Where the hell are you buying anything that has a failure rate of 25%?

EDIT: The problem I've seen with the super cheap direct from China stuff is there is tons of variation in color; usually 3 diff'rent shades of "warm white."
But I only buy Comet myself.

Wedge types are finicky for sure. The ones that I saw fail the most were nifty I think. I always try the bulb both directions, fiddle with the wires then try again. If still no go, I pitch it. I might pitch 3-5 per hundreds of comets. I’m pretty quick on the trigger to toss them though.

I have to bend the wires on all 555 leds, it’s the socket not the leds.

Ouchy...looks like they're discontinuing the low prices... better get them cheap while you can. doesn't look like you can find any LEDs under $0.59 anymore especially if you're looking for any white

Comet certainly a go to, along w CT.

Your avatar name scares me...I like cheese...

Agreed

If you’re paying under 65-75 cent per bulb, IE not getting smd bulbs, you’re doing it wrong.

I rarely ever have failures from any LED vendor. I recently switched over to ablaze mainly because of price and they are great. Just did 3 pins with ablaze and zero failures.

I had good luck with the cheapy comets, but since they are discontinued, I just ordered 200 sunlight smd retros to try in my Grand Lizard GI and backbox. I had enough of the old style to get the inserts done.

You get what you pay for!

I don't recall ever tossing a new Comet. They are definitely finicky. Some require a lot of work to get the wires right in order for it to work. Some of the wedge bases are too wide as well. I end up having to shaving off the edges with an exacto knife just to get them to fit in the socket. It can take hours to led a game but I don't mind. Putting in leds and shopping out a game you just got is very enjoyable.

Comet isn't a manufacturer. Neither are any of the other large US sellers: they all get their bulbs from the same small handful of large Chinese manufacturers. It is possible a seller has a bad batch, or maybe Comet does some quality control others don't do. But I've also had some dead Comets right out of the package occasionally.

The problem you're talking about usually only comes from some of the smaller / goofy / "off-brand" Chinese manufacturers. You might get bulbs like that if you buy off Ebay or other smaller US sellers. The other big problem with those guys is they'll call anything anti-ghosting / anti-flicker even when it isn't.

another reason I started going with ablaze, the wedge base is smaller than others so they go in nice and smooth with no need to trim or shave down.

From my personal experiences.

Older SS Games, with round penny size inserts, can have slightly smaller sockets.
Stern Games, and a few B/W at the end through around POTC, can have slightly larger sockets.
Depending on Bulb, technology, "SMD vs LED", yes bulbs can be tight, too tight and need Trimming, to Too loose, and complaints of falling out.
One Bulb, to fit all cases over 50 years, every game...not so easy.

QC. I am glad to hear Ryan and Janet are keeping the extra QC I started in place. Comet is doing a Great Job!

Emails received to me back then...."I had a bulb fail....what are you going to do about it before I post on Social Media" became a Pain.
So I changed QC steps, by adding a last test before packaging.

Needless to say, those that "failed" Brightness, color, etc. Dont get tossed, they get sold as seconds and dumped into the market.

But with Millions of bulbs manufactured, there will always be issues....the quest for perfection, is almost impossible, and Social Media
will always share the "accident on the side of the road"

I've purchased hundreds of the OptiFlux bulbs (Nothing else like them on the market!), but I'm no longer using them due to an incredibly high failure rate in the past couple years. At one point, I thought a coil was burning up in my Fish Tales and it turns out it was just an LED frying. They brown up!

I'll still be ordering the Twin 2835s by the hundreds, however. Great universal bulb.

Which ones? I have a couple bags of cheapy ones I ordered that I don't need. Gladly pay it forward if anyone likes these.
https://www.cometpinball.com/product-p/100-pack-led.htm

I have used both Comet and the 2-SMD Stern OEM from CT and have no complaints about either. No failures, and I have not noticed any color variation or problems physically fitting into wedge sockets.

I had a few flicker or dim due to intermittent contact (the wires on an LED wedge bulb are thinner than on an incandescent and some sockets don’t quite have enough “bite” to securely connect to them); they were fixed by tinning a layer of solder on the bulb wires to thicken them a slight bit.

Ryan is passionate about pinball and made his hobby into his job and you can tell by how well his products stand up!

great asset to the community! (and an okay player at that )

Having tried LED's from other companies multiple time I'd have to agree that Comet has the nicest, most consistent bulbs I've found so far.

-Paul

Comet is hands down the best. I'm loving the matrix system, it's for endless possibilities.

A few bulk packs of 2 SMD frosted sunlight and you can do an entire playfield, top and bottom. Way cheaper than some of the kits out there, plus you have spares.

I've used those and the round tops. I'd be happy to jump on that deal. Should I PM you?

Thanks.

Every effect bulb I have purchased from cointaker has not worked. Whether its a twinkle bulb or dazzle strip, I put them in a game (or 3 to make sure its not me) they don't do what they are supposed to.

I use exclusively Comets in any game I work on. The warm and natural white frosted 2 SMD bulbs are perfect and have always worked right out of the box (or in this case, plastic bag).

20170103_201504 (resized).jpg

I haven't used Comet yet. What do you guys recommend for pops
for the best overall light distribution? I been playing around with
my Addams Family with its leds.

