# Ghostbusters Pinball Protector & Lighting Mods Install

**Source:** Straight Down the Middle  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2017-05-17  
**Duration:** 22m 0s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byOOADkjEhw

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## Analysis

Greg from Straight Down the Middle documents his installation of protective guards, ball deflectors, and LED lighting modifications to his new Ghostbusters pinball machine. He installs lane hop guards from Modfather, a playfield protector from Art on Pinside, drain trough lighting, and replaces various bulbs with purple-themed options from Comet Matrix lighting. The modifications are budget-conscious ($20-$25 per item) and designed to enhance both protection and visual aesthetics.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Ghostbusters is an extremely difficult game despite community criticism of its ruleset — _Greg speaking about his own experience with the machine, noting he loves it despite hearing complaints_
- [HIGH] Lane hop guards from Modfather cost approximately $25 — _Greg states price directly during installation segment_
- [HIGH] Art on Pinside ball deflector costs approximately $20 shipped — _Greg states price directly during installation segment_
- [MEDIUM] DeadFlip recently scored around 10 billion points on Ghostbusters, with other players scoring 5 billion+ — _Greg references high scores from the previous night, approximate numbers_
- [MEDIUM] Comet Matrix lighting ships faster than other vendors Greg has used — _Greg praising Comet's shipping speed, unsolicited endorsement (notes they are not a sponsor)_
- [HIGH] Purple Passion bulbs from Comet provide a dark, rich purple color — _Greg describing the product characteristics during selection and installation_
- [MEDIUM] Matrix connector bulbs are single SMD with lower brightness output than full bulbs — _Greg speculating about technical specs while installing matrix lighting in trough_
- [HIGH] Ghostbusters backbox originally has alternating red and white bulbs in a pattern — _Greg observing the stock configuration during modification_

### Notable Quotes

> "I have absolutely loved this game and obviously I'd loved it before I bought it or I wouldn't have bought the thing it is extremely, extremely difficult in my opinion."
> — **Greg**, ~2:30
> _Direct counterargument to community criticism of Ghostbusters; personal endorsement despite ruleset complaints_

> "You can't beat that. I think these lane guards here were like $25 from Modfather. That Arts lane guard was like $20 shipped, or the ball deflector for up top was like $20 shipped."
> — **Greg**, ~8:15
> _Budget modification pricing breakdown; emphasizes value proposition of mods_

> "I'm not sponsored by Comet or anything, but I'm going to tell you... they shipped me these but I mean they so fast on shipping I mean it was absolutely crazy on shipping it was faster than anything I gotten"
> — **Greg**, ~9:45
> _Unsolicited endorsement of Comet's product quality and shipping speed; relevant to parts vendor reputation_

> "The bad thing about me and pinball pinball when you're messing with a machine is all about paying attention and tedious work and I kind of jump the gun I get too excited about things"
> — **Greg**, ~10:30
> _Self-aware commentary on modding challenges; relevant to community discussion of maintenance difficulties_

> "I have a lot of hate for ghostbusters so much about the rule set about everything going on but I'll be completely honest with you I have absolutely loved this game"
> — **Greg**, ~2:20
> _Acknowledges widespread community criticism while maintaining personal enjoyment; sentiment shift context_

> "Man, look how gorgeous that thing looks. That purple trough lining. You got the purple passion bulbs over there. We get those in lane guards. Keep that ball from hopping. That looks gorgeous."
> — **Greg**, ~42:00
> _Final assessment of modifications; demonstrates intended visual impact and satisfaction with results_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Greg | person | Host of Straight Down the Middle pinball show; performing modifications on Ghostbusters machine |
| Zach Sharpe | person | Referred to as 'Mod Mini Pinballs' who extensively modifies every game he acquires; Greg mentions Zach would critique his LED installation work |
| DeadFlip | person | Competitive Ghostbusters player; scored approximately 10 billion points on the machine recently |
| Straight Down the Middle | organization | Pinball video show featuring machine reviews, modifications, and gameplay content |
| Ghostbusters Pinball | game | Stern pinball machine subject of modification video; recently acquired by Greg; reportedly difficult game with mixed community reception |
| Modfather | company | Aftermarket pinball modification vendor; supplies lane hop guards for approximately $25 |
| Art on Pinside | company | Vendor offering playfield protectors and ball deflectors; supplies approximately $20 deflector used in video |
| Comet Matrix Lighting | company | LED and lighting modification vendor; supplies Purple Passion bulbs and matrix lighting strips; praised for product quality and shipping speed |
| Lost World Pinball | game | Game previously modified by Greg; experienced issues with disassembly/reassembly of plastic components during bulb replacement |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Aftermarket lighting modifications, Protective guards and deflectors for pinball, LED lighting vendors and product quality
- **Secondary:** Ghostbusters pinball game quality and difficulty, Budget-friendly modification strategies, DIY pinball maintenance and modification challenges

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.82) — Greg is enthusiastic about the modifications, satisfied with the visual results, and praises the products used. He frames budget modifications as effective investments. While he acknowledges challenges with tedious work and mistakes during installation, the overall tone is encouraging and the final result is celebrated. His personal enjoyment of Ghostbusters despite community criticism also contributes to positive framing.

