Expensive R&D which would be copied by everyone in the LED world.
You'd have to design it; and patent it to even have a hope of recouping your investment.

Only problem with your math is it won't be $200 for LEDs. The OCD boards actually work better with the cheap LEDs, not the premium non ghosting ones. So you'd really be hard pressed to spend that much hooking your machine up.

It doesn't affect the $300 bucks in add on control boards though. That still exists. So even though you could get the LEDs themselves for a bit less, the total cost is still harsh.

And with improved design comes added cost. You might have to pay $1.50 to $2.00 each for the "perfect" LED. You probably are money ahead in buying the $0.26-$0.38 LEDs and adding the OCD board.

True. But you can knock another $150 off for the WPT, there is no GI board for Stern LEDs.

All I can say is I'm running the LED OCD in my Tron and I'm a convert!

Yep! The strobing effect in all its forms is MY biggest gripe about LEDs (besides most of the games being way too bright when converted).

The one game that totally changed my opinion of LEDs was after playing a Star Trek LE. Since it was designed for them, it uses them in the very best way IMO.

LEDS in a BSD are way better than you are imagining......violets, blues, and soft whites really do make this pin shine. I know you are currently down on the state of LEDs but Drac is one pin that deserves them.

I have put LEDs and LED boards into 4 of my pins (AC/DC doesn't need it), and I can only say that is was worth the cost. The games look so much better afterwards. The OCD boards are a must have as the difference is remarkable. I am already preordered for the next run of GI OCD, so STTNG will be even better soon.

It would be nice to not have to pay as much, but I just don't think that is in our future. If the LEDs you want were made, the cost would probably be high enough to be at least what we pay for the OCD boards. The GI OCD will be great, but it is a much more limited application since it is only used on WPC games that have GI dimming effects.

You're probably just getting too bright of LEDs and/or you are playing in almost total darkness. I use LEDs, but I buy Ablaze 1's for the inserts mainly and never have a problem with strobing on my games. For me, brighter is not better and I like the look of the less bright LEDs more than the brighter stuff...not to mention they cost a fraction of what the superbright ones cost. Now when I play games at a show where people went way overboard and used the brightest LEDs known to man under every insert and in the flashers and/or the game is being played in a blackhole...that's a totally different story. I have played quite a few games at shows that I would deem almost unplayable the way they are done up. I get a good laugh when I think that they actually paid hundreds of dollars to have their games set up like that.

strobing bothers me too! I decided to go with reg bulbs after trying some LEDs in there spot. my head was about to be spinning.

And GI leds do not strobe unless they are dimmed, then they flicker. That is easy to overcome by turning off GI dimming. Only in a handful of games do they actually use GI dimming as a playfield feature (STTNG shields, TZ clock, and a couple others).

LED OCD + about $20 in cheap LEDS and your 95% there, just use incandescent if you want your GI to dim.

LEDs really depend on the application.
Given I've done ST:M in LEDs... the stock bally ST doesn't look right to me anymore.
Doesn't mean Im going to convert it... just saying it looks too dark.

Stobing bothers me a bit. so understand the desire for the perfect LED. just don't think it's going to happen.

This is not true; Strobing & flickering are completely diff'rent. Strobing is an issue with someone's eyes.

Everyone in this thread is pretty much right.

LEDs such as Noflix, etc, will achieve your desired effect of keeping the awesome lighting originally designed. The downside to this is cost; @ $2.00 per bulb, youre talking an easy $400-$500 to led your whole game

LED OCD Board, awesome product, will make your machine behave as it should with standard LEDs. For @ $150 you have a board that will let you keep everything working as it was designed. Then you can buy LEDs for $150-$200 for your whole game.

Nobody said this hobby was cheap, we spend $1000 to $10000 on buying the games, what is a few more bucks to make it look how you like it?

There'd be some cost savings here, but probably not a tremendous amount in the context of $300 for the OCD boards plus the LED bulb purchase (which I agree should be well less than $200 if you pick your own instead of buying a kit). For instance, I'm doing LEDs on my Shadow now, requiring: 70 insert bulbs, 34 backbox GI bulbs, 36 playfield GI bulbs, and 17 flasher bulbs.