I won't use anything that isn't a frosted dome. It's hard to find an application they aren't the best for....other then a really weird "hidden" insert.

you're in for a shock!

What do you mean by that?

going from the cheapos to the good ones will brighten up your day, guaranteed.

comet 2 smd's are great bulbs, but they def could do some design changes on the 555's to make them easier to install and not have to bend the wires on every single bulb. it's just a pain we'll have to live with I guess.

I am one more in favor of comet. Tried a bunch of other sellers, lots of bad bulbs. 25% failure seems about right. Only comet for me.

Comet is good for me foe the long haul. They are more expensive but work better. I can do a game abd 5 months later it still has same brightness. Not so with others.
Im on pace to spend 2k or more this year with comet .

yep, this was my biggest complaint. I spend more time adjusting the little wires than anything. Cointakers are the same way.

Thanks

Cheapo LEDs spoken for

34vcjs (resized).jpg

1 led not that great of a bulb. Not bright at all. Anyone try to go direct to the china sources and buy? https://www.alibaba.com/countrysearch/CN/led-6.3v-pinball.html

The best things in life aren't free. These are. Over a couple hundred of them, too

On the 555,s it would be nice if they had
copper foil instead of the wire leads similar to a jamma edge connector so the connection would be 100% all the time.

Thanks so much for the kind words @sataneatscheese (and everyone else)! We always love hearing from happy customers.

The trick that I use which seems to have the best results, is to bend the wires out at a 45 degree angle, keeping them parallel to the face of the bulb base, like this:

wedgewires (resized).jpg

We haven't significantly changed prices on anything in years, but what you're referring to is the fact that we are discontinuing the bulbs that use the older LED technology in favor of the SMD style newer technology. The LED bulbs worked well in very low use home environments, but dimmed too quickly when used heavily. The SMDs are orders of magnitude more long-lasting, and as a result, they're more expensive.

This was a tough call for us, but we could no longer stand behind the quality of those LED-style bulbs. They worked for some people, but did not meet the expectations of others. After seeing one too many threads about these bulbs dimming, we weren't comfortable with people thinking Comet was the Walmart of bulbs (low prices, low quality). We will definitely lose customers as a result of not carrying them anymore (though there are still about 24,745 left in varying colors/lenses, to be exact), but it's the right thing to do for us from a quality & customer service perspective.

We did recently start carrying a line of Retro SMD bulbs, which are for people who want the reliability of SMDs, with a bulb that's closely matched to incandescents in terms of brightness. The new Retro bulbs are only a little bit cheaper than the 1SMD and 2SMD bulbs, but they're a lot more expensive than the discontinued LED style, unfortunately.

And as for quality overall...

Nearly everyone understands that if you buy enough, there will be an occasional bad bulb, and we appreciate the understanding and forgiveness when it does happen. Do always feel free to reach out if you have issues. We want to know about it, and we will always make things right.

We feel good vibes and love from the pinball community every day, and do our best to keep the ball rolling!

I find those give a washed-out look on some colored inserts, especially blues and purples. I prefer non-domed 4SMDs for a more saturated versus pale look on those.

I have filled 7 pins with Comet bulbs, I have got smarter along the way, my early (my fault) going with the wrong whites (again my fault) and the leds are now looking old to me. I love the 1 & 2 smd's from Comet, they even have "reasonable" shipping to the great white north, unlike some other pinball shops in the usa.

As far as I know, this is specific to the first generation of wedge sockets, in/around the era of EBD, and Centaur. If it's just a handful of games, I'm not sure that much can be done, but if you're experiencing it with more than a few games, reach out so we can chat about it.

That said, the list of games we sell kits for is slowly growing. More and more, we're keeping extras to a minimum in the kits, which is keeping the cost down so that they're only a little more expensive than buying all the individual bulbs you'd need (plus you save the time of figuring it out).

It's hard to give a universal recommendation for pop bumpers. In our kits, we often use frosted 2SMD bulbs (https://www.cometpinball.com/product-p/2smd-ct-ft.htm) although they're not really a specialty pop bumper bulb, but...if you're willing to spend a little more, particularly for a game like TAF where the pop bumper area is pretty dark, you might want to check out our pop bumper discs which have lights shining both up and down. That's a good choice to illuminate dark playfield below: https://www.cometpinball.com/Pinball-Pop-Bumper-LED-Light-p/11smdbmpdisc.htm

Same here. Cyber Monday every year from Comet. I just get the Sunlight. Usually about 5 or 6 hundred.

I think people choose the wrong whites quite often, and I've been thinking we should rename Natural White to Cool White, to avoid any confusion.

Personally, I only use Natural (Cool) White as the primary GI color in about 5-10% of the games I upgrade. I think most of the time they look pale, and sap color from the original artwork. (It's been Stern's color of choice in most games for the last five years...and many of them look a lot better with Sunlight IMO).

The rest of the games I convert end up being a relatively even split between Warm White and Sunlight.

Thanks. Generally having a hard time addressing the dark areas on this play field.

I've got, three double spotlight kits (one at the top of each slingshot, and one by the upper right flipper). That makes a huge difference. I also used a white 50SMD matrix strip in the back, with a brightness adjuster (to dim it down a little).

anybody have a comet led list put together for Funhouse?