### Signals

- **[community_signal]** Content creators documenting modification processes and inviting community feedback on aesthetic choices (confidence: high) — Greg repeatedly asks for viewer input, invites YouTube comments and Facebook feedback on modification results, positions community judgment as valuable
- **[product_strategy]** Protective guard systems (lane hop guards, ball deflectors, drain protection) being adopted as essential protection upgrades for new machines like Ghostbusters (confidence: high) — Greg frames guards as mandatory protection ('just cannot not have'), cites specific vendors, recommends multiple protection points across playfield
- **[sentiment_shift]** Ghostbusters experiencing polarized community reception (widespread criticism offset by some players' strong enjoyment) regarding ruleset and gameplay difficulty (confidence: medium) — Greg acknowledges 'so much hate for ghostbusters so much about the rule set' while maintaining personal enthusiasm; references high-scoring competitive play
- **[technology_signal]** LED lighting modification systems (particularly Comet Matrix lighting with connector-based installation) becoming standard aftermarket upgrade options with improved ease of installation (confidence: medium) — Greg discusses matrix connector systems as superior to alligator clips, emphasizes safety and reliability of connection methods, treats LED modification as routine upgrade path

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## Transcript

 Hey, Greg here from Straight Down the Middle Pinball. I want to do something a little different today man. We got a lot of videos, we're trying to touch on everything and I got this new Ghostbuster machine here and there's a couple of protectors and a couple little lighting changes I want to do with the game. So I figured I'd let you guys kind of experience it, show you a nice before of what it looks like lit up and you know kind of walk you through just some of the small things I'm doing just so you can kind of see and then show you hopefully a dramatic after-effect and the change will be for a positive. I think it will be the things I picked are really cheap. I'm always on a budget and I think it's visually gonna make bang for your buck the best impact for the game. So let's go take a look at the things I bought and then we'll take a look the machine while before we do anything to it. I'll walk you through everything and then show you that after. Okay guys so here we are with Ghostbusters all lit up this is what the before looks like give you a good just scan here still a beautiful machine no matter what so nice okay now let's go take a look see what what all bought for it okay first thing I bought is I got this really nice and I mean this is something that you you just cannot not have and I got this very nice deflector here you can barely see it because it's clear I got that from art on a pin side man you got to have that ball deflector for when you go up that ramp back there because it comes off of those targets it'll bounce off those targets and beat the crap out of your play field so i ended up getting that guy to put on there and i think these are the biggest visual impact man i got these guys these are the uh the lane hop guards keep the ball from from hopping those those uh those inlanes there uh because sometimes they'll hop into that that out lane and drain on you so i got i got these two guys to go on there and visually i think that uh they're gonna make the biggest impact that there is uh also got a couple of uh purple passion bulbs from Comet. If you guys have never seen these, I mean it is a dark, rich, beautiful purple. I'm so excited about getting some of those on there. And then I got a couple of just some LED strips for some different things. I'm going to light the drain hole. I'm going to light the storage facility. Just a couple things like that. Just kind of add a little pizzazz. Change out a couple other bulbs to like that purple passion and stuff. So let's go on and dig in and take a look at it first thing I want to do is do these lane guards and I want to try to put in some of those purple passion bulbs on there so we got to take all these these plastics here off I don't know if you guys are interested in seeing that or not but I'm gonna do it for you actually already pre loosened a lot of these just to save some time they're still hard to get off man i hear so much hate for ghostbusters so much about the rule set about everything going on but i'll be completely honest with you i have absolutely loved this game and uh obviously i'd loved it before i bought it or i wouldn't have bought the thing it is extremely, extremely difficult in my opinion. Even though Dead Flip the other night, man, I think he put up something like 10 billion on it. It was some crazy score that I had. It was just unfathomable. He put up like a 5 billion score. There was a couple other things, man. So kudos to that guy. He's pretty badass on it and just dominated, dominated that damn thing. it's so sick I'm gonna switch this bit out and go to this uh I'm gonna go to Phillips to get the rest of this off of there I'm telling you this magenta some people go with the uh the slime colored guards from Modfather there and I mean it's it's pretty don't get me wrong I might not have to take that one off I don't oh I don't take any of that off oh how sick is that that is so nice it's gonna have to do more than what I thought okay so let's put the first one on there I'm going to assume we go like this right here look at that just slips right on great protection slip this guy right back on top that's a hell of a lot simpler than what I thought it was going to be. Dude, that looks outstanding. I mean, when it's lit up, oh, you know what? Man, I about forgot. Let's pull this back off. I'm going to stick some of those Purple Passions down in there because that is going to be beautiful through that magenta. So just pluck that bulb out. Let's get this Purple Passion in