It all comes down to personal preference but your cheapest and most customizable option would be just to make a list and order the bulbs individually and get exactly the colors/style for what you like. The kits are obviously predetermined by whoever put them together but don't really give you any flexibility to personalize the game (and typically cost more).

Non ghosting bulbs are typically used in inserts to prevent the ghosting effects that can happen. You wouldn't really need them for GI lighting.

+1 for the above and along with not buying kits, but buying them individually.

It is Comet Pinball LEDs for me.

For what it's worth, the LEDOCD board is a much better investment than non-ghosting LEDs. It nets out pretty close in price, and it's just a way better board. http://ledocd.com/cart/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=23

I hadn't heard of pinballbulbs before yesterday, so I have not used them. 100% Comet for me, based on ease of ordering, price, service. Their options are a little overwhelming at first, but once you realize you mainly just need to buy 50-100 of the Sunlight LEDs, plus maybe a couple other ones, you're all set.

Comet LEDs and LEDOCD

Comet all the way. Good variety and best prices. Build your own kit. More fun and saves you $$.

I have found Comet to have the best quality, selection and price.

Comet for the win

Well take a look at what what types of bulbs you need, is it a mix of 44s & 555s?
Take that info and go to Comet, and go to the bulk section and order warm white 50 or 100 packs. Then you don't have to sit around and try to make a list of what colors where blah blah (although you might have to get a few specific if it has exposed colored bulbs above ramps or something g like that).
Never buy a kit.
Don't know how much fading there is in BTTF so don't know if an OCD LED is needed.

https://www.cometpinball.com/products/2smd-bulbs-100-packs

Does anyone know if BTTF has ghosting issues?

there's really only 2 types of bulbs you will need to deal with on that machine: 555 "wedge type" bulbs, and 44 (aka 47) "bayonet" type. You don't even need to replace the larger bulb flashers if you don't want to.

The 555s and 44s are the ones under all the inserts, in the backbox, etc. You won't go broke if you order too many. Just order say 25 or 50 of each (555 and 44 of the Sunlight color), and place a second order if you need them.

Don't worry about LEDOCD right now, it's a board which helps the LED bulbs brighten and dim more slowly, the way normal incandescent bulbs do. it makes the games look a little more like they did when originally designed, but still with the brightness of bulbs. It can be a subtle thing on certain games. Don't worry about it right now - I only brought it up to steer you away from non-ghosting bulbs and stick with the less expensive standard LED bulbs

Right check my link above. The " sizes" are just power of the leds, the ones 8 linked above I'm going to tell you are the best and used in the most applications; frosted domes. That just means the type of lens or cover goes over the Led.
Sure there are all special types of bulbs for all types of.... Zzzzzzzz..... Don't get pulled into marketing shit, these leds work in 99% of applications perfectly.

Ocd led is an add on that helps leds look like incandescents. It's not something you need for most machines.

This is probably a great way to start. If you want to use colors in the inserts or different brightness/colors/styles in the game you could always order a few of each you are thinking about and just see how they look.

When I LEDed my first game I ordered a few of the different whites for the GI and ended up liking cool white the best and now I just use that for all my games in the GI but alot of it just boils down to what you like and want the game to look like. Lights are easy to swap so you can experiment and change pretty easily if you want to see what different options look like.

Also +1 for Comet.

If you are new to pinball and have never done this before I highly recommend just getting a kit. They are straight forward and you will get exactly what you need. Personally I am a big comet fan and use frosted natural white Comet 2 SMD LEDs in all of my games. However, if this is your first time LEDing a game just buy the kit. Try the individual bulbs and go with the other options people are suggesting next time. Don't get me wrong, figuring out what you need is easy, but using the kit is super easy and is almost guaranteed to produce good results.

If you're new to pinball it's best to learn right now how to do shit for yourself; cause that's the life.

Doing it yourself is guaranteed to produce good results. Not to mention will save you lots of money.

Go with comet. You’ll save more money.

Hard part is, it all will come down to personal taste on what a led and game will look like. I've had games with most brands in them, but I continue to buy cointaker. For my non em games I go the coin taker kit, for em I use one of their bulbs that looks most like an incandescent. With my gottlieb playball I bought a HANDFUL of bulbs from multiple manufactures and recommendations to see who's looked most like an incandescent. I went with coin takers.

My opinion. Buy a few of each from multiple companies and see what you like for yourself.

Here is my post on led's for an em:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/gottlieb-playball#post-3947997

Comet 2SMDs all the way. I go with Cool (Natural) white for newer DMD games. Sunlight white for EM games. For SS, it depends on the color scheme so it's a toss up between Sunlights and Cool. Ryan is a huge asset to this hobby, and an all-around stand up guy.

Don't buy the kits! Just buy the 100 pack sets of white.

+1 here for everything above. Comet for the win.

Friends don't let friends use overpriced, tacky looking LED kits in their pins.

Last time I bought comet bulk, multiple bulbs were off color (white pack). Just my personal experience.

