Star Trek: The Next Generation
Williams, 1993So I ordered the Ablaze 1 - Frosted LED's for the backbox....36 of them.
Whoops....you can barely tell the backbox is lit at all with these. Guess I get to try again.
Maybe I can use those frosted's for some playfield GI lighting?
Any suggestions for the backbox on STTNG? I need to go WAY brighter than those frosted's.
On the plus side I did get some colored flashers for the backbox....Red for the Romulan explosion (upper right) and green for the Borg Ship (upper left). Those look really sweet.
Quoted from SealClubber:I like superbrites in my IJ, Getaway and Corvette backboxes and they look great. But I had to put 2led frosteds in my Shadow as the supers were too bright for that one.
Maybe its the pic but the 4leds leave very noticeable hot spots.
The white "cool" or "warm" for STTNG?
How about the Mini Super's?
Quoted from Astropin:The white "cool" or "warm" for STTNG?
Mix. Warm behind warm colors like faces and the shirts, cool behind cool colors such as blue, purple and green IMO. When in doubt, I usually go with warm. I would buy a couple of extras of each to play with.
Cointaker frosted are very good in the backbox.
Quoted from SealClubber:Mix. Warm behind warm colors like faces and the shirts, cool behind cool colors such as blue, purple and green IMO. When in doubt, I usually go with warm. I would buy a couple of extras of each to play with.
I hate warm white LEDs. I have no desire for LEDs to immitate regular bulbs.
I'm taking some pics of my Wh20 with some different looks. I feel supers may be a little bright, and ablaze 1s are a little dim. Thinking of using a mix of CT frsotds and ablaze 1s. Ill see what it looks like this weekend.
i have been switching alot of mine to regular cointaker frosted instead of the super brites, it eliminates alot of the reflection put on the playfield glass
Quoted from ebjimmyg:i have been switching alot of mine to regular cointaker frosted instead of the super brites, it eliminates alot of the reflection put on the playfield glass
My NGG had CT frosted in most of it and agree I may start to switch over... The frosted really look nice. I thought they'd be too dim but not at all.
Quoted from Astropin:So....went with a mix of Cointaker Super brights and super mini's along with a little color.
That is fantastic! Would you mind sharing the "map" of which LEDs went into which locations? I'm going to be LEDing my STTNG and would be thrilled to replicate your work on my machine (in your honour, of course)! 
Quoted from Astropin:So....went with a mix of Cointaker Super brights and super mini's along with a little color.
Ignore that bright light in the upper center left....that's just a reflection from one of the ceiling lights (should have shut those off).
Wow! That looks awesome, Adam! Way better than the few blue spots I had in there....
Quoted from Astropin:So....went with a mix of Cointaker Super brights and super mini's along with a little color.
Ignore that bright light in the upper center left....that's just a reflection from one of the ceiling lights (should have shut those off).
that looks fantastic. Looks very natural.
that's a detailed board right there. It's not to bright with every socket filled? I usually have to pull out 74% of the bulbs out of a backbox to cut down on reflection. I think my Tommy has 6 bulbs in the backbox.
Love it - thanks! Sure saves a lot of time and extra LEDs experimenting. Now if pinballcenter.eu would add these to compliment all the pf LED maps they've made.
I know I can count them - but do you have the quantities already in case I miss count?
Quoted from CaptainNeo:that's a detailed board right there. It's not to bright with every socket filled? I usually have to pull out 74% of the bulbs out of a backbox to cut down on reflection. I think my Tommy has 6 bulbs in the backbox.
Well I only had one bulb in my LOTR... 
Seriously, the Mini's really cut down on the overall brightness (Using all Super Brights would not have worked), and the mini's work great behind all the faces and in some "hot spot" areas. Overall this is a fairly dark translite. When I tried the Ablaze frosted's you had to really look hard to tell if was lit up at all.
Quoted from wizzardz:Love it - thanks! Sure saves a lot of time and extra LEDs experimenting. Now if pinballcenter.eu would add these to compliment all the pf LED maps they've made.
I know I can count them - but do you have the quantities already in case I miss count?
I ordered extra Super Brights and Mini Super's because I wasn't positive how this would play out. I had an idea but did end making several changes to get the final version you see here. So long story short.....no I haven't bothered to count them. 
Quoted from Fytr:Awesome! Thanks for posting this...
I hear-by declare this STTNG backglass lighting plan the "Astropin Configuration"!
Yes, very cool of you to take the time and map that out! Gotta order some LEDs now.
Quoted from boris_37:Looks really awesome and evenly lit. Good job.
When you going to do the rest of it?
Just did the Borg ship tonight (painted it last weekend). Installed new green windows and green Cointaker flashers. It really looks great when you start Borg multiball now.
So i'm going to ask the "No" response question I feel I may get.
I was looking at LED'ing my machine and yours is really nice for the backbox. Would you be willing to do a count for when you do the rest of the machine?
My original plan was to buy the kits from Cointaker but apparently they aren't that great. With your "kit" looking amazing already I figured it would be worth doing.
Anyways thanks!
Quoted from markmon:I hate warm white LEDs. I have no desire for LEDs to immitate regular bulbs.
Cool white looks good on games with alot of blue's/purples. But I have to say that most people I come in contact with tend to like the warm white becuase it's less harsh than the cool white. The warm white isn't the same orangish color of regular bulbs its probably a 1000K high on the Kelvin scale.
Quoted from boris_37:So i'm going to ask the "No" response question I feel I may get.
I was looking at LED'ing my machine and yours is really nice for the backbox. Would you be willing to do a count for when you do the rest of the machine?
My original plan was to buy the kits from Cointaker but apparently they aren't that great. With your "kit" looking amazing already I figured it would be worth doing.
