I've been very happy with the pinballbulbs.com warm whites. Much like incandescent color.

When I bought my Eight Ball Deluxe it was full of them. The guy went through a huge effort adding resistors and everything so they didn't flicker. And when I got the game home I just yanked them out and replaced them with boxes and boxes of incandescent bulbs. I left a few in as highlights, but they were blinding in the pool balls. Games just look better to me with regular bulbs. My house, my lights

I think I'm gonna have to pull the LEDs out from beneath the inserts on my TOM. It's just too bright for me. I have a lot of CT super bright flexes in it as they have the flexible leads and most of the insert light sockets on TOM are 90 degrees to the playfield, so the flexes can point the LED right at the insert. The only problem is they're much too bright for my taste. I'd like to see a flex LED with less candle power. I could put more lighting on top of the playfield to make the apparent brightness of the inserts less, but man, this all gets to be quite a hassle.

I pulled the LEDs out of my Taxi playfield. Just too many ghosting issues. I might try some other premium LEDs in it at another time, it's just not a priority right now.

Just the clears?

Switched all the playfield GI bulbs back to incandescents on my Sorcerer and whirlwind.
Much better light show experience with incandescents. Especially in sorcerer!!!

But I kept LEDs in the inserts and backbox.

I use incandescent in GI were the bulb can be seen and frosted under plastics then a mixture of CT cool and warm minis in backbox.Ablaze singles in playfield small inserts. I have tried the flex bulbs but they look like a flash bulb going off so the few i did use i put bulb covers on

Too bright, flicker, ghosting, dimming, too cold, wrong color, etc, etc...

I think LEDS still need a lot of improving to be used in pinball machines. I think one of the reasons a lot of people are using them is because they are so easy to install and don't require any technical skills. IMO incandescents are still better looking. Not for long though.

Depends on the game. My Taxi, I put warm frosted in the inserts and selected flashers for a little more pop. Did the stoplight with red/yellow/green and they look awesome. Changed the C A B rollovers to red/yellow/green to match the stoplights, too. Those are the only "changes" everything else is just matched colors or whites. It just really brightens up the game - and I like to play with the lights out or very dim at night.

I would like to put some in the backglass to reduce heat, but I find that I don't care for the artificiality of the light. The machine isn't on for hours at a time so I might try some at some point, we'll see...

My Police Force is all incandescent. Probably do some selected inserts at some point. I wish the LEDS looked better in the GI - pulling those multiple ramps on both machines is a PITA to replace the originals. That's all been done with brand new 47's in the last year - so I'm going to see how long they last before I have to do it again. If they burn out quicker than I like, I may try some soft warm frosteds in the future.

I do it all the time. Of course I wasn't the one who put them in there in the first place.

I bought a PZ that had them all over and a LAH that had them in the backbox, first thing I did was yank them all out.

tempted to put #455 GE blinking bulbs back in a few places only because they blink about 2x per second, the blinking LED's that I'd picked up blink about once every 2 seconds, 1/4 the speed just isnt lively enough to me.
really wishing manufacturers or retailers would list typical average blink speed for those.

See if you can push the head farther away from the insert. That can help a lot!

I put LEDs in a few games
They suit some games, they don'tsuit others

Old style for me

I like that I never have to replace those hard to reach GI bulbs. Older pins, I tend to stick with incandescent. They look right and are easy to replace.

Tried GI LEDs in a Starship Troopers because so many of the bulbs were hard to get to. But they just didn't look right, so yanked them back out.

LEDs in all my inserts. Love the vibrant color in B/W pins.

Nope. I don't see a possibility of me ever owning a pin without LEDs again. To be fair, it isn't just LEDS. I need added spotlights and LED strips, and the OCD boards to smooth everything out. Incandescents look pitiful next to these.

I don't do a lot of change over without testing first. I tested RBION with LEDs and took them out right away.
I don't use LEDs for GI anymore, but it's always depends on the game.

I always order the frosted versions, you can remove the lens to turn it into a clear/super in case you need that brightness.

I pulled the LEDs out of MM and put back in regular bulbs. Just didn't care for the strobing.
I did leave LEDs in the lock inserts.

If I use LED's, I have to use play field spots to increase overall brightness or they'll blind me. I like LED's a lot of they're done right. Unless you use frosted lenses, they can probably be a direct bulb replacement, imo.

Luckily I've never had a big issue with a game being "too dark" and having to add spots or anything like that.

Matt,
I'm pulling all the GI on my TOM and going back to incandescent on it.

I tend to convert my games to LED as a reward for finishing the restoration.

However- I think there are two or three ways to convert games to LED - one of which is perilous-

Color temp is so huge that it literally is everything in an LED conversion-

You HAVE to test- and test- and play to get it right.

People who simply order 150 LED's of X color are almost destined to end up not enjoying the game.
I spend literally HOURS going through the game and making a list of every single bulb and the color of the insert it lights, the color of the plastic it lights, its location and visibility to the player etc etc etc. And I order probably minimally 12 different types of LED for every game I do.

I have ended up really, really loving my games after LED. I have made mistakes, and ended up having to reorder significant quantities of LEDs to fix color temp/brightness etc.

