I always like the 5 smd which works great for side lighting and top lighting and put a frosted cap on top of it which has always worked well for me and is plenty brite but im sure u can make a cap or something for the opmax to dim top light and keep the sides bright

Perhaps this may help.
Have you tried an Op-Max yourself?

Pictures are so hard to judge by. I think you might be surprised.

Below that are Twin 2835....what is used in TWD, Star Trek. Great Bulb, and the hobby is lucky
to have Chris and Melissa, with Stern, to bring this to market.

This bulb comes Clear (can spot, depending on game art), Frosted....no hot spots there...and Fluted...
(can spot, depending on game art)

In addition, every game has different color and screened thickness, meaning the same bulb will perform differently in different games.

Most all Vendors offer several brightness levels to choose from, with everyone finding what they like best.

I think we have 12 choices of brightness now....I would hope that would cover all needs....

But, if you have one in mind, or someone else does, I would hope all LED vendors would love to hear
what that might be.

Art

Nice idea...just requires a new mold and around 10K-15K...happy to make...need money.
Super Flux comes pretty close....

Frosted bulbs work perfectly for me. Have you tried them?

+1, I use frosted almost everywhere, though inserts are hit and miss. Personally I tend toward bulbs that have a luminescence closer to that of the incandescent bulbs, so the brightest bulb you will see in my machines is 1 SMD or 2 mini-smd, and I use a lot of single LEDs in the inserts (which is equivalent to an incandescent). Spotlighting becomes a bigger issue the brighter the bulb.

Frosted are terrible for GI.

I can say I havent, but im gonna very cool

frosted are what i mostly go with. either that or flex-heads angled in such a way that they aren't visible to the eye.

IMG_1773.jpg

under the slings and inlanes are flex-heads pointed at the playfield, away from the player. the rest are frosted.

Thanks for the pics, Winball_Pizard, I understand what you are saying now, from your perspective. Our site will address this better shortly, it is a matter of brightness vs throw of light. It is why I have soo much to choose from.
When I haul around a suitcase of a bit of everything, and help some of the guys do a game.
I think I have the right bulb in my hand the first time for a job, but it may be the 5th, or the 9th try until the owner is happy, as well as myself.
While the Op Max main feature is over 300 degrees of diffused light throw, and converts current to DC, for reduced strobing, sometimes its too much.
A 5 SMD is better, or our fluted dome. I even self diffuse a 2 SMD faceted for another great choice.
Even or 4+4 8 SMD is a neat one.

Sometimes, because of the artwork, bulbs dont light the area correctly.

Thats where products like a Flex SMD can be angled, or positioned backwards to bounce the light, especially useful in a backbox.

Also of great use, is our 6.3V Strips With up to 7 SMD, they can light as they are, our you can add a diffusion layer, and control the light the way you want.

Ultimately, its your taste, and your eyes, but I think all the choices are there.

Other Vendors, like PBL and CT carry different products too.

I wish there was always one perfect answer for every game, but I find

it fun doing this.... finding whats right for me.

Ill be sure you get a sample of some of these different choices, and hope you enjoy!

But back to your thread......please do suggest away, guys...I am always looking for good ideas,
and several products have come from threads like this and ideas...so, I am grateful.

I wish I could take pictures like you Pez....That game looks Awesome!

i would suggest flooding your GIs with 4SMDs. as long as they arent direct bang line of sight. the game will really pop.

its just a matter of experimenting. and that might take a while to find the right setup your happy with.

yes. and Art carries them as well. and yeah they are super bright. like i said, they wont suit
everyones tastes. trying a few combinations/different types of bulb is the best way to get an idea of what you like/prefer...

Heres a few quick pics from my tablet of bsd with 5 smd in blue and the rest are frosted it throws the light great and is just the right amount of light .I play in complete darkness also and its fine I especially like bsd video mode where just the dmd is on . Really is creepy in a old house with nothing else on

20140930_024823.jpg20141002_174600.jpg

I personally dont care for the 4smd as they don't throw the light well in the gi and I did a bunch of tests tonightin inserts and the 1 smd were actually brighter than the 4 at least in red

I still don't understand why people used colored LEDs in the GI. The game turns into one giant monotone colored blob completely washing out the artwork. You can get the same results by installing a colored flood light over the top of the game...you could probably see better as well.

I mean.. how the hell do you see the ball in the middle of the BSD playfield?

