gamingsince80s
New member
Hello All!
I am considering/wanting to LED my TAF. I have had it for about six months and it's becoming "stale" to me and I want to do some mods and have liked the way they look with LEDs.
This will be my first machine converting to LEDs. Does anyone have any opinions on what kit to use or feedback from after they LED'd their TAF?
I have seen kits for around $200 and seen other people buy the bulbs individually and do them that way. Does anyone have a list of what LEDs color, types, etc it would take to put together my own kit and save some $ or is it better to just pay a little more and buy a kit from Cointaker or Marco?
Any and all opinions are appreciated!
Also this guy has me scared, what is your opinion? I believe what he is saying, but how much of a risk is it i.e. how often does it happen?
I am considering/wanting to LED my TAF. I have had it for about six months and it's becoming "stale" to me and I want to do some mods and have liked the way they look with LEDs.
This will be my first machine converting to LEDs. Does anyone have any opinions on what kit to use or feedback from after they LED'd their TAF?
I have seen kits for around $200 and seen other people buy the bulbs individually and do them that way. Does anyone have a list of what LEDs color, types, etc it would take to put together my own kit and save some $ or is it better to just pay a little more and buy a kit from Cointaker or Marco?
Any and all opinions are appreciated!
Also this guy has me scared, what is your opinion? I believe what he is saying, but how much of a risk is it i.e. how often does it happen?
All,
When changing stuff like this, it is important to understand that color is secondary to the original design function and failure modes.
The use of LED lamps in legacy pinball machines is a risk to your machine.
LEDs have a different failure mode from an incandescent lamp. Most LEDs have a rectifier in the lamp base - rectifiers can fail open, or DEAD SHORT TO GROUND. Normal lamps just fail open, with few, relatively rare exceptions.
If the rectifier fails by Dead Short, it will at a minimum, blow the driver chip out. At a maximum (if the driver doesn't blow out), it can blow traces right off the board. Since these connections aren't individually fused, the normal fuse that feeds the board is too big (since it covers the entire output) to go, before damage occurs.
This is the voice of experience here - we had a very expensive board on an analog control system get traces blown off it when the LED rectifier failed to ground. Be careful - and the older your pinball, the more careful you need to be. It doesn't take much to burn the cloth insulation of the wires in these games.


