Sorry, no help, but I'll be watching this thread looking for good ideas.

For me, the options in play are:

1 - Visible lamps vs lamps under playfield/behind backglass
2 - Flashers
3 - Colors vs White vs Temperature (cool <> warm)
4 - Brightness

Let me know if you make any decisions. I'd lone to see where you take yours.

Reference Point:

Marco has a kit for $185 (seems pricey), mentions 121 pcs - though not the qtys by type. I think I'll decide my scheme and buy separately.

http://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/05-1411

detail_1.jpg

Sorry to disagree with you Mark....

On Average, unless someone posts exact youll need 50-44/47, and 100 #555.
This is a total average of 150 bulbs. (Games go from 120, Sterns, to around 200 average for the most complex)

While I love Marcos, this "kit" is mostly single LEDs, and in this type of bulb, One can do for under $75.

If you do want a Game specific kit, turn to the leaders in Cointaker and PinballBulbs. (Nifty too)
If you want to save a bit and DIY, the same 150, 1 SMD 5050, in a DIY is $99 with free shipping from Comet, and a Master kit of
250 Bulbs! is $149.

Its mostly a choice of brightness, and shade of white that you prefer.

OPG, thanks for the post. Was looking at getting the Comet ones but wasn't certain on which to get. Thought also about just color coordinating the LED colors with the insert color, any pros/cons to doing that?

Color matching inserts, will make the colors of the inserts, richer and darker.

If you use 1 SMD, 5050, youll want to use Warm white for yellow and Orange, as in that brightness and diode, they
are not bright enough to match if you did use Orange and yellow.

If you go with a brighter bulb, a Twin 2835...whats in the GI of new Sterns, You can color match yellow and orange and it
Pops really well.

Stick with frosted to be safe, and take a peek at a few videos for the Choice of white you like.
Traditionally, Warm or Natural (Cool).

JP is warm, earth tones, so most people would recommend warm white, but I use Sunlight everywhere....it is the Kelvin between the two.

Sunlight will be released soon in 1 SMD and 2 LED!

Basically, I recommend doing your GI in all white of your choice, then your inserts.
Afterwards, you can try out some extra colors in the GI, if this is the look you wish.
Changing a few bulbs last, to color, really lets you see them in your game as completed.
Some like color in their GI, others dont.

Same in the Back box...with brighter bulbs, sometimes not all sockets are needed, but I fill those all with Sunlight, and then switch a few out and check the appearance. Too easy to get the wrong look if colors are installed first in the Backbox.

Some people keep it simple, and just do a whole game in frosted sunlight, and it looks just great!

Just personal taste.

When you wish to do some extra tinkering....a few Op-Max, in the back of the game brighten everything up, and new strips, and pads coming in 2 weeks, if you wish to go nuts...all plug and play 6.3V.

Once you do one game, you master the whole LED structure pretty fast, and youll find the look that suits you best,

Art

(Sorry, I dont take good Pics)

Shadow.jpg
congo2.jpg

Remember for DE, the backbox bulbs are all 44s and 89s, so more 44 and less 555 than B/W

Also JP needs a few 455 blinkers in the bottom row of the backbox bulbs.

RM

My advice is, ease up on the GI bulbs, that is epilepsy town right there. And get the Herg Gizmo.
And I can really recommend the sunlight bulbs from comet /Art. They look great!

But I guess Edenecho will chime in

Axl

Thanks Russ...The brain no longer focuses so well on specific games!

Ive redone all 11 of my games with Comet 2SMD Natural frosted white. I went through the phase of doing all of the colors and whatever. The regular whites make the art of the game just pop. I just got finished with JP and it looks wonderful.I ordered 100 wedge and 100 bayonet and have quite a few left over. Cost about 100 bucks.

I did all of mine in Warm White Frosted bulbs from Cointaker. I have no noticeable strobing effect. It brightens up the machine a bit.

