I am not getting any life out of them. They are either going dead completely in less than a month, or else two of the three LED's go real dim. I've had several bad (dead) right out of the package too.

I no longer recommend them. I'm using LED's from pinballbulbs.com now and they see to be ok.

My BK2K was done in the PBL 3LED's - It had around 3 outta the ~100 with 1 or 2 LEDs out. I purchased 3 or 4 to replace, and they were fine. FWIW: I think .03% is pretty tollerable, all things or "led companies" considered. From different perspective: I also used them in a NGG, and a few of the GI's lit up the plastics very direct ( almost small circular pattern ). They are great bang-for-buck, but the spectrum is smaller.

i had one bad out 55 i ordered. Well see how long they last but what led do you guys recommend for my hh playfield ?

3 LED Ablaze are my standard "go to" LEDs. I've received maybe 10-15 bad ones out of probably 700+. A few were DOA and the rest of the defective ones were dim. I don't think I've had any fail after installation, if I did it was only one or two.

I never had any issues with Terrys stuff. Just bought a bunch of three-leds, no issues at all. Love his product!~SpOoKy

^^ This^^
Have had many go dead or just start to flicker. No issues with pinballbulb.com stuff.

Yep.

I think the problem is the dome 3mm LEDs not the fact that they are Ablaze or from Pinball Life. Cointaker had similar problems with flicker and failure on their 2LEDs and has swtiched to SMD because of it. Our 2LEDs with 3mm failed over time at a rate of almost 100%. The new generation of SMD based 2LEDs from Cointaker are at full brightness after months of being on 16 hours/day 6 days a week. The Ablaze 1-SMD based LEDs from Terry have also been going strong on our pins since they were first released, with zero failures so far.

-Jay

I use the single ablaze clear concave for GI and backbox, I use ablaze 3's for any controlled lighting (wedge or bayonet). Only sucky problem with ablaze1's is if you have a tight bayonet socket, they tend to bust when you turn them too hard. I can't remember any bulbs really going bad, and I've probably bought at least 3 or 4 hundred.

I would love to use cointakers, but most of my pins are early solid state and they don't seem to be worth it.

PBLs 3 LED package is one of the main LEDs that go in my machines. I have gone through 10's of thousands of them with maybe 20 DOA or failed. They are very reliable. I also use a couple of different packages from CoinTaker. If you want to see what they look like in a machine, you can view machines on my website at eapinball.com. There are over 100 machines on the site with them installed.

Sean

The Ablaze 3 LED's bayonet base version do not fit bayonet sockets very well.

I like them but only for ONE application: Coin door reject button lighting. The red or orange ones light up the corresponding plastics nicely, much better than the single Ablaze or any of the coin taker/pinballbulbs multi or smd based ones; at least that was my experience. I did not notice any rapid death, but don't have them on like a lot of you or in a commercial setting. I have not found any use for them in lighting any inserts or anything else; just coin door plastic rejects.

All the Ablaze ones I've tried (almost everything Terry @ PBL has) have really crappy made bayonet bases. The nubs are located too high on the base and are too large compared to a classic incandescent. Therefore you have to file off some of the solder on the bottom of them to make them go lower in the socket to not cause it to mushroom out the bayonet receiving tabs. That said, once they're in, I've had good luck with the frosted Ablaze single's for small insert lighting and the 4 mini smds for under pop bumper (with diffusing white cover added over the bulb to reflect light down and outward instead of hot spots upward).

I've had the exact same issue. For whatever reason, the 3 LEDs simply do not last...or at least many of them do not.

These?
http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=1246

Or These?
http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=1247

They only appear in the clearance section, not the LED section anymore....

Classic, I bought a few on my last PBL order and they were still $3+

The *old style* 9-LED flashers and 3-LED 6.3v lamps are in the process of being phased out. SMD-LED lamps seem to be the future and this is what we are pursuing/selling moving forward. Right now we have the 9-LED flashers on a clearance sale for less than what we paid for them. As colors disappear so will the *modifier* from that item's web page.
Terry.

^^^^^^^^^
Terry is the man!

The 3-led bulbs are also my go to bulb. They are great for medium sized inserts, but can be overpowering in small inserts, especially clear ones. They also look great in back boxes with translites, at least the Williams games that seem to be made of a slightly thicker material. The 3-led bulbs tend to be of a higher quality that the singles. The wire contacts on the singles always tend to need some tweaking in order for the bulb to work and need to be reversed in the socket if they don't light. I also haven't had any go bad and its rare that they are DOA.

The new SMD however look amazing and are a great price! I have some of the frosted SMD leds in a Fireball 2 I've recently acquired and I'm impressed. I haven't been able to test them extensively, but they seem to work well with the original Bally lamp boards, surprisingly. If you research Bally lamp boards, most LEDs require a solution to severe flickering and lighting when they aren't supposed to. Currently the fix is to buy the alltek led lamp board or solder resistors to all of your lamp sockets. I don't know if the non ghosting design eliminates this and I haven't tried them in the entire playfield, but they seem to work great *mileage may vary!* I've tried them in all of the controlled pop bumper lights and the lights in the backbox. If Ablaze came out with a new smaller non-ghosting SMD bulb to replace the singles there wouldn't really be a reason to order LED's from anyone else IMO.

Thanks Terry!

I have a sandwich bag full of burned out 3-1s some white and colored I will not buy anymore for they just don't last I have been using comet pinball light and so far holding up well

Yep, at 3.95 they were too much. Like the new SMD ones though, and the price.

The 3 LED and 2 LED are essentially older technology with a higher failure rate.
I personally have enjoyed the 3 LED in many of my games.
Due to demand, we will be trying new 2 LED bulbs, made with hopefully a better new board inside,
bringing more reliability. We will be testing those and offering in maybe 6 weeks.

Otherwise, Thanks Terry for a great product and Job!

I love the Ablaze 3's. I've used this one more than any other. Have quite a few in all my pins. Havn't had any problems. Love dealing with PBL. Best service anywhere IMO