![]() ![]() The left one looked good for playfield inserts, and the right one for GI locations. What didn't occur to me is that I needed more options. When I browsed through the available #555 Wedge lamp sockets, it appeared to me that there were only two sockets to consider. I figured I needed two different sockets tailored to each use case. The bulbs were going in one of two places on the playfield: under plastic light inserts, and in holes for General Illumination (GI) lights that actually shine above the playfield. To go with the bulbs, I picked up bulb sockets. My first choice for illumination, the Ablaze 4-SMD-LED super bright bulbs with the #555 Wedge Base. The brand and brightness I chose were the Ablaze 4-LED style #555 lamps that Pinball Life carries, which promised lots of brightness. My choice? The wedge style #555 bulbs, for no other reason than the bulbs and sockets looked the most modern to me. So I simply picked one that looked 'modern' and blindly pushed forward, unaware of my costly mistake. They all look about the same size in the pictures, so it is hard to choose one over another. #555 Wedge LED's (LEFT), #44/#47 Bayonet LED's (MIDDLE), and #89 Flasher LED's (RIGHT). Reading up on various types of bulbs, there didn't seem to be any advantage to different styles. Pictures were little help, as you couldn't actually tell much in the way of physical size in one bulb versus another. ![]() ![]() From shopping around, it seemed that the most common sizes were the #44/#47 Bayonet Base and the #555 Wedge Base, but I also found other sizes like #89 Bayonets, #906 Wedges, and #86/#79/#73 Twist style sub miniature bulbs. Since I was designing my Pinball from scratch, I had the luxury of choosing not just LED's but also the control circuits optimized for this type of lighting.Īfter that easy decision came a much harder one: pinball bulb sizes. Unfortunately, these old pinball machines were never designed with LED lighting in mind, and often LED's produce less than spectacular results. A lot of people have upgraded their pinball machines, replacing the old incandescent bulbs with new LED's. The easiest option was incandescent versus LED lighting - for so many reasons LED was the only option to consider, primary among those are low heat, longevity and power efficiency. When it came time to choose the playfield lighting, I had many options to wade through. So here's what I chose for lighting, why it was wrong, and what I chose to replace it. I've never seen any write-ups detailing the correct style bulbs to use when making your own pinball from scratch. I guess once again I'll blame the parts ecosystem that simply isn't designed to support the diy pinball hobbyist. I don't really want to accept blame myself either, as you can't deduce everything from photos of individual parts. I can't blame the vendors, as I've always been delivered exactly what I ordered. The curse of incorrect parts has reared its ugly head again. ![]()
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