Coin door bulb sleeves are driving me crazy... any ideas?

[Luckydevil]

I have a Coin Co coin door, and I saw it mentioned on here that parts are no longer made for these.

I swapped out the bulbs for LED's and the metal connectors that supply power and ground to the LED's just don't seem to get a solid connection. I've adjusted them with pliers and even adjusted the lead wires from the LED's, but as soon as I close the coin door one of the damn things goes out.

I am 100% positive that it is those little metal connectors causing this, and I just can't get them to sit right. If I make them tighter to hold the LED bulb better, they are to loose in the plastic sleeve and move around. If I make it so they don't move around, then they don't get a good grip on the bulb.

I did a search and found nothing on this. I'm thinking of epoxying them into place, but I'm hesitant to do this because I can't even buy the parts anymore.

Has anyone had this problem and found a fix?

Thanks.

[brian23]

I ran into a similar issue with lighting. I also have a CoinCo door. I ended up using this part from Happ:

42-0351-00 LAMPHOLDER,F/PLASTIC MECH HOLDER

and placing my T3 1/4 LED in that Wedge socket above. I then wired the LEDs in parallel to my PC 12VDC power supply. The picture below shows what I did to replace my lights on my CoinCo door.

[cholin]

Why don't you like wrap the sides of the LED in tape or something so that they fit nicely into the holder?  Won't do any harm to anything at all, so it's worth a shot, right?

Another hint, if they move too much and get messed up when you close the door, hot glue is your friend.  Once you get them in perfect position, pop a fair share of hot glue in there and it wont move   Buy dollar store crap though, so if it does come loose, you just grab a screwdriver and pry the glue off in one shot, yet it will still hold in the case that you do get it right.

[Zakk]

Solder a bit more metal to the leads on the bulb. 

[Luckydevil]

Thanks guys. The extra solder on the leads fixed it. Nice simple fix.