LED bulbs with a screw in base... Anyone tried them?

[CarlW]

Has anyone tried these light bulbs in vintage pachinko machines?

They are slightly less expensive than Radio Shack incandescent bulbs for a quantity of two.

Not sure why the listing has a picture of five bulbs but the quantity is definitely two.

I asked the seller and was told they work from 3V to 12V.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...X:eRTM:US:1123

Maybe this post should go in the ebay sub forum...

Merry Pachinko to All !

[cardwwi]

Same bulb but 1/2 price

http://www.dhgate.com/100pcs-white-e...687db6b52.html

I have not order yet, but thinking after the first of year getting some.

[mxfaiman]

hmm those look like they may work better and last longer than normal bulbs I think I may end up buying some. (oh and cardwwi if you didn't already notice each unit is for 100 bulbs.)

[JACKSJE4]

I just bought a package of 50 7.5v incandescent bulbs on eBay, so I am not yet ready to make a switch to LED, but I am interested in hearing what others think about them. How well would the 12v LED bulbs in cardwii's link work? Are they bright enough?

Please keep us posted if/when you decide to try them.

[cardwwi]

Yes I notice, and at two to four bulbs per Pachinko, a hundred should cover most of my machines.

hmm those look like they may work better and last longer than normal bulbs I think I may end up buying some. (oh and cardwwi if you didn't already notice each unit is for 100 bulbs.)

[Rival]

I have tried various combinations for lighting pachinko machines, and I have found the light from LEDs very cold and unnatural, not to mention expensive. I tried running the standard 10VDC bulbs on both 9VDC batteries and 9VDC powersupplies, but to me they were just too dim. 10VDC power supplies were a bit too pricey. In the end I opted for 12VDC bulbs and 12VDC wall-wart power supplies. Very bright and very warm colors, and relatively cheap. For the powerflashes I now use a 24VDC wall wart power supply and 24VDC bulbs. I just drop a jumper into the fuseblock, and voila! Powerflash works great, and lights up perfectly! The only downside is that 24VDC bulbs are expensive unless you buy bulk, and who has 50 powerflashes that need bulbs to get a discount?

Keep in mind, the standard filament bulbs are good for around 250 hours of continuous use, or about 60 years if you play a few hours per day.

[SteveFury]

I have some experience in LED bulbs, at least for household use.

I first switched almost all my indoor lighting to CFL about 10 years ago. I don't know why but I always had a problem with CFL burning out after a few months. About half I've bought over the years have arched, fissled and went out.

I started to switch over to LED about 3 years ago.
We replaced all our small screw base type chandelier bulbs with LED's which worked out great. No problem.
Then we bought 6 18w outdoor rated LED floods that was supposed to emulate a 50w bulb. Although the elements in the bulb is extremely harsh to look at and will burn a spot in your eye retina, the actual light emitted is very low I estimate to equal a 20w bulb. All these bulbs produce extremely hard unnatural shadows with the exception of our bathroom lights. Our bathrooms have one of those long chrome fixtures with 4-6 sockets in a row. Those are LED's but are contained within a frosted globe and they aren't harsh. Individually dim with a "strange" colored wavelength but no harsh shadows. 4-6 in a row collectively produce (barely) adequate bathroom lighting, drawing about 9w for 4 of them.

We bought some more expensive 32w outdoor floods, which I have mounted in trees on the back of our property for security purposes and they do an adaquate job.

We also have some LED bulbs in lamps that was supposed to emulate 50w bulbs.

I've found the LED's do not produce enough light to facilitate doing anything small and intricate, including reading. It's a strange kind of light of a different wave length. We've saved a lot on our electric bill because of them, but if someone wants to read a book or needs to see something really good, a CFL or other florescent light is required. But LED makes great ambient light, and general ambient light is all that is needed 80% of the time.

With all that said, I would not replace any of my vintage pachinko machine's lights with LED because it's not the right kind of light. I don't think anything other than incandescent will be "right" in these machines... IMO.

The current drain of these tiny incandescent bulbs are miniscule and as Rival points out, should last a very long time.

Sorry for this long review about LED lighting, I just wanted to include it in my opinion.

[emmadog]

LEDs in the pinball world have been around for sometime. All the bulbs behind the backglass generate a lot of heat which leads to paint flaking over time. I still use the brighter of the two incadescents in all my classic pins since they aren't on constantly. LEDs for pinballs are available in every color and multiple shades of "warm white" to mimic the original incandescent bulbs. A standard white LED gives off a bluish white and will therefore cause the light after exiting whatever color plastic pachinko lens to look less than original. I learned this on a 69 Gottlieb mini pool that I replaced the playfield insert lights with. The yellow inserts now looked green, etc. Just something to be aware of and reason to buy the warm white version. Pinball collectors are even more nit picky about originality and excessive heat than most hence the wide variety of LEDs available for that market. I have LEDs in my arrangeballs now due to heat concerns (the minilamps get very hot in a short time) and well, they look much better yet still retain the factory color plus I figured out a way to mod pinball ones for a total cost of a buck and a half per as opposed to 7 dollar custom made ones.
IMO its not worth it for regular vintages for reasons others mentioned but it's always fun to try.

[mxfaiman]

I might end up buying a set of the ones off ebay just to play with them. If I do I'll let you all know what I think of them.