Welcome aboard! Where are those new Pinfest posters anyway? *heads off to find link*

Welcome to the obsession !! Ive had my F14 almost two years and still love it.!!

Glad you've been able to hold on to your love affair. I might be thinking about trading mine.

Yeah, its the one i will never sell. I notcie you have a Pinbot, im looking for one. How long have you had it and is it still fun to play after a longer period of time ?

Hey all - I want to add lamp sockets under the upper TOM and CAT targets, to add light and match the GI lighting on the other spot targets. Has anybody else done this, and can you give me wiring tips? Seems like I should just be able to tap into the GI braid, but do sockets change the equation?

I've had my PinBot since June of 2012, and it gets the most love of all my (3) pins. It's kind of a beater (playfield isn't terrible but I've seen much nicer ones than mine), but plays great and I enjoy the hell out of it. Still hard. Great sound FX. LED mods are a lot of fun. AND I remember playing it at VA Beach when I was 12, which maybe adds something. But mostly it's just an amazingly well designed game that holds up.

Waitaminute, this is the F-14 thread!

Did that. Tapping into GI is what I did with Flex-LED's.
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Yes it is. In my particular situation, my brother has dibbs on my Pinbot if he really wants it. I would miss it more than F-14.

Agreed. I keep thinking F-14 would be the game I'd swap out, but then I play it and it is awesome and I think no way can I let this game go!

Clearly need more room for more pins...

Looks nice! My F-14 still has regular bulbs, but seriously thinking about changing to LEDs.

Should I buy the "complete kits" or buy separate bulbs as-needed? I read somewhere that the pins made at different times (years) may have used different light sockets at various locations, so the "complete kits" may not have all the LEDs I may need.

Yes, kits offer a starting point in most games that are consistent - but F-14 is not one of them so you should buy bulbs ala carte. Check especially under the arrow inserts. Sometimes these are individual #44 sockets, and sometimes they are long PC boards with 555 sockets.

Also, for reasons I'll never understand, the kits aren't *complete*. They seem never to include GI lamps, which is just weird. Do the switch over once and be done with it, particularly with regard to the hard-to-access bulbs...

Art at Comet Pinball is awesome, super nice guy and incredibly reasonable pricing. He'll give you good advice if you want to figure out your own LED conversion a la carte.

Well, I tried putting in the new lamps and now the upper playfield GI is out. Awesome! Won't be able to look at it again until tomorrow at the earliest. Try and do 1 simple damn thing ... <grumble>

Check the fuse, then carefully go over everything you did looking for possible shorts. Are the new lamps LED or incandescent? I would go with LED so as not to overload the circuit and or burn up board connectors.

I only replaced the incandescent bulbs under the inserts. I bought the cheapest LEDs Art sold. They worked great and made a huge difference in the look of the game, especially under the chevrons. After a few games I started getting a bad headache and I never get headaches. Since I liked the look of the LEDs so much I ended up buying a LED OCD board from Herg. This eliminated the LED harshness and the on/off transitions became smooth, almost fluid. To me it was night and day. I'd recommend one to anyone here thinking of going the LED route under the PF.

For the GI, I've been hesitant to switch to LEDs. I'm worried about ghosting or flicker. For those of you that have switched the GI to LED have you had any issues?

Oh, and sort of on topic off topic, has anyone found a decent orange? I ended up trying orange, amber, yellow and white LEDs under my orange inserts but I didn't like the colour and switched back to incandescent.

Used cointakers in all the GI sockets. Looks great with no obvious ghosting or flickering issues that i can see.

Im pretty sure i used cointaker orange superbrites for therse on mine and they look good. Have to double check that when i get home though.

Cointaker premiums. They're awesome! No ghosting or flicker (Ghosting is a controlled lamp problem, not a GI problem) You can see a few places with orange in both the controlled lamps and the GI, such as under the numerical target bank

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I stand corrected. I meant the premiums as Wayout says. Not the superbrites.

I used the cheapest bulbs from pinballbulbs.com for my GI and they are great. No issues with ghosting or strobing.

I still have a couple of GI bulbs I need to swap out because I am too scared/lazy to take off the launch ramp mechanism

Dont be scared to do it. (its a pretty simple part to re and re ). Just be lazy ...

+1...don't be scared. It is monotonous. Just have a place next to you to set all the parts your remove, put some good listening music on, make sure you have plenty of time not to be rushed and go to town.

just realized that i just popped my million karma point cherry !! Yeah me !!!

Cointaker premiums are $2/bulb. I haven't counted the GI bulbs, but there have to be 50 of them no? So that's $100 plus shipping/taxes for me. Hmm... I'll check Comet.

Did you order frosted bulbs for everything? 1-SMD or what?

Contact cointaker. Mellissa will probably give you a better deal on a bulk order. Can't hurt to ask and she always responds very quickly.

Well, you get what you pay for. The best thing about the Cointakers for me was zero issues with ghosting or flicker. They also have the best customer service when it comes to taking care of any after sale problems. I'll pay more for CTs any time.

On F-14 the Flight Insurance is an actual ball save that returns ball to shooter lane after a Yagaov kicker drain or on last ball if score is low enough, depending on game settings.
Think F-14 was first game to have an actual ball save.

To bad this option is turned off when you set the game to "no extra balls".
The game "sees" the flight insurance as an extra ball.
I wish there was a way to keep the flight insurance, but no extra balls.

Peter

IMO the Cointakers are not worth the money. But to each their own, of course. I used the 38 cent Comet bulbs for all my inserts and they are great. No ghosting or flicker.

I agree. I have used Comet and Art with zero issues. His customer service is excellent and he has always gone above and beyond for my orders. Even replying to emails at 2AM his time!

