Beast Sapp Reel Lights

[pachitom]

I have had my Beast Sapp for about 3 weeks now and I thought my reel lights were looking strange. There was talk about the reel lights on other threads and some thought parlors changed the bulbs and put different color lights in them when they burned out. My left reel and center reel light went out completely today. I took apart my reel assembely to find out that it does not use light bulbs but uses 6 tri color (red blue green) leds to back light the reels. I hope the place that I bought my Beast Sapp can get replacement assemblies.
I would think that Sinbads Adventures and Hanabi would use the same lighting assemblies. In the other threads some others said their reels looked off color also so it might be your leds are going out also.

http://home.columbus.rr.com/tcordes/light.JPG

I have not yet figured out how to make my picture links show up yet but the web address above shows what the led light assembly looks like.

[RKnarr01]

quite a while ago i posted a thread about the reel lights looking almost yellow and others looking bright white. so your reel lights blew totally out, did they turn a certain color before burning out?

[pachitom]

My left reel looked yellowish and the center reel had a blueish color to it.

[RKnarr01]

two of my reels have a real yellowish look to them, if they blow atleast milt has a lifetime warranty on his machines.

[Utopia1dc]

I thought I read on here somewhere that LED lights last a lifetime? Are they replacable or do you need a whole new assembly?

[RKnarr01]

Utopia i also believe that i read that the LED lights would outlive me, does anyone have any clarification on this?

[pachitom]

The leds can be replaced. They are soldered in. From the side of the circuit board that the solder is on they look a lot like an IC would look, as there is two rows of three leads, two leads for each color. So each of the 6 led lights has 6 connections. I already reinstalled the assembly back in my Beast Sapp or I would post a picture of the back side.
Leds should last a long long time but diodes do go bad and maybe something in my machine is causing them to go bad. I will see tomorrow what the people say that I bought mine from.

[vgc]

Any More info on replacing the tri colored LEDs behind the reels. Who's got the parts ? Price ? Difficulty ? Thanks, Mike : )

[PachiAddict]

Here are a few sources for inexpensive LEDs. At least 2 of them have the tri-color ones.

http://www.123leds.com/
http://www.superbrightleds.com/
http://www.ledsupply.com/led-catalog.html

[vgc]

Thanks for the info. You Rock! Mike : )

[webcore]

My Beast Sapp has a yellow left reel, dark yellow middle reel and whitish right reel. The middle reel LED's are basically dead. You can just see a glimmer of red, blue and gree in each one.

Since the colour of these does not appear to change what is the benefit of having a tri colour LED? Why not just just put white LED's inside?

[alexilla]

LEDs typical life expectancy is approx. 50,000 hours of use, so that means they would have to be on CONSTANTLY for 5 and a half years before they come close to burning out. So if they are burning out expect there to be a problem with your machine's electronics or power supply.

[vgc]

LEDs typical life expectancy is approx. 50,000 hours of use, so that means they would have to be on CONSTANTLY for 5 and a half years before they come close to burning out. So if they are burning out expect there to be a problem with your machine's electronics or power supply.

-

Not with these buggers. I have had a few of these machines with lights partially out. 1 had all 3 with imperfections, DGI sent me replacements twice and both replacements were bad as well. Mike : )

[rogerg]

This is probably a dumb question but what colour should the LED's be showing?

When I look into the side of the reels on my Hanabi some are bright blue, some are bright orange/green and some are very dim just showing red/green/blue dots.

The other strange thing is that the led's show the same colour characteristics in pairs. So is the problem just the LED's or the circuitry in the machine?

As previously asked why do you need RGB LEDs when the only desired colour is white?

I have sourced a supply of suitable of 6 lead LED's in the UK but they are about $7 each and with a total of 18 in the machine this could be an expensive repair.

Any ideas Guys?

[proffesorpeter]

it seems the white leds are alot more expensive to produce than the rgbs- and since these things are run 24/7 in those parlours over there, and knocked about every day (until we adopt the thing that is and give it a good home), then wear and tear would certainly cause the leds to fail. Theres a million and one diffrent things that these machines are exposed to in a pachi arcade day to day that arent exactly good for the machine( smoking, knocks,power spikes, line noise, abuse from irate player etc.)
once the leds are replaced though, they should last a long time with the machine in home use. Id recommended sticking to the rgb leds though, white leds have diffrent current drain and bias voltage- it may put an excesive load on the led drive electronics.
hope this enlightens things abit.

[pachitom]

If all the leds are working properly the reels should appear to be a bright white. When you mix the color of lights, red, blue, green, the net color is white. I am not sure why they chose to use three different colors of leds instead of a single white led, maybe it had something to do with the light pattern each led shines.

When I was trying to figure mine out I removed the led assembly.

[img]http://home.columbus.rr.com/tcordes/light.JPG[/img]

Their is only one pair of wires to each led assembly so if any leds are on than your machine is providing power to the entire led assembly and they should all be on. If I remember correctly there are three leds wired in series as in three of the red segments, three of the green segments and three of the blue segments and this is done twice on each board for a total of eighteen segments per light assembly. So if one led burns out it will look as if a total of three are bad because they are wired in series.

The seller I bought my BeastSapp from replaced my real assembly but it quickly developed the same problem. I am not sure if the voltage that is being applied to the leds is too high that they go out so quick or what the problem is. I thought that maybe if the slots are rated at 100 volts and we are connecting them to 120 volts (sometimes the line voltage is even higher) that maybe the stepped down voltage might be to high also but if the power supply has a good voltage regulator that should not mater.

[proffesorpeter]

hmmmmmm- if it was an overvoltage it would surely cause damage to the rest of the machine! could be that the regulator is mabye not up to scratch?
If the leds are wired in series, one going out will cause an enormous drain on the other two. It might be an idea to get a multimeter and measure that voltage out the power supply.

[pachitom]

If one led goes out, the led opens,then there would be no drain on the remaining two because being wired in series the led that is out causes an open circuit to the other two.

[proffesorpeter]

sorry, bad wording- what i meant was it would kill all the leds connected to the bad one!

[rogerg]

Many thanks Guys for all the replies.

Did you just replace the LED's that were dim or did you replace all 6 on the same PCB?

I followed the links on this thread for the suppliers of LED's but could not find the same type (RGB 6 pin IC package)? Has anyone tried fitting other RGB LED packages (they seem to be cheaper).

The only manufacturer of this style of LED that I have found is in the US and is Kingbright and they have a web site listing distributors. In the United Kingdom the only supplier I have found is Maplin Electronics.

Once again many thanks to everybody