Anyways thanks!
I'll have to see how it goes. The machine came with some LED's already installed. I'm making a few changes myself. Generally speaking I like LED's in the inserts but am fine with bulbs for the playfield GI. I also don't mind the bulbs for the flashers in a lot of cases, but did use Green 906 Cointaker's for the Borg ship....6 of them.
I'm switching to Cointaker premium frosted blue 555's (6 of them) for the three large inserts right above the Enterprise on the playfield. Makes them glow a really nice blue instead of the normal teal color......much nicer IMHO.
Might be tougher for me to map out the playfield when it's already partially done and I'm not sure what was used. Looks like Cointakers with the flexible shafts were mostly used.
That's good to know about the borg ship.
It's the one piece of my machine I am worried about. It is missing a couple lights right now but I believe it is because they got too hot and melted the borg ship a bit. That MUST be LED'd on my system anyways.
I like you, have some LED's. I don't particularly like them though. Would be nice to see some quality consistency on the board.
I would just like to update as I am counting these LED's for the purpose of buying similar(what can i say, i'm lazy).
Astropins consists of:
PinballLife LED's:
Backbox ~
G906 - 4
R906 - 1
W906 - 3
CoinTaker LED's:
BackBox ~
SB(Super Bright White) - 16
MSB - 17
PSB (Purple) - 1
GSB (Green) - 2
Borg Ship ~
G906 - 6
The rest, well... That's up to Astropin haha.
Did you use Cool or Warm for the Super Bright Whites?
Also you said you used 906's from PBL for the backbox? I am assuming you used their regular Colored #906 Flasher Bulbs? I don't see any 906 LEDs on their site.
The 906's you used from Cointaker for the Borg ship were SUPER 906 GREEN? I ordered the green borg ship windows today so I really want to make the ship pop in multiball.
Quoted from Meph:Did you use Cool or Warm for the Super Bright Whites?
Also you said you used 906's from PBL for the backbox? I am assuming you used their regular Colored #906 Flasher Bulbs? I don't see any 906 LEDs on their site.
The 906's you used from Cointaker for the Borg ship were SUPER 906 GREEN? I ordered the green borg ship windows today so I really want to make the ship pop in multiball.
Cool....check.
The back box 906's are LED's....you saying they don't have them anymore?
The Borg ship 906's are the Cointaker Super's - link:
http://shop.cointaker.com/product.sc?productId=436&categoryId=8
I installed the green windows from pinbits and they along with the 906's definitely make it POP for Borg multiball....they're great.
Pinballlife was supposed to get their 9LED flashers in stock on friday.
When friday came they were no longer listed on the website. Why, I have no clue at all.
I sent an e-mail to terry to find out. I have been wanting to put these lights in since I posted but they have been out of stock. If they are not coming back in stock I will update here.
Also when buying any lights, pretty much ensure they are premiums. The non-premium bulbs have ghosting issues, aren't worth even purchased them.
P.S. Astropin. Can you check your game to see if the inserts above the enterprise dim when you begin a game? If they do not then I have issues. It's not noticable with regular bulbs, but with LED's they flicker like hell.
I may have to look to see if it's an issue with the lamp board or my power board...
Quoted from boris_37:P.S. Astropin. Can you check your game to see if the inserts above the enterprise dim when you begin a game? If they do not then I have issues. It's not noticable with regular bulbs, but with LED's they flicker like hell.
Mine always did that. You can turn off the dimming setting in the menu. There's power save and GI dimming option too, but it's neither of those. Its "Allow Dim Illumination" #25. it will help.
Doesn't fix it all the way though, had to get the LED patched game rom to get it to go away totally.
Quoted from muttonboy:Mine always did that. You can turn off the dimming setting in the menu. There's power save and GI dimming option too, but it's neither of those. Its "Allow Dim Illumination" #25. it will help.
Doesn't fix it all the way though, had to get the LED patched game rom to get it to go away totally.
fixed. I don't have any other issues though, how do I know if it's an LED patched rom? Should the ghosting not be present at all on any bulbs?
Quoted from boris_37:P.S. Astropin. Can you check your game to see if the inserts above the enterprise dim when you begin a game? If they do not then I have issues. It's not noticable with regular bulbs, but with LED's they flicker like hell.
I may have to look to see if it's an issue with the lamp board or my power board...
I haven't noticed if they dim but mine certainly flicker. Although I must say that for some reason it does not bother me at all. Generally speaking ghosting does not bother me either unless it really bright....like you mistake the insert for being lit bright. But none of my machines do that.
Just to update.
Got an email from Terry. The Ablaze 9 LED flashers are STILL out of stock. Apparently ablaze absolutely sucks at giving them an estimate of when they will actually get the flashers in.
The items have been removed until they get the bulbs in. I think he's just sick of pushing the date back and answering a ton of emails... haha.
Quoted from boris_37:Just to update.
Got an email from Terry. The Ablaze 9 LED flashers are STILL out of stock. Apparently ablaze absolutely sucks at giving them an estimate of when they will actually get the flashers in.
The items have been removed until they get the bulbs in. I think he's just sick of pushing the date back and answering a ton of emails... haha.
I got pretty much the same email from him. I'll just keep checking his site
Quoted from boris_37:Just to update.
Got an email from Terry. The Ablaze 9 LED flashers are STILL out of stock. Apparently ablaze absolutely sucks at giving them an estimate of when they will actually get the flashers in.
The items have been removed until they get the bulbs in. I think he's just sick of pushing the date back and answering a ton of emails... haha.
Terry has them in stock now
Quoted from 0geist0:Terry has them in stock now
YAY! okay great thanks. been waiting on these bulbs forever. I need something... anything... aaagggh must order now!
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