What is Pinball Ghosting?



Ghosting is the appearance of dim lighting on your LED when they’re programmed to be off, in other words:


Some LED’s tend to glow or flicker when they should be turned off


The LED bulb is a semiconductor, it reacts differently than a filament light bulb. The lamp matrix works with pulsating charges, and residual voltage sometimes leads to the ghosting effect.

To put it in simpler terms, a normal bulb won’t turn off immediately when its power is cut. It will drain any residual power from the circuit. LED’s don’t function under the same properties, explaining why the flickering occurs.

Ghosting is also different from flickering. Flickering is more constant and is usually produced by a physical issue, namely something loose in the matrix, while ghosting can be a product of a faulty software or driver.

On that note, in 1995, Williams’ software engineers solved the issue for further models. And some earlier models even got a ROM update to solve this problem…

What can YOU do to get rid of the LED “Ghosting Effect”?

The pinball industry is nothing if not crafty, so you can find a lot of fixes for the ghosting problem. Obviously, it has to fall upon you to modify your game. It’s also important to note that LED ghosting isn’t harmful to the circuit and won’t shorten your machine’s lifespan.

A very easy way to get rid of the LED ghosting effect, is to replace your “pulsing” LED with “theGhostBuster” from Scandinavian Pinball Factory. They’re designed in such a way that they won’t register the small pulses and only light up when they’re supposed to.

Please note that when converting an older filament bulb machine to LED, that is a more intricate process and you should replace your old original lamp driver card with a LED lamp driver card like the Alltek Ultimate LED Lamp Driver Board or similar… Even when doing this you might need “theGhostBuster” LED’s… The easiest solution is to buy a few GI and a few of “theGhostBuster” and physically try them on your machine in different places…. Then buy the LED’s you actually need… There is a price difference here, in other words, don’t spend more money than you actually need to!

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