I'm cool with everything other than returning the bulbs... though if they are sending you a prepaid package to send them back, then I am ok with that.

The situation kind of stinks, but at least they are working with you to solve the issue (could be much worse). Make sure to post pics of your finished LED F-14

He's talking bad about cointaker! Get him!

OK, seriously, your concerns seem legit. I've never had an issue with CT, but I've also never ordered a kit.

Best of luck getting your issues resolved. An LED'ed F-14 looks amazing.

F-14 where manufactured differently. Some use lamp boards in places while others do not. I bet that is what happened.

Some F-14s have lamp boards (555 bulb) for the red and blue arrow targets(that point to kicker and vuk) while others have individual 44/47 sockets.

Wow, seems a little harsh. Mistakes are made and yes even they have a bad day once in a while... I know things like this can get a little frustrating but I never would have posted this...

I've had a great experience with them. Recently orders bulbs for my TAF. I asked them to send me the list for the kit they use so I could customize it, no problem, list sent. I got the bulbs and needed to return a few because I didn't like the way some looked or ordered the wrong ones. no problem there either, they just said send thm back, let us know what you need and we'll send them back (I pay the difference of course, which is fine.). Overall, very satisfied with bulbs and service, couldn't ask for more.

There are a lot machines out there, getting kits right can be pretty tough.

Well its your choice if you rather buy other crap leds isnt it.

Do you realize F14 has 2 different style sockets depending on the time of the production run?
Thats why this machine is hard to make a kit for becouse Williams had a 44 base socket part of the run and a 555 sock part of the run on this same machine.
Did you specify while ordering if you had the 555 boards or the 44 individual sockets for the inserts???? They cant just guess what version of the machine you have is.
Sounds like Cointaker is taking care of it why dont you have some patience instead of dragging their name through the mud right away.
Everytime i used the discount it worked fine did you type it in all caps? it should have showed you your discount amount before you clicked pay if it didnt you did something wrong.

This is the exact reason why people said not to purchase a kit. Whenever I order led's, I raise my playfield and make a list of what I need and the colors I want for everything.

Takes some time but you'll get exactly what you want and need.

User error. When you put the code in for the discount, either it applies it or it doesn't. It's up to you to move your eyeballs up 2cm to see if it's on the reciept BEFORE you hit the payment button.

As for the other stuff that sucks and I would be pissed too.

But yes, there is a reason we all say don't buy the kits. You thought you were smarter than us eh?

I don't think his post was that harsh. I've had mostly good experiences with Cointaker, but if I had bought a LED kit from them, and 28 out of 62 (almost half!) of the LEDs were the wrong type, I'd be pretty upset about it!

Doesn't make sense to me how they could have messed up a kit that badly.

Ok, I guess it does make sense how they screwed up so badly!

If that's the case, then it is incumbent on Cointaker to specify that on the F14 Kit page, and require the customer to specify what style they need based on the time of production of their particular machine.

I can second that Cointaker always makes good or right by the customer. I have used them several times and very rarely do they get anything wrong.

This is a situation where the manufacturer of this game had 2 different styles of sockets. Typically Chris will do a full game and document it and sell the kit. They are making things right by sending you the replacement LEDs you need.

In this day and age that is great.

Crap happens.

If it does it is nice they set things right.

LTG : )

I never said I wouldn't be upset. I would make sure they knew about it and took care of the situation. I would be upset for sure, it sucks! But I would never post this especially since they are pretty reliable most of the time and always take care of problems. Crappy post IMO!

True. I probably wouldn't have posted either, but hopefully CT understands what happened here and corrects their kits for F14. It is very possible that they didn't realize that there are two versions of this pin in terms of using different sockets.

I'd definitely give them the benefit of the doubt on that one!

Personally I get the lighting diagram from pinballcenter.eu then buy the needed bulbs from wherever (cointaker, pbl, pinballcenter). Tried kits, had the same luck you did, never again. There is a list of all the needed lamps in the guide from pinballcenter just get that and you have a "kit" to buy.

Hey mdclips, I think you jumped the gun a little by posting this way. I understand being frustrated when you are so excited to get to work on a project and you hit a roadblock like this. I'll be honest and say I was with you until I read a few posts later that there was a change during the F-14 production run. Now it would seem that this is all a misunderstanding. If cointaker is paying to return the bulbs, then you are only out some time. My experience with cointaker has been only on one purchase and it was great. I bought a firepower controlled lamp kit. When I installed it, I decided that a few of their color choices were not what I would have liked. I asked them to swap them out and they did. No Questions Asked!

I wonder if you should back up a little bit and give it another try. Just My Opinion.

Good Luck!

