New Life Games Tech Forums

I am looking for an LED version of the mini light bulb that goes into the stepper light bezel, behind the coin amount and whatever else that bulb is used in. I have an S+ and was just curious if they even make that bulb in an LED. I believe the part number/bulb number is #86. Also, if they make these bulbs in an LED version, where is a good place to purchase them. Thanks!!

Look up "JKL Lamps" in Pacoima, California. the #86 is a 6 volt lamp and JKL does make the LED version in many colors.
This company will do small orders, shipping will be about $8 and they are fast.
Or you can buy from HAPP Controls in Las Vegas, you pay TWICE the price, get screwed on shipping (no local pickup/willcall).
HAPP buys their stuff from "Ledtech" in Van Nuys calif and JKL. Might as well go to the source anyways :)


Kirk

Here is another one.

http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/LEDTECH-19209-304-/25-3190 (http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/LEDTECH-19209-304-/25-3190)

Ron (r273)

These guys have the #555's I put in my S+.
$1.00 apiece.


http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=catalog&parent=192&pg=1 (http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=catalog&parent=192&pg=1)

The problem with putting LEDs behind the denomination sticker is that
the beam was too narrow. The light is too centralized.
You need LEDs that are more of a flood light.
These dollar bulbs are good for the buttons but you have to sand the edges of the bulbs
to make them a little smaller in diameter or the buttons get stuck.

That's what I was worried about! I have the colored 555's in my buttons now, but I keep going through the little #86 bulbs, in my stepper light bezel and the ones on the bill validator panel. I was hoping that they basically made an 86 bulb, like they made the 555 bulbs, but in an LED. I have checked on both sites that KirkLasVegas and r273 had mentioned, but one site does not have them and the other link goes to a bulb that I'm not sure would fit.

Here is the specs on the lamp you can use for the #86 button bulbs....

(JKL Lamps)

 www.jkllamps.com/files/LE%2D0504%2D06%2Epdf 



Kirk

Thanks KirkLasVegas! Of course, they are all out of the ones I need! Wow, I can't believe how expensive those little things are. The #555 LED's are bigger and they only cost $1.00. Some of the #86's run as high as $3.50 per bulb.

You are welcome :)  They are 75 CENTS each at JKL, $1.35 each at HAPP...same lamp :)

Kirk

I just found some 86's for $1 a piece:

https://bcspinball.com/index.php?cPath=83_125&osCsid=f33aec461e6bf6be9322b5c615dea99b

I haven't purchased them myself, although I think I'm about to take a chance and buy a handful.  I don't know what the difference is between the "W1" and "W2" in the white LEDs that they have.

Edited to add:
W1 ( bluish Tint)
W2 ( Brightest Warm White)

Knagl, you da man!! I'm assuming the White W2 is brighter than the White W1? Is that the only difference between the two? Finally, a place that sells these darn things!! Thanks again knagl!!!

Knagl...
I'm gonna get some too...but not too many because the outside diameter
might be too be too big to fit inside the hole of the buttons.??
I'm going to take some measurements tomorrow with a set of micro-calipers and see what size can be taken...
It's not extremely difficult to get the specs on those LEDs but it's not easy.

The reason why I'm saying this is because I bought like $50.00 worth of
LEDs last year from a pinball website and every LED bulb was just slightly too big.
When the button was depressed, you're actually compressing a spring inside and
the heat of the bulbs swelled up the spring just a tad...making the buttons get stuck
or actually uprooting the buttons just enough from their sockets to lose electrical contact.

Since I was stuck with the whole lot of LED bulbs, I had to get out some fairly heavy grit
sandpaper and rub them down to get them to fit properly.
However, one problem led to another (pun intended...LOL)

Sanding down the outside of the bulbs encasing allowed even further heat to eventually
totally melt the structural casing of the LED bulb itself to the point where
I had to remove them for fear of causing a fire.
I can verify this further tomorrow if I can locate the melted bulb at work in my pile of junk! LOL

stayouttadabunker, if you can verify that these bulbs will fit in the stepper light box and behind the $.25 sticker and whatever those little black bulb holders go into, would be great! I'll wait before I order any of the #86's.

Oh, that's where you wanna put them?
They'll work there!
It's when you try to put them into the buttons -  is where they get stuck.

Oh, Okay! I didn't know you could put them in the buttons.

