What about when talking LEDs? I bought some LED flashers for the shields and Return To Duty inserts on my STTNG, but they're crazy bright. Can I just use normal 555 LED's? Or, how to I make the flasher LEDs less goddamn bright?

I don't want incandescents for at least some of them as they are behind a colored insert and I think the difference would become apparent. The shields especially might be noticeable as I use blue LEDs for the GIs there. The effect is actually very cool - it's just a bit too bright is all. Likewise the return to duty is now the same color as some of the red inserts I switched over, so it looks both gorgeous and consistent. I may leave incandescents for some of the above playfield flashers, though.

Oh well. I'll just have to find less bright ones Thanks everyone!

I was thinking some type of diffuser might help as well, though I'm not sure where to find something like that if it didn't already come with the bulb.

Good idea on popping a few out though - I may have to look into that. Don't get me wrong, for indirect lighting, bright flashers make sense. It's just that these are right on the playfield so I'd like them to be a bit more tame.

Ah a sharpie that's actually pretty clever! I may give that a go! I bought them from the NiftyLED folks so talking to them about their thoughts on it as well.

I ended up accidentally taking off the top of one of my flashers while trying to pull it out. Oops. But that ended up being a lucky result because I was able to see how they oriented the resistors - they were wired right to the base with the leads of the resistor being the wires used to make contact with the socket.

As a result, it was a pretty easy swap. The originals were like 20 Ohm or something surprisingly small. All I had on hand in the small footprint and range were 220 Ohm. Gave those a shot and it's MUCH better. Almost perfect, in fact. I think the shield flashers might be a tad low but I just wanted a subtle effect there anyway.

These were using the NiftyLED 906 flashers. I suspect other flashers are different.

At this point I think the remaining flashers are in the Borg ship and around the playfield but I rather like OLDPINGUY's option since it looks flat. I bet that would go really well under the Return To Duty. So I'm pondering that.

For now, though, all is good!