Im guessing poor print quality of an alternate translite. Its hard to diagnose without knowing what type of LEDs etc. Post a photo of the head with the translite on and removed and you will should get good advice.

The LEDs are probably just too bright. I like dimmer, frosted LEDs behind translites for more subtle color.

You have a couple choices.

If your bulbs are not diffused or "Frosted", you will need them.
If you are using these, then you can either use the next lower level in brightness,
or put on opaque second layer of thin sheet behind the translite, to diffuse further..
This, depending on the bulbs, and the thickness of your screen printing, could take some experimenting.

I had a translight that did this before and the only thing I found to work was I made a new backing for the translight out of a large white piece of thin posterboard. I did this because the translight was missing the white on the back that the rest of mine were missing guessing it was a repro .

I tried every kind of led and even regular bulbs and all them looked like crap with the translight which is y I went with a backing because it wasnt made correctly

Not to sound redundant but...post some pictures and we will know what you are dealing with and be able to give the best advice; as this is really a visual perspective problem.

I never put leds behind a translite

This might sound dodgy but it works >>a sheet of baking paper doubled over behind the translite will diffuse the LED glare and is sure cheaper than replacing all your LED'S. Before i finally tracked down a NOS JD translite i used a piece of baking paper folded up quite a few times (about 6) to cover for a wedge of the backing that was missing (it just had the colour in that area). To diffuse some light you may not even need to double it. Crazy idea i grant you but it works

Well I tried a bunch of different combos with the thickness of the diffuser and different leds I believe I used 1 layer of poster board and comet 2 led frosted and 2 led clear where I wanted more direct light.

Heres a link to CT's frosted led page. Basically each led has a diffuser on it.

http://shop.cointaker.com/category.sc?categoryId=6

Ive read posts of people using milk jug plastic as diffuser material before. Maybe cut a circle or two and mount them if front of the bulb and see if that helps?

I like the parchment paper idea too. Worth a try.

CT has a blackfriday code for this friday to get 20% off as well.

Rick

I have used the minis from cointaker behind translights they have a nice light spread .The issue with LEDs is they don't project light the same as incandescent bulb and there a huge volume of choices in brightness levels. Frosted bulbs will give you better light spread to the side if you bought supers they may be to bright. I tried many different LEDs behind a lethal weapon translite and they all looked worse than incandescent and I really didn't want Mel Gibsons mug and brighter so the stock bulbs were put back in

Since Cointaker has around 10 - 15 kind of 44 bulbs, maybe it would help if you specified WHICH bulb it was?
SuperBright, UltraBright, Flex, Concave, Flat, Frosted, single SMD, dual SMD, Clear Dome, Minis, Wide Angle, 2 LED, 4 LED, Hi Power, Non-Ghosting, GI, OMG, LOL!

BTW, the term for the issue that you are having is called "Hot Spots"

This is how you will need to solve your problem:

Just use 1smd frosted bulbs. You can even get away with non premiums for GI and translite bulbs.

I suspect that's a repro translite. Hard to tell without seeing it in person, but a lot of the cheaper reproductions are really thin and will let the light through much more directly like that.

When I have my translites printed they're done on backlight film, but then have a diffuser layer bonded to the back, which prevents that kind of hot spotting.

You could definitely experiment with less bright LEDs, but before you spend the money you might go ahead and try some experimenting with creating your own diffuser layer like people have suggested. You really just need something that's semi-opaque, just translucent enough to "glow" from the light but not let the individual hot spots appear.

Try some paper just taped over the bulbs in one spot, only take a moment, and then you can see if that looks like it might work with some more effort.

Always use the DIMMEST bulb available. Bright is not what you want for a backbox because of the resulting glare on the playfield glass.

Always use FROSTED dome bulbs to defuse the light cone, and help prevent hotspotting.

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Finally, the thing many people are still in denial about; sometimes no LED looks as good as real incandescent bulbs.

We all want to use LEDs, they are new, they are cool, they reduce the power consumption of the game, but if they wash out all of the original art (or glob in new patches of color, destroying the art), then you are better off using #47 bulbs - as the original artist intended.

I have had luck, placing squares of black electrical tape, just slightly bigger on the tip of the l.e.d. If that is too dark, I try different colors of painters or masking tape.

I like it...it looks like someone shot Mel in several places...

Frosted will give you the look you want.

From the pics it looks like you have these in there.

I know the base might be different.

But here is the difference.

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It looks like your using clear domed bulbs, something really easy you can try is sanding the top of the plastic dome. Just take out one bulb and sand the top, basically turning it into a frosted bulb, and see if that helps.

Did you try sanding a bulb a bit with some sandpaper? I have had success doing this and was able to get rid of "hotspots"

would 2'x4' flourescent light box diffuser sheet (like false hanging ceilings use) help?
theres a couple different patterns in both clear and milky white, its not expensive stuff.
if going frosted LED's doesnt soften enough, that stuff might.

I just had this issue with older SS BGs, I ordered Frosted cool white 44 base bulbs from Cointaker and the worked great no hot spots and they brightened up my games really well. Chris and Melissa at Cointaker will work with you to figure out which bulbs work best for your situation! and they have the Black Friday sale going on right now so it is a win win!!

Phoebe

I think they were suggesting you could buy a sheet of the "trim" visible plastic part of drop ceiling fluorescent light and cut it to the shape of your translight.

Similar to the coverings on the lights in this picture:

image.jpg

They probably sell replacement sheets of this at lowes/hd.

Basically anything that lets some of the light through and spreads out the light will help remove the hot spots around each bulb.

Do not do this. The dimmest ones, ie the concave and some other not bright lenses can nearly result in no light behind some translites at all.

I have taken them out of two games where it nearly appeared like the GI was out.

I have even found frosted to be "spotlighty". This is more apparent when you are further away from the machine. It appears more light is concentrated out of the tip in a beam then elsewhere.

I have found supers to be the best, and they diffuse on an cone more evenly, and are far enough away to not cast a hotspot.

yep, thats the stuff.. diffuser sheets for fluorescent lights in typical overhead boxes. the patterned milky white might do wonders with VERY bright LED's if you want it lit really bright without hotspots (like maybe the frosted dome doubles). downside going that kind of bright might be reflection-glare off the pf glass? good hardware-home stores have it, fairly easy to trim to size with box-cutter razor and straightedge, score it deep and pop it on a hard counter edge like you'd do with glass is one way.

Must have been some garbage LEDs you had.

Even the .26 cent frosted single from Pinball Life put out a plenty of light. No mistaking those for being out, lol.

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+1 frosted should sure help

*Cool* white is a mistake here. The translite colors have a lot of brown/orange in them. Cool LEDs are *blue-white*. That will kill the colors. You need really *warm* LEDs to bring out the colors and not make it look 'off.' (Another related example: LOTR has warm/earthy colors on the translite--the stock 'cool' fluorescent bulb kills the color scheme, but an orange-film 'warming' filter over the bulb makes it look 100% nicer.)

I dont think the issue is the leds I think a bad remake of the translight which I just delt with also . If you can post a pic of the back of the translight from farther away that be great ? Thax

frosted ones for sure are the best way to go on translites. yes post a picture for everyone.

If those are clear domed bulbs ya can pull the caps off too. The normal supers look pretty good on translights.. Hard to say what ya got without seeing the bulb though

I put some Pinball Life Ablaze LEDs in my Getaway translight and at first they looked great, now I can see a slight flicker through the translight. Is it just the type of lamp I used that is making this flicker? Put the same type in my JD translight and no flicker. Guess I should change to frosted but what a waste of money.

Looks great
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