One of these days I'm going to count all my incandescent bulbs I pulled out to get an accurate count for the quantity of the different types of bulbs you'll need.

JP is a game that I haven't converted much of because I haven't liked the results. I do, however, convert all of my flashers just in case one would ever get locked on, and I do have a tip...

In the outlanes are some flashers. I tried white originally, and it was absolutely blinding. They became green and although I think it looks weird, it is far better than the direct flash to the face the white ones gave. I spent a lot of time with that selection, and it might be worth getting a few extras to play with what works the best (and what your tolerance level is for blinding light.)

Glad to read this. I am leaning to warm white across the board. Glad it looks good, and there is no flicker!

Here's a link to my post, where I've posted some photos from mine. You get an idea of what it looks like at least. But truly can't tell from a couple photos.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/jurassic-park-club/page/17#post-2602180

There is flicker in some of the under playfield insert lamps.

Unnoticeable with mine if there is. I've seen some newer sterns with LEDs and it's hard to play and follow the ball. I don't have any issues like that with my JP.

Thanks. Ugh, that has me concerned a bit. Do you know if these were 555 or 46 with the flicker?

I'm hyper sensitive to it, and I bought the green and red "map" lights a while ago and ended up pulling them because the faint ghosting drove me NUTS. It's not terrible, and some people won't mind, but for me I totally notice.

To put it into perspective, after getting my IM which had an LED kit installed on it from a well known LED group who a lot of people love, I spent weeks replacing everything with ghosting and better synching up the lights to my liking. I thought it looked like a bug zapper at first, and now I like it much more.

That isn't to say that they or any other company make a bad product, it's just I'm over the top with my own lighting effects.

Could be the colors too. I've noticed that colored ones do seem to strobe, even the cool white ones. But the effect, if any, isn't noticeable with the warm white ones I have in there.

I may grab some video and go back and forth the playfield to see how bad it is.

I am certain I'd be very sensitive too! In the old CRT days, I could not believe some people could not see 60Hz monitor flicker. Drove me nutz.

The non-ghosting LEDs are pricey, not to mention if they are bought to replace new flickering LEDS...

Non-ghosting LEDs are not intended to fix flicker, so don't expect them to. They are good at preventing ghosting (incorrect lamps lighting dimly), but not flicker.

Does the "blue" of the natural white make some of the insert colors look off? Just curious. I plan to LED a couple games and doing it your way sounds like less of a headache than trying to count and color match all of the inserts

Edit: how are they with ghosting in the inserts?

herg, I though the ghosting was a "flickering" effect (flickering when supposed to be OFF). Is the flickering mentioned above happening when they're ON? Due to noisy GI voltage levels, smoothed out by incandescents?

Thanks for any any clarification.

Technically, it kind of is. It is usually due to the timing of the transistor being slightly off, allowing a bulb that is adjacent in the matrix to light up briefly. It doesn't usually look like a flickering effect, though. It is more obvious that a lamp that should be off is lit dimly.

Yes, it happens when they're on. The inserts are controlled by a lamp matrix, being refreshed at 62.5 Hz. Some people can see the flickering, very similar to a CRT with a low refresh rate. It's not really noisy voltage levels, just that only one column of lamps can be on at one time, so a single lamp is on only 1/8 of the time. Incandescents smooth it out because they continue to glow for a short time after power is removed.

Sorry, I was thinking people were using the flicker thing as a ghosting thing. If you're just looking for the flicker, JP does not flicker to a noticeable extent. JP ghosts not crazy amounts (hello Iron Man), but enough that it drove me nuts.

I guess to clarify what I was talking about the strobing effect, is that when you eyes dart across LEDs, you can see the refreshing of the LEDs. So when you are looking at a light straight on, it looks solid, but when you quickly move your eyes across it, you can catch it blink. A high shutter speed on a video camera will see LEDs blink. Move your eyes across the tail lights of some cars and you can see them blink.

I have seen this blinking effect on some pinball machines when following a ball. But do not notice it on my JP with warmwhite bulbs from cointaker. I cannot say anything about any others though.