Nope, the 86's aren't for the large "spin reels", "bet 1", "bet max", etc. buttons.  Those call for a #259.  I've been told that a #555 will work fine, too.  I ordered some of the 555 LEDs and I'll let you know if they work or not.  (Worst case, those can go into my pinball machine.)  The 86's are used in the smaller PE+ buttons.  ...and for what it's worth, the Game King buttons call for #73.

Your right. I have the #555's in mine now. I remember that you need to sandpaper down the plastic edges of the bulb, so it don't get stuck up in the button. They look really nice, especially the blue and purple ones. Stay away from the yellow LED's. They make the button's look like and old dirty button, with a regular bulb in it! :72-

Hey, while were on the topic of LED's, anyone here ever tried these? https://bcspinball.com/product_info.php?cPath=83_158_126&products_id=111&osCsid=90c157d9ba2aee4069b761c7f25b42c5

They look pretty cool, but are a bit pricy and I've never ran into them until now.

I tried them....they weren't too good but that was over a year ago...
maybe they're made a bit differently now.
The LED technology is changing rapidly.

I was concerned about that too. Were they dim? What didn't you like about them? The ones I have now have three LED's in one bulb. It looks like these have only one LED.

The voltage isn't strong enough from the machine...
it took forever to change colors.

An update/review on the bulbs:

I got the 86s and I'm very happy with them.  I bought five of the W2's, and enough of the W1's to do my PE+ buttons, and I made the right choice (for me, at least).  The W2's are a more white white, bordering on the yellow range of white.  In my PE+ buttons, coupled with less-than-new inserts, they made them look a little yellowed.  The W1's in my PE+ buttons are awesome -- they look just like the casino.  On the Hold/Discard buttons they're perfect.  My only minor beef is on the wider "Deal/Draw", "Bet Max", etc. buttons that the beam is a little too narrow.  You can clearly see the beam of light in the center of those buttons (rather than the whole legend just lighting up evenly), but it's a minor issue.  I'll take the color, the cool temperature (my PE+ buttons used to get HOT when left on), and the fact that I'll hopefully never have to change these bulbs again over the old ones.

I put the 5 W2's into my 5-line S+ stepper box and I couldn't be happier.  The blue shading on the reel glass diffuses the LED light perfectly, and they look GREAT!  Also, no more potential heat issues on that part of the glass.  I assume that you wouldn't really see a difference between the W1's and the W2's for that application (due to the shading of the glass), but I didn't try the W1's.

I ordered 4 of the 555's, and unfortunately they're like the ones Bunker described from the other pinball site -- there's a collar on the bulb that is just a hair too wide for the S+ buttons.

I'm very pleased with everything -- the price was great, the service was great from the site (an actual human typed notes on my shipment telling me that I could expect it just after Christmas), and the shipping was very reasonable.  If I need #86 LEDs in the future, I'll get them from BCS for sure.

Hello!

I posted about this previously here -> http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=250.msg5294#msg5294 (http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=250.msg5294#msg5294)

I bought an LED light for my slot that changes between like 5 colors from my local Autozone car parts store.  Is actually sold for use in a car, but guess what...it works great in a slot!  I think they were like $8 for two - so like $4 a piece.  I only put one in the Max bet one because otherwise it gets a little distracting

Dan #2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTTVWqliXbE&feature=player_embedded (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTTVWqliXbE&feature=player_embedded)

Those bulbs you got from autozone work great in an S2000 but they take forever to change colors in an S+.
I think there's more voltage coming out of an S2000 door harness for button lighting.

Here is a picture of the package they come in...

Dan #2

LOL...that was that picture I took of mine on my workdesk...lol

Bunker I might be wrong but isn't S+  6.8 volts and S 2000 14 volts

You may be right on the money buzz...
My feeling is that dpalmi's multi-colored LED works good
in the S2000 BECAUSE it puts out more voltage.
I remember confirming with my bench top power supply that
the multi-colored LED bulb worked better when there was more than 9 volts DC applied.
The S+ doesn't put that much voltage out but it's more
in line like with what you said - around 7 volts DC.

Those are 194 bulbs? That seems to be way too big to fit in the socket of an S2000...

Made by Pilot #Li 194M

Here's a link to it>>>

http://www.autozone.com/autozone/catalog/accessories/accessoriesShelf.jsp?categoryDisplayName=Electrical+and+Lighting&fromType=accessories&fromString=search&parentId=367-10&filterByKeyWord=194M&currentPage=1&navValue=100453&categoryNValue=100367&fromWhere=&itemId=453-10&displayName=Mini+-+Bulb

I'm very familiar with 194 bulbs, they're one of the most common bulbs in American cars, used everywhere from marker lights to dash illumination and indicator lights. The base is 3/8ths of an inch across,  for some reason I thought the bulbs were smaller than that in the S2000.

