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Stern Pokémon Pinball Just Got BRIGHTER! Expression Lighting Kit Installation For Spike 3

Wild Dog Arcade·video·19m 53s·analyzed·Jun 18, 2026
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.020

TL;DR

Step-by-step Expression Lighting Kit install on Spike 3 Pokémon Pinball cabinet.

Summary

Gary from Wild Dog Arcade demonstrates a detailed installation of the Stern Expression Lighting Cabinet Kit for Pokémon Pinball on the Spike 3 system. The video covers the full process including backbox wiring, playfield rail light strips, diffuser panels, node board installation, cable routing, ferrite bead placement for EMI shielding, and final testing. Gary notes that Spike 3 cabinets have a simpler installation process than Spike 2 due to redesigned cabinet layout.

Key Claims

  • The Expression Lighting Cabinet Kit brightens dark edges on Pokémon Pinball and adds interactive game-synced lighting effects.

    high confidence · Gary (Wild Dog Arcade) describing the kit's purpose and demonstrating the before/after lighting comparison.

  • Spike 3 cabinet expression lighting installation is easier than Spike 2 because the cabinet redesign doesn't require full playfield removal.

    high confidence · Gary's closing statement: 'It's actually easier than the Spike 2 system because of the way they've redesigned the cabinets. You don't have to pull the play field out to get everything in and out of the game.'

  • The Expression Lighting kit includes two LED strips, two diffusers, a node board, ferrite beads (four types), cable clamps, and connectors.

    high confidence · Gary unpacking and identifying kit components at the beginning of the installation.

  • Ferrite beads must be placed in specific locations to prevent electrical interference between the expression lights and the game board.

    high confidence · Gary emphasizing ferrite bead placement throughout the install: 'They keep electrical interference from interfering with the expression lights themselves and also keep the expression lights from interfering with the game.'

  • The expression light cable connects to the Spike 3 CPU board just below the USB port.

    high confidence · Gary demonstrating the backbox connector installation: 'So the first thing you're going to do is take the small connector and plug it right into the board. So it goes in right below this USB port here, right by the Spike 3 CPU processor.'

  • The Expression Lighting system is available as an optional upgrade for Pro, Premium, and LE editions (but the video implies LE may not need it).

    medium confidence · Gary's closing advice: 'If you don't have an LE, put this in. Pro, Premium. It's a great addition.'

  • The node board for expression lights can handle both cabinet-side and armor-side lighting, even if only one is used.

    high confidence · Gary explaining unused connectors: 'This board actually will handle the armor side lighting as well... If you've just chosen to do the cabinet side expression lighting, you're only going to be using half of this board.'

Notable Quotes

  • “These expression lights will replace the top of these rails with an actual strip of lights that will be interactive with the game. It should wake up the game, really give the player a good light show and feel like they're more immersed in the universe.”

    Wild Dog Arcade@ 1:04 — Explains the user experience benefit and design intent of the Expression Lighting system.

  • “It's actually easier than the Spike 2 system because of the way they've redesigned the cabinets. You don't have to pull the play field out to get everything in and out of the game.”

    Wild Dog Arcade@ 19:15 — Key design improvement in Spike 3 cabinets that impacts installation ease and accessibility for operators/collectors.

  • “These are always fun to install. They go all over the place. They keep electrical interference from interfering with the expression lights themselves and also keep the expression lights from interfering with the game. Very important, so keep an eye on where I put those.”

    Wild Dog Arcade@ 1:37 — Emphasizes the critical role of ferrite beads in the installation and the complexity of proper EMI shielding.

  • “Look at that! Look at how much brighter that is. Ah, that'll be nice.”

    Wild Dog Arcade@ 18:36 — Immediate visual feedback showing the effectiveness of the Expression Lighting upgrade during LED test.

