Arepachi LED Conversion

[emmadog]

Ok, I found some time while my girl was in the bath to quickly try out the new LEDs. They work perfect. One is a white color and one replicates the original yellowish color exactly but is brighter. The length of these are spot on too which was the main issue.
In the pic it's the same story as previous pics in that the number 6 in this case that's lit with the LED, looks too bright. It's just the difficulties inherent in photographing light. In person, the number is lit perfectly and the black number contrasts nicely with the light behind it. I tried various camera settings and in the end just used my phone due to ease of transferring to this post.
I told the engineer that he'd gotten it right this time and now I can get some prices, hopefully soon.
It will cost a bit to outfit an entire machine but not all lights have to be replaced at the same time. It's nice to have an LED option though plus they simply slide on and off if someone wants to put it back in stock form.
This Satomi I've been using has extremely dim bulbs and is what got me on the search in the first place. I found some bulbs that were bright enough but got way too hot and burned out quickly so this machine is a perfect candidate for LEDs.
Something of interest to the couple of other members with this machine with this type of center feature: The center feature below the number is actually a lion. A guy I work with is half Japanese and he was reading the instruction label on this machine which references the center feature which I kept referring to as a dog/dragon.

[pachinkojeff]

Really cool! Wish I had an Arepachi to convert to LED!!! Where does one find them 4 sale and how much do they generally sell for? The only ones I've ever seen were the 28 that were on eBay. Would stepping up the voltage work instead of a resistor?

[emmadog]

They're hard to find. The best any of us can tell is that there weren't many made in the first place and not many were shipped here.
They can be bought from YJA, Craigslist, and eBay.
I don't know much about electronics but the voltage is too high to begin with hence the need for a resistor. Stepping it up would make the problem greater. At least that's how I understand it.

[emmadog]

Alright everybody good news and bad news.
Bad news first- the price is higher than originally planned. What you're paying for is labor since they are made one at a time, entirely by hand. They will cost $7.32 apiece. The good news is that actual LEDs for arepachis are now available where they weren't before. These combat less than ideal lighting and melting of number plates as has happened to at least two machines I know of.
Anyhow, I know these are for an extremely limited market of which I'll likely be the biggest buyer! But for those interested the AC voltage is needed and ideally but not necessarily the DC voltage as well.

[NJ_Mike]

Information on LED's and why resistors are needed:

Arduino Tutorial - A detailed introduction on how to use LEDs

Even though the main post is about Arduino, there is good information on resistance, voltage and how each relates to LED brightness.

[emmadog]

The dim lights on this Satomi are no more. I received the LEDs today and installed them on the number matrix and on the score bar. Once again photography makes the lights look too bright and the numbers washed out but in person it's perfect.
I wasn't sure if having all the sockets replaced with LEDs would work since prior to this, I had only installed one or two prototypes for testing. So I'm happy to report the lights are still working fine after about 2 hours of being left on. I'll consider these a success and the arepachi LED issue solved. Now to order more for the rest of the machines.

[MrGneiss]

Very cool!!

[dattia]

Wow... it turned out awesome!

[jmaclerran]

Fantastic job.