Bingo Pinballs

Created on 06-04-2020

…ok, these things light up pretty and the bright lights are really Cool, but you can damage things`

So be careful to choose your lamps correctly, so you don’t melt your light towers or scorch your backglass`

I like these photos of Surf Club an early Bally, these really help show how choosing the correct lamps is important`

Check out the photo on the left, the girls and how “washed-out” the graphics are, the detail of the artwork is all gone,

over-whelmed by the intense light`…doing this, and you eventually burn off the backglass detail altogether`

…as to the light shields you can easily melt and deform these, the plain white ones are especially fragile!

…from the guys on Bingo Butch – facebook`

…from the Bingo King`

#47 lamps. People often replace all the #55 lamps with these. They are a little less bright, but not as hot, so they don't burn the backglass/melt the playfield light shields. They usually come in boxes of 10 or big bags of 100 or more.

If you really like the brighter 55's, I'd at least change out the playfield lamps to #47's. The remaining GI (general illumination/always on) lamps in the head are your decision. You probably aren't running the game lots of hours/day...then again, the ink on the backglass probably isn't as solid as it originally was.

If you have an OK/red letter game, you'll need red #55's for those six lamps due to the way the circuit is designed, and the associated six clear lamps need to be #47's. Red ones are hard to find, so you may need to paint them yourself - or apply a few coats with a red permanent marker.

#1464/#1458 lamps. These are usually the light bulbs used on the bingo cards. They are on a 17V circuit. #1458 and #1464 lamps can be used interchangably. The #1458 is slightly brighter.

#1464's I recently got from pinball resource.

#63 lamp. This big lamp was used on some games to light up the meters when the door was opened. It was mounted to the cabinet front under the shooter. If you have a lamp socket that's much bigger than the other ones, the #63 went in there.

Phil B’s notes are really a Warning!