were they the "single" light ones? If so, yes the dif isn't much. The 3 light one are quite nice. I was disappointed with the singles, too.

cointaker ftw

No offense to anyone but Pinballife is not the place to go to when
purchasing LEDS.Cointaker is the place for that.

I also just bought my first LEDs. I really like how they look when color matching under the playfield, but really didn't like them at all for behind general playfield lighting or backglass.

Has anyone else noticed a "strobe" effect for general playfield? It really throws off my game.

+1

Who makes PBL's LEDs?

The difference is very noticable with Cointaker LEDs... The frosted ones are great for general purpose, and you can't mistake them for normal bulbs. There have also been some very lousy LED lights going around (got some from marco) that were disappointing.

Orange and Yellow are hard to get LEDs that look good in. Even cointaker's superbright orange's aren't as bright as you'd like them to be... The yellow supers aren't bad, but still not as bright as other colors. The poor brands of yellow and orange LEDs are absolutely unusable.

This is always going to be a problem. I don't use LEDs for GI for this reason, but it's still kinda annoying. It also limits how bright a LED I can use, without it overwhelming the non-LED GI. Just gave me an idea....

No :-p

Ablaze ghostbuster FTW!

cointakers is better because of all the choices you have, i like 4 leds or super also the 2 leds with cover are great.
the 3 leds from pinball life is good, i use the one leds (white only) for tight inserts only and the no ghost works great, thats what i have in my LOTR.

both place have good products, depends what your needs are.

Hmm, not my experience at all. Pinball life is THE place to go first, for items, if they have it. The LEDs they sell are cheaper but still good quality. I have purchased tons of them without issue...maybe a few duds that do not work here and there, but that is to be expected. Maybe something went amiss with your batch? Send an email to Terry, he has great customer service and will no doubt try to make you happy.

If your looking for brightness I would suggest trying Cointaker. Cointakers super brights and ultra brights are much brighter than PBL LEDs. What I like about Pinball Life LEDs is you see much less ghosting. But if your looking to really brighten things up go with Cointaker.

You lucked out - TAF looks like ass with LEDs anyway.

I also just ordered from PinballLife and they look great color matched under my playfield. There is no doubt that colored plastics look brighter, but I wasn't really hoping for a huge super bright change. For me it was more about reducing the heat. I do notice some slight ghosting, but it doesn't really bother me that much. Currently my #44 lights just don't look bright enough. I will need to order some flexable lights from Cointakers, so I hope that they match up the colors close enough.

I don't like the LEDs for the backglass (except behind blue) and I find the strobe effect in the GI to make the game unplayable.

I bought the 3 LED wedge in yellow from Pinball Life to light up the bolder bumpers in WH2O and they were dim and terrible.

I went back to the incandescents.

Hate to say it but TAF is way to dark not to have LEDs in it IMO. Like always though I respect your opinion and agree to disagree on this one.

I can't imagine TAF looking good with LEDs myself either, honestly.

Like, it could definitely stand to be brighter, but I don't think the cooler colors would come out well there.

I used single led frosted for all my back box lights from pinballlife and I love it. The amount of light produced is almost identical to regular bulbs and it was less than $15. I might have to reconsider for playfield lighting though. Anyone have examples of pinballlife leds in inserts?

I can't imagine TAF looking good with LEDs myself either, honestly.

Like, it could definitely stand to be brighter, but I don't think the cooler colors would come out well there.

Have you seen coasterguy's TAF? Perhaps it will change your mind:

CG_TAF.jpg

Wow. That is what I say each time I see how great CG's TAF looks.

Does anyone use or rate the ghostbusters by ablaze from
Pinballlife? Cointaker definately have a great colour selection but I've heard cointakers ghost and cause strobing on sterns,'I've seen an IM with cointakers LEDs and it was ghosting pretty bad.

I like whats going on with the apron - that's cool. But yeah this isn't helping the LED cause in my book. For instance, the translight. Why make the mansion pink? It's not supposed to be pink! I'm just a purist I guess, I'm sure that looks good to a lot of people but I like my games to look just how I remember them in the arcade.

Yea we just have different tastes and that is okay if everyone liked the same thing it would be a boring world.

I just installed cointaker super led's in my tz and it seems like the old 906 flashers were brighter then the super flasher led's! Anyone else notice? this did I do something wrong?

I agree! Still wouldn't turn down a game on that baby. If someone put that much work into it it must play amazing. Switches and flippers are most important to me anyway, as long as those are all working I will have a good time on any pinball machine.

