I Hope you used the CoinTaker PINSIDE 10% discount when you checked out !! With FishTales , I Hope you got the Super Kit !!!

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/cointaker-leds

Cointaker bulbs are going to be a lot brighter and better than the PB Life ones. Of course it depends which you ordered. The super brights are definitely great for inserts.

That's debatable.

I think they are a bit too bright for inserts, but it depends on the inserts themselves (size of insert and how opaque they are).

Excellent for backbox applications as well and +1 on inserts too.

Both PBL and CTs ghost busters work.
If you didn't specify Supers or GBs from Cointaker you will likely get their normal single LED bulbs. If they haven't shipped yet, you can call them and have them upgrade your order.

we have been using containers recently quite a bit,and have had only one bad led but they always send extra so it was no issue. We even ordered some in bulk from them and started to stock them.... Noticed something on our floor TFLE .. The LEDs stern put in it say CT are they supplying stern?

Agreed. I have the super brights in the inserts on my LOTR and they're just too much. Not to mention the ghosting (CT now makes ghostbusters to combat this)... I'm planning to remove them when I get motivated one of these days. They're good bulbs, just too bright for my taste.

I heard a rumor that they Stern IS using cointakers.. Good for us and good for cointaker IF it's true.

I had Pinball Life's Ghostbusters in my LOTR LE. Looked perfect in the inserts, and no ghosting (which LOTR is notorious for).

I have both pinballlife LEDs and Cointaker LEDs. I perfer Cointaker for a couple of reasons.

1. They are a better LED (Ghostbusters)
2. More Choices
3. They make a retro LED lamp. I takes down the brightness of the super bright just enough to make lighter or smaller playfield plastics look great.

On the flip side I like pinball life's 89 flashers much better than CoinTakers.

PS. Type PINSIDE in the discount field, B_R was kind enough to take CoinTaker into a 10% discount for Pinsiders.

Excellent! I've been torn between going with the PBL GB's or colored incandescents...

Are the PBL GB's overpowering in low light conditions? I generally play pinball with little to no ambient light around, hence the question.

There's a real art to making a pinball play well in low light. Here is what i suggest:

1) led inserts using super brights or premiums if it is a ghosting machine. ( stern)
2) use frosted 44's for the GI you want to color or double bright white for the GI you don't wish to color.
3) add some spot lights. You can get these from pinballlife. I usually add 4-5 in up high locations wired directly into the GI. Use coin taker purple super bright in the spotlight. It doesn't look purple. If you spotlight properly and evenly, your whole playfield will seem to just glow with even brightness. Whites in spotlights will wash out all your colors. And other color will not light the area. The coin taker super bright purples are magic for this. Spots should never point towards the player and the bulb should never be visible by the players eye. They are blinding to look at directly. I often use some hex stand offs to raise them high.

With these methods, all my games are fully playable in my unlit game room. I always test an led job in the dark when I'm done.

As for Stefan using coin taker, it's no rumor. They are using 555 supers in the GI starting with transformers. Unfortunately, these are not good choices. I replace them all with the frosted bulbs after. The super brights are bright but extremely directional. The frosted radiate light better.

Thanks for the info Mark. I really appreciate it!

Cointaker plus 10% off the only way to go. I'm hoping they will make a premium non ghosting frosted soon for my inserts. I use cool frosted for the clears ,warm frosted for the yellows and ambers,color matching frosted for the reds and greens.

I heard a rumor that Stern IS using cointakers.. Good for us and good for cointaker IF it's true.

..

You heard Rite !!! Over 100,000 Led's Just in the Past Few Month's !!! Led's and Pinball are the New Faze for Stern.. To Bad for the Led Hater's !! sorry_!!.gif ,

Chris @ CT said that he will eventually have non-ghosting options for every style of 555/44.
I personally can't wait for some non-ghosting minis and flex's...

Retro as well?

I hung w/ Chris & Melissa in Texas.. People that brought their Pin's , Sevaral owner's had CoinTaker Led their Pin in the 3-day Tour .. On Friday , I Led'd Shrek , and Sat- TSPP . It was a Pleasure to do it , Chris told me to give them the B_R Treatment , and i Sure did.. Every Led you could think of was on Hand ( except for thee G.Buster's ,, He was out ) Shrek took 3rd Place on the DMD Pin's..
TSPP , I noticed a few were Ghost-n , It makes NO Diff- If it's C.Takers or Ablaze , The TFTC i got was Full of Terry ablaze Led's , They Ghosted some .. If it's Not to Bad it doesn't Bother me.

Cointaker definitely has the best selection of bulb types. I highly recommend ordering a couple of each of their bulb types to try out in differnt locations (wide, narrow, mini, super). Try them out and see what type of bulb you like and where...then order the color and style you want for each location.

What is the game you're doing? I can take some pictures of how I spotlighted some games to help you if you want. I've even had some route operators come by and see my LED work and they generally *hate* LEDs. They are the types that think LEDs ruin pinballs. And so far, they've been agreeing that with the spotlighting it's not too bad. One even admitted he might be willing to do it for his personal collection.