I disagree and this will prob prevent other new people from making the same mistake. Although we all say dont buy the kit, it just seems so much easier for someone else to do all the leg work of figuring out what works. Unfortunately what works the best is not the same for everyone, so kits are usually not a great idea.

Cointaker has always been great at customer sevice and in fact is highly known for that Sounds like we have a user error and an honest mistake corrected promptly. Want some cheese with that whine?

Can't wait for B_R to show up

I'm completely failing to see the problem here.

They are making it right.

Old pins might vary from machine to machine (by more than just two different methods). Stock on hand during manufacturing could change how they wired up some machines. They weren't planning on people buying compete kits to replace some burnt out bulbs.

I'd never buy a kit, but if I did, I'd probably expect it to be correct.

Sounds like they're making it right, which is good.

If this was about helping others not to make the same mistake he could have worded the entire post differently. This was his frustration getting the best of him and I hope he apologizes to Coin Taker as I'm sure they apologized to him. CRAPPY, CRAPPY POST!

I've posted this sooooo many times but people still don't get it.

Do you think Bally/Williams (or any other pinball manufacturer back in the day for that matter) would hold up the entire production assembly line because they didn't have the right bulb socket in stock?

NO!

They would replace / substitute 44's or 555 sockets on a regular basis. Hence the fact that the kits will ALWAYS have at least a few mis-matched bulbs.

But you can ALWAYS count on them to make it right.

granted it sucks that the kit wasnt right, been there done that, but they always fixed any issues i ran into. as far as the coupon code goes, you should be able to see the discount before checking out.

That's right. I'm dissatisfied with Cointaker. Here are the facts. You be the judge.

You Must be a Rookie when it comes to Led's ,, Choose and Pick Yr Own !! But No You Bash them .

CoinTaker didn't have a Kit for Pinball Magic , I took the Tyme to design 1 for them .Was a Pleasure

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At the very least, I think an "oops" should be posted by the OP. I bet Cointaker is bending over backwards to remedy his situation.

I've always had excellent customer service from Cointaker. They may not have the cheapest priced LED's available, but the selection and customer service more than make up for it.

I bought a kit for a High Speed back when they were just starting to sell 'em. From that, I learned that it's much better to research/decide what YOU want, as opposed to letting someone else make that decision for you.

Glad to hear CT is making it right for the OP.

I think the point is that they did just guess. If they had asked, he wouldn't have a problem. If a vendor is going to offer kits it's incumbent upon the vendor to get it right, not the customer.

Posts like this are an opportunity for Coin Taker to demonstrate quality customer service. I think it's absolutely worthwhile to share good and bad experiences with vendors. Most of us are grown ups here, and can see the difference between mistakes that are being fixed, and outright bad customer service.

What is it with people going after CT ? It seems like this happens nearly every 2-3 weeks now. I never ever see anyone go after BAA, Marco, or PBLLife.

I never understand why people don't take the time to just lift the playfield, count the bulbs, make some notes, and make their own kit (costs less than a pre-made kit and you learn a lil' bit about your machine as well as getting an idea as to how to get to each socket to replace each bulb). I did this for all 4 of my machines, saved a butt-ton of money, and have spare LEDs for down the road in case any of mine burn up.

Hopefully, Melissa will come on in and do "damage control" just like CT always does, and I highly applaud CT for that. They are nearly the ONLY supply company that is here regularly - I nearly never EVER see anyone from the other supply companies show up and "make the wrong things right."

I bought their Super Bright kit for my JD, for everything except the back box. Every single bulb was correct.

This is a good post both ways.

1. Cointaker will now ask which version of the game a customer has.

2. F14 owners will now know to make sure they get the correct version.

How does one know?

The older version had indivual lamp sockets under all the arrow shaped inserts that take #44.

The newer version has green circuit boards under the arrow shaped inserts that take #555.

Why 2 versions?

F14 was the 6th most popular Williams game, so it had a long run of 15,000 and was changed over time.

Its a shame to hear that. When I do my Led's I send plan of where the led's are located. I double check the selection and recount them many times before carefully packaging them. I also test each Led in a tester and make sure I would be happy with buying each LED before sending to the post office for delivery.

I am sure they will issue you with the correct Led's as they are a reputable company.

Regards David

http://www.pinball-led.co.uk

Well said. Hope the OP is satisfied and gives CT another chance for his business.

I bought a GnR kit from them, and there were a couple mistakes. A few wrong bulb types, and a missing insert led that was overlooked. All it took was a quick e-mail, and I was able to get the problems resolved.

I think they are excellent suppliers.

