Bulb advice...

[Paul]

Guys,

Since we have a lot of pinball experts on here, just wondered if someone may be able to confirm if this statement is true or not (generally speaking)....

If it's general illumination, that's almost always 6.3 VAC and driven off of one of the secondary windings' of the transformer. If it is a playfield controlled lamp (for example, inserts), then that's going to be 6 VDC controlled by the CPU.

Just want to make sure that I'm not spouting rubbish again..
Cheers
Paul

 

[Sgt GrizZ]

Well I'm no expert but generally speaking yeah.

Here are the words of a real expert ...

The lamp matrix is always DC
on WPC and SYS 11. Though Bally
used AC for 6803 and some late -35
games (using the A/B theory, using half
as many driving SCRs). Gottlieb always
used DC. Dataeast is a copy of Sys 11.
Whitestar uses DC for the lamp matrix too.
Williams sys3-9 also used DC.

On General Illumination all manufacturers
are almost always AC. There is but one
exception: WPC-95. Here they used
rectifying diodes on the driver board. But
these burned and fried, so by 1997 all
WPC-95 games uses AC again for
the GI And most people modify
their AFM and Scared Stiffs so the
GI rectifying diodes are removed.
I'm not quite sure why Williams put
those diode in the GI circuit on WPC-95
to start.

P2K all bulbs are DC controlled lamp matrix.

 

[pinballmania]

Well, the lamp voltage is nominally 18v I think, but by the time it's strobed it's averaged down to about 6v.