I'm sure Cointaker bulbs and service are also great, but for me Art has earned my business for life.

I used frosted (flex and removed the cap where needed) pinballbulbs.com ones on my F14 (inserts and GI) and issues.

Frosted and retro's mixed on top of the playfield and in backbox, under the game inserts are premiums - these have no cover.

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I have the 1-SMD, what you are calling premiums, under my inserts as well. I find they work great and you can get them in nice and close and still not see the outline of the bulb.

I'll go with frosted on top of the playfield for the GI. I already have some 3-SMD and 7-SMD strips that I had planned on using in the Yagov kicker and by the apron.

So I got my F14 as a project pin to practice my paltry repair skills. It was in rough shape, but I didn't really care as I had the repair itch.

One thing that has surprised me with this heavily routed and mistreated pin was that the electronics work without significant issue. Only an intermittent display issue that seems to have been resolved by adjusting contacts.

Case in point, the CPU board has a hole burned right through.

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I've been working with PC hardware for years and looking at pinball for over a year and I have not really seen anything like this.

I seems like it was professionally repaired, but my concern is longevity and re-occurrence.

Does the Pinside F14 Hive Mind have any thoughts or suggestions?

There becomes a point at which, with serious damage like this, that there really is no great way to make it "pretty". The best you can hope for is to make the connections secure and trace repairs or jumpers are thick enough to handle the maximum current in the circuit. Sometimes people forget that the components must be secured from movement or vibration. When the board is badly damaged the via holes and traces often don't have enough structure to hold the components securely. This can be remedied by adding a drop of Tak Pak or hot melt glue to the component body to secure it in place.

I've decided to place an order for GI LEDs. Anyone know how many bulbs I'm going to need off the top of their head? Thank you.

Oh, and is there a #1683 equivalent in LEDs? Beacon LEDs?

Yeah, there is some equivalents out there for the beacon bulbs. IMO these are real aircraft beacons and last a long time, and are super bright - so I've left mine as is. The thing is bright as hell with all the standard flashers and premium LEDs in it anyway.

Good to know. I'll leave them as is.

For the GI bulb count, I checked the manual but it doesn't include GI under the "Lamp" section. It just goes over the inserts and flashers. I've counted the bulbs in the backbox using pictures people have provide in this thread, but it looks like I'll have to count the GI bulbs on my pin.

Unfortunately, there isn't a GI bulb list in the manual. They show dashed lines which means "more than what we have illustrated". Your best bet is to count them yourself and buy some extra. And maybe a few extra on top of that. Many times I swore I had enough and came up short, usually because I assumed what base of bulb I was dealing with and then found differences later

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Comet sells 2 LED dome bulbs in packs of 25 for real cheap. Go crazy and get two of 'em.

BTW, wired up my upper TOM CAT lamp sockets, they work, never did figure out how I blew that fuse. Now considering lighting mods...it doesn't have as many opportunities for that as other games, but I would like to figure out how to brighten up the playfield a bit as it always seems dark compared to my other games. Have any of you tweaked your F-14 lighting?

Did you just tie directly into the GI sockets nearby ? Im thinking of doing the same on mt F14.

Also interested in what others have done.

I can't find the notes I took, but I think it was somewhere around 22 GI bulbs. Might want to give it a once over to make sure I'm not totally off base.

My F-14 had Leds installed when I bought it, but I find that the upper playfield is way too dark. I am going to experiment with some of the Comet led light strips and see if I can brighten it up a bit.

Yes, and it's WAY THE HELL easier if you pull the playfield first. You can get at everything comfortably and pull other wires out of the way. Takes about half an hour. I chained the lamp sockets, so you only need to solder to a nearby GI lamp one time per side.

I had the same thought; was actually considering replacing the GI bulbs altogether and using LED strips under the plastics. My LED habit is getting a little out of hand, admittedly...

Can any of my fellow F-14 fans post a picture of their spoon switch under the jet bumber? Or even direct me to a good thread? Im pretty sure my wiring is correct because points are scoring, but I dont know where the diode belongs.

Need some assistance and Im not 100% positive on what goes where.

I'm going to order the 1 SMD frosted natural white bulbs. I am using the 1 SMD bulbs for the inserts and I like them so I'll give them a try in the backbox and for the GI.

I counted 27, but I tossed a few numbers in there because I wasn't exactly sure. Either way I'll order two 25 pack bags from Comet. Thanks!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-rebuilding-pop-bumpers

Thanks Fiftyquid, but all the good shots of the switches on Vid's thread have six lug switches. The one I bought from Marco spec for Tomcat only has four lugs. Im trying to figure out where to solder my diodes/resistors.

Here's what I'm working with.

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F14 LEDs are ghosting... all ready arrow, rescue kickback, flight insurance, Bonus X, extra ball and specials.

All TOMCAT lights, KILLs, top three (hot streak etc), ripoff, release, fly again are good.

Cointaker LEDs, and some others mixed in there.

Some have mentioned it's a lamp matrix issue, some have mentioned using non-ghosting LEDs.

Are coin taker non-ghosting LEDs the same brightness as the regular super bright?

Thoughts appreciated on how ya'll solved this problem. It's ANNOYING!

I used coin taker cool white non-frosted for GI, no issues, and they look great.

Best orange is coin taker WARM white super brite... I tried about 100 different combos... this one looks almost identical to the incadescent.

Only problem is now I have half the inserts ghosting... looking for more options.

Anyone compared coin takers non-ghosting to the original super brites?

Zippy, where did you put the Flex LEDs?? I can only see the 4 LEDs installed between TOMCAT.