulbs for ~$30 shipped. That would be more than enough (probably twice as many) to replace every playfield, general illumination, and back-box bulb in your machine. Also, I've strategically replaced some bulbs with LEDs where they don't stick out due to the brightness/color. For example, I've put colored LEDs in pop-bumpers to match the color theme for the game, and the opaque plastic hides the fact it is an LED vs regular bulb.

As a side note, some old pinballs don't "play nice" with LEDs. For example, the signals sent to the bulbs to turn off or on is technically pulsed and not constant-on. With regular bulbs you don't notice due to the natural fade-time the hot filament has when you remove power. But with LEDs they can flicker when placed in certain sockets. I don't recall if the early Williams SS pins like your Disco Fever have this issue, but I know my early Bally SS will flicker LEDs when placed in non-GI sockets. There's stuff you can do to fix this, but it is more than just a bulb swap.
 
Been collecting vids for about 2 years, finally picked up a pinball machine yesterday. A Disco Fever! It is such a great machine. The flippers need to be rebuilt, lamps need to be replaced, and rubber rings need to be replaced. The backglass is in OK shape and the playfield looks pretty good. Anyone have any tips on keeping this pinball machine going? Also, I noticed the backglass gets hot because of the heat generated in the "backglass box." Is there a way to cool it down or is this normal? Thanks! -Josh


I put a fan underneath my pins and it seems to cool them down a bit.
 
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