Buy a random smattering of stuff you think you'll need. Realize after they arrive that you need some you didn't order. Repeat.

buy in bulk. I order a 100 minimum of what ever color I need (except yellow they suck). That way you always have a stock of leds. And plug in some when ordering parts. It's a big hit at first but once you establish a stock you can do new machines as soon as you get them.

I’d have a base plan and add some extras. 2 SMD Sunlight for GI unless you have a clear preference for warm/cool. Color match inserts. 1 SMD for backbox with some color accents. Incandescent or 8 SMD flashers (wouldn’t worry about color matching).

What ever amount you come up with just multiply by 2.

Get frosted warm whites for GI. Color match inserts except yellow. Use warm white for yellow. Leave flashers incandescent.
That has been my formula for the last four games I have lit and it seems to work well.

That way you don't have to purchase a smattering / kit / anything specific and you will have nice, updated-looking games!

Warm whites look good behind a yellow insert.

I build an excel spreadsheet with Base Type, Color, Location and Quantity. I've gotten eager and ordered bags of the wrong base type before. They are fantastic about returns though.

As mentioned above, I found yellow and orange highly ineffective. Color match red, green, blue. Natural (Cool) white for white, warm white for yellow and orange.

Flashers is up to you. I replace them all so nothing melts and color match as well.

SS era, buy bulk 100 of warm white frosted...color matching those inserts probably isn't worth the time becasue they arent the big honking colored arrows of W/B.

your welcome

Don't put any color LEDs in the backbox, that looks like trash.

Don't put any superbright LEDs in the backbox, that looks like trash (and makes more glare on the playfield glass).

If they game has heavy Yellow tones (like a Comet), you might have to just stick with incandescents, as even Warm White LEDs bleach the backbox artwork.

Sometimes Warm LEDs look good if you skip some of the backbox holes so it's not so bright. Just like your girlfriend - you don't have to fill every hole.

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Color match all the inserts with single SMD or even dimmer LEDs. DO NOT put superbright LEDs under the inserts.

Color match all the Star Rollovers with "bendies" LEDs with the flexible leads. You can also use bendies to light saucers and chutes.

You can probably skip buying any Yellow or Orange LEDs, they are pretty weak - use a Warm White instead and the inserts will look terrific.

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Strips of LEDs are good to run along the playfield rails and illuminate dark areas. Under ramps is often good too.

If you add strips or any other oddball lighting, make sure the player CAN NOT see the LEDs themselves. All light should be reflective or backlighting.

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You can get shiny metal ALUMINUM TAPE (not duct tape) in the insulation isle of Menards. You can use this on wood rails under plastics to help reflect more light towards the ball. It's easily removed.

You can paint the backsides of black ramps with white paint to make them reflective - think of Space Shuttle as a great example.

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Do not put any colored LEDs in the GI (unless it's Fireball Classic or Space Station where it came from the factory like that).

Read the above again ^.

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Buy extra LEDs of each color. Some will be duds, some will have the heads break right off.

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If you can't get a #44 LED to turn in the socket, rub the nipple across the concrete to shorten it. If it's too long, it prevents the bulb from latching.

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Never by premade "kits" for a title, it's cheaper and better looking to DIY.

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When in doubt, check here for things never to do to a pinball machine:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/no-rainbow-puke-club-post-pics-of-worst-color-gi-fails

Damn, Thats good Vid!

In SS Games with Penny size circle Inserts, I have a passion for Single LED Flat Tops, that I frost just the top, by rubbing on fine sandpaper.
Usually Warm white for color, but I do color match if the insert plastics have degraded in color, or are heavily scratched/worn.

I concur with Vid all the way.

Exactly how I do my pins.

If I was giving advice to you, you have 12 pins and will probably get more - so I would make this order from Comet.

100 pack warm white 1 SMD frosted (in both 44 and 555)
100 pack daylight white 1 SMD frosted (in both 44 and 555)
25 pack of each colour (except white) in 2SMD clear top, in both 44 and 555 (on special for $12 a pack today). Red blue purple green yellow orange

Then you have a bunch on hand to mix and match.

