I had 2 blue ones go bad last night.
What bulbs are they using? I would like to replace them with the correct bulbs. I think they are Cointakers but would like to confirm.

Yes they are. Mine has gone though two reds and one blue . Call Melissa and she will take care of you.

Jim

They are cointaker double 555's. I had a bad run of them when acdc was new. Replaced a bunch and been fine ever since.

The red cointaker LED's have been awful in my RFM as well. Melissa is really helpful, but sending mailing them back gets tiresome after a while. These are supposed to have a lifespan of tens of thousands of hours.

I have found that mine tend to go dim rather than completely out.

I've had 7 go bad so far. I replaced with what I had in the house which was mostly Pinball Life but some Coin Taker.

I moved some of the LEDs around so you don't notice the difference in the Pinball Life LEDs.

My train light (blue) went out last night. I will have to take the train off and see if it's loose or what.

I've lost two in mine already. Only had it a month.

I'm having the same problem on my LTBR LE. Blues started going bad with flickering, now some others have one of the two led's out.

I've lost 10-12 in 5 months of ownership on this game. I don't think I replaced that many bulbs in TSPP in the first few years.

I've gone through 8 of them already! Not sure what the deal is.

I've been lucky. Only 1 red has gone out so far.

Had some issues at first with the incandescent flashers behind the lightning bolts flying out constantly. Fixed it by changing to LED's and building up the rib on the bulb with gorilla glue and shaping it with the Dremel. Was a pain but they're snug now. Wish Pinbits would finish the bolt mod...

Amen! Can't wait for this.

The deal is they are made in China and cheap. There is difference in quality.

I have noticed the better quality ones are the flat little LED board style, more noticed and included in Transformers LE. These were better quality. The round top style bulbs are crap in my opinion.

I don't think I have ever had an LED fail from PBL except one flasher 89 style.

Funny you mention this, TSPP was my first NIB purchase I still own. I think I have replaced maybe 3 bulbs on it it's entire stay here. Almost a 10 year old pin.

Install incandescents, they'll last longer.

I've had this exact conversation with others. Bottom line, I couldn't agree more that these things are cheap and the QC is terrible. I'd say on average somewhere around 5%-7% of them don't work out of the box.

Unfortunately I do disagree with you about the PBL bulbs. I've had *plenty* of their 3 LED bulbs fail on me. Their 1 LED bulbs seem to be dependable though (as well as the Ghost Busters).

I only use the single style so yes that backs up your claim as well.

Jason, do you have any pics of a game in full GI with the PBL singles? I wanted to do Tron in cool white and was going to go with CT frosteds, but the PBL singles are so much cheaper, I'd like to give them a chance. Thanks in advance.

Had 1 flaky red when I first set up my BIB. Replaced it & haven't had any more issues. Must be a bad batch running around.

No I do not, my BIBLE, TFLE and TRONLE is stock with what it came with.

As far as changing or upgrading stock pins, I only "highlight" certain areas with LED's and just recently have done some inserts on certain games. TFTC is one I am converting and a few other late model Stern's. After seeing Andrew Barney's WPT at expo, I was blown away how nice it looked with LED's so will be doing that.

I don't know if this has anything to do with it but didn't the latest code update 1.61 add a setting for general illumination set to default 50% could that effect lifespan on the the leds.Maybe Stern is aware of a potential problem.

Glad it isn't just me. I have 4 dead blues and a white. These should last forever. Seems like the blues are the worst of the bunch.

I've changed 5 or 6 but it hasn't bothered me that much since my BIB has been one of the most reliable Sterns I've ever had. Guess after some past QC issues with other NIB's I don't mind changing out a few LED's.

I just had 3 more red die during a game a few minutes ago. One of the lower PF devil horns, one behind the AC/DC drops and one behind the ROCK standups. Man, it's getting tedious to keep replacing these and I don't have any on hand, so will have to order some.

Yep. For some reason the Ablaze 3-LEDs are very prone to failure, particularly when used for GI. I used to use them in the backbox all the time, but I got really tired of seeing them spontaneously start to flicker. Cointaker superbrights, in comparison, are much more reliable.