You got to play, be willing to spend more after you thought you were done, and be willing to try three or four different things to get it really looking sweet.

That said- I have only done LED conversions on 2 EM games and one very early Bally SS game, so I have faced none of the problems modern games have with the fading and LED flicker/strobe/whatever you want to call it. I am sensitive to that, and it would be a problem for me.

To me one MAJOR defect in LED's currently-
NO ONE makes a LED that flashes and ends up looking ANYTHING AT ALL like a flashing incandescent bulb. The LEDs in my mind flash TOO SLOWLY and FAR too often at a metronomic cadence which results in it appearing far from random and generally crappy- I hate this, I have tried 3 suppliers and I think they all get their flashers from the same vendor cause they are all the same. If someone would provide a random flashing LED that would help a TON.

Else- I might add one thing. I just did a game and used the comet pinball Optimus Maximus bulbs for GI and a number of other places. I thought I liked my old LED GI bulbs, I now want to go back and redo the GI in my other games with Optimus Maximus bulbs- these are game changers to me.... try them- they are available in THREE white color temps. They ROCK.

I pulled LED's out of my System11 games, and replaced them all with incandescents. I like the way they fade in them games a lot more than the harshness of the LED's.

That same thing doesn't seem to bother me as much in a DMD era game, for whatever reason... I actually like the LED's in them more...

There is a lot of trial and error with LED's. Every playfield is different and requires different lighting. Every one of my games is 100% LED, even the new Sterns that still came with Incandescent bulbs for flashers. My older machines like F-14 and Sorcerer have the warm LED's which still look original, but don't have all the heat that the original bulbs did. F-14 came to me with the bright white bulbs, and it did not look good at all.

If anyone needs some standard bulbs, I have bags and bags of them that I removed from my machines. I know I will never use them, but I did not throw them out.

I might also suggest that people try color incandescents. I used them on a recent restore I did and they can enhance insert colors and still have the proper attack and decay effects.

The only issue with that is I feel they can put out less light to the insert, in some applications anyway.

Can't praise LED OCD enough. LEDs fade in/out, don't flicker, look great, AND you can use whatever cheap LED you want. It's for inserts only, but I don't really like the color of LEDs for GI yet. Also, the default template leaves incandescents pretty dim (you can change the defaults). I use it with sys11 and would definitely pull the LEDs without it.
I'm assuming the GI/insert OCD products will eventually be combined, but it's very worth it.

I did. I bought my Road Show and it had LEDs all through it. The GI LEDs were way too dim and the inserts were bright and strobing. I swapped them all for incandescents and it is heaps better. Especially the GI. I left LEDs in feature inserts (pretty much all arrows) because they do a great job of making it absolutely clear what shots are lit in the timed modes for newbies.

I like a game that has been LED'd right. I just don't have the money and patience to do it for games that I am not going to keep.

You're talking to the guy who started the Incandescent Bulb Fan Club! I feel like you're just trying to impress me here today!

I am an LED insert with incandescent GI guy myself.
LEDs really make the inserts pop ...never go back to incandescent for me.

For me, LEDs have just added a whole new dimension of fun to owning a pin. I can now mess around with the overall look of a machine and insert a bit of my own creativity into it. I've bought a couple of system 6 machines and have had a blast learning to restore them. I've gotten pretty good at cleaning up the playfields but have struggled to learn enough electronics to get them working, Now, with pinsider help, I've got the machines playing. And while they are fun to play, I've been having a ball creating new ways to light them up. Just a few dozen colored LEDs can completely change the personality of a Flash or Gorgar. And given the generally crappy state of my Gorgar and Alien Poker backglasses, colored LEDs can really help hide all the flaking areas. So I look at LEDs as just another toy to use while tinkering with my machines.

I bought a Pinbot last year that had full cointaker LEDs including all of the flashers. The right side done in red and the left in blue. It looked really good but it was killing my eyes. I ended up pulling all of the LEDs and replaced them with incandescents. It doesn't look as impressive, but I can play for hours without getting a headache.

image-845.jpg

I put LEDs in my Space Station and Swords of Fury and never really liked the look and had ghosting issues. Found out about LED OCD last month and order a board and after ten minutes of it being installed I order an second one. It makes all the difference.

No.

Yes.

never they make the games pop. We just put super brights in our Family Guy and Batman today (non ghosting)

FG.JPG

BDK.JPG

your batman is magnificent!

On my old wedge heads I don't plan on using LEDs. On most of my SS games I've switched and don't plan to look back. I love them. I've seen games done in all superbrights that I would agree is way too bright. I usually just get the frosted domes which are plenty bright and enhance color saturation.

LOTR - incandescent
Mata Hari - incandescent
JP - incandescent
POTO - incandescent
SST - LEDs
XMENLE - default LEDs
WOZLE - default LEDs

I tried LEDs in LOTR once....big mistake imho.

I agree. LOTR is one of the games that you have to use Incandescent. Looks like ass no matter what you do if you use LED's. Some games it just can't be done well. Tommy, Looks better with incandescents as well. But due to heat and power, I put warm white in there to try and match the effect best as possible. Not quite the same but passable. with LOTR, there isn't enough GI's around to light it up good enough with LED's. To many hotspots.

Yep, just undid led's in LOTR, much better now.