there from Comet. Dude, I can't say, I mean, we're not sponsored by Comet or anything, but I've got to tell you, like Ryan and then they shipped me these but I mean they so fast on shipping I mean it was absolutely crazy on shipping I just got here in no time it was faster than anything I gotten they always so good such a good product really good product okay so I got that passion and I'm gonna have to remove that post get my heart a little closer ready for minutes make this quick so I don't bore you guys man I'd already had all this preset up but anything about that post up and come out of there no big deal and you know what I am made very well just completely do something wrong so if I do you guys call me out man you know inside of these guys a little wipe down my fingerprints underneath there okay slap that bad boy on okay good I was and say man we're not fitting this back I'm gonna leave the slings that the white that where some contrast to it we don't have a problem with that where's this one goes over here oh shit look I already made a mistake so the bad thing about me and pinball pinball when you're messing with a machine is all about paying attention and tedious work and I kind of jump the gun I get too excited about things and I end up uh I happen to take some stuff apart I I tore apart my lost world and it's just plastic after plastic I mean just globbed on there with the ramps and everything man and I pulled uh I pulled all that apart to uh put some new bulbs in there and stuff and man dude I'd miss a post here miss something there and have to pull it back apart and that's a game I don't really want to mess with again come on so this right here is working good it's not working good and one thing i think that uh i've got to buy i mean just for anything it's a damn magnetic bit I do not have a magnetic bit it drives me freaking stupid need that so many times in pinball okay we're tight there this guy back on here okay nothing I forgot everything was good we're gonna be hopping the lanes anymore don't have to worry about that here's my bit so these guys back on here haven't got the mod mini pinballs man Zack that's all Zack does is mod the hell out of every game he gets i just can't bring myself to do that um but i thought these things here they serve a purpose and not only do they serve a purpose but aesthetically i think they're going to make a huge difference on the game which i'm super freaking ecstatic about um and you guys be the judge man um when we end up uh when we're done here and we go to light it back up. Let me know what you all think about it. Let me know if you think that it sucks or whether it was an improvement for the money. I think these lane guards here were like $25 from Modfather. That Arts lane guard was like $20 shipped, or the ball deflector for up top was like $20 shipped. You can't beat that. Let me tighten that back down where I loosened it. Oh, there we go. okay so there we go we got our guards in let's take a look at it quick pull that out of the stand look at that and that looks pretty good like it is wait tilts lit up hopefully those those purple passions look real good down there and then that drain guard so now let go up here and we install the the ball deflector that way protect our playfield a little more okay here we are let get this playfield protector put on there from art i already took the the nuts off just save a little time so what i like to do is i'm gonna go underneath this plastic that way it makes it just a little more streamlined and a little less noticeable and it's a nice plastic on that ball captive so i'm gonna go up underneath there I'm just going to lift that plastic up slide it right underneath of there right onto the post on the screws put this guy down over here make sure that there's a wire that you gotta be careful about that goes that flash or don't want to crank anything down on you just want to hop out of there sorry I'm in the way guys I just want to don't want that guy in the way such a horrible horrible place for I guess that'd be fine okay so we can put that nut back on put a washer on put the other nut back on and that thing I mean it literally installs in two minutes but when I have problems with that that wire kind of poking out and we'll just torque it down real quick try not to rest that bit on that plastic I don't think it'll scratch it but since some of them that looks like it does so I don't want to take the chance to ruin my beautiful plastics on my game so let's take a look at that guy man that thing is uh it's nice it's very unnoticeable you can't really tell it's there just nice look at that seamless does an amazing job does what it's supposed to okay let's see if we can't take care of this ball lighting trough down here we're gonna light this trough up purple go ahead and run everything and then I'll kind of walk you guys through it and also I pre-ran the the wires for that that storage facility too so you guys will have to see that okay so here we are underneath that uh that apron this first time i've ran any apron lighting so this might turn out like crap and look like turd uh zap will rip me for it i'm sure if i don't don't put it on there right or i'm not putting it in the right place um so i'm gonna try to get it i don't know whether it's better to come through the inside or whether it's better to come to the outside i guess it's going to be easier to come through that inside so i'm going to try to mount go ahead and run an extension off of this guy I'm having trouble getting this damn adhesive all this stuff's crazy here it's just a strip light man that's Comet Matrix lighting it's the easiest stuff in the world you can either use alligator clips or you can use go a little safer and use let me actually I'll show you guys here I don't know if you guys can see these but you gotta get these connectors like this right here that'll plug your matrix in that are awesome you can use the alligator clips or you have actually the metal went up a pack but