Pinball electricity consumption & LED lighting options...

[swampie]

Does anybody know how many kwH a pinball machine uses on standby? I
leave mine on 13 hours a day in my club & some days it doesn't get
played.

Also, what's this about LED's, is it expensive to fit & difficult to
wire?

To be fair it's a personal love more than customer use that keeps it
on site:)

[nh...@yahoo.com]

I cant speak to the kwH in stand by, but changing to LEDs is just a
matter of changing lightbulbs. I did my WCS94 (just GI and PF lights)
for about $150 from cointaker.

[swampie]

[swampie]

So you thought it was worth $150, do you just get a better quality
light? Do you get a longer life span? Do they run cooler? Does it help
to run cooler? They will obviously have a much lower kilowatt-hours
usage will not they?

Where can I buy these from? Got a TAF at moment.

[seymour.shabow]

swampie wrote:
> do you just get a better quality
> light?

IMO no.

> Do you get a longer life span?

yes

> Do they run cooler?

yes

> Does it help to run cooler?

yes

> They will obviously have a much lower kilowatt-hours
> usage will not they?
>

yes

[swampie]

Thanks Seymour, must have near on 100 bulbs on my TAF, I think LED mar
be a worthy investment.

Bulbs hardly ever pop as it is but less electric usage is key here. UK
is getting spanked on utilities.

[Gregory Topf]

Definitely all a personal opinion with lots of debate on it! From a purely electrical standpoint, they definitely use a lot less electricity. The other benefit is that they generate significantly less heat so you wind up potentially having reduced cooling bills as well!

The 'quality' of the light is very subjective. I would suggest looking for pictures or videos of your particular machine with LEDs installed. The colors are different than incandescent bulbs. A light bulb is a yellow/white...an LED can be a pure bone white. Some people only replace selected bulbs for the look they are after....

[gbi...@gmail.com]

When I had pin parties and had 30+ games on for 12 hours with say half
of them being played constantly, I noticed my electric doubled for the
month. Probably about the equivalent power consumption of a 300W
lightbulb, per machine. In attract mode, maybe 1/2 that. Most (if
not all) WPC DMD games have power settings in the menu that allow you
to lower the brightness of the GI in attract mode.

-Gregg B.

[Cayle George]

My experience is most modern games draw between 3 and 4 Amps at 120v
when being played.

Using this:

http://www.supercircuits.com/resources/tools/Volts-Watts-Amps-Converter

Being generous at 4 amps, thats about 480 Watts, or .48 KWH.
In most cities that would cost you roughly 4 cents an hour.

your running your game for 13, so your spending roughly 52 cents a
day. (most likely less, as the game isnt at full load.)

If LEDs saved you %50 of the power draw on the game ( I highly doubt
it will save THAT much) and going by the example of $150 to fit a game
with LEDS, it'll take you about 2 Years to make them worth your
while.

I say its not worth it.

-cAyle

[seymour.shabow]

Thanks for doing the math Cayle - a doubled electric bill sounded a
little bit of an exaggeration. I know I checked my bill when I had a
tournament and didn't really notice.

[gbi...@gmail.com]

Let's just say I don't generally don't use a lot of electricity if it
makes it any more believable for you. I kid you not - doubled.

Try putting more than (6) "4A" modern games on a 30A breaker and see
how that works out for you. Hope your house's wiring is up to snuff.
Trust me, you're gonna trip the breaker, so that leads me to believe
games can peak upwards of 5 to 6 amps while being played.

-Gregg B.

[Cayle George]

Trust me, it works just fine.

-cAyle

[phishrace]

On Jul 2, 5:03 pm, Cayle George <caylegeo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> My experience is most modern games draw between 3 and 4 Amps at 120v
> when being played.
>
> Using this:
>
> http://www.supercircuits.com/resources/tools/Volts-Watts-Amps-Converter
>
> Being generous at 4 amps, thats about 480 Watts, or .48 KWH.
> In most cities that would cost you roughly 4 cents an hour.

He's across the pond. I bet he's paying even more than I'm paying in
Cal (14 cents KWH for baseline, 34 cents KWH 130%+ of baseline).

And because the game is in a club, it sounds like it may sit idle a
lot, which is why he asking about standby. I'd guess that a TAF would
idle at ~160-170 watts. Folks have posted detailed results here
showing some pretty significant reductions after installing LED's. A
search on LED and watts would probably get you close. This tool:

http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4400-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU

will tell you everything you need to know.

One thing about LED's that hasn't been mentioned yet is that they're
not as trouble free as incandescent's. They'll occasionally fall out
of their socket or need the leads adjusted (stop working). If your
electricity is expensive, they may be a good investment. Don't try
using generic LED's though. Get a kit. Feature and GI bulbs take
different voltages. One bulb does not fit all. Plus, bad LED's can
ruin a game appearance-wise. Good LED's (a kit) can ruin a game too,
but the kits are getting better.

