I would definitely start by replacing the caps and re-flowing connectors etc first and see where you stand. I believe this cap should work in place of your 160uf/250v, available at GPE: https://www.greatplainselectronics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=CEA-150uF-350V-RMD

The one I listed is a 150uf/350v axial electrolytic cap, which I believe is a suitable replacement. GPE stocks those specifically for early Bally and Stern solid state games. When substituting caps, you can go slightly above or below the capacitance rating, but you always want same voltage rating or higher. In this case, both values are close enough. I'm using those caps on 2 of my games for their HV sections and they originally had 160uf/250v like yours has.

I've found a number of times that the part I'm looking for at GPE won't be in stock there--but they may have a substitute in stock they can recommend. In some cases, the substitute is actually a better choice than the original part. Whatever the case, Ed is a super helpful guy, I'm sure if you have trouble finding a part at his site he'd help you locate it in his inventory.

I know conventional wisdom for many years has been to turn down the display voltage to 'save the displays' - but at the expense of burning off more heat in the HV section. 190 is what the factory says to do, so that's what I do. When the plasma display dies that just tells me to either pull one from my backstock and replace it or to go ahead and get LED displays (previously, when replacement plasma tubes were $6, I'd just replace the tube..... ah, the good old days).

The LED displays keep getting better and better and as long as the design takes into account the increased load on the +5 line, I'm ok with using them. It's nice when they are in different colors as well.

Wayne from Pinitech has a very good analysis of the loading put on the 5 volt rail for his LED displays. It's in the thread https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/interest-check-diy-bally-led-displays-using-old-boards/

I use them and have not had any issues with my 5 volts. You can also search by Pinitech displays.

Pretty much any aftermarket LED display is running off of the +5v power supply and will add additional current to the 5v regulator. For this type of display (Bally 6-digit or 7-digit displays) it'll be somewhere between 0.8-1.5A for a set of 5x displays in most cases. The nice thing is, the displays on Bally machines are multiplexed, so theoretically this load the regulator sees is "pulsed" and not a constant load. This is also worse-case with 8's lighting on each display (ie. all segments lit up). I wrote some technical stuff a few years back when I did load testing explaining the numbers more.. took a bit of time to get a good test setup, but gave me something to shoot for in my own display designs as I wanted to "play nice" with the 5v regulator.

The Pinitech UNO / Pinitech TRADITIONAL displays I'm selling light the displays plenty bright IMO, but are more conservative in current consumption than some of the other aftermarket display sets. What I found is "low current design" gets tossed around a lot in marketing & I wanted to ensure I could back it up if I listed that as a feature myself. As such, I chose to limit their max current to something that still lit them plenty bright, while also keeping them lower current than quite a few other aftermarket display sets. At max, displays I'm selling are going to be around 100mA current per display (0.5-0.6A per set). That's less than a number of other displays on the market. I figured why not. No reason to drive the LEDs hard, since at some point driving them with more current doesn't gain you a lot in terms of brightness. Plus, I can feel comfortable advertising them as a "low current design" this way.. even if someone's using 7x displays in $6MM

That's kind of the rub there, "few other aftermarket display sets". All things are not created equal! A lot of times people buy this stuff based on price only and unfortunately, sometimes the cheapest ones are the worst in terms of current draw - and then you see a thread "my game is resetting".... with the usual .... "what have you changed lately"..... "the displays, but that CAN'T be the issue....." etc.

Shipped out today! If you have any questions once you get everything, LMK!

I recommend just assembling one display initially & verify it works in your game. That does two things -- first, it gives you something to model the others displays you build off of & once you see it light-up in the machine, it provides A LOT of motivation to finish the entire set

Looks nice! Seeing a picture of the multi-color in EBC, I really like it!!

Here's why..

• It fits a pool theme since in pool you have to take turns & you can associate the color to which player you are.
• Pool balls are different colors, so it makes sense for the theme there too.
• Livens up the backglass!

I honestly wasn't sure what I'd think of it but even with the backglass graphics, it doesn't look out of place at all. There's a display in different areas of the scene, making them tie into the backglass graphics as well. Pretty cool idea!

Definitely get those tossed up in a classified ad if you don't think you'll need them for another game anytime soon! Nice 7-digit displays I'd think $35ea or so as long as they're bright, lighting digits uniformly, no burn marks, etc. Should be able to recoup a good bulk of the cost of the LED set!

Yep, after I test them to verify millamp current output at high brightness end of the potentiometer range I also test the pot functions correctly and display dims down nicely. Then I just turn the pot horizontal. You'll likely want to turn up brightness depending on color. Easy enough for people to dial it in as they wish I don't get technical with setting any color any specific way.

No offense, but the original HV displays look better.

I welcome anyone try an orange digit led display to see what it looks like in-person. You can mix the orange digit led displays with plasma and they don't stick out like many led displays would. I think that's a pretty awesome thing to have achieved. Of course, if you're talking about other colors in games, many people like customizing the look of their games and aren't hung up on orange/plasma for long. Judging things from pictures is also tough, as displays do look a bit different in-person due to camera speeds and multiplexing, as well as lighting conditions, etc.

But, I won't have to speak much about these for long. Enough people are trying them that plenty more feedback and comments on the look of them will come in over time. So no worries, to each their own. Buy what you like.

Ok, I think they do. And for me, its cheaper to buy used HV displays, fix em and good for ever in home use. Nothing against the LED's but as a kit I spend less time and money fixing up the old HV's. I have them in all my machines. When I cant find original displays non-working for 10 bucks each, I ill buy the led's. They do look good, but I like to keep the games original. I'm not saying the led's are not good, and some day that is all that will be available.

When I started offering these custom digit displays last year, I fully expected to not be able to satisfy EVERY die-hard plasma display fan. I knew there'd be a certain small percentage that regardless if you 100% matched everything, just KNOWING it was an LED display, they wouldn't like it. My bet is I could go to a pinball show, throw window tint over a plasma glass display (with a different style comma than the others), call it an LED display.. and have some people say it didn't look as nice as the originals because they in-fact believed it was the "new led display". That's what it amounts to for some of that crowd, and I'm okay with that!

My goal was to satisfy the other 90% of the people that have been looking for displays that matched plasma displays better. Personally, I think I'll have achieved that goal, but again, I'll let others be the judge. That's the fun part for me, seeing what other people think as they see these in-person.

I like the new displays. Wasn't sure about the different colors, but I think it works well in this game.