I looked at this way: I had some bumps in the order, and I helped notify them how to correct it for the next guy that was buying. They made it right.

I'm sure he will.

Of course you are going to get frustrated when you are ready to tackle a project and then find you can't.

But I'm sure the OP sees how the mistake happened, and now understands the dual versions.

CT sent him a prepaid label, so give it a week and I'm sure all will be forgiven.

I just ordered a few items from them, and Melissa sent them next day air for me for FREE. If they make a mistake they own up to it and make it better. That's all they can do at that point.

Sure, it could have been conveyed in a way that would have been a win win for everyone but it wasn't. CT made a mistake but this OP made a bigger one!

I disagree with not ordering kits. CT and people they have do kits for them have played around and come up with some pretty cool light arrangements I would have never thought of, HP here and there, different colours here and there. If you don’t like something, send back and get it replaced, but most times, it’s much better.

As noted, if something is wrong, you just email Melissa and she sends out immediately what you are missing. I have gone through and individually picked them before, and each time there is always something I missed, which is on par with what is normally missing from the kits.

Order a kit, no time wasted on picking out which lights, anything missing, note to CT they send. If you have a wait a week for the new ones, it’s only a pain if you are shopping and have a surface mount bulb needed, which is rare.

I had a bad experience with CT, their GI LEDs didn't fit in the playfield holes. It was really tough to get ahold of them and communication was spotty. They shipped me replacements so that's fine but I felt their communication could be better.

I've started ordering Marco LEDs for my games if I am making a Marco order. Are they "premium". Nope. Do they work? Yep. Marco's pick and pack for me has been excellent, no wrong or missing parts over almost 10 orders.

New lip around the 44s can be tricky. Not a fan of that.

In case you don't post much on Pinside, let me explain that the people here are a very sensitive bunch
You did what you should, no worries.

EDIT: If you blaspheme CT, or think that ACDC isn't the greatest game ever you're going to take a little heat

Mdclips:

The same thing happened to me when I 1st started ordering his complete kits. they do a bad job on putting them togther. I never got a kit that was correct. It got to a point where I wouldd'nt even bother e-mailing him I would just order and pay for the missing lights I needed as it was'nt worth my time. I stopped ordering the kits and now do it al carte and its always 100% perfect now lol

And no one can argue with this because you can't fight TheLaw.

i can third this statement. i recently ordered about 900 led's to do the different pins that i have. there was a mistake with some of them and Melissa sent out the new ones, and a return label for the incorrect ones. not a big issue i say.

again, the issue is with the fact that there are 2 different versions of a game.

BS. If someone is selling a kit, it should be really really close to accurate.

I think your gripes are legit. Cointaker is a premium store, and you expect a premium service. Getting 1/2 your order wrong, making it right or not is not what you paid for. If your life is anything like mine, trying to find time to do something like this is really tough. If I carve out a couple hours to work on pins, nothing is more frustrating than not being able to do so due to a mistake such as this. It could be a week or two before I even get another chance.

IMO, most of the bulbs you need can be found cheaper and are just as good elsewhere. Not sure about those flex bulbs...

I went thru this about a year ago with an F-14 and I told them about the two versions of boards etc. Yeh it was frustrating but I felt like I was one of the first people to do an F-14 with the super brights at the time so I just went with it. I remember telling them there is two board sets which they were unaware of at the time.

Then the sent me the wrong bulbs the second time by accident...lol it was a long process but it all worked out.

I think this was what I concluded in my email at the time these reference the sheet they send you
so thats why they have 17-48 etc:

ALL THE FOLLOWING BULBS SHOULD BE 44/47 BAYONET STYLE

CONTROLLED LAMP LOCATIONS:
1. Lites Lock On - 555 Red - should be 44/47

07. Rescure (right center) - 555 Orange - should be 44/47
08. Rescue (left Outlane)- 555 Orange - should be 44/47

17. THRU 48. should all be 44/47

55. Thru 64. should all be 44/47

Total bulbs that need to be 44/47 - 47 total
some are frosted and for colors reference your kit sheet.

All I know is I custom ordered maybe 15 bulbs 2 1/2 weeks ago and they still have'nt arrived. Are they usually this slow?

Well you were lazy and you paid for it with your time, pretty much sums up this thread to me.

a) you expected someone else to tell you want you needed to buy
b) you assumed the discount code worked

both easily could have been prevented if you took a little time to do it right. I mean Bally/Williams did make a manual for your pinball machine showing all the lamps, its not that hard to count them out and order which ones you need, takes 1-2 hours tops.

CT can take my money anytime.

They provide a kit for a premium price. To me, that is a service, and when I pay for services, I expect someone else to accurately tell me what I need....