I have a Black Rose pinball and I feel that the lights are kind of "weak". Currently everything are using standard incandescent light bulbs.

I'm quite satisfied with the looks of the backbox, flashers and so on; it's mostly the inserts that I'm considering upgrading to LED to make them pop a bit more and be easier to see while playing. Also, It kind of feels good to know I will decrease power consumption/pressure on the lamp driver board and hopefully avoid future problems with burned connectors and such.

Before you tell me to search; I have tried searching Pinside and while there are lots of discussions about LED's all over I feel that all threads assumes one already know the basic info and thus skips talking about it.

So to my very basic LED questions:

1. I replaced a random insert bulb with a #555 LED and it was lit properly. For testing purpose I then replaced that same one with a differently colored #555 LED and that one didn't light at all! I've read about "rotating" the led 180 and reinsert but that didn't help at all, still no light. Tried a third LED in the same position and that one worked as it should first try. Should I assume the second LED is broken (brand new, never used before) or am I missing something regarding LED's ? Are "rotating" a thing or just unnecessary?

2. I've read about the "LED OCD board" but I'm not sure why I would need one. Can't I just replace incandescent with LED or will I have problems? As I understand it the OCD board will "fade" the LED's in/out instead of just going abruptly on/off or is it doing more than that?

3. If I replace all PF inserts to LED and skip having an OCD board will the result look OK or crap? I'm obviously not talking about the actual colors as that is very individual but more the general behavior/looks.

4. How will the lamp diagnostics work with LED's, any problems? One of my games is a Pinball 2000 one and I think I've read that it will think LED lamps are broken because they draw much less current than expected or something similar. What about non-P2000 games?

5. I understand the concept of non-ghosting LED's but how do I know when I need it or not. Seeing the non-ghosting are much more expensive I don't want to buy more than needed of those. Any pointers on when to use non-ghosting and when I can use "normal" LED's?

6. SMD vs 2SMD LED's. I get that the ones with 2 are brighter, but what is the general conclusion on when to use the 2SMD's instead of the single ones?

Thanks in advance