LED inquiry

EvilJack

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Hey guys question. I am thinking about putting LED's in the playfield of my Dolly. One to cut down on heat under plastics and pop bumper caps(already got crispy spots on current caps), and I think LEDs will go good with the lost vegas theme. I was told that due to the age of the dolly that LEDs will flicker if I install them as is, and that there is a company that makes a curcuit board to fix this issue. For the life of me I cannot find such an item. Does anyone know what I am talking about, and can point me in the right direction?
 
Someone on RGP was talking about getting something manufactured but until/if it happens I would personally install colored bulbs.
 
I wasn't looking so much for color as I was for cooler temps and brightness. I have come across blubs that are supposed to be same style but running a cooler temp, I think they are 447's? Any one deal with these in long term? The caps are getting replace and I just don't wanna case crispy spots on them like they have now.
 
I was also looking into making boards to do just that, but the problem I ran into was the sheer variety of types that it would take to cover the market. Also, different systems do the lighting different ways.

The controlled lamps are a different story. As an example, on my Black Knight it runs 6.3v AC power for the GI circuit. I can just throw in a bridge rectifier, an optional smoothing capacitor, and call it a day.

But the controlled lamps are a different story. System 3-7 Williams boards use 18v DC power for the controlled lamps, and run it on a pulsewidth modulated circuit to keep the effective voltage down to 6.3v. Not sure yet how to deal with this in an easy to apply add-on circuit.

But in the past couple months new design LED's have come out which are supposedly compatible with this. I still think it's a kludgy fix to make complicated LED's in order to deal with this, but if it works.... it works. The Noflix Plus bulbs even have a capacitor to really smooth them out, though they are spendy spendy at more than double of anybody else. The Ablaze bulbs that pinball life sells, I don't know if they have the capacitors, and they also don't offer the warm white which is really a necessary color for older machines. As to the Cointaker LED's, I need to contact them to ask about that sort of stuff. I have other issues to deal with before making a choice, and it's a rapidly changing market.

The other option, instead of LED's, is to go with a lower powered incandescent bulb. The common recommendation is to use #47's instead of #44's, as they draw 40% less power. Colored lamps I haven't seen in #47's, but are easy enough to make if you really want them by using the various clear transparent paints on the market.

-Hans
 
contact cointaker.com
He has a fix for the leds in old Bally games

I shot them an e-mail today to see if I can get a datasheet for their LED's, to see how they are constructed.

Man, the new NoFlix Plus design is actually done pretty nicely from the diagrams in their patent. Each one has a full-wave rectifier plus the smoothing cap in it. An interesting way to do it, and effective.

-Hans
 
I've been thinking about a mod for the lamps too. The feature, or controlled, lamps are a problem. Strobing the row and column means you will always have flicker on the drive side. I actually have a couple of idea's to minimize it, just need the time to try it. Best to take care of it at the bulb end, but that's a lot of stuff to put in each socket. The NOFLIX bulbs are a good design, but I doubt there's enough of a market to drive the price down.

GI's are easy to deal with electricly, but like you said there are a lot of specific applications to try and cover.

JErry
 
Ok, first time I went searching on there site I didn't find the item I was looking for. I found it today while looking. Here is the link.

http://www.cointaker.com/product.sc?productId=431&categoryId=77

So based on what the description says, the only lights that will flicker are the lights that are controlled, which if I understand correctly(yes still a noob) that those are the lights that turn off/on and flash when your playing the game or during attract mode. So that means that the lights in the backboard, and all the lights under the plastics and pop bumpers are not effected. Which also means that I can install LEDs in those areas and not need this curcuit board. I am correct in my understanding of this?

Also, I bought Dolly Parton for the Lost Vegas conversion. When I get the new CPU, will this automatically fix this issue, or will I still need this board regardless if I decided to go with LEDs after the conversion?
 
That's the alltek board:
http://www.allteksystems.com/

It just got a good review in gameroom mag. When I'm not sure about is they talk about removing flicker, but it seems they are talking about ghosting a lot when they say flicker.
For the GI (general illumination, the lights in the backbox and under the plastics) no one has a replacement board I know of yet. They will have a flicker, I've seen some older games really make it look like the ball is under a strobe light, pretty annoying. You might be able to go with:
http://www.pinballcenter.eu/cms/front_content.php?idart=33&idcat=20&lang=2
That would reduce the flicker / strobing, they're pricey though.

Jerry
 
Eliminating GI flicker is easy stuff, just throw a bridge rectifier in it. This converts it over to DC, and flicker goes bye bye. It's only like $5 to do this.

Ghosting is a different problem than flickering, it's when LED's that SHOULDN'T be on are showing varying amounts of light to them. I haven't investigated this one very much yet, I just don't have the test equipment to accurately see what's really going on. I don't know if it's a hardware design issue, maybe a software issue, or what.

-Hans
 
Well I got my 4+1HP pop bumper LEDs from cointaker.com today. Put them in. So far not bad. My three pop bumpers each have different color stars on them. Chrome, Blue, and Red. All three crispy. I color matched blue and red. Barley see the burnt part on red, which is the better of the three. You can still see a bit on the blue. The chrome one I decided to go with Cool White, probably a bad choice, as there is alot of red in the pinball theme. However in my defense I hadn't read the info on which ones work better with which colors yet. At the moment though it looks horible because the chrome bumper cap is very badly burnt and yellowed. So it looks a nasty yellow color right now. Thankfully new caps are on the way.

So far I havent noticed any flicker with them. Then again I got alot of flicker in the standard bulbs right now. Some are bulbs going bad, some are bad connections. I am able to fix some of the bad connections with dieletric grease. Plus there is always a flicker when the flippers fire, from the electric draw. I think LEDs in the long run will make this thing pop, I just gotta wait till I get the conversion kit so I can see what the color scheme, and insert colors are.

I am curious about the bridge rectifier. Anymore info on how to do this? Is it something easy for a novice to do?
 
I just finished installing the GI LED's in my Black Knight.... well, 90% of them anyway. It looks like the installation depth isn't quite the same, and the sockets bottom out in a couple cases on my machine. It's only 2 lamps though, so I'm not overly concerned. The flashing sequence at the start of multiball is much more intense now, but it's going to take a bit of getting used to with all the extra light on the playfield.

The rectifier is a standard part, you already have a couple of them for other circuits. It's basically a small square box about the size about 1.5" across. Two wires AC going in, two wires DC going out, and a screw through the middle to hold it down. I'd have to check your wiring diagram, as you may want to move the fuse location too. Honestly though, you likely won't need it with the better LED's. I don't notice any flicker at all in mine, and I'm actively looking for it.

-Hans
 
I have played a few more games since last post and as of yet have not seen any flickering in the pop-bumpers.

I also ran into the problem of bottoming out on the sockets inside my pop bumpers. Made it a real pain to get them in. However I did notice that some were worse then others. I am wondering if you could adjust this with some bending, but don't really wanna try it at this moment.
 
I find that bulb heat isn't an issue with home-use games. I don't keep mine on constantly (but I will keep them on for several hours if I plan to play some more after a break, rather than off/on every time.) If you are really worried about heat, I suggest the #47 bulbs. Also, colored bulbs can perk up pins nicely, and at little cost. For example, pinballlife.com has a box of 10 colored #47 bulbs for $3 (only $1 for a box of clear bulbs).

Personally, I'm not a fan of LEDs for GI. Even with a rectifier, they lose some of the warmth/mellowness.
 
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