I install LEDs in my Addams Family pinball machine and show what it looks before, during, and after. At times the video struggles to pick up the clarity of the LEDs, but you should get a good idea of the increased brightness offered by LEDs over incandescent lights. Here are some good places to buy LEDs for pinball machines:
www.pinballlife.com
www.bcspinball.com
www.cointaker.com
If you are using LED's that aren't polar you can see this happen. I did retro jobs and noticed a few things. Sometimes the "flasher" I/C is built to take a certain amount of load, so it floats when there is not enough load. You can put resistors on the problem ones to duplicate the draw and it goes away. Sometimes capacitors can be switched out, a drop of nail polish for ambient led's, redundant GOOD isolated ground/power (other machines can cause problems) etc. use a scope and fix noise.
TheRealShadowspawn 11 months ago
Cool video!! The 555 led bulbs are a pain in the butt sometimes when trying to put them in it seems they dont fit right did you have any trouble with them?
LS7Goat 1 year ago
@tomdotcom88 Yeah, it's pretty easy, but I think a lot of people have never even lifted their playfield and had a good look around. I'll probably do a short vid.
PinballRestorations 2 years ago
Nice to see a new pin vid from you again. Many thanks!
MrHitchcockFan 2 years ago
Nice Vid!
MrLapp 2 years ago
Do you notice the ghosting effect differs from pin to pin? I tried some LED's in my addams in the pops and the inserts and you can see a bit of light bleed even when they're not lit. I didn't like it at all, so I switched back to normal bulbs..I do like the rich colors, but the instant on/off and the light bleed just didn't look right to me.
tomdotcom88 2 years ago
If it's a 555 you pull the bulb out and put one in, if it's a 44 or 47 you twist it out and put another bulb in. It's not rocket science man :)
tomdotcom88 2 years ago
Can you show us the steps it takes (From underneath) how to switchout the bulbs? Thanks.
Yotabyte10 2 years ago
Great post... real Interesting!!
Wish I had a pinball machine to play and look after! lol
broken1394 2 years ago