LED Conversion
I'm a big fan of LEDs for arrangeballs and any other machine. i've made the change on many pinball machines as well. they run cool, consume a fraction of the power, and last longer than you will. colored LEDs look fine but to replicate the original white color of incandescents then you need warm white, wide angle, LEDs. i use 5mm "straw hat" ones and i just bought 500 off eBay for 12 bucks. resistors which are needed can be had for a penny apiece. it's very easy to assemble each unit as it's just the LED, the resistor(s), and the silicone socket that the old bulbs used in an arrangeball. i typically use two resistors each at 1/2 half the ohms to better dissipate any heat the resistors generate which is minimal if at all. the pics show a crude proof-of-concept unit i made for this post that works great and costs about 16 cents. for the final product i cut the LED wire that the resistors attach to much closer to the LED, solder the resistors inline and then route that wire plus the other LED leg thru the two holes in the bottom of the silicone socket and up around the side as per the stock configuration. you can also route the resistor wire outside of the socket and then back up into the hole if they won't fit in the socket.
here's a photo of a machine with a number lit with a regular bluish tint LED. as usual, the camera can't pic up how it actually looks and overexposes the lit number. for this machine it would need 16 LEDs plus each pinkish block on either side of the matrix takes 2. you can see the divider in the lit zero block that divides each one with a light on either side. so the machine would require 32 LEDs and 64 resistors for a total cost of a buck fifty plus a little solder and some time.
online there are easy to use LED calculators to give you the resistance. couldn't be easier.
LED calculator for single LEDs
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