Don't use yellow LEDs at all. They suck hands down. I don't know what the technical reason is. Use warm white instead if you want to match the original color more closely. Use orange in orange inserts if you want a super-orange color or warm white again for closer to original.

I had the CT super flashers in my STTNG and they were REALLY bright. Anything more would've been overkill, even assuming you can fit those ludicrous-sized lamps anywhere. They were awesome in flasher domes, like you said.

I used warm white frosted in a Stargate for ALL of the GI, they looked fantastic....also look great in Space Shuttle. B_R was saying the new frosteds aren't as bright though, which is an epic fail if it turns out to be true. =(

Welcome to the LED club, Greg. I predict that you will soon spend thousands LEDing the rest of your collection.

I don't use them often, but they do have their place. For example, when you want a clear insert to be yellow.

I wasn't really considering that to be common enough to worry about, frankly.

I just installed LEDs in my AVATAR LE GI. I put cointaker frosted in the GI except in a few spots where the frosted would not fit due to the big halos in the middle of them. I used PBL 4 led white in a few of the back GI and in the spot lights. I have about half my inserts in PBL Ghostbusters and the rest incadesants. I didn't like the way the green looked in the x multipliers but I may try the white like you did.

I'm waiting for my Blue LED display for Avatar and my replacement for Tron which hopefully should be coming this week.

DSC_0778.JPG DSC_0780.JPG

Actually, I would say that if there is one consensus in using LEDs (and let's face it, there isn't much consensus at all when it comes to LEDs) it is that you should match the color of the LED to the color of the insert (with the exception of the previously mentioned yellow inserts, warm white works well there). A cool white LED under a red or orange insert isn't going to look too good, especially compared to it's colored counterpart.

One thing I don't like about my Tron LE is the fact that the colored inserts are all lit by cool white LEDs.

Greg, even your camera is blinded by the LED's...yeesh

I did the same thing with my Xmen Wolverine, I took out some of the 2 LED white and blue from the GI and plunked them into my new Tron Pro GI, overall I really like how they looked. Decided to give the whole GI a try with the 2 LEDs on Tron, so ordered up what I needed from Cointaker and there's a few more bucks out the door. Might like it, maybe not, but thought why not give it a go and see how it looks. It's only money.

Good to read this thread.. i have always WANTED to like LED's but hated how they screw with original colors and distract...

Greg/Buckles - the 2LED's from ACDC/Xmen.. are they the CT 2LED premiums you mention above or which ones are they?

My goals:
1 - replace incandescent 44 in backboxes without distorting color
2 - GI and insert replacements.. i know this will be based on personal preference - but once again i am looking for slightly brighter and non-focused light that generally keep the original feel.

Here's my recent dilemma with LED's. And I'm glad this thread was started. I am 50/50 with Led. Sometimes they're awful and sometimes they're desperately needed. When I did my LOTR I wanted to keep the warm feel and give it my own look. I think LOTR is done well, but for some reason I just feel the mode/palantir/destroy ring shouldn't be white. Especially with the fellowship right below. It's also very hard to enjoy the lighting playing in the daytime. I felt orange/yellow would be the right angle. Unless my order was messed up CT orange and yellow are the exact same color. At least with frosted bulbs (I didn;t want my game too bright). I also wanted to make the game "good vs evil) red towards the right upper area and green towards the shire. It was almost working. No matter which way I go with LED's or incandescent bulbs it's either monotonous or a friggen bag of skittles. I think warm white is definitely the way to go in situations like this but I have a box of cool white bulbs and I don't want to spend $50 on another "test".

On the other side of the story. When I did WPT it made me feel like I didn't even play the game before. It's not only an improvement but seemed necessary. I think we should start a LED swap thread so we can trade colors and types when our "experiments" go wrong. Anyone want cool super brights for warm .

Basically in a newb type fo way I am finding out through experience that I agree exactly with what Frax said. On my STTNG there's white frosted cool bulbs in the GI and they pop into your peripheral and take away from the game.