I wonder if they make white ones also? Mine are failing, they're either out completely or having spastic flashing seizures...

Bill this is from KirkLasVegas      jkllamps.com   

thanks, Buzz, they had white ones.

Bill you had better look again

Why is that?


Part No. LE-0503-03W
Item Name: T-3 1/4  12 Volt Wedge-Based LED, White

I could be wrong but I think buzz means there's other
color LEDs besides white for sale on that website as well?

yup, saw them but just looking for the white ones for now, and I'll get a multicolored from Auto Zone as I don't have to buy a minimum of 10 or pay shipping from around the corner and down the block (well, ok, Google maps puts it at 2 miles)...

Does anyone know of a good source for the 259 or 555 in LED that will fit in an S+ button?

I looked on the jkllamps site and saw that they did not appear to have any 6v LED bulbs.  The pinball sites all seem to use the same bulb with the large shoulder that won't fit.  MCM wants $3.50 a piece for them, and Happ wants $5.25 each plus its famous mystery shipping.

knagl  I have had good success using 12 volt LEDs in PE+ machines. Blueridge Jim says they will work sometimes.

Really?  They're not too dim or anything?  I may give that a shot.  Thanks and K+ for the tip.

http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=1175&parent=0 (http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=1175&parent=0)

The 555's will fit, if you get some light sandpaper and gently sand the edges of the bulb. The diameter of the bulb is just a tad too big and it's a soft plastic. I think it took me less than 10 minutes to sand all five of the bulbs and they now fit perfectly in an S+ button. The above link sells them at $1.00 per LED and I've had great luck with them. The bulbs are very bright and work great! Just beware of the yellow LED bulb, because it makes the button look like an old, dirty brown color. The purple one's look really nice, though they are sold out of those until 01-02-10.

I take it you haven't had any negative experiences like Bunker described in this quote?:

Maybe it was just a bad LED bulb or what but it surely melted to a pulp... :60-
I may have taken too much off...LOL
There's a lot of heat in there too...the brightest incandescent bulbs are just too darn hot...
ever touch the spring inside? It's so hot that it actually begins to melt the plastic insides.
That's why they use the lower wattage bulbs...so there's no fire!
The LEDs burn cooler so this may or may not be a problem.
That one LED that melted I'm sure - was a defective LED.
The only way to know for sure is to bench test one with 6.8Vdc running
through a bulb in a lead bowl on a bench for days upon days and see if it melts a button housing.
This is the safest way so that there's no chance of fire.
Even the benchtop power supply hooked up to the bulb needs to
be connected to a fused breaker type power strip in case of a major short.

 WOW!! Well, thankfully I haven't had that happen. We keep our S+ on 24/7, usually with credits in it, so the S+ button lights stay on all the time. The only thing I had happen and I believe I caused it, because I sanded off too much plastic, was one of the LED's kept flickering and would not stay on completely. I noticed that only two of the three LED's were actually working on the bulb itself. The LED that was not working, was where I sanded the plastic up to the LED itself. Of course it was the purple one, the color that looked the nicest and now they have no more purple LED's until the beginning of 2010. Also, I just checked the temperature on the button spring and the LED and no heat whatsoever.
 The first time I done this, was with a fairly heavy grit sandpaper, which was my first mistake. I sanded that poor little LED like it was a rusty nail! LOL!! After seeing that the LED casing was just a tiny bit too big, I used a fine grit sandpaper and it only takes a few swipes around the casing to get the bulb to fit. What happens if you don't sand the casing is that when you push the button, the spring catches the bulb and pulls it out of the socket when the button comes back up. I feel Bunker's pain, because I did the same thing but in my case, it just basically messed up the bulb. It looks like in Bunker's case, it caused the bulb to melt and I would imagine that probably happens more times than not.
 Nevertheless, after all was said and done, I have had so many comments on how nice the buttons look with the different colors in them, I could never go back to the regular old type bulbs! I just purchased some white LED's and they look great too! They make the buttons look like new and the super white color sure beats that dirty brown look that comes from the old type bulbs...

Hello were you able to find the bulb you were searching for? I am looking for led version so can you tell the source to purchase bulbs?Waiting for reply thanks in advance:)

Did you read the replies in this thread that you bumped after 3.5 years?  There are sources listed in the thread.

Here is a source if you are still looking...

https://bcspinball.com/index.php?cPath=83_125

Jimmy