LEDS in my pins

PacAttack13

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Still fairly new to the pinworld and was thinking about doing LEDS in my three pins. Where would you recommend ordering from and what kind look the best? Do full kits? Or just in the inserts and flashers or maybe possibly the gi? Trying to find some pictures with regular bulbs and led bulbs with the same pin. Cant access youtube at work. Your help and opinions would greatly be appreciated.
 
Never got around to putting any in mine, but I know a LOT of collectors who have and have played on a LOT of machines that contain them. So...I mean...give or take my 2 cents. :p

From what I've seen, I recommend a light touch. Don't go LED on anything that is used to illuminate a general area on the open playfield. LED's are "brighter", but they don't spread the light like good ole' fashioned bulbs. Machines that are fully LED'd out wind up really dark. A good personal example was Simpsons Pinball Party. One buddy had his fully LED'd out and I couldn't see jack shit towards the back and didn't even realize/see some of the art in the back (and in some cases, shots). Another has just a few LED's placed in key spots and it became a totally different (and viewable) game. :p

I've seen some really cool stuff done on the backbox lighting with simple LED's, but it's the same issue. It seems to darken the overall art, while really popping out certain parts (which for some games...well...that was the original intent, so it's got me there).

If I was going to do a machine, I'd only go ape shit on the inserts and see what colors work best. If I wanted to change the colors of the overall illumination of a playfield, I'd investigate colored bulbs instead.
 
I have LEDs in inserts, but not GI or back box. Oh wait, I have a few flashing LEDs in the one backbox, but that's it. I don't feel LEDs look right for GI and back box lighting myself.

Either way, you will have to experiment and unless you buy a kit, you may end up re-doing some to pick what looks best and where.

I got 90% of my LED from Coin Taker and at a pin show, they have the best preice for #555 or #47 type LEDs.

I use white for all inserts myself, if you try and color match, you can lose brightness i.e. a yellow LED just does not shine as bright as a white LED and it's by the diode color or design for the reason.

Some older SS machines suffer from ghosting badly, some DMD too. So you may replace a few and discover a ghosting issue, its really hit or miss. There are non-ghosting LEDs but even then that many not always fix the ghosting issue. I have just three inserts on one of mine, and on the same circuit that ghosting will not go away on even with non-ghosting LEDs.

So again, you will most likely have to experiment with them.
 
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Boy.. I agree with that completely. I haven't LED any of my games but have boughten a couple that were done.

Now my basement is kinda dark...and those 2 games (FT and WPT) are almost impossible to see the balls. Yet I had the same FT at work for a while in normal office lighting and it was fine.

In a strange way LED games are darker than incandescent games. But the individual LEDs are crisper and brighter.

The easy way to explain it is get a couple of flashlights..one of each.

Looking into the LED flash light, it's WAY brighter that the incandescent...almost blinding. But...the beam of light this throws is almost non-existed to the incandescent flash light.

Of course LED manufactures have tried to offset this with different angle bulbs to point the direction of the light...doesn't seem to really matter that much.
 
The only thing I've seen which even comes close to approximating a regular bulb is the FROSTED cointakers. Not the retros! I put them in my GI on Stargate after picking up a handful at TPF, and man, I wish I had bought 200 of them. The warm whites are NOT the same color temp as the regular bulbs, it's a SMALL bit cooler on the range, but it's brighter than a regular bulb, and the light dispersal is WAY WAY WAY better than any other LED I've tried for GI/Backbox. The color is very close though to a regular bulb.

I'll try to get some pics up to demonstrate, but if it tells you anything, I'm already planning on using them both in Space Shuttle and STTNG.
 
Be careful when adding LEDs to a game. Definitely try one or 2 first. Many are just too "in-your-face" and detract from the aesthetics of the game, IMO. And most games were simply not made to control LEDs well--you may get flickering/strobing, and it can make it very hard or irritating to follow a fast-moving ball. (Some newer LEDs seem to correct this in many games.)

The worst I have ever seen was a fully-LED'd Spiderman. I was seeing strobe trails, and my eyes actually felt dry and sore after playing a medium-length game on it! OTOH, a friend added several LEDs to inserts on his CFTBL, and they behave fine and helped brighten up the too-dull factory lighting.

Another thing to consider (cheap and easy) is using colored bulbs to add some pop. More subtle than most LEDs and never any strobe/flicker problems. They work great for GI--just match the bulb color to the main color of the plastic above or adjacent pf. (For example, I have green bulbs in the slings and around the path of the dead in my LOTR, and yellow ones around the center and right gold ramps--really brings out the game's own colors.) I also like colored bulbs under plastics because they blend in better when you see a part of the bare bulb, as opposed to the yellow-white glare of a plain bulb.

Colored bulbs are cheap, only $2 for a box of 10 at Pinball Life (with discounts for 3 or more boxes of the same color), for example.
 
i only have LEDs in two of my pins....well, i guess TRON does as well, but that's different as it came that way.

i definitely don't think every game looks good with LEDs, but i'm more than happy with the way my two look:

BSD:
IMG_20110904_214544.jpg


IMG_20110904_214231.jpg




DE SW...for some reason in the pics the slings look WAY brighter than they are in person:
DSCN3626.jpg


DSCN3633.jpg


DSCN3641.jpg






i used to have a BR that was fully LED'd (not by me...bought it that way) and i honestly thought it was too much:

IMG_20110807_183619.jpg
 
I love them when done correctly. The difference with LEDS is night and day. Honestly a pin without at least some well placed LEDs, to me, looks dark, drab and dingy.