Entities

GarypersonWild Dog ArcadeorganizationStern PinballcompanyPokémon PinballgameExpression Lighting Cabinet KitproductSpike 3product

Signals

  • ?

    product_strategy: Expression Lighting is positioned as an optional add-on upgrade for Pro and Premium tier machines, creating a secondary revenue stream and customization path for owners.

    high · Gary mentions the kit is available for Pro and Premium models and recommends it as 'a great addition' to existing machines.

  • ?

    design_innovation: Spike 3 cabinet redesign reduces installation complexity by eliminating the need to fully remove the playfield for expression light installation, compared to Spike 2.

    high · Gary explicitly states: 'It's actually easier than the Spike 2 system because of the way they've redesigned the cabinets. You don't have to pull the play field out.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Expression Lighting installation requires extensive ferrite bead placement (four different sizes in multiple locations) to manage electromagnetic interference between new LED system and Spike 3 board.

    high · Detailed breakdown of ferrite bead types and placement throughout the install; kit includes 'a big bag of ferrite beads' and Gary notes they are 'very important' for preventing interference.

  • ?

    operational_signal: Expression Lighting installation requires careful cable routing separate from existing power harnesses, use of cable clamps in specific locations, and attention to ferrite bead placement for proper function.

    high · Gary repeatedly stresses cable routing away from existing power bundles and emphasizes: 'They don't seem to want you to route it all right next to all the other power cables, probably for interference.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Despite being 'easier than Spike 2,' the Expression Lighting installation is still moderately complex, requiring ferrite bead placement in 8+ locations, multiple connector types, and careful cable routing.

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.060

0:00
Are you a big Pokemon fan? Well, today you can express your love for the game. Welcome to the Wild Dog Arcade. I'm Gary. We're going to be doing another install today. We're going to be working on our Pokemon pinball machine. We're going to be installing the cabinet expression lighting kit. So this is going to add some more lighting and interaction to the game. It's going to brighten up parts of the game that are kind of dark, especially for us The Spike 3 system has a different cabinet setup. So this is a different install than you've probably seen in the past. So follow along and see how it's done if you're doing this to your own game. Before we get started with the expression lighting install, I wanted to show you the game and what it looks like without those lights in there. For streaming, we had actually unplugged the two spotlights because we found that it kind of bleached out this whole area, made a horrible hotspot, made the game look kind of bad on camera. So I unplugged them to even out the lighting. But that exaggerates the fact that there is a really dark edges on this game. There's not a whole lot of really bright ambient lighting. So these expression lights will replace the top of these rails with an actual strip of lights that will be interactive with the game. It should wake up the game, really give the player a good light show and feel like they're more immersed in the universe.
1:18
These are the parts you're going to get in the Spike 3 cabinet expression lighting kit. You're going to get two big LED strips. These are the expression lights themselves. You're going to get two diffusers to diffuse the light. You're going to get a node board, node board cable, screws and cable clamps, instructions, and importantly, a big bag of ferrite beads. These are always fun to install. They go all over the place. They keep electrical interference from interfering with the expression lights themselves and also keep the expression lights from interfering with the game. Very important, so keep an eye on where I put those.

  • Two different lengths of expression light strips are included—short for the left side (near electronics) and long for the right side.

    high confidence · Gary identifying the strips: 'There are actually two different expression lights. You'll notice the difference basically the length of the wire. The short one is going to go on the left side, the long one will go on the right side. Since the electronics are in this side of the cabinet here, you want the short one on there.'

    • high · Full installation video runs approximately 42 minutes and covers dozens of distinct steps including specialized hardware like ferrite beads, node boards, and cable clamps.

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Expression Lighting provides game-synced interactive visual effects that enhance player immersion by brightening dark cabinet edges and creating coordinated light shows during gameplay.

    high · Gary describes the system as 'interactive with the game' and 'wake up the game, really give the player a good light show and feel like they're more immersed in the universe.'

