Led conversions yes or no?

TheRickster

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I think it depends on the game, simpsons pinball party looks great with them, jurassic park does not. (although my friend still insists it does)

Just curious what some others are you guys have seen that look good or bad and your opinions overall.
 
I put some blue ones under some of the inserts and in the whirlpool on my Whitewater. I like it, the whirlpool looks much better blue than red. The inserts really pop with them.
 
Score displays or random play field bulbs?
 
They look great in inserts, flashers, and in some cases in the backbox. I think they look horrible used as GI. I've put LEDs into a lot of machines and I generally like the results when I've color matched to the inserts and flashers.

I can't state enough how much I dislike LEDs used as GI though. They just look very wrong to me under the plastics and slings. Nothing makes an insert pop quite like a color matched LED, though.
 
I did the Leds in my TZ under the Playfield. It changed the colors for the Doors but i got used too it! Very nice otherwise.. I'm thinking about doing Pinbot next
 
LED's have their place. Used on inserts most look great. I like them very much in backglasses, takes away the orange hue and replaces with a crisper white. Some machines had ghosting issues that I didn't care for. I also experienced little value in colored LED's under inserts if the inserts were good, a bright white bulb was no different than a colored LED. I also have no issue with GI LED's so long as they are applied in an appropriate way such as the use of frosted or wide angle bulbs.
 
I did the Leds in my TZ under the Playfield. It changed the colors for the Doors but i got used too it! Very nice otherwise.. I'm thinking about doing Pinbot next

Color match the inserts on the doors and it will get you back to the original colors, just much more vibrant.
 
I did all my inserts,stop light, and pop-bumpers with LED's on my High-Speed. I have tastefully placed 6 frosted Green LED's to highlight certain areas around the playfield, and put 2 frosted red bulbs down by the lower 2 flippers where the pf is red in color so the frosted red give it a nice red glow and it made it look Great. I thinking about doing the backglass with some Warm White 170 wide LED's from Cointaker.com, I tell you playing in the dark with the colorful light show High-Speed has it's alot better with LED. I still have the rest of G.I. Incandescents bulbs #47 though as I didn't like LED's through out the whole table. I wont be doing the flasher's :) as #63 bulbs are quite bright already. LED's wake up an old classic like High-Speed. Hey LED's are rated to last 50,000 hours so for home use thats equivalent to like 5-6 years of use, which if a bulb is in a hard to reach or a pain in the ass under alot of ramps (Whitewater) then you should be using LED's, save your circuitry, power supply. I'll be posting some pic's soon showing the tasteful LED's in High-Speed
 
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I replaced all the bulbs in my Black Hole with frosted blue and LOVE it. It gives it a cold blue of deep space feel. I also replaced most bulbs in my Space Shuttle and also am very satisfied. Personally I love the look of LEDs.
 
I was showing a friend the other night what I don't like about LEDs on
the playfield. On some games, lets take for example Lord of the
Rings, there is a sweeping motion of the lights on the middle of the
playfield during attract mode. Incandescent bulbs transition
smoothly. LEDs in those locations do not transition smoothly, they
are on or off. I think the on and off effect isn't as noticeable
during gameplay because you aren't concentrating on them as much. It
is a problem that hopefully one day can be solved.

I love using frosted LED bulbs in the head though. They look clean
and knowing that you are lowering the temperature in the head goes a
long way.
 
With a little ingenuity they can add persistence (LED lamp not turning off immediately) to the LEDs. Ramp on (not instantly bright) also could be accomplished. This would make them mimic an incandescent. It will make them more expensive but is there enough of a market? Maybe the LED distributors can ask their sources to try making some protos? At least with white / frosted / warm?

Bill


I was showing a friend the other night what I don't like about LEDs on
the playfield. On some games, lets take for example Lord of the
Rings, there is a sweeping motion of the lights on the middle of the
playfield during attract mode. Incandescent bulbs transition
smoothly. LEDs in those locations do not transition smoothly, they
are on or off. I think the on and off effect isn't as noticeable
during gameplay because you aren't concentrating on them as much. It
is a problem that hopefully one day can be solved.

I love using frosted LED bulbs in the head though. They look clean
and knowing that you are lowering the temperature in the head goes a
long way.
 
My Cirqus Voltaire had every bulb replaced with LED's when I got it. After two days of playing it, I yanked them all out, and replaced them with regualr bulbs. I personally did not like the look of the LED's, they are way too bright, and do not have the "warm" look or color of the bulbs. I literally would get a headache from playing the game. I can see using them in specific areas or spots in games, but a full LED playfield looks like ass.
-Mark
 
With a little ingenuity they can add persistence (LED lamp not turning off immediately) to the LEDs. Ramp on (not instantly bright) also could be accomplished. This would make them mimic an incandescent. It will make them more expensive but is there enough of a market? Maybe the LED distributors can ask their sources to try making some protos? At least with white / frosted / warm?

Bill

The problem is that not all machines power the lamps exactly the same so it's tough to design something that will have consistent results from game to game.

In new machines it would be easy to accomplish this with pulse width modulation but it's a lot tougher to accomplish in older machines.
 
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I have purchase a few to try but have not put them in yet, still determining where I want to put them, likely going to start on inserts on SWEP1. I know I would not like them as GI lights. If I found a good soft 'amber' white lamp I may consider it. By their nature, LED's are 'blue' white.
Yes LED's, due to their lightwaves can cause headaches, especially after long exposure. Despite appearances they do not give off a direct light, but rather dispursted, uneven fields of light with lots of grey areas, that even the slightest movement of ones head causes the light to look different, or at least it registers different to the eye and mind, even if you don't conciously notice the difference.
As for the dimmable nature of LED's, it is something that has yet to be mastered, even for high dollar LED fixtures used in the entertainment industry. I work with all sorts of LED fixtures and have only come across one fixture that has any respectable low-end dimming curve, most others are on/off no matter if the voltage input is 0% or 15%, but dim somewhat smoothly between 15%-100% voltage. This is considered one of the weakest flaws of using LED's as a main light source in entertainment.
 
I don't like full LED conversions. It just looks...off, and on some games loses the subtleties of a regular bulb. I do like the cointaker HP LEDs or BCS 5-Matrix LEDs for spotlights and bumpers (on some games). The cool (blue-ish) ones look good in games w/ cool colors (blues, purples), and the warm white ones look good in warmer colored games (reds, yellows).
 
I just did LEDs in my Back to the Future. I used frosted cool white for GI and color matched all the inserts and it came out great in my opinion. I also used 170 degree wide cool white for the backglass and it looks awesome because it really brings out the color of the delorean. I think the inserts and flashes look much sharper with the LEDS. I still haven't finished putting the 89 flashers in the backglass because they are more expensive. I bought mine from cointaker and have been very happy with them.

p.s. Is there a way to tell polarity with the 555 and 906 bulbs or is it just a guessing game?
 
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