But as far as ghosting goes with my setup, I thought I had a ghosting effect. Even bought a couple non-ghosting leds to only find out that it was spillover from another insert light. The only ghosting light I notice is the top light on the power bunker. And that's only if you look at it directly. It's not bright enough to notice it otherwise.

Thanks everyone.

Ahh, got it. I do know the strobing effect from LED taillights on newer cars. That might be a annoyance for me. Maybe I should try a few LED as samples to see what I think of the effect.

I just hate to keep paying shipping on these tiny orders. I've had 6 packages arrive in last week or so, blech! Better than a large order that I simply end up hating in my machine.

Mark

Only a small percentage of people can see strobing at 60 hz. Frosted Bulbs reduce this dramatically, as well
as people seeing a clear LED reflect on a ball, as a ball rolling past as strobing. One can tell strobing, by looking at the GI with
no ball in play. A reflection from the ball can only be softened by a diffused, frosted bulb, Hergs Wonderful Boards, or Dirty Balls!

Flickering can come from many issues, power in, diode, socket, Boards, etc. Some can be solved, not all with a No flickering bulb.
This is No Flix with "PLUS" from Europe, or the same product we have as an Optix. A small Capacitor is in the bulb, that keeps it lit, even for a few seconds, when unplugged, so this helps stop flickering, where it can.

Ghosting, which is residual current, affects between what, 4-8 bulbs on JP, and for those concerned with price, 8 bulbs diff is only $2.50
in total, so not too bad.
I personally recommend doing the game all regular bulbs, and on the next pass, order only the NG bulbs you need.
Saves you money, and allows you to use different, and brighter bulbs in your inserts.

One can always do the simple version, and order all natural or warm, or Sunlight...in between. (1 SMD and 2 LED coming in next shipment), and order only 1 color, 1 shade of white frosted, and games come out pretty darn nice that way.
Adding colors to inserts makes them richer. Adding colors to GI, creates "looks and moods" in your GI lighting.

Having an extra $10-$15 bulbs isnt too bad, if it gives you the creativity, and the knowledge after doing one game,
to be a master for all your next games...its a lot easier and less work if you look at your bulbs needed before you start, and not be afraid
to order more then once to complete.

Thanks OldPinGuy.

I think I'll look to populate fully with warm frosted lenses, sprinkled with a few clear colors to replace the ugly "condom" lamp covers in JP. Then test with my eyes, and replace the problem bulbs with more specialty LEDS. I'll add-in a handful of colored LEDS for use under the playfield to check them out.

OT: I am one of those who can detect 60Hz flicker. I am also very tuned to color temperature issues in CFL and LED household lightbulbs. I can detect the missing red-spectrum in these falsely warm lamps. I have stocked-up and still only use incandescent bulbs in my house. I found you can still buy new bulbs with spanish language packaging (mexico, I presume) where the conversion has not yet begun. By the time the world has managed to convert, I figure the technology will have resolved my color temp aversion, as well as my HIGH COST aversion to non-incandescent lamps...

I am not sure if Id say you are one of the lucky ones, with such good eyes!

A blessing in most cases, other then pinball perhaps.

Certainly, Hergs boards are your answer...In increasing the rate over 3X, it does do wonders.

Tonight, I was testing and sho2wing off some new products, to a Guest from England, Martin Ayub,
and he can also see as well as you. He had in the past been helpful in product development, as my eyes are poor.
Needless to say, he can see the rate between AC and DC, and is tuned like you to the 50 hz in England.

Good luck and have fun with your conversion...its always a joy like getting ready for Christmas to put the lights up!

BTW....family from Concord, Loudon, and Pittsfield! Cant wait to go back to NH! Apple picking time!

Unfortunately, not for GI in DE games. There are few that GIzmo works in, but most of them, you just want to get some good AC bulbs.

The ones i got from comet work great for me. I have 3 DE games ive done.