This is a Big Guns with Op-Max in the GI. As you can see it does not overwhelm the sling area with light. Big Guns is a very dim game with stock GI and the Op-Max bulb from Art was the perfect bulb for this application.

20140520_204903.jpg

Try the pinball life ablaze ghostbuster premium frosted in warm white. They are perfect for what you describe, you can also put them in a backbox without getting those "hot spots". Plus they are rectified & filtered so no flicker at all or strobe effect with the ball. http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=3211

haha nah, thats just with my iphone, glass not even off. thanks though!

the game is a somewhat brighter in person.

never, ever ever ever ever trust a picture of lighting. Camera settings -shutter speed, iso, etc (even automatic settings) make them look completely different than reality. I could take 2 pictures of the exact same playfield/lights 10 seconds apart and make one look so dimly lit that you cant see anything, and the other like the surface of the sun.

Personally, I very much like frosted 1 or 2 SMD natural light bulbs from comet for my GI. OPmax is a little bright for me, too much light and the inserts dont pop as well.
I tried the fluted domes and wasnt as much of a fan due to a hot spot on the top, though I may try again after taking some 800 grit to the top

I've used Cointaker frosted in my GI and I'm a big fan. The warm white looks absolutely dynamite in older machines like Sys 6-9 or sys 11 imo where you don't want that 'tech' look of white LED's.

I've found the PBL frosted to be a tad dim for GI (I think they are 1 SMD instead of 2?), but they have their uses as well.

yeah, i dont know anything about photography but it's weird how hard it is to get a photo of a lit up pinball playfield that reflects what it looks like in person. i take like a dozen and pick the closest one.

no matter what i do, ithe GI always looks way more purple in photos than in reality. im sure thats true of bigd1979's dracula, too.

Yes only 1 but a 5050 which throws a lot of light!

One of the reasons we dont offer kits....Everyone sees light a bit differently, even color.

.....and pictures are a pain.

Then there is ambient lighting, exact voltage variations in GI from Game to Game, even your height, or the angle you stand, will affect how you see LEDs.
There may be an LED in a game that blinds you, but not the next person, and we never think of height, angle, and stance.

The point being, is that with all vendors, an assortment of products and brightness is available, and we all have different tastes, and as above.

Setting the baseline GI Lighting choice, is a factor of all of this, then add in the game. Its colors,
Its printing. And this does not take into account reproduction plastics, which are most often printed thinner, or reproduction trans lights.

If you have only one game, your first game to ever LED, its a small learning curve, but try to see other games, and collect 2 of a few brightness choices, to keep and test, when you do a game.
I'd recommend 7 choices times 2 (14 total bulbs), so you can do one side of slings, two rails, right and left corner, to see the differences. Around a $12 investment, and worth it.

I dont find I always use the exact same bulb in GI in every game, especially when SMDs can overkill some SS and certainly EMs, But as most are sharing a frosted bulb gives good spread, and a nice fuzzy dome of light. Faceted and Fluted, (yes, the light points can show in some plastics, diffusion is best, and we are working on that) Shine a star burst pattern outward.

Maybe it's a placebo effect for me then haha

I applied thin silver mylar to the bottom of the plastic to reflect/block the light that goes straight up. Here is a pic the left side has the silver mylar, the right side doesn't.foil.jpg

Very Creative!

You can try using a sling Protector, and diffusing it with a light sanding, too.

This. The 5050 SMD frosted bulbs seem to work great for a super even light spread. Heck, our clears don't leave much of a hotspot in GI either. In backglasses, depending on the game, they may though.

A lot of our games we put in the 5 SMD tower 6volt bulb for an awesome spread of light. You could use gorilla tape on the top bulb if you wanted a truly side spread. This has been done on a few games to mess around with. Fast and super easily reversible.

This is what I have used, and am very, very happy with. Warm white fluted domes with the tops sanded. Excellent, non-blinding side throw with no hot spots.

If you take some 150 grit and lightly sand the tops of those bulbs it will get rid of the hot spots on your left sling. I did this on a few and was very surprised with the results! It also seemed to generate just a little more light out the sides as if it were reflected back in. Those bulbs are pretty sweet! Perfect upgrade to the factory stern LEDs after you diffuse the tops, and very reasonably priced

If you want LED reliabilty, but keep the look of incandescent lighting, the Cointaker Retro's are very close, just did a Majorettes with them, and you would be hard pressed to tell they were LED's