  • ?

    content_signal: Wild Dog Arcade produces detailed, step-by-step installation guides aimed at home collectors and operators who want to perform DIY upgrades to pinball machines.

    high · Gary concludes with: 'Pretty easy, pretty basic tools, a little bit of time, and you can do it yourself' and asks viewers to subscribe for future installation content.

    • 1:51
    So included in the kit are a bunch of ferrite beads. These will help with electrical interference. There's actually four different types so I've organized them and laid them out. You've got some round ones, some square ones, some medium-sized rectangles, and some small rectangles. These are going to go in very specific points so pay attention in the video of where these go if you're doing this install. Alright, first step we're going to do is make sure you unplug your game. You don't want any electrical currents going on in here. So let's get into the back box. First step is going to be installing some wiring in the back box. It's going to connect right to the Spike 3 board system. So you can see the board system here. In the kit, you're going to find a cable. It's going to have two ends. There is a larger connector and a smaller connector. So the first thing you're going to do is take the small connector and plug it right into the board. So it goes in right below this USB port here, right by the Spike 3 CPU processor. Next step is we're going to be routing the cable down and putting some ferrite beads on there. All right, let's get this wire routed. So just drop it in and then it's going to go down into a hole in the back box and keep feeding it in until you get almost all of the cable down in the cap. So it's going to keep, it's a pretty long one because it needs to reach all the way to the front. All right, now that you fed that into the bottom of the back glass, it's going to have a little bit of different routing. They don't want you to follow the existing routing, probably for electrical interference. So first thing you do is clip it into this loop right here and then down on the bottom you're going to feed it into a different loop. So there's going to be these cables right here so it's going to look something like this when you get the cable around it. So it goes into this loop and down here. Alright, while you're up in the back box let's put on some of these fair-eyed beads because then we can close it up and keep working on the game. You're going to have two different ones, one of the small rectangles and one of the round ones. So let's start with the rectangle one. So wherever this label is, that's where you want to install this ferrite bead. They are kind of loose on the cable, so if you don't put it on the label, it will fall and slide down. Second one is this round one. So the round one is going to be interesting because you actually have to wrap it three times into a circle, and that's where you put the ferrite bead. As you want to wrap it in there, flip it around, put the cables into the holes as best as you can, and then try to clamp it.
    4:24
    It's going to be a little bit on the tight side, so you might have to wiggle the cables to get the clips in place. Boom. So that.
    4:34
    Don't forget that. That's in the instructions. It's basically three wraps through there and then it will just hang.
    4:43
    Now we can close up the back box and continue working underneath. So to install the expression lighting in the cabinet there actually a channel in here on the premium and the pro editions It covered with a piece of trim There are a bunch of phillips screws that are going to be taking it off One of them is hidden down by the apron on the game So first thing we going to do is flip it up take those screws out put the playfield back down and take these out Then we should be able to remove it easily from the game All right, playfield's up. Let's take out these little Phillips screws. They're little black ones. They're kind of hidden really well. They blend right in. So there are six of them per size. Let's take, while we're down here, let's take two of them out on each side and then we'll put the playfield back down.
    5:27
    All right, let's remove the last four that holds this little plate in. Okay, that's all the screws that are holding this in place. It should just pop right out of there.
    5:46
    There, trim panel out. Let's do the other side and let's move on to putting the expression lights in that channel.
    5:52
    Alright, we're going to do these, we're going to do the expression lights one at a time. There are actually two different expression lights. You'll notice the difference basically the length of the wire. The short one is going to go on the left side, the long one will go on the right side. Since the electronics are in this side of the cabinet here, you want the short one on there. So what I've done is a couple of things. One, I push the playfield all the way over to one side to get enough room. And I should be able to slide the expression lights themselves in. They will line up with little features in the game. Basically little bosses that screw into it. So just get it in there and do that. This wire is going to run out the end. I do notice that the bracket for the lockdown bar is actually in the way so I'm going to do a work around here and I'm going to bend the wire this little bracket up a little bit while I'm putting the wire in and then I'll bend it back.
