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Insert bulbs - White or colour matched?

Martywolfman

Martywolfman

Registered
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Jun 2, 2018
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Bedford
So I'm thinking I might get a full set of replacement playfield LEDs for my stern 24.

There are a few on mine that are a little dimmer than the rest. I plucked up the courage to lift the playfield for the first time. (Yes I'm a n00b owner. A heart in mouth afair if I may say - especially getting it past the 'bump')

I took the first one out, one of the little wires on the bottom was sticking out at an odd angle. I took the adjacent one out to have a look how it should sit, bent it to make it roughly the same, and shoved them back in. That one now works as it should.

Yay for my first ever pinball repair! - yes, I know calling it a repair is a little over the top, hehe.

So anyway, I looked at the others, and the other dim bulbs are a different type to the rest.

At the moment all the other bulbs (the ones I checked at least) are white, and I believe they are frosted white - they have a kind of white cap, rather than clear glass / plastic (whatever they are made from).

There's also one bulb that seemed to be working intermittently just today - never had that before. It was on, then off, then on, then off, then on... haha. But no seriously, it stoppped working for a few games, then started working again, I haven't got around to checking it closely, I didn't want to disturb it if there's a loose connection for now (I have no soldering iron to attempt a repair, and no experience of using one yet)

So after my ramble, I'm wondering what people think works best in general under coloured inserts .

Should I just replace with much the same, frosted white? Should I go for superbrights? Should I colour match with regular / superbrights?

How much difference would the premium non-ghosting type make, since this is an already LED design table, if I understand correctly, that's more for a table that's been converted to LED.

I know this is as much a matter of opion, but I'd be interested to hear yours :)
 
If you want your game to look like a soho brothel then colour match. If you want it to look like a classy meat market then all white!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Avoid yellow LEDs, they are usually never bright enough - use warm white instead. If you order a few different colours and some warm white and cool white you can experiment to see what you like best.
 
Interesting Neil, none of mine look like brothels. The effect is just colours that pop more, same with what quality white bulbs you put in.
 
The lamp which is intermittent will be most likely a bad lamp connection , have one on TWD at the mo on the the pop bumper !
Unfortunately know easy answers as everyone have different tastes,I would go frosted ,but once changed to leds you may develop OCD with the ghosting so the have to fit a OCD led board in ;)
 
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All the inserts are colour matched with Noflix Plus LEDs. When I made this gif I still had some cool white GI around the bumpers and the raptor pit but I've since replaced this with warm white instead
 
Neil McRae said:
If you want your game to look like a soho brothel then colour match. If you want it to look like a classy meat market then all white!
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Spadge said:
Interesting Neil, none of mine look like brothels. The effect is just colours that pop more, same with what quality white bulbs you put in.
Click to expand...

Having never been in one, I'm unsure whether you consider this good or bad :D


Marvello said:
Avoid yellow LEDs, they are usually never bright enough - use warm white instead. If you order a few different colours and some warm white and cool white you can experiment to see what you like best.
Click to expand...

Yes, i was hoping for a little more consensus, haha.
Oh well, I'll go for a selection to try first.


carl lawrence said:
The lamp which is intermittent will be most likely a bad lamp connection
Click to expand...

yes, I was assuming as much, but this is the first time it has happened.

carl lawrence said:
Unfortunately know easy answers as everyone have different tastes,I would go frosted ,but once changed to leds you may develop OCD with the ghosting so the have to fit a OCD led board in ;)
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Well, it's already an LED table (unless I'm being really stupid - it really wouldn;t be the first time!) so ghosting shouldn't be an issue should it?
 
I have colour matched inserts but now I’m using warm white as I think they look like the originals. But it really is down to personal preference.
Ledocd boards are fantastic in older machines, I have one in my Creech and one to fit into my TOM.
 
Is the the intermittent one in a light board or a standard socket? If it's a board I normally reflow the solder on the connectors
 
Toxteth O'Grady said:
I have colour matched inserts but now I’m using warm white as I think they look like the originals. But it really is down to personal preference.
Ledocd boards are fantastic in older machines, I have one in my Creech and one to fit into my TOM.
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i have one in my ToM and it makes no difference.

Neil.
 
This is a topic that is very much "one man's wine is another man's poison". There is no objectively right answer.

Warm white will essentially be the same as the incandescent that they replaced. There are schools of thought about whether basic warm lightbulbs is "the way the designers intended", or simply a limitation of what was available at the time and on the budget available. Doing the whole thing in warm white means you also just have to buy a load of bulbs and not have to spend any time working out which one goes where.

Colour matched to inserts would make the inserts pop more, but may also saturate the overall look as well. LEDs are brighter than incandescent by default, even the 1 SMD ones are a good 30% brighter. Personally I'm very much a fan of colour matched inserts simply because inserts are important things to notice during gameplay. It is more work doing it though as you need to work out how many of each colour you need by itemising every bulb (or buying a kit and relying on the tastes of the kit builder).

Technically you don't need to use frosted in inserts like you do in visible GI bulbs, but by the same token you're not going to notice much of a difference between clear and frosted in them I don't think.

LED OCD is a whole other can of worms... but if you're doing a full playfield lamp switcheroo then it would pay to at least acquaint yourself with it and think about whether you are bothered by how digital LEDs are. Some people hate it, some people just want LEDs to behave like the game was originally supposed to look (fading). In some games you will lose gameplay effects by having LEDs full stop (TAF and Funhouse multiballs spring to mind) and LED OCD is the only way to restore that. The reason you would need to think about this now is that LED OCD works best with "cheap" bulbs (ones not specifically designed not to ghost - "non-ghosting") whereas if you're not going to use LED OCD then you would be better off with non-ghosting ones... if that makes sense.
 
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Well you guys were no help at all! Haha :p

Seriously though, I do appreciate the input.

Just to be clear though (as I don't think I was in my original post) the table is already LED (I'm pretty sure that's how it was made), unless I'm being reall dim. #555 bulbs are LED's right?

But some have obviously been swapped out over the years before I owend it, and replaced with different types it seems.

I know I could just replace these and be done, but I got to wondering.

So anyway, I've ordered a bunch to try out different combinations, and see what I like best :)
 
Martywolfman said:
Just to be clear though (as I don't think I was in my original post) the table is already LED (I'm pretty sure that's how it was made), unless I'm being reall dim. #555 bulbs are LED's right?
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24 was released with incandescent bulbs from the Stern factory. LEDs were not standard in their games until about 2014 or 2015 maybe (check?), so if you say it's LED now, then it must have been modified by a previous owner. LED can be bayonet or wedge.
 
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Martywolfman said:
Well you guys were no help at all! Haha :p

Seriously though, I do appreciate the input.

Just to be clear though (as I don't think I was in my original post) the table is already LED (I'm pretty sure that's how it was made), unless I'm being reall dim. #555 bulbs are LED's right?

But some have obviously been swapped out over the years before I owend it, and replaced with different types it seems.

I know I could just replace these and be done, but I got to wondering.

So anyway, I've ordered a bunch to try out different combinations, and see what I like best :)
Click to expand...

that type of pinball machine really doesn't go well with coloured bulbs, you get the brothel effect of random colour light leaking all over the place.

and yes I was right about white bulbs.
 
It should be very obvious if you already have LEDs or not. Incandescents fade in and out. Both incandescents and LEDs use the same sockets so can be wedge or bayonet, as said above.
 
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