I’m looking at some of my restored games and realize they aren’t as vibrant as the newer games I have - and I believe it’s because I didn’t really know what I was doing when installing the playfield and insert lights.

I’m asking for recommendations for LEDs that are bright and clear like a new game, so I can install some and see how they compare.

For example - I have a lot of frosted bulbs, but are these better than the 1 SMD ones I see, or the 4-SMD ones which don’t actually seem to be any brighter. And I’m not clear on the lenses in some of them - concave lenses appear to throw light more around than direct, but they are kinda weak overall in terms of light output.

I’ve read the Comet descriptions of a lot of bulbs and types, but they don’t really give me a great sense of how they actually perform in a game. Thanks!

Cool, that’s exactly the type of feedback I’m looking for. And they are bright enough under colored inserts I take it -

There’s lot of great suggestions here - Comet’s website is overwhelming; they have so much stuff! I hadn’t heard of the slow fade leds either.

Sounds like I’m going to start with the sunlight or warm white 2SMDs first...

Are there any good solutions for flasher brightness? I would like to get a couple of those tower bulbs to make the flash more evenly distributed (vs the common 906 flasher I have where everything comes out the top), but I’m afraid it’s just going to be way too bright!

Yeah, that’s what I’m learning - it’s great to install a big flasher that looks like Robby the robot but when you can’t see for 3 days after playing the game, it starts to lose its luster.

I’m going to try the bulb Comet specifically points out as producing less light and see if it throws an even distribution. Otherwise maybe I’ll try some masking tape! Haha

I forgot to mention, mostly this is going in a soon-to-be-restore-completed Twilight Zone and an existing restored original MB, then DW when I get around to it..

All right, to start I ordered a bunch of the sunlight frosted 2smd ones- I'll start with those. If I'm going to do color matching, I'll try some of the existing color bulbs I have, and do an order later on if I want. One of the
Issues I have with MB in particular is how dark all the inserts (and the GI) are, and I'm starting there first. I also ordered a handful of different flasher types to try and see how those work. I want to replace the Frankenstein globe flashers in particular - I don't like how they look like a horizontal line when they start flashing.

Thanks for all the input, that was super helpful!

I wanted to follow up.. got my Comet order the other day. WOW! Huge, HUGE difference. First lesson; don't use the concave LEDs for inserts. I dont' remember consciously making that decision, but likely I didn't have any other bulbs, and just went with those. I basically replaced every single bulb in the machine. What a tremendous difference. The only thing remaining is the weird shadow under the slings that the coil arm creates. I've got to figure out how to work around that, but otherwise this was a huge improvement.

Just placed an order for more of the "matrix" connectors from Comet as well. I remember looking at these a year or so ago and just not understanding what they are for. Well, now I get it. Thanks again everybody