-phish

[seymour.shabow]

gbi...@gmail.com wrote:
> Let's just say I don't generally don't use a lot of electricity if it
> makes it any more believable for you. I kid you not - doubled.
>

If you don't use any electric to begin with and your bill is like $30
and it doubles to $60, yeah, that's more believable. Still kind of a
bombastic statement, though..... "OMG! All the games were on for 12
hours and my electric bill DOUBLED" - without the information "oh, well,
I don't use that much electricity in the first place".

> Try putting more than (6) "4A" modern games on a 30A breaker and see
> how that works out for you. Hope your house's wiring is up to snuff.
> Trust me, you're gonna trip the breaker, so that leads me to believe
> games can peak upwards of 5 to 6 amps while being played.
>

Since the part that wasn't believable was the doubling of your electric
bill from 12 hours of usage, not sure why you've brought the # of
machines on a breaker into the discussion, but again, endless google
entertainment if you want to look it up as to how many machines per type
of breaker, etc.

[4BY]

Seems like it would be pretty easy to buy a "Kill a Watt" meter to end all the speculation. They sell for about $20 on ebay and will tell you exactly what the load from your pinball is. For me, my Pinbot shows it draws about 1.5 amps with LED's installed. Not sure what it was before the LED's, but I would guess around 3-4 amps would be accurate as LED's are said to draw 90% less power. For me, saving power is fine, but eliminating all the heat I can in a small space is the clincher. It means less A/C that I have to use to cool my space which equates to serious $$ in my area! Of course not melting or yellowing plastics, protecting a 30 year old backglass from flaking by decreasing the heat, and having a much lesser load for the transformer and wiring, is just a bonus. Since Cointaker and Pinball Life have "Retro" LED's now available, white light color is pretty much no longer an issue either. LED's are now a no brainer for me--I especially like the flexible ones that you can point whatever angle you need.

[Joe S]

Cayle is right on the money here with his logic and math. Most games
will draw 2 - 3 amps. You can safely put 4 on a 15 amp breaker and 5
or 6 on a 20 amp breaker without ever tripping it. Do the math at
your current electrical rates to find out your cost. I've metered
mine to come up with this number (about 3 amps). If you replace every
bulb with an LED, you'll drop this by about 1 amp (to 2 - 2.5 amps).

I've had 40 machines running for 12-hour tournaments without a
noticable change in my electric bill. The extra was mostly due to the
air conditioning more so than the games.

To the OP....if you don't want to change out to LEDs, at least remove
half of the bulbs in the backbox to save some energy and some heat.

[Frank Furhter]

Many LEDs have been installed on the PHoF pinball machines. Many look
good, most EMs do not look good. As for heat, the place is much cooler
as a result, electricity consumption is down. They have 200+ pinballs
running 12+ hours a day 365 days / year. Aside from an apparent deep
rooted hatred of big oil/elect/man I'd speculate a hedged guess they
actually know it reduces heat, elec bill, maintenance time/costs.

[TheKorn]

swampie <swampg...@hotmail.com> wrote in news:8f4797e4-f4e3-481d-8e47-
b96347...@q29g2000vby.googlegroups.com:

> Thanks Seymour, must have near on 100 bulbs on my TAF, I think LED mar
> be a worthy investment.
>
> Bulbs hardly ever pop as it is but less electric usage is key here. UK
> is getting spanked on utilities.

Well, let's run the numbers. I think you'll be surprised.

Let's say 100 bulbs. An incandescent 44 uses 1/4 amp at 6.3 volts, or roughly 1.5
watts of power per bulb if it's lit constantly (which as you know is nowhere near
true). Let's say the LED version uses 1/10th of that, which isn't true in the
case of superbrights but we'll go with it anyway. So the LED version uses .15
watts of power.


OK, so 100 bulbs * 1.5 watts = 150 watts for the incandescent version, or 15 watts
for the LEDs, for a difference of 135 watts per hour in use.

Electricity is sold in kilowatt-hours, and the highest rate in common use is
$0.13/kWh.

So... 135 watts of power is 0.135 kwh (duuuh). X hours * .135 watts / hour *
$0.13 dollars / kwh >= $150.

Payback time is approximately 8500 hours. At 11 hours per day, 777 days. If
you're open 5 days a week, about three years before you break even...

...but that assumes every single light on the game is on the entire time. If you
say that half of them are lit (GI) most of the time and half of them aren't lit
(feature), then that payback time doubles to six years.

Finally, that all assumes that you use the super miserly non-super-bright LEDs.
If you buy the $150 kit you aren't, so the payback time will be longer still,
since there is less of a savings difference.