TSPP , I noticed a few were Ghost-n , It makes NO Diff- If it's C.Takers or Ablaze , The TFTC i got was Full of Terry ablaze Led's , They Ghosted some .. If it's Not to Bad it doesn't Bother me.

Right. You really want to use the cointaker premiums for these ghosting machines. Lord of the rings is the worst *by far* in this regard. With the premiums, the ghosting is gone. Note that LEDs are more sensitive to games that have a shorted diode. But rather than ghosting you'll get full on lights that shouldn't be on. Hard to debug, but I've had to fix 4 machines like this so far.

On SM the color matched PBL no-ghost LED's look great in the inserts, except for the Battle Royale purple. For those two Battle Royale inserts the PBL color matched LED's are a little dark. I am going to try clear one's and maybe the cointaker ghostbusters to see if I can brighten the purple inserts up a little.

+1

Throw some non-ghosting frosted LEDs into the mix, and I'll be in heaven.

Thanks for the offer! It is much appreciated. The one I am most interested in updating is LOTR since it has CT super brights in it and ghosts horribly. Beyond that I've got a WH2O on the way which will probably be the next to get LED's and then maybe SM after that. I need to tweak my Tron:LE a little, but it isn't too bad at the moment.

No rush on this, but if you have some pics of your setup that you can post at some point I'm sure it would be a help to myself and other Pinsiders. Thanks again!

No, the PBL GB's are not overpowering in low light conditions at all. That's why I prefer them over cointaker's in smaller inserts (like the 9 main ones in the middle of the pf on LOTR).

By the way, someone said that Cointaker has LEDs that replace the flashers in the backbox on TZ. Can anyone post a link to the specific LEDs that they use for this? I.e., they would be replacements for TZ's 545 flashers without the need to replace the 545 sockets.

Thanks.

Or simply order thousands at a time from China!

545
http://shop.cointaker.com/category.sc;jsessionid=2C6DFE3167B591EECCB19F7B7DEDEE86.qscstrfrnt03?categoryId=82

@ RobT

In Super White - http://shop.cointaker.com/product.sc?productId=518&categoryId=82

In Warm White - http://shop.cointaker.com/product.sc?productId=519&categoryId=82

Thanks guys!

Figures that they are under "miscellaneous LEDs". I was looking under flashers.

So which did you guys go with, warm or cool?

I went cool everything on TZ becasue most of it's color scheme is bluish.

Thanks, exactly what I was thinking.

Agreed x2. It never ceases to amaze me that people will pay 5x more than they need to for a product that is *way* too bright for inserts and basically renders the game unplayable.

It never ceases to amaze me the difference in people's eyesite. I've heard more than a few people make claims that some inserts are too bright you can;t play the game, or can't see it anymore. I've never seen stuff that bright on a pin before. But hey, the human body is an amazing thing.

One issue is that some people, including myself, are much more sensitive to the "strobe effect" of LEDs.

When I got my AFM, it was the first pin that I got that had really bright LEDs in the inserts. I usually play in dim lighting in the evening, and thats how I played my AFM for the first time. I was amazed at what I saw (or didn't see)! I felt like I was at an 80's disco with the strobe light going off. The ball actually looked like it was traveling in slow motion, just like you do when they turn on that strobe light at a disco. The pin was unplayable for me. The guy I bought it from couldn't understand what the heck I was talking about, thought it looked great, etc.

I wound up pulling all of the LEDs out of the game and replaced them with Noflix Plus LEDs from Germany (I love the look of LEDs, so I wasn't going to give up). HUGE improvement! No more strobe effect (or greatly reduced anyway).

I've found if I don't use the really bright LEDs in the inserts, even if they are not Noflix or Ghostbusters, I won't be bothered much by the strobe effect.

Somewhere.....John Wart Jr. is sheding a tear.

Ah gotcha, so strobe effect is like "Rainbowing" in DLP TVs...affects some people but not others.

Now that makes total sense. Although I think it's "a little much" for people to claim other peoples machines are unplayable to the owners that don't suffer that. I guess that seems completely obvious to me at least.

Gotta +2 that they can't get here soon enough!

Love my Cointakers,Will see C and M here in person at The Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown in less than a month.

100,000 doesn't seem like that many. Each machine is probably 250 of them, so then that would only be about 400 machines. Maybe it's a test run, then later it'll be in the millions.

..
You heard Rite !!! Over 100,000 Led Just in the Past Few Month's !!! Led's and Pinball are the New Faze for Stern.. To Bad for the Led Hater's !! ,

Bingo! In fact, I almost made that exact same analogy to the rainbow effect on DLP displays but I wasn't sure how many would know what I was talking about. But yeah, that is exactly it. Some aren't bothered by it at all, while it is very annoying and even causes headaches in others.

Yep, no strobe effect at all on my Tron LE!

I use them to reduce power draw on connectors and boards.

I order thousands from coin taker. I probably spend $3000 a month there easily. I have a big dividing tool organizer that is filled with LEDs separated into each compartment. I can led several machines without waiting on the next order. LEDs became as much an addiction as pinballs

High 5!