There are a few areas where the plastics are high where the subway delivers the ball to the cannons and it peeks through the open space. I do agree, maybe the plastics on the machine I'm babysitting are not installed the best. The more I try the more I agree about leaving LOTR factory. I just mostly play in the daytime. Maybe it's time for better shades/curtains.

I have a few of the 2-led premiums that have the flat-topped caps. They almost sit flush with the PF I think that's probably better than the frosted.

Here's my version of Avatar with LED's.

DSC02544.jpg

I would also agree with this, I tried to put Cointaker warm white Premium 2 LED in the white / clear, orange and yellow inserts and also colour matched some red and green, overall I just didn't like it. Maybe I'm just used to the stock look with the 555s in there, but I found it too bright overall and it just didn't look right. Ended up taking most of the LEDs out and went back to a mostly stock look and I find I like it better. I've seen some pretty neat looking LOTRs with LEDs but I guess that's just not the look I'm after.

Looks pretty perfect to me. What did you use in the GI?

I've found that I like to try and approach the original incandescent look as close as possible when it comes to GI. That means it is important to find the best Warm White as possible. BCS pinball WW1 LED's come really really close.

I do use colored LED's to highlight areas the call for it on a game by game basis. ToM looks great with some red and purple LED's highlighting the curtains in the back. Stern games always look great with the right colored LED's in the backboard. Also think LED's are essential behind a translite. When it comes to Stern games, I rip out that damn florescent and get an LED board from Flipper Fidelity or Cointaker.

Kind of liking the new Cointaker Premiums. They are very bright, but that has grown on me.

Holy Crap, the Mayans must be right... first Neo is selling overpriced games that he swore were never these prices, and now Greg is using LEDs.....

Time to start looking for that fallout shelter...

ROFL!

Only if you put LEDs in it...LOL

The cool thing about LEDs is how many different types of bulbs are becoming available to meet the different tastes us pinheads have.

Rarehero: to comment a bit on this long thread...
The retros are way brighter than the standard doubles like used in acdc. The frosted bulbs are just doubles like used in acdc but with a frosted cap on them. The premium doubles are more like double retros. I recommend:

- retros in all GI everywhere except any place that is not covered by plastic or where part of the bulb can be seen by the eye directly. It is very unpleasant to look at a retro directly. Therefore, use a frosted in those locations.
- use premium singles for the inserts in all stems to avoid ghosting
- for Williams games you can use regular non premiums (supers and retros) and if there is ghosting patch your rom with the non ghosting rom patcher.
- retros are just supers with a clear cap
- for a brighter frosted bulb if needed, you can decap a frosted and a retro and put the frosted cap onto the retro
- I strongly recommend adding 4-5 spotlights after to even out the center playfield lighting and the lighting by the flippers. Believe it or not, the purple supers work perfectly here. They give off a flowing light that doesn't really look purple and activates any uv reflective features in the pf.

Markmon, please explain the spotlight comment for a newbie

Pretty sure Mark is talking about adding these:

http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=1542

I've added them to several of my pins, but never have I added more than two. I think Mark's recommendation of adding 4 to 5 is overkill.

Rarehero, if refering to directional 'brightness' I can see a super being called that since it is more like a beam of light. But if we are talking light spread and overall illumination the Premium 2s are what I would classify as brighter than a single super. The Premium 2s are what I believe to be 2 of their mini LEDs in one base with a custom cap. Providing much better light spread IMO. They are both pretty bright though that is for sure. The Supers do have more intense color where the Premium 2 seem similar to the color/look you would see out of a crazily bright colored incandescent bulb.

As I already the you, that's due to the camera in low light. It does not look purple or pink in person. Also, purple bulbs in spotlights properly raised on hex spacers does not color change the machine. It's pretty hard to explain without seeing it in person and photos are totally worthless for this.