    6:52
    Once it's in let's reseat that down and let's push it back into place. There we go. The wire and the expression light is routed in the channel. By pushing the play field over a little bit, you'll get the room to do this. Okay, when you've pressed in and installed the expression light, make sure everything's loose and also pay attention to where this cable routes. You don't want to pinch it when you put the diffuser on. So the diffuser is going to have two different sides. It's going to have a long and a short. There's going to be a notch on this side, so make sure you're putting the correct one in the correct way. There are two sides to it. There's this crystal-y, sparkly one, and then there's a smoother side. So put the smoother side out.
    7:38
    And it should just drop in. You'll have to twist it a little bit. And then it will just slot right into the slots. So now we can use the screws that we took out, replace them, and actually put them back together. Alright, let's begin by screwing in One of these right here.
    8:06
    You should be able to do at least three of them underneath before we drop the playfield down. No need to go overzealous and overtighten these things.
    8:24
    So that's the three. Let's do the other side. Flip the playfield back down and finish attaching that. Also, don't forget to bend this thing back. You can do it with a screwdriver or a light tap with a hammer. So do that before you put it down. You don't want it touching part of the playfield or interfering with something else.
    8:55
    All right, expression lights and the diffuser panel are installed in the game. So now we're ready to go back downstairs and actually hook up the wires, get the rest of the ferrite beads and actually see what these babies can do.
    9:20
    Okay, next step is we're going to take this little computer board. So it's not like a node board proper, but it is one just designed specifically for the expression lights. In the little bag of hardware, you're going to find four long screws. These are the quarter inch nut drivers. There are four holes that are already pre-drilled in the cabinet for these, so this install should be pretty easy right here. So find your quarter inch nut driver, and let's install this board.
    9:54
    Thank you Okay check to make sure anything loose Like I still got one here I need to tight Don go overzealous You screwing into wood You don want to actually strip them out So just make sure that it not moving around There, there it's good and snug. You'll notice the orientation. You put the pin connectors up here and these other style connectors facing the front of the cabinet.
    10:28
    All right, down on the left side of the cabinet, you're going to need to put in some provisions for the actual cables. They don't seem to want you to route it all right next to all the other power cables, probably for interference. So they give you these little cable clamps right here and what we're going to do is remove the screw for that one and we're going to piggyback right through that back into the hole for this other clamp. They'll give us an independent routing for that cable. So tighten these two back down. You're going to do a couple of these down here and then we're going to have to move the playfield out of the way. So this other one will go here. So let's snug it up again. Don't go too tight.
    11:16
    All right, that's it. That's it for these two. We're going to drop the playfield, pull it forward so we can access some more down further in the cap. There are a total of four clamps you need to install to wrap this wiring. One's going to mount each one of these things. I did this off camera because I was in the way, so you wouldn't be able to see it. So you basically We do the same thing. We piggyback the little black clamp onto the white clamps down in here. Now we're going to be able to actually start routing the wire. So at this point, you can grab the wire that you brought down from up top. And we're going to go in and we're going to pop it right into these little black clamps.
    12:01
    And then we can put the playfield back up and continue routing up to the front board. All right, play field back up. Let's put this clamp set together. So just route it in with two black clamps. And then when you come up here, it just says to clamp it in these original white ones. So as opposed to new clamps here, it routes like this. Let's make the board connection. And then we're going to put on some of the ferrites that belong on this cable and then move on to the actual side armor lighting. Alright, I put the playfield back down because when I was looking at the diagrams for all of the ferrite beads, you're going to take one of the small ferrite beads and put it right in this location on this cable. So basically right next to that clamp and then let's move on that