May sound like a lot of dough, but it is WAYYYY cheaper in the long run.

The white 1 SMD and the coloured bulbs behind a coloured insert are about equal in light output.

Use the 1 SMD for GI if you want to go that way. Warm suits the older games, daylight suits the newer games. Just depends - experiment!

As Vid says, sometimes a white looks better behind a yellow/amber insert than a coloured bulb. Again, if you have them on hand, experiment and see what looks best.

Buy a plastic parts bin for $5 and put all the LEDs in it.

Wham! Instant led kit for any occasion.

rd

C31D361B-4F3B-46F6-B35A-979B65D614DD (resized).jpeg

Plastic parts bin for $5? Why cheap out there after just spending $400+ on leds

Why would you spend more than $5 if a $5 one will do the job?

If I could get one for $3 that would be even better.

That’s an old photo. I now have 2x $5 boxes (making a total spend of $10) which are holding $1000 of LEDs.

The cost of the containers doesn’t alter the quality of the job done with the parts held within.

rd

For orange playfield inserts use pink LEDs. You will get the perfect orange. The pink hue is filtered out. Don't bother with using yellow, orange, white, warm white, or sunshine LEDs under an orange insert. Use pink. Trust me.

Go here and buy a couple packs of each of these. Do this once or twice a year. Rinse repeat.

F01B0606-88E5-480D-82FA-F2D24ED986F1 (resized).png502200E6-095C-4ED2-9A2F-289FF4BE4652 (resized).jpeg

I'll admit it got a lot easier when I stopped buying LEDs and put the same kind of bulbs that came with the games originally back in them.

A lot cheaper and easier on the eyes too.

Woodrails with LEDs would look hideous.

rd

Not the OP here, but I’m glad I found this thread this week. I’m also going to do the LED route on Eight Ball (Original, not Deluxe). Been playing pinball since I was ten, but I only have the one machine (hang head in shame). But I’ve had it since the eighties.

I will take all the suggestions here which seem to be along similar lines. But I do need some clarifications. I’m assuming I’ll go with cometpinball 1 SMD 5050’s. So here is what I plan so far:
G.I. Backbox – Warm White frosted dome
Backbox switched – Daylight frosted dome
G. I. Playfield – Warm White frosted dome
Playfield inserts –
White: daylight.
Solid color: match color, except yellow use warm white, and translucent orange use pink.
Should these be CLEAR or FROSTED LED’s?
Rollover – Green flexible. I was almost going to add another socket on the other side of the switch so it’s fully illuminated (switch gets in the way).

To eliminate the flickering, I think I’ll cheap out and put 470 Ohm SIP Resistor packs on the back of the lamp driver board. I’m fully comfortable with soldering on circuit boards. I really don’t need a new Alltek lamp board.

I just put in the Wolffpac LED displays and they look great.

Comments??

The trick is to count the bulbs you need and write it down, order, install, then recount all ones you missed and order again.

Very rare that I would ever use clears. Sometimes with the older games you set everything up and test to see you don't have any bulbs you can see straight on...I usually replace those with incandescent. It can look a nit weird if there's an LED not really blocked or hidden by anything IMO

One small addendum - order 5 more than you think you need - because ones that were "out of eye sight" or not in the manual always seem to show up...!

Mine came from Kmart in NZ.

Kmart, Walmart, target - any of those places will have them in different sizes and varieties.

rd

SMD is Surface Mount Diode that is an LED, a much better technology than just plain LED, Light Emitting Diode.

Booooooom!

A LED for every occasion.

Every pinballer should have a kit like this.

rd

What are folks thoughts on LED flashers? I was trying them for a while, but I have been sticking with incandescent flashers lately. Any fans of colored LED flashers?

Just depends on where you’re putting them.

Sometimes they are ridiculously bright.

For some LOLs I put some 9 Led flashers in my CFTBL - in the “start movie” flashers that come on when the multiball is ready.