Not worth the hassle in my opinion. At least not from an energy savings
standpoint.

--
Have a home video that's trapped on your camera? Want to share it on the web or
on DVD?

http://www.webwidevideo.com/

[vid1900]

The Cointaker videos on Youtube show a more than 60% energy savings
using a "Dr Watt" meter.

Another benefit is your power supply is less stressed, and of course
less heat generated for the other electronics/plastics/backglass.

http://tinyurl.com/79965bf


--
vid1900
This USENET post sent from http://rgparchive.com

[Fursphere]

Cayle George;1965730 Wrote:
> My experience is most modern games draw between 3 and 4 Amps at 120v
> when being played.
>
> Using this:
>

> http://tinyurl.com/yh63742

>
> Being generous at 4 amps, thats about 480 Watts, or .48 KWH.
> In most cities that would cost you roughly 4 cents an hour.
>
> your running your game for 13, so your spending roughly 52 cents a
> day. (most likely less, as the game isnt at full load.)
>
> If LEDs saved you %50 of the power draw on the game ( I highly doubt
> it will save THAT much) and going by the example of $150 to fit a game
> with LEDS, it'll take you about 2 Years to make them worth your
> while.
>
> I say its not worth it.
>
> -cAyle

Bulbs....HEAT.......destroys games. 13 hours a day will eventually
cause some inserts to lift, and if not caught early, will cause
playfield damage (unless its full mylar).

So maybe you won't save much money on your bill, you will make your game
last longer. Figure the cost of doing a playfield swap IF you can get a
replacement.

And I've had #47 GI bulbs warp a set of NOS Gottlieb system 80 plastics
in no time at all (figure a month after I got them, game being on no
longer than an hour or two at a time). Its very slight warpage, but
they are warped now.


--
Fursphere

[nwojedi]

I'm surprised. I have 6 games on several different outlets on different
breakers, and never had a break flip from pinball machines. Even during
constant running parties and a virtual pin running. Which has a 1000W
power supply.


--
nwojedi

* C a p t a i n N e o *
Pinball Playfield restoration service at:

_www.playfieldrestorations (\"http://www.captainneo.com\").com (\"http://www.captainneo.com\")__:D

[TheKorn]

nwojedi <nwo...@hotmail.com> wrote in news:nwojedi...@rrgparchive.com:

> I'm surprised. I have 6 games on several different outlets on different
> breakers, and never had a break flip from pinball machines. Even during
> constant running parties and a virtual pin running. Which has a 1000W
> power supply.

Just an FYI, that power supply will only draw a bit more than what it's asked to
produce. (i.e. it won't draw 1000 watts if it only needs to provide 300W worth,
it'll draw 330-ish.)

[phishrace]

On Jul 3, 8:53 am, TheKorn <TheK...@TheKorn.Net> wrote:
> swampie <swampguin...@hotmail.com> wrote in news:8f4797e4-f4e3-481d-8e47-
> b963474a5...@q29g2000vby.googlegroups.com:

Your math is good, but your estimations are off. A 90's WMS game will
idle at about 160-170 watts. Switching to LED's won't knock 135 watts
off of that. There is power lost in other ways, like rectifying it
from AC to DC, in the power supply circuit and in all the wiring. So
you can't just count what the bulbs draw.

From what I recall reading here before, the 60% savings suggested
below may be accurate, although just at idle (which is what the
original poster was asking about). Once you start playing though, all
bets are off.

Again, a Kill A Watt will tell you everything you need to know. Anyone
who pays a utility bill should own one.

-phish

[swampie]

Right, thank u everybody.

I have been convinced to go LED. The clincher for me is less wear on
machines longevity, call electricity savings is also see my club is
open 7 days a week so payback would be slightly quicker.

Suppose I'm going to start a whole new debate on which LED kit to buy,
in fact I think I will just start a new thread.

[The Hammer]

TheKorn did the math and came up with the payback period (great job, BTW).

The others are somewhat subjective. Yes, #44's will warp plastics. All my
restorations had warped plastics that were easily repaired. I use #47's and
find them fine (except for dark inserts). Some pop bumper caps were charred
with #44's and had to be replaced. If I left my pins on all the time, I
suspect the #47's would warp the plastics eventually. Actually, they may
warp in time just from aging of the plastic and loss of the plasticiser.

I have had a lot of GI connectors arrive burned and fried. A bit of a pain
to replace, but the new ones are holding up.

So from a financial standpoint, the payback is fairly long. From a repair
and maintenance standpoint, LED's are great.

From an esthetics point of view, well that has been discussed to death.


in article vid1900...@rrgparchive.com, vid1900 at vid...@hotmail.com
wrote on 7/3/12 9:15 AM:

[swampfire]

I've got a Kill-a-Watt. I'll try to do an LEDs vs. #44 comparison when
I get home from vacation. I plan to try out the warm white LEDs in my
Space Station GI.