Try these LEDs from Germany. If I don't like the looks of the Super Brites on my TZ (hopefully TC will be done with it this month), then these are what I am going to swamp those out with.

http://www.pinballcenter.eu/english/product-informations/noflix-advantages/

http://www.pinballcenter.eu/catalog/noflix-pinball-leds-c-22.html?language=english

In my limited experience the yellow color LED's just aren't very bright. I guess it has to do with that color in the visible light spectrum or something. Wizzardz put a lot of LED's in his SM and they look really good, but the sandman section, where the yellow ones are, looks dark compared to the others. He has tried several different kinds and combinations and he just can't seem to get it as bright as he wants it there.

PBL's ghostbusters work great!

Cointaker is supposed to be releasing their own version of ghostbusters, but we are still waiting.

I'm curios as to what difference they were suppose to make. Is it possible that they are suppose to look like colored incandescents and not to be super bright like some LEDs are?

No question about it. I know some guys hate LEDs, but TAF has such a limited amount of G.I., that it screams for LEDs.

They totally eliminate ghosting, but I wish they were brighter (and cheaper).

Switched my DE SW to Cointaker LEDs and they look great. I am not having any strobing or ghosting. Remember that Pinsiders get a discount at Cointaker!

I prefer warm whites under yellow inserts.

I use the ones that work - irrespective of the vendor.

I have yet to find a good warm LED. They either aren't very warm or they are very green. This is part of the reason I started adding more color t the SM. Its also a reason why some colors look odd when using LEDs. Not that a cool white LEd isn't a good replacement in some cases. I just wouldn't change out all warm white incandescent with cool white LED.

As Action76 mentioned, my last bit of tinkering has been with filling out the yellow - which, along with orange, simply doesn't broadcast as well as others. In the case of SM, the best broadcasting colors are on either side of the yellow which only helps wash out the yellow. I think I've settled on the 3-LED fro lane dividers on SM and cointaker ultra fro the GI under the ramp. I have some pics in the other thread - http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/cointaker-superbrights-vs-pinball-lifes-triple-led-lights

I find the retros work for GI lighting in most cased. I haven't seen the strobe effect others mention with them. For 89 flashers I used PBL 9-LED.

Any control lighting will need non-ghosting. I bought ablaze from PBL as cointaker doesn't have non-ghosting (but mentioned they were going to intro....but haven't seen them yet). I do tend to see a high freq strobe with the pbl non-ghosting when they are in a stead on state. I haven't found any warm non-ghosting yet. If you replace with insert lights with white, you will find some inserts look off because of the cool color (yellow looks green, blues wash out). Using color LED for inserts seemed to generally give you truer colors....but will change the hue some

I didn't want to add much brightness - more replace the incandescent and add color. If you are looking to brighten the whole machine, then you will likely need to step up the brightness throughout to avoid dark areas.

LED playing is a process that's for sure. I have ordered many, many kits but, I always make changes. Sometimes during a LED weekend I have ordered 3 or 4 separate orders before they even open on Monday. I get started when I see I need or want to try something I order again. Then you have lots of left overs.

GetAttachment.aspx.jpeg

Man that machine looks SHARP--I vote for LED's in TAF,I like them under the playfield inserts-color matched and behind the translite-color matched in select areas to highlight.
I generally don't like them for General Illumination,except if they are behind stand up targets where they do not zing your eyes and blind you.

I assure you in person it does not look pink. Their are some hints of red and blue. All white is BORING. IMO LED's have enable us to make these older pins look better by adding more color.

+1

My 20 year old DE SW really came alive by careful selection of color LEDs and even a couple color changing LEDs.

I had the exact same issue with my WH2O. So I made the machine part incandescent/part LED. I also had an issue with the clock on FH. When I put orange and yellow LED's in there, they all looked yellow. I had to go back to incandescent to restore the brightness level. I was using 2-led bulbs from cointaker.

I bulk bought tons of frosted and clear led's from Pinball Life. Love that place by the way. Anyway, I do ghetto led mods on my machines. What I mean is I use all white and an acrylic paint set to change colors. I bought the paint at Michaels. I have brushes and like 32 diff colors. On my Lethal Weapon I just could not decide in advance what I wanted to do. The Uzi gun is clear insert lenses. I wanted to experiment. That is how this whole ghetto led thing started for me. I tried red, blue, yellow, charcoal bullets on that game and it was easy. The paint rubs off with your finger and you can start again. Paint does not fade either...acrylic for the win! I ended up with Blue led on the top of my LW3 gun and red color for all the vertical bullets. Looks great and get compliments all the time. I did the same with my Baywatch and my Maverick machine too!

Note: This trick works best with clear inserts. Changing color on colored inserts is tough. I have been able to slightly improve some though by using white led and not having it look awful greenish yellow color that happens sometimes.

did you try the frosted leds? the regular have a bad effect and pop way too much through the translite.