They are so crazy bright, when the multiball starts your retinas still have flashing white spots so you instantly lose the balls. Lots of LOLs ensue ....

Generally I stick with standard flasher bulbs to be honest.

rd

I tend to buy Comet's Sunlight White 2SMD frosted in bulk bags.

Roughly 75% wedge to 25% bayonet.

This is so much simpler than colour matching and creating a bespoke shopping list (only to find one or other variety is Out of of Stock, grrrr), which i have done in the past, but don't anymore. Especially annoying being in the UK, as we have to wait for international delivery and pay extra customs charges...

Having the same bulbs almost everywhere also means all the inserts have the same brightness & attack/delay profile, so when i use LED OCD (on ALL games) the results are superb.

NO COLOUR GI IN A BACKBOX.

May need to custom order a few others if there are any weird inserts where something other than sunlight white is required e.g. flexible head wedge for the 3 inserts on TZ's mini-playfield. Or the 3 pop bumpers in TZ or RS - using an LED to suit the plastic cover colour. Yellow bayonets for Roadshow's left wire rail. DON'T BUY YELLOW FOR ANY OTHER REASON!

Tend to order LED flashers as per requirements, as they're far fewer so much easier to list!

Did order a few Warm Whites too, for LOTR, but now have a surplus. Hoping to get a game in the future that will work with them!

Also have a few randoms left over from previous orders.

I'm a nerd so mark all the white plastic LEDs with SL or WW, so i know exactly what they are when removing or installing...
IMG_2430.JPG

Avoid them like the plague.

I have found the 5 SMD flashers from comet are nearly perfect, particularly the blue and reds. The 8+ smd ones are way too bright and I have a bag full of ones I've pulled. I've been wanting to experiment with desoldering some of the SMD's on them to reduce their output.

https://www.cometpinball.com/product-p/5smdflash.htm

In many cases i leave incandescent.
However, depending on game and location of flasher, i will mix all different kinds.
Purple in purple domes on shadow, double flex heads facing back and foreard on Whiplash in Iron Man. Super bright metal ones where needed.
Ive had fun with Matrix flashers, and extending them around games like the mountains in whitewater.

the time it took to post this you could of emailed comet and asked!

Color matched and/or whatever ideas they come up with.

I checked for your email but couldn't find it...but maybe it already got responded to today.

For Comet Kits, the inserts are always color matched. In the beginning, we would occasionally use a few colored bulbs in the GI, but we've stopped doing that (and in most cases, are slowly converting older kits to all white GI). There is a table down at the bottom of the kit page with more info.

But, I'm glad you asked this - I'm going to go through our kits and change the wording to "color-matched non-ghosting" bulbs for the inserts, just to make it more clear. It's silly we didn't include that info before!

I just ordered a couple of kits from Comet today. And by "kit" I mean a 100 pack of WW 44's and 100 pack of WW #555's.

This is how it usually works for me (only slightly exaggerated):

1. Count all different colours and types needed carefully, noting down on paper.

2. Order amount from step 1.

3. Two minutes after making the order I realize I missed one or two LEDs, swear and order those also (darn more freight cost)

4. Orders received. When putting in LEDs I realize I ordered too few of a certain color and make a new complementary order, drat, more freight cost.

5. Order received. Realize I ordered some leds with correct color but 555 instead of bayonet. Make another order, fuck more freight.

6. Putting in the newly received LEDs and realize "oh snap, this color X doesn't look good in this certain location in the game, should have ordered color Y instead" or "fck, these are too bright, should have been frosted instead". Off to order more LEDs, fuuuuck more freight. Really annoyed this time so throw in some extra LEDs of different colors, brightnesses and types just because.

7. Order received and pin are finally looking good with all those LEDs, but now I have quite a lot of LEDs leftover. Well down to the LED box with them, might come in handy for the next pin.

8. Noting to self: next time I will just order a shitload of each type and color to not have this mess again.

9. New pin bought, time for LED converting. Forgot number 8 by now so starting over with step 1.

You are so right