I agree, and specifically the part about using the 3 LEDs in GI as being more prone to failure. Superbrights are more dependable in that regard.

After having XM LE and AC/DC Premium, I really liked how the 2 LEDs from Cointaker looked, so I've been using them in the GI in some of my other pins, but I don't know if I'm going to keep using them since they do not seem to be as dependable as the Superbrights.

Try the retro ones. They seem more dependable then the double LED's

Yeah, that's pretty much what I said (Retros are Superbrights with a dome cover on them).

Mine looks like a disco with the flickering reds. I'll be changing them out for Noflix LED's once I get round to it, think I've had about 10 fail so far (all red)

Yeah I just had one blinky red under the right outlane plastic...that seems to be the only flakey bulb so far on mine. I replaced it with a red from behind the jukebox devil horns (I put brighter white retros in them so I kept the reds as spares)

If you want 2 LEDs you may want to try the Premium 2 LEDs from cointaker. The only issues with them I've seen so far is the cap falling off a few in shipping and having to secure them down in the socket with tape near the slings to prevent them from poping out. I love the way they look. That said, they are just about the most expensive bulbs on the market so can get costly if your getting a bunch.

It sucks seeing so many pinheads having these issues with their LEDs they are supposed to last longer that is part of the appeal.

I have one red 44 flickering and one red 555 out. Previous owner has replaced a couple of others with Superbrites so not sure if those failed too.

My BIB LE has also been eating alot of LEDs cointaker have supplied crap LEDs there's no doubt.

Peter

We use a ton of Cointaker and PBL frosted's here and both seam to work very well, use Super and such in from the kits when there is a need but my customers all seam to prefer the frosted mostly.

Anybody know how to change the train bulb? Do I have to take the whole ramp off?

!

Sure looks like that's going to be the easiest way. Looks like the little light bracket is held in by the screw on the front of the train, with a nylock nut on the inside Which wont be easy to get off with out taking the train off first. I guess if you had little nimble hands you could bend the bracket back a bit and swap the bulb from underneath. If you gotta take the train off pulling the ramp is going to be your best bet.

I'm upgrading to 1.61 as I type this. Does anyone notice a difference in intensity when the GI is set to 50% vs. 100%?

The train is a PITA to work on. I installed a flasher inside the train to go off with the ramp flasher and everything has to come off to work on the train. Hopefully the headlight LED lasts a while.

This has absolutely NOTHING to do with the problem.

Anyone look inside their LED bulbs to find out what component failed? Maybe if it's the same problem in each LED bulb, it needs to be reported to the supplier so the failure can be corrected. Just a thought.

Cointaker is definitely aware of the issue. I talked to Melissa at Expo, and specifically asked her about the situation with the LEDs in AC/DC. Don't quote me on this, but I believe she said they would happily exchange any defective ones. Stern will take care of you as well. Just call them up and tell them which LEDs are burned out.

Cointaker *always* stands behind their products and they have great customer service! That said, I'd really prefer that they find out what the issue is and somehow improve on the QC (though this may be completely out of their hands as far as I know).

I guess the real question is if the problem is somehow related to the way Stern is driving the LEDs, or if the LEDs themselves are defective. For those of you that have used the double LEDs in other games, have they been reliable?

Good point. I'll put a few in my TSPP and see how they do. I have some cool whites left after swapping them for warm whites.

Good question. I've put some 2 LEDs in a couple other pins because I like the look, so we will see how they hold up.

I would say its the latter.. Its funny, when they first started pumping these out i found 1 in 10 were bad and just stayed on the sidelines for a while and by now i thought these issues were "fixed" and its ironic these (relatively) ultra-expensive LED's which are rated to last forever are less dependable than the incandescent bulbs they supposedly make obsolete.

I had the same problem when I made my GTB System 80 test rig 25+ years ago using red LED's (though I don't think the color mattered). I took the LED's right to the edge of specs and I would have an occasional failure.

The LED's themselves may be a little overdriven to get maximum performance would be my guess. Shorter LED life span seemed to be the end results in my test rig, haven't had that problem since keeping the LED's a little under specs.