Regarding burned GI connectors - yes, this is common in system 11
games especially, because the connectors were under-rated for the
amount of current they had to carry. Once you re-pin these using
trifurcon, they're good for the next 20 years whether you use #44
bulbs or LEDs. Anyone saying that bulbs "stress the power supply"
don't know what they're talking about IMHO.

John

[TheKorn]

phishrace <phis...@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:29e0190c-c5fc-45f1...@l4g2000yqf.googlegroups.com:

> Your math is good, but your estimations are off. A 90's WMS game will
> idle at about 160-170 watts. Switching to LED's won't knock 135 watts
> off of that. There is power lost in other ways, like rectifying it
> from AC to DC, in the power supply circuit and in all the wiring. So
> you can't just count what the bulbs draw.

True, but that starts getting really messy and very application specific. I
wasn't interested in that level of detail, I was just going for a gross estimate
of what the payback time would be. Those types of estimates are rarely (if ever)
on the money, but they give you an idea from a planning perspective.

> Again, a Kill A Watt will tell you everything you need to know. Anyone
> who pays a utility bill should own one.

I own a KAW, but like any time measuring device the longer you use it the better
the measurement (I don't even bother with something that I can't leave on for at
least a week). That's easy for things like refridgerators that are left on 24/7
normally, but you wind up chewing through a lot of your future savings just taking
the baseline measurements with instant demand things like pinball machines.

[calvin12]

phishrace;1966049 Wrote:
>
> Your math is good, but your estimations are off. A 90's WMS game will
> idle at about 160-170 watts. Switching to LED's won't knock 135 watts
> off of that. There is power lost in other ways, like rectifying it
> from AC to DC, in the power supply circuit and in all the wiring. So
> you can't just count what the bulbs draw.
>
> From what I recall reading here before, the 60% savings suggested
> below may be accurate, although just at idle (which is what the
> original poster was asking about). Once you start playing though, all
> bets are off.
>
> Again, a Kill A Watt will tell you everything you need to know. Anyone
> who pays a utility bill should own one.
>
> -phish

My RS and BoP were both over 200w in attract mode with incandescent
bulbs, 80-100 with LEDs


--
calvin12

[phishrace]

On Jul 4, 5:09 am, TheKorn <TheK...@TheKorn.Net> wrote:

> phishrace <phishr...@hotmail.com> wrote innews:29e0190c-c5fc-45f1...@l4g2000yqf.googlegroups.com:
>
> > Your math is good, but your estimations are off. A 90's WMS game will
> > idle at about 160-170 watts. Switching to LED's won't knock 135 watts
> > off of that. There is power lost in other ways, like rectifying it
> > from AC to DC, in the power supply circuit and in all the wiring. So
> > you can't just count what the bulbs draw.
>
> True, but that starts getting really messy and very application specific.  I
> wasn't interested in that level of detail, I was just going for a gross estimate
> of what the payback time would be.  Those types of estimates are rarely (if ever)
> on the money, but they give you an idea from a planning perspective.

Judging by the reply after yours, you may not have been too far off.

> > Again, a Kill A Watt will tell you everything you need to know. Anyone
> > who pays a utility bill should own one.
>
> I own a KAW, but like any time measuring device the longer you use it the better
> the measurement (I don't even bother with something that I can't leave on for at
> least a week).  That's easy for things like refridgerators that are left on 24/7
> normally, but you wind up chewing through a lot of your future savings just taking
> the baseline measurements with instant demand things like pinball machines.

Using one to just measure before and after installing LED's during
attract mode is pretty straightforward. There's not much fluctuation.
Set it to watts and see what you get. I tried to google some past
results and couldn't find any detailed posts. With all the talk about
the Kill A Watt lately, I suspect it won't be too long before we get
another post with before and after readings. Didn't watch the
cointaker video as I'd rather hear from someone here. Cointaker may
have cherry picked a game to show the best results.

-phish

[main source]

the largest goal to achieve IMO on location is less heat dissipation.
normal led's (example- white from pinball life) for #44 and #555 sockets
do the trick.
i have been placing them in all my ss classic games on location.
its not about the look, its about saving plastics, inserts, connectors,
backglasses etc from the heat of normal bulbs.
the GI especially..
even if led's are just on the GI...including coin door bulbs...it helps
greatly.
you dont have to go with the extra bright kill your eyes led's.


--
main source

[main source]

as far as circuits.

in one of my homerooms, i have 30+ games on 3 20 amp circuits and i can
have all on at once and have them all being played and ive never had a
circuit trip...this includes some vids thow too, which draw more amps
per machine than pins.