New sterns suck with LEDs. They strobe and flicker horribly. Ultrabright LEDs for spotlight GI's work very well though and can add color to dull areas or compliment the colors in other areas.

For GI, you need to use ultrabrights or you won't get the light you want (as some here noted).

The frosted colored bulbs at cointaker are awesome for inserts and playfield GI's (if you dont want super bright stuff. They also make leds with flexible 'necks' so you can adjust it to light up areas that would otherwise be dark with incandescent bulbs.
 
Am I the only one who just plain doesn't like LED's in pins?

They generally look horrible, but that's probably due to people using the wrong kind with the wrong spread, or super bright ones where they shouldn't be super bright....or COLORED LEDs everwhere which look like ass - I'm talking to you, Pudluther! Your BSD looks terrible. Mine is incandescent and is WAY brighter than yours and has correct, natural color. Putting blue LEDs on a game with blue art is retarded...you will SEE BLUE when WHITE light is illuminating it - PLUS all the other colors on the playfield....blue light will just monochrome everything to blue. Awful, just awful. The only LEDs on my BSD are in the pops & Drac's coffin cuz its a pain to change them....and one in the insert under the coffin ramp since it gets a bit murky under there.

When I see people making their Whitewaters ALL BLUE...I just shake my head. Pinheads do not understand color theory AT ALL. There's a AFM for sale on RGP right now - there are green LEDs behind the green martians on the backglass. Those martians have all sorts of intricate detail and subtle shading and color...a white light brings that out...a green light turns them pure monochrome green!!!

Generally the only LEDs I use are in spotlights and pops. Clean games with working lights are plenty bright.
 
I personally feel the Use of LEDs depends on the pin..

My haunted house would look horrible with the GI replaced by Leds
but the lightening in the backbox might look better with bright white led's.
Havent tried it yet.

My space station is fully LED'd.. and I think it looks fantasic.Works well
with the space theme.

When My black hole is done, it will be all LED as well. but I'll be using a
lot of blue to accentuate the dark space theme.

My F14.. The inserts really pop with LEDs but the GI is blubs. I think it just
looks better that way.
 
They generally look horrible, but that's probably due to people using the wrong kind with the wrong spread, or super bright ones where they shouldn't be super bright....or COLORED LEDs everwhere which look like ass - I'm talking to you, Pudluther! Your BSD looks terrible. Mine is incandescent and is WAY brighter than yours and has correct, natural color. Putting blue LEDs on a game with blue art is retarded...you will SEE BLUE when WHITE light is illuminating it - PLUS all the other colors on the playfield....blue light will just monochrome everything to blue. Awful, just awful. The only LEDs on my BSD are in the pops & Drac's coffin cuz its a pain to change them....and one in the insert under the coffin ramp since it gets a bit murky under there.

When I see people making their Whitewaters ALL BLUE...I just shake my head. Pinheads do not understand color theory AT ALL. There's a AFM for sale on RGP right now - there are green LEDs behind the green martians on the backglass. Those martians have all sorts of intricate detail and subtle shading and color...a white light brings that out...a green light turns them pure monochrome green!!!

Generally the only LEDs I use are in spotlights and pops. Clean games with working lights are plenty bright.



i bought it that way, ding-a-ling. :p



looks good to me though. i have other things that i'd rather spend my money on, so putting new LEDs in my BSD is about #4,396 on the list.
 
Still fairly new to the pinworld and was thinking about doing LEDS in my three pins. Where would you recommend ordering from and what kind look the best? Do full kits? Or just in the inserts and flashers or maybe possibly the gi? Trying to find some pictures with regular bulbs and led bulbs with the same pin. Cant access youtube at work. Your help and opinions would greatly be appreciated.

Here is my Public Service Announcement on LEDs.

Words of wisdom:

Do not buy a kit...you end up paying 3x more than if you just bought the LEDs individually.
Do not use some ridiculously bright LEDs like Abalze 3 under all the inserts, Ablaze 1's are fine for 98% of all under insert applications and cost $.39 before a quantity discount. Less is more, brighter is not better. You want the inserts to pop, not blind the player.

Match the LED colors to the insert...except for yellow and possibly orange...use white for yellow inserts. For orange inserts you can use orange or white LEDs...just a matter of preference.

And for the love of God, inserts can be white...you don't need to go and change every white insert to a color, or even worse, a color changing LED.
 
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Overall LED's are now over-used in pinball machines. LED's are great for the hard to replace bulb that tends to burn out often or washed out inserts on an older pin to add the color back.
 
Overall LED's are now over-used in pinball machines. LED's are great for the hard to replace bulb that tends to burn out often or washed out inserts on an older pin to add the color back.


that's probably an accurate assessment. i have LEDs in two of my pins...BSD (which rare DEFINITELY disapproves of ;) ) and DE SW (which my wife paid to have shopped for me for christmas one year). oh, and TRON...but those came with it the LE.

as i stated earlier, i had a black rose that i bought with full LEDs that, personally, i thought was way too much.

i definitely think LEDs have a place in brightening up certain pins, but as you stated, they are kind of over-used currently....probably a fad of sorts as they're somewhat "new."

and as you stated, they definitely have a place for those hard to reach bulbs or ones that tend to burn out.....the convenience factor if nothing else.

i also think certain pins look better with LEDs than others....i had thought about putting LEDs in my WHO dunnit pin at one point, but it just looks so good with regular bulbs that i gave up that thought rather quickly...
 
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