way. Okay, go into the parts, find the two big square ferrites. They're going to go on. One's going to go on here. One's going to go on there. So first one slip up under this and you're gonna probably have to fiddle with the wires to get them to fit in the cable nicely and then install them till it snaps in place. The second one is going to go down further it's going to be closer to this clamp and goes around the original bundle. You might have to slide some zip ties out of the way to get this to be round, but that's not too hard usually. There we go. Now we've exposed all the wires. So do the same thing here. Boom! Two big ones in. Let's move on to the next step. Okay, I've continued routing the gray wire that we're putting in here. I routed it over here. I'm going to route it down and around. There's actually quite a bit of slack in it in this game. So this end of the connector, it's going to connect right into this top connector here. The first thing that we got to do is we actually have to wrap this with the ferrite bead. One wrap, so two of these cables pass through. Let us move it down above.
    14:11
    Let's do it so it's down on the cabinet floor. And it'll snap in place. Alright, now that that one's connected, take the large connector, put it in the top, keys in only in one way, boom, that one is routed. So now what I get is tie this stuff up a little bit. It's kind of loose and in the way, don't want it rattling around. Back down under the cabinet, there are going to be a few of these fair right beads you're going to have to attach. So I'm working on the right side here, so it's going to go down. So first thing is you install one of the little Gordillera Winchester Mest www The larger rectangle and a round one, we're going to do the exact same thing here. And we're going to be doing some loop-de-loop. So rectangle first.
    15:33
    Let's do the loop-de-loop. Trying to make this one nice and tight because it looks like I need all the cable links I can get. So let's get that in there. Get that on.
    15:45
    And boom. Let's feed the cable down behind from the other ones and that will all sit down in there. Okay, let's move on to the connections. There are a few more also little barites I've got to put on there. Hooking the expression lights up to the little control board. There are going to be two wires coming in. You're going to see them labeled. They are labeled out one and out two. Out one goes literally on the top. Out 2 goes right here. So this board actually will handle the armor side lighting as well. So there are, I am not using that, so there are going to be some empty connectors. So keep that in mind. It's not that you haven't hooked them up wrong. If you've just chosen to do the cabinet side expression lighting, you're only going to be using half of this board. Alright, excuse me. Two more Farahite beads. So get the small ones. You're going to be putting the small ones on the same cable. Okay, there is one more Farahite bead we're going to be putting on. We'll do that, move the camera a little bit, and you'll be able to see it. One ferrite bead left. So there's this cable right here. I'm going to actually install it. There's one left in this kit. So I'm going to be putting it on right here. Boom. That's all the ferrite beads and that's all the wiring done. So this should be working. So let's give it a test. All right there's actually one more wire you've got to hook up and this is a hook up from the game itself. In the wiring harness they will have this connector buried it's like CN2 I think but basically it's bundled in and it will barely visible you'll have to actually get it out of here so you can actually hook it up. This will hook up right into that connection right there and that will actually give the board power so that's an accessory connection Thank you for watching. The expression lights.
    18:08
    So I've got the coin door open because then we can go and do some testing on this. And there we go, we can see the expression lights at work.
    18:23
    Yeah, that really lights up the corners. Nice. So let's go to the menu. Let's take a look at under diagnostics. Let's do the LED test and then hit the start button here. And let's go to all LED test. Boom! Look at that! Look at how much brighter that is. Ah, that'll be nice. Can't wait to play it.
    19:06
    All right, that completes the install of the Expression Lights in our Pokemon Pinball Machine. Pretty easy install. It's actually easier than the Spike 2 system because of the way they've redesigned the cabinets. You don't have to pull the play field out to get everything in and out of the game. So put this in. If you don't have an LE, put this in. Pro, Premium. It's a great addition. Pretty easy, pretty basic tools, a little bit of time, and you can do it yourself. Thanks for watching this video. If you enjoyed it, please click that like button and also subscribe to our channel. Click that notification bell. You'll be notified when we've got new videos coming up or when we go live playing real pinball. We play live pinball Wednesday nights and Sunday nights on both YouTube and on Twitch and we hope to see you then.