As I understand it, inserts are the only place people recommend using non-ghosting bulbs. So you'd be getting savings on less than half of your bulb purchase. Using cometpinball as an example, their 1 SMD frosted bulbs (recommended by Herg, who makes the OCD boards) are $.69/piece, while the non-ghosting 1 SMD frosteds are $.89/piece. That's a $14 savings for 70 insert bulbs. Even if you went with their cheapest 1 LED bulb at $.38/piece, that's still only a $35.70 savings (and by using these somewhat dimmer bulbs, you lose out on some of the flexibility the OCD boards give you to adjust individual bulb brightness).

So, $300 worth of boards saves you between $14 and $36. It's not nothing, but trippling the cost of the project to save 5-10% probably won't win you any budgeting awards!

Having said that, I ordered both of the OCD boards and plan to use them in my Shadow, because I'm very interested in the cool operation, long bulb life, and color/brightness flexibility of LEDs but really don't care for flickering and ghosting, and want to preserve intended lighting effects. To me, if I'm going to spend $150 on LED bulbs, it's worth the (substantial) extra expense to "do it right," especially in the context of a pinball machine I spent thousands on. But I definitely respect that others may not see an issue worthy of a $300 solution here, especially when looking at LEDing a cheap(er) machine or a large collection.

And my eyes have it bad. I love the look of LED's but in many cases can't even follow the ball. I used to use a 19 inch CRT monitor in the dark and it almost drove me crazy watching it roll.

I figure most of you guys know this but for those that do not, on B/W wpc games, there is a setting for GI dimming in the menus. Turn that off and the bulbs will stop strobing. You wont get any dimming effects but the strobing goes away. At least It has on the 4 games I have tried this on.

That said I have a LCD OCD in my LotR and it is the tits,

Well - you won't need all those led's for the Shadow's backbox... if you have Aurich's trans as you want to leave them out in the center to keep the Shadow black. Plus you really don't need to buy led flashers (big part of the expense) unless you want to colorize something. In most cases the difference in a white led flasher and incandescent is negligible.
Plus the Shadow doesn't really ghost - only a tiny bit of pulsing ever noticeable in the Mongol inserts. And you can balance the brightness of the inserts yourself if you use Pinballbulbs.com led's. If one insert seems to need more brightness or throw you simply pop off the frosted top. So while the LED OCD is awesome in any title - it's not a "must" in this one (IMHO)

I've raved about Harold's GI OCD since he was nice enough to let me test it out in my JM. JM is a great test bed as it dims the GI with every successful shot. Before his board was available I had to turn off the dimming... waaay too distracting but without these effects something seemed to be missing. Even with every over-the-top led strip and lighting addition I could throw at it.

With the GI OCD the led's now dim up and down smoothly and is *quite* the visual feast. It's a must for certain titles and you can't get the GI's to flicker at ANY power level. You can go into test mode and see how they stay absolutely solid at any setting. I wanted to wait until Harold had a good stock of them before raving about them but couldn't resist about a month ago

That being said, the Shadow won't make much use of the GI OCD... really no dimming effects (like AFM,etc) so you won't see much of a difference. I'd still buy the board though as you will undoubtedly have another machine that needs it.

It's truly the final piece of the led puzzle. I always liked the LED OCD but GI flickering can be a deal-killer and the GI OCD absolutely nails it.

And I hear Harold already has bulldozers in his backyard for that new Olympic-sized pool

There are a few things to share.

Sometimes the strobing in the GI is a product of ones eyes.
Some see it, others dont.
Sometimes its the bulbs, and not always consistent.
I have switched through 6 bulbs in a rail, until one handed the AC current better...
Inconsistency in the construction? Possibly. Sometimes its the connection.
Sometimes its the games. Power supply issues, from the pole to the House, plug to game, boards, to wires..
Many will share the change in their illumination when a new board is installed.
No-Flix bulbs are most always for inserts, and the cap, and BR, will control flickering and ghosting, and help with
strobing...but they dont light well for GI.
Our Op-Max, now has a BR, to convert the bulb to DC, and we see a huge improvement in eliminating strobing,
but they may be too bright for you.
I can add a BR to regular SMD...and this may be a good idea to do so, but the bulbs will likely go over $1.00.
Will people buy them? Would this solve the Ops Needs...Would it eliminate all strobing.... ? some can still see and are sensitive....Less strobing is understandable with 2-4 LED bulbs....
But if one does a standard 150 bulb game, the 5050 SMD would be under $100, and Hergs board takes you to the
price of $250, the cost of a kit!
Id say thats pretty damn good! Adjust all the lights to the exacting tastes you have, so the bulbs wont be the issue.
Its about as brilliant a creation we have seen in ages for pinball.

