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First question are they the 100 for 26$ comets?

Could be a sign of inferior LEDs

I have had the same problem as well with comets what are alternatives that won't do this.

Contact Ryan with any issues.

Products do have a warranty.

cointaker bulbs are the way to go.... just my opinion

What kind of Comet bulbs? Thats all i use and haven't had any issues after 3 years so far. I use the 1 and 2 smd and twin bulbs....

Also which pin? Sometimes there can be a issue causing over voltage in gi which will shorten the life of leds ....

Nothing beats Cointaker led's only Niffty bulbs seem to be of the same quality, Titian and Comet are junk sorry man. I've had all of them in used machines and I can tell you that there's no comparison, there about 1/4 as bright.

I bought a 2nd hand pin a year ago. And it come with 3rd party leds in their with 'CT' in the GI is that coin taker or comet?

There where 12 faulty in there. Never seen a faulty led before unless it gets smashed by a ball. Can't believe there where 12 bad.

I had a problem once with a funhouse on location. The general illumination LED's were failing in a month. So I measured the voltage at one of the lamp sockets and it was nearly 8 volts. I checked the input voltage jumper at the transformer and it had come from the factory set incorrectly. It was set to 105 volts. So I moved the jumpers to the correct 120 volt input configuration and the lamp voltage was right on the money again at 6.3 volts.

The leds are the frosted ones white and natural white and also some colors, and they have had problems in a Bally playboy (just gi), a Williams flash (gi only) and a xenon that has only had a problem with a couple with a lot less time on compared to the other two.

i use comet twin 2835s everywhere.... best bulb ive put in a machine. anywhere.

yes ive used cointaker.

That's not right! Sending you a PM about this so we can fix it.

Only been at the helm since July, but I've not yet seen a dimming complaint about our 1 and 2 smd bulbs.

CT is Cointaker.

Sending you a PM about this.

We sell hundreds of thousands of bulbs each year, so it'd be silly to pretend that there has never been an issue...but the vast majority have been very happy with the quality of our products. Occasionally, there are issues that crop up (like the "too much voltage situation" described above), so if you have issues, please reach out directly and we'll help get it resolved.

I been lucky to never have an issue with Comet leds but will say it is nice to see Ryan jump on this and figure out if there is a possible issue. Great seller.
-Mike

Those are the ones that I have had problems with too. They were a bad run from what the previous owner of comet told me. I never got around to exchanging them. The problem exists if you are an operator or if you have your machines on for long periods of time. I have 3 pins that are on 60 hours a week. They all had those comets. Within 60 days, the GI on all 3 were dim as hell.

My Apollo 13 at home has them as well. It's on a few hours a week and it's inconsistent on how long. 1 game, 10 games, whatever, and I see no signs of being dim.

yes they do. cheap leds from certain vendors have a usable life far less than incandescent bulbs. i made a similar thread.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/led-brightness-fading-over-time

You get what you pay for. Buy an entry level LED from any manufacturer and they are garbage IMO. Dim, ghosting, flicker. Pony up a little more $$ next time.

I've been using Comet for years and they have held up well.

Howver, I haven't had any problems with the CoinTaker bulbs in my games, either.

In my experience, both companies produce a high quality product with top notch customer service. It's kind of a Coke or Pepsi thing for me. The main difference is Comet has a ridiculous level of variety.

The LED'S are being over driven.

I've had the same result with several different games on location. I always put LEDs in my location game's PF and backbox GI. After a couple of months I've had to replace all of them as they were dim.

It isn't a voltage issue, all the bulbs dim over a month or two no matter which game they are installed. I doubt every single game I've put them in is sending too much voltage. It is consistent across all the different types of LEDs from this vendor in several different games.

I've used Cointaker LEDs for years with no noticeable dimming despite the games being on for 12+ hours every day. I'm sure they dimmed some, but it isn't noticeable. I've since gone back to Cointaker and only use their product.

All LEDs will dim over time. In the lighting industry there are L70 and L80 ratings for LEDs that determine the number of hours before the light level (lumens) fall below 70% or 80% of their initial levels. I can't imagine the LEDs used for these 555 and 44 lamps in pinballs are all that great (compared to what is used in commercial lighting). I would suspect that they should last several thousand hours before the light levels begin to diminish noticeably.

Have comets installed in one of my pins I recently picked up. Some of them have faded to almost half intensity. I only use pinball life frosted non ghosting as I am local to them and save big on no shipping. Never had an issue.

I didnt have a complaint eaither? I said that's what i have used for over 3 year's now and havent had any issues? U must have misunderstood me. All i use is Comet and never had any issues.....