these guys here because I feel really safe with these these are nice so instead of replacing an entire GI you just take these and plug these in that way you still run one of your LEDs and be able to run some of your matrix off of there that's just that's awesome for sure that way you don't have to worry about alligator clips slipping off or anything and doing any damage I will probably end up alligator clip in these though I haven't decided yet I just got to get this adhesive backing off of here before it drives me stupid takes me 10 is doing so so let's um let's try to mount this guy up underneath this apron hopefully it turns out good hopefully it turns out good but don't like i said i know Zach will let me know about it, man. He'll let me hear it. So, okay, now let me get this play field raised up. I'm going to raise this play field up. We'll change camera angles, and that way I can find a nice place to clip into or find a bulb that I can pull out that's inconspicuous to run that to. Okay, so here we are under the play field. Sorry about any of the shadows. I had some good lighting rigged up, and it was casting a really bad light when I pulled the play field up. But right here is a hole right beside this solenoid right here. is the one that goes to the storage facility that kicks the ball out. And right beside it, up under some plastics, is this nice big hole to feed anything down that you want to. So I just ran the lines out of that and clipped right into the GI bulb that right next to there As for my trough lighting I ran this line down And what I like to do is i going to pull this bulb out and do one of those other matrix bulbs hopefully it fit down through there i haven't ever done one of these sterns so i don't know whether there's going to be room for the line or what kind of problems i'll run into um again sorry for that bad shadow i can try to come around to the other side and do some stuff let me get this bulb out and see if we've got enough room to run this guy and the lines that up through there and that's the only problems that you can have so what I'll do you guys see that bulb there I'll just take that bulb out and I will try to mash this guy I'll just put this bulb in there's that nice matrix connector on there put this in and then what the thing is you got to try to get it down in there oh if it's fine good good good good let's see that just let me find my screw I'll lose more shit when I'm doing stuff I swear I'll never find that damn screw so bad about that so bad okay so now let's go ahead and get this screw back in here and we'll just plug that make matrix clip in and we will have all of that done hopefully that bulb is bright enough I think that's the only thing is I think that those guys are just one SMD and so you don't always get the brightest that light output from it but hopefully it'll it'll do its thing I'd like to run this in a different place and get it away from that cylinder let's plug this in okay we're in I'll get something later and tie that guy up so let's put the play field down I got a couple other bulb changes we got all that in and then as soon as I do one or two other bulb changes here in the back we're gonna like this damn thing up and see what it looks like there's the back and there's just what five bulbs back there red white it's alternating red and white and gives a pretty cool pattern actually I don't mind it too much but I'm gonna throw some regular purples in there and the reason I'm going with the regular purples instead of the purple passions is I like that more of a white look back there and I think that I've kind of pinpointed the bulbs I want to go with I'm gonna replace this red over here in the corner see what it looks like with a regular purple in it and then man I kind of like that red behind the the city building over there it kind of gives a different effect too but you know what let's just try a purple over there should we try purple over there damn it I don't know where I want to go with a purple maybe we go with a purple where that white is a but now it's too much purple yeah let's get rid of that red over there and let's try a purple behind that. We'll darken those corners up a little bit. Is that a good idea or a bad idea? Oh, man. What do we do? I'm going to do that one. Let's do it. Fuck it. Let's see what it looks like. Okay. Sorry, camera. I'm going to get in your way here. Okay. So let's push this play field on back in. Let's light this damn thing up and see what it looks like. You guys ready for the big unveiling? See what it looks like? I'm excited. Are you excited? Here we go. And here it is. Man, look how gorgeous that thing looks. That purple trough lining. You got the purple passion bulbs over there. We get those in-lane guards. Keep that ball from hopping. That looks gorgeous. Come over here. We put that nice little red LED strip above the storage facility. It looks great. Come back here to the back. Now one thing that I did do was I ended up switching out the one purple that we put over there to the left. I switched that guy out and put it back a red. It just it washed those buildings out too much. It was just too much purple but I did leave the purple back there where Stay Puft was and one thing else that I did that I didn't show you guys was I put this nice little purple bulb in right here in the place of, there was a bright red one there. It was just, that purple was a little softer on the eye, I thought, but man, this thing, I think it turned out gorgeous. Look how freaking great that looks. I mean, especially the lower portion of the play field is outstanding. And I hope you guys thought it was a vast improvement. You know, write us here on Facebook, write us on YouTube, let us know what you guys think. Be sure to subscribe to us here on YouTube and like us on our Facebook page. Thank you guys for watching. This is Greg from SDTM Pinball.

_(Acquisition: youtube_groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 612e3aa5-4bdb-404e-b53a-973faa2b4809*