We will have some $.49 back box flashers coming in, and will have some of our wild backbox flashers on sale with those shortly...So Backbox flashers can be achieved for $15-$20, and in the game, just a bit more...

If anyone feels they have a bulb idea..pass it on...we have many in the works, and the fine people from your
favorite vendor, (Nifty, CT, PBL, PBB, etc...) Would be happy to try/consider creating your vision.....

Great example at the Midwest Gaming Classic this past weekend. The picture doesn't do it justice. Actually think it won an award.

BSD.jpg

"Wish? Did somebody say 'Wish'?", Repeat after me.... "Mecca lecca hi, mecca hiney ho"

I'm hoping I'll agree with you about the OCD boards being unnecessary for The Shadow -- I'd either be able to keep them for my next pin or resell them and cut my costs way down! Regardless it will be fun to play around with the boards as I'm setting up the LEDs.

I hear you on the backbox lighting, people are all over the place about how much to use, but for a few extra bucks I figured I might as well buy enough to light the whole thing and then cut back to meet my tastes (for what it's worth, I asked Aurich to post a pic over his alt translite post and he has only left out the 4 LEDs directly behind the Shadow in his backbox, though he's also using some flexible LEDs in spots which I'm looking forward to playing around with as well).

As for flashers, good to know there may not be much visual difference. I'd read a few threads about flashers getting stuck on, which I assume is rare but sounds unpleasent. Anyway, the flashers at cometpinball seemed cheap enough (~ $25 to do the whole pin) that I thought I might as well replace them while I'm at it (I went with flex flashers for the backbox, another idea I'm swiping from Aurich to highlight the alternate translite).

There must be something wrong with your game, mine doesn't strobe one bit.

It's not the game it's the eyes. As we've been talking aboot for years.

It is the GI OCD that is not needed if the game doesn't use GI dimming. The LCD OCD is needed in every pin that uses LEDs (this is opinion of course, but once you see the difference, it is hard not to share that opinion).

Here's what I did to avoid the strobing of LEDs in my recently restored BOP:

http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=catalog&parent=2&pg=1

IF you people would just listen to what I have been telling you for TWO YEARS, you'd know that strobing is a function of using crappy bulbs in your GI, and that none of the frosted bulbs, even the "non-premium" ones, have ever had an issue with strobing. And yes, I can see strobing. I can see it on my LCD monitors at anything below ~85hz, so the 60hz strobing on cheap LEDs (and new car tail lights UGH!!!) bugs the crap out of me.

Yes, you need to turn off the lamp dimming feature off on WPC games to avoid it, the only way around that is to use a GI OCD, period. Otherwise, it doesn't matter what LEDs you put in there, it's gonna look like crap.

*Edit* And I don't mean Ablaze 1-led 25 cent frosted...come on. ;P

would half wave rectifying ( diode(s) ) and a capacitor as buffer take some strobing away on the cheep?
know older machines run 6.3v AC for GI and non-polarized 44-47 LED's do some pre-rectifying internally too, but I'm curious what some simple pre filtering might do if strobing is an issue.

I am thankful that System 80 doesn't have a strobing or flickering problem with the lighting, I can run whatever I want with no issues.

Steve

"I wish someone would come up with a better LED"

They did. They are called NoFlix Plus and they have been available for years from Germany. Now you can get them from Comet here in the states for a better price.

the one I'd like to find, LED replacement for a #455 that medium-fast blinks more like the real 455.

Shadow does dim when locking balls for or starting Shadow Multiball.

Flicker definitely bothers me, though not as much as I thought on a pin.

Cheap LED Christmas/Holiday lights drive me up the wall. It's crazy Philliips has such a high markup on such a crappy set of LED Holiday lights. I now get them from China by way of a bulk purchase. Cheaper AND they are full wave rectified (Phillips are half wave). They still flicker, just much less.

I have LEDs under almost every insert on my STTNG and during a game I don't really notice the flicker. I'm using standard LEDs (a mix of NiftyLED and Comet). My answer to the flicker is LED OCD. I have one in the mail. I hear raving reviews from it and while it isn't cheap, it has some nice features with flicker reduction just being one of them. Being able to individually adjust brightness is a pretty awesome feature, as well. I'm greatly looking forward to getting it installed!

It does for a brief moment but it also simultaneously flashes *every* PF insert at the same moment so you don't really notice it (or the quality of the dimming

Though its taboo, Why dont you try patching the BSD code for LED's and getting a game rom burned with the patched code.