I read that comment as if he were agreeing with you.

I've been using Comets for years with no issues whatsoever.
I use them in my personal pins that I've had for years with no dimming and in pins I've sold and never had any complaints.

I have been a customer with Comet since they opened their doors with the original owners and after all of those years have had one bulb with an issue and it was my fault. I accidentally twisted the top right off. I put their bulbs in everything and always have

Sorry, yes. I was agreeing with you.

You should install them in your pinball machines, not leave them on "tables"

Seriously though - I had to read your post three times before I realised you were talking about "pinball machines" and not tables......

Dont forget to check your fuse holders are clean too- found dim leds before on machines I've bought due to corrosion and crud

Here is a picture of the bally playboy difference of one that has been in a while and a extra I had left over we just put in

20170131_193050 (resized).jpg

Personally I prefer Comet over Cointaker. I don't think brightness is a big issue as they all have different models available, and honestly in most cases do not want the brightest LED possible. Fading over time, however, is an issue.

Could you give a little context, like how long per day they were run, how many months or days, etc?

All the leds were installed about a month ago tlzavala1's tables are on for about 20hrs a week with all leds completly faded and my xenon which have started to fade on some now have about 8hrs a week on

I dont think there is any doubt of your issue, the question is it bulb only, or game that caused the bulb issue, or other.
I have spent an amazing amount of time trying to learn all the possibilities, yet I always learn more. I had some of mine go with a Power Spike.

I believe Ryan reached out to you, and the solution is to try new bulbs, but preferably go to a
2 LED frosted or a 1 SMD frosted.

These are made much different than a single resin diode.
Better PCB. Especially if its an unanswerable cause.

The $10-$15 difference in total cost is well worth it, for even just piece of mind.

For 3 years, I sold over 250,000 of these with one known batch of 1000 in error, and maybe 150 or so returned as defect.

Your under warranty, so either replace and try again, or upgrade.
If it doesnt happen again, no worries.
If it does, then some troubleshooting might be needed.

Try the easiest way first.

It is my understanding that every LED company uses the same bulbs from the same factory.

I choose Comet because of the impeccable customer service, price, and selection.

Also, I never buy the cheapo ones anymore. I have had no issues with any of the SMD selections from any company.

It's definitely the bulbs. I experience the same thing across many games with same bulb type. Ac voltage seems to cause them to fade faster. Using a switch mode supply at 5.5vdc, almost 1v under rating, they still faded over a month or two.

The 2 led bulbs in the same circuits are not fading at all.

I use Comet 2SMD frosted warm whites EXCLUSIVELY in all my games (both home and on route). I have never had any dimming or issues with the 2SMD bulbs and customer service has been fantastic with both Art and now Ryan.

I wonder if its a specific series of games, or something in combination.

AC testing here is easy, not so easy in China, but they do have a PBL bulb tester.

Still, no disagreement there is an issue for some, but cant be all with so many sold.....

Still, likely, the best answer if this is an issue is to upgrade the bulbs if one might be affected.

It's a low cost led being over driven. The resistors inside the LED should be higher to limit current. The bulbs would be dimmer, but last longer.

I tend to agree, and they were redone a couple years ago, but maybe need a step up further.

If this is the case, and a handful of games had issues, would you think there is any drawback
to another increase?

In the market for some LED bulbs soon. I've seen a lot of what's out there, not with just pinball bulbs but any type of LED bulb for automotive applications, flashlights, etc. As barakandl said, a lot of times they're they're using too low of a resistor value. Great that it's bright, but it's short-lived when it's killing the LED over time. A lot of times on the candelabra, multi-led style designs they're using a single resistor to set current and the leds are wired in parallel.. not a great design either, since leds have different forward voltages even if from the same lot number from the factory. Eventually this style can fail as well, especially if the resistor(s) used are too low a value.

I'd like to buy solid bulbs that will last. Not sure if I should just order a sample, tear them open and find out for myself what resistor values are used.. doubt I'll get answers from the LED manufacturers on bulbs I'm interested in so this is probably a better way to go about it. Order what other people are saying should last, do one machine, tear the bulb open and get a better idea. No problem forking over money with whatever designs are good no problem, but honestly tired of throwing good money for bad on LED products that don't last.

I now only use PHILIPS brand lightbulbs in the house. Tried CREE, Utilitech in the past. All these LED products are supposedly supposed to last so much longer than incandescents.. 10-20 years. And so much of it is failing due to bad design. I've had good luck with PHILIPS, they must know what they're doing and get all my business on regular household bulb products.