Just curious as someone else who is pretty new to LEDs -- do the non-ghosting bulbs from Pinball Life also have the capacitor that the NoFlix Plus bulbs have to give them a smooth on-off rather than a strobe effect? I'm much more concerned about strobing than ghosting. I almost never hear anyone mention using NoFlix Plus bulbs on Pinside. Is there a reason? I thought I had heard they were the best non-strobing bulbs available, and I just bought some to try out and they seem really nice to me so far. Just wondering if I'm missing something!

It's cool to see this thread, though, as I'm pretty much in the exact spot Greg is and I share his opinions on all of this. I want to like LEDs, especially for games I'm putting on location, but I feel like color matching inserts and adding colored GI is way too much. And the players out there will kill me if I use anything too bright or strobey. I've been using exclusively cool/warm bulbs in inserts and GI so far and I'm liking the results. You get the benefits of LEDs without the crazy super-saturated color that I've always associated with them, and disliked, in the past.

I've been a really big fan of cointakers LEDs...I've probably spent close to $1500 on them so far.

I don't care much for the LEDs they sell now. They've gone to a new supplier. The new LEDs have a slightly larger diameter body that won't fit in certain areas.

Shipped from Europe they run in the neighborhood of $3 a bulb. I can tell you that this is why I stopped considering them when I was looking into LEDs.

Their videos are impressive, plus they have two more colors in the blue spectrum (teal and turquoise). I'd like to see that from US sources.

Why would you put purple bulbs in spotlights if you intent was *not* to change the color of the machine?

And how would putting purple bulbs in the spotlights *not* change the color of the machine?

Yeah...they cost way too much.

It's pretty odd. But the cointaker super purple, when used in a spotlight looks more like a very cool white but not as bright and it activates a lot of the UV sensitive artwork. I don't use them when purple night clash. For example, Indiana jones is primarily yellow and green. So purple stands out rather than blends in there. But most games have a lot of blue and red anyway so they just blend in. You'd have to see it to believe it.

it's funny that you should mention that. I received a small "sample" packet of LEDs with my last order from marco and sure enough, none of the LEDs (44) would fit into the socket for the start button of my CftBL. the small "ring" where the dome is fused to the base is ~ 1mm too wide.

Not saying this is the issue you are having but some LEDs that come in the 44 format need to have the base solder of it sanded down a bit to fit into the socket properly.

OK. So now you have your machine LED'd perfectly. Did everyone write down the EXACT lamp they used for EACH location? And then order a duplicate set for backup? Cuz you know eventually, one is going to fail (especially if it was dropped during installation) and are you going to order just one? And is the new one you receive going to be exactly the same? And if it's not exactly the same, will it screw up the look of the rest of the game when you install it? Just asking!

Ramps in Batman Forever. I too am curious to know what else.

These might be what you are looking for?

http://www.pinballmania.co.uk/trueled.htm

LED's that match bulbs.

Not tried yet but experimenting with Cointaker and Noflix.......I waste hours trying different combos trying to get the right look!

Rollergames has some neon inks that react well with blacklight. We took a 15 year old car blacklight to the playfield when we had it pulled out because I was curious. The neons on the plastics, and the outfits on the 2 main girls mostly.

Would look awesome in some place with overhead blacklights, but frankly, that crap is hard on your vision and my eyes are bad enough, and it's too spread out on my game to put spotlights on it.

For what it's worth I took a gamble and got 100 of them shipped over here for 140 Euro, which is about $180. Not that I feel great about spending $1.80 per bulb, but that's a ways off from $3!

Make sure you let us know how that works out, and video of them fading properly too. If these guys did it "right" then let's reward them appropriately...

I wasn't aware of this. Which bulbs would this be from cointaker that have a larger diameter body?

wow..... first the berlin wall falls now this!! i never thought this day would come greg.

the big question here is when will you be led'ng the LOTR or is that pin off limits when it comes to leds??

i think your avatar came out nicely. i think you can def overdue it on avatar. ive seen a few of them where it is nothing but strong BLUES and GREENS (waaaay too much of the blues). all the colors in the pf and plastics just wash out and look very smurfy (when overdone with the blue leds).