I have considered getting one for Judge Dredd, but it only uses the dimming feature for the Air Raid ramp......it does make it much cooler though when the lights go out.

Solution: Invisiglass or PDI glass...

I will never get why everyone thinks all these headaches are worth it. Just leave the incandescents in the games that were designed for them and be done with it. Your eyes will thank you, the games will look like they should, and you'll have more money in your pocket that you can spend on getting more games instead of inferior overpriced light bulbs and the expensive hardware needed to still not make them look right.

$.99 each

http://www.cometpinball.com/product-p/1smdblink.htm

No Flix, our Optix.... $1.69

http://www.cometpinball.com/product-p/1-flux.htm

GI Bulb with a bridge rectifier, eliminates strobing for most all people...but bright!

$1.99

http://www.cometpinball.com/product-p/opmax.htm

Gi Bulbs, that are regular with BR, can be found at pinball center...only the PLUS kind.

http://www.pinballcenter.eu/catalog/ba9s-noflix-plus-blue-p-410.html?language=english

ONLY in SuperFlux or Single LED. the single LED is just under $2.00, but most people are not happy
with the light output of a single encapsulated LED...

SO, In answer... Brighter, with a BR for $2.00 or less. Equal brightness to an incandescent, for the same.
No Flix or Optix for inserts....Full control with Hergs Board.

The only thing missing is a standard Frosted SMD with a BR, to convert to DC....
Happy to make, if enough people want...But around $1.29 or so,

I would also suggest CT 2 SMD, which is listed as having additional circuitry, and there are two ways to do this,
that could help with strobing....I did not chose personally, several of the schematics I was offered in the low cost method... dont want to fail, and there is no way to add enough to a bulb to get the DC current and Higher cycle rate. Just not enough room in the bulb.

These are all the choices I am aware of, and if I have missed any, please share.

..and for the last time...two Roadshows, same bulb, one shows strobing, the other does not.
Swap boards, and they reverse...Issue in the board causing strobing. It is possible. I have seen and done
that. I am unsure why there are posts suggesting that there can be NO issues of sockets, wiring, Caps, BR, Diodes
etc, being weak, loose, shorting or drained from Pops or Flippers being fired...to affect GI.
Sometimes it really is the game....sometimes....

Off the soapbox now.

I get no strobing with the leds I bought from Pinball Life. Bought the non-ghosting for I think 89 cents each. Work great and look every bit as good as any I have seen. I personally cannot stand CT and think they strobe worst of all. Dunno if this has been fixed, only have experience with them from years ago. That said I do not led every game I own. I do tend to replace insert bulbs with leds when the originals die.

Do it right and you can make your game look a lot better. Do it wrong and it can look a lot worse. I have both LEDs and regular bulbs in all my games and they look pretty good.

Because once you're used to true white and proper colors it's really hard to want to go back to everything being yellow. My eyes don't have any problems with the way I've LED'd my games, I'm not suffering in any way for them. I just put in an LED OCD on Tron, couldn't be happier with the way it looks and performs now.

Frankly I'm going to run out of space for pins before I run out of money for them, I don't mind spending a little to make them look the way I want them to.

STTNG looks glorious, done right. White inserts are actually white instead of yellow, for one, and the game brightens up quite a bit. I don't plan on going over the top with blue or purple in mine though (partly because I'm not sure how safe blue or violet LEDs are due to that whole long-term exposure thing) but I think STTNG makes a great example of how good LEDs can look in older games.

When you see a 20 year old game without LEDs next to a new game, the old game really looks terrible. I have an LEDed STTNG next to a stock Demo Man, and the Demo Man looks terrible. There is no way anyone would recognize it as the (barely) newer of the two games. 20 year old pins with good LEDs look like they belong next to new games like AC/DC. I was ready to sell my older games because of how bad they looked next to AC/DC, but now they look great.

Yes very good value for .39 cents . But they work in some areas . But are not bright enough for all inserts. Like TZ . I tested using Ablaze 1 led the incandescent bulbs were as bright or brighter.

Not sure about STERN but on Midway pinball go to feature adjustment A.1.25 Allow Dim illumination Yes default . Set it to 'No' That should help you a bit.

Very interested in this LED OCD . The Demo I watched you could program it with your PC to adjust brightness levels and other aspects. I am inept with PC. If I just install it as is will my LED's that are in all my machines be at the same level of luminous ? Or do I have to mess with the LED OCD and program it. Any one?