Like others said, only two types of bulbs - wedge base or bayonet. I would only look at 1smd and 2smd bulbs. I like to use 1smd in inserts and 2smd for gi. Color match inserts except for yellow and orange where warm white looks better. Clear lens for inserts and frosted lens for backbox, gi, or in places that needs light more spread out. I might use a 2smd frosted bulb to light up a larger insert for example. Flex head bulbs good for where light needs to be directed. For gi, the choice is whether to go with warm white (yellowish light similar to incadescents), cool white (more white light), and sunlight (in between warm and cool). Sunlight is my preference. To get started, buy some sample bulbs and try them out to see what looks best to you.

Avoid kits. Some have some interesting use of color to but it nicely. Walk away from the purple bulbs lol. Easiest thing would just be to buy a bunch of warm white frosted bulbs in wedge and bayonet but no fun in that. I make a spreadsheet of all the inserts, backbox bulbs, and gi. For each bulb, I note the bulb type, color, lens type, and count. I also note where I want to add lighting and try to order exactly what I need. It's very time consuming but worth getting it right if you plan on keeping the machine.

I also recommend comet. The owner and past owner are very helpful with questions. Prices are good and they have a huge variety of bulbs. I especially like their Matrix stuff that makes adding lighting super easy.

I remember when I said I only wanted/needed one game......

Hahaha this guy is hilarious.

https://www.cometpinball.com/products/2smd-bulbs-100-packs

Cool white, frosted dome. I put these in everything, GI and inserts.

so good, thanks i needed the laugh.

I'm pretty sure most of these companies all order bulbs from the same Chinese manufacturers. The only company where I've perceived a difference in quality seems to be Comet who really have some nice colors going.

If you go on alibaba you can literally look up the distributors that are clearly supplying these companies.

My piece of advice having just done my first DMD game. Go with frosted for the inserts, if not, you end up with a bunch of hot spots under the plastics. That was my mistake on my Star Trek. Not a big deal since they are easy to swap out, but it will save you a few dollars in wasted bulbs.

IMG_7122 (resized).jpg

I'm not sure that's always true. To me, I perceive a considerable amount of extra "pop" when using clear domes for inserts. If it's a larger insert (like in your pic) I agree though. I'm experimenting with using 4SMD bulbs (no dome) for the larger inserts on my WCS '94 -- we'll see how that turns out.

PinballBulbs - Kits are a huge NO, just about every kit they sell makes the gi purple.

Good Luck finding the ball with this light kit, lol

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COMET

https://www.cometpinball.com/

I've purchased leds from several others. Comet is my favorite.

I usually go clear dome, color matched on the inserts on my games as well, but I think it all just boils down to experimenting and personal preference. OP, mess with some and see what you like!

Comet. I have used many brands that are all OK but Comet have been better in my pins.

Famous last words. Haha Welcome to the hobby.

Buy from Comet. No kits. Create your own custom bulb purchase list for your game. It's half the fun!

Personally I would say NOT to use LEDs in your flashers...those are the bigger bayonet bulbs and their number is 89. Their more expensive, canbe overly bright, and I am assuming since it's a Data East you have a ton of them.

This is probably also a good time (?) to bring up there are 2 types of sockets/lighting; GI & Inserts/controlled.
The General Illumination lights the game up and they are all connected, always on or off.
The inserts/controlled are all the other lights that go on and off depending on what is happening in the game.

I bring this up because it may not be so easy to swap on the GI. Data East could have stapled down socket for GI and not easy to chnage form the underside of the playfield, meaning you might (will) have to take some fo the shit n the top off to change them.
That's my recollection, but I haven't hopped a BTTF in like a year.

Don’t buy kits, Cointaker always .

Kits are nice, and make things easier, but their not necessary....I've used coin taker, and comets.....in prefer the comets

Color matched is a good way to go, and what I like to do.

I color match usually with the exception of yellow as they never tend to look as bright as I want (personal taste) with clear domes. It is a bit more expensive to use the colored bulbs but I prefer the look.

I use color matched inserts, but sometimes colors that you don't expect highlight a particular insert better than others. For example, I find that pink from Comet does a really good job making red and purple inserts pop. It does change the color hue slightly so I don't use them as a general rule, but rather to make a particular set of inserts stand out against others, for example. I use good quality warm white bulbs for yellow inserts/domes or amber if I really want the color to be rich.

You absolutely can do white if you don't want to bother trying to track down individual bulbs for color matching; it is a PITA... but it is really nice and even as the insert gets old and cracks or fades, your color will remain vibrant.

You can't go wrong with either but always build your own kit and get some extras. I like PinballBulbs personally just because they tend to keep it simple. Cointaker has just way too much variety and most of them seem like novelty items. I've tried lots of different bulbs but in the end I always go with frosted bulbs and color match inserts, warm or cool on top depending on the color scheme. I never put colored bulbs in GI but its personal preference. I pop the dome if they are under the playfield and I want a little brighter. I do use the 4 SMD on spotlights. Oh and never try and save money and buy non ghosting, just be safe and make sure they don't ghost.

I disagree, I think the cost of non-ghosting bulbs is unnecessary. I'd convert and either use an LEDOCD or just see which bulbs ghost and then replace those with non-ghosting equivalents. Ghosting is simply an issue of a small amount of voltage leaking so it's completely unnecessary to make every bulb non-ghosting, just the ones affected by said voltage. You gain nothing by having every bulb be non-ghosting.

To each their own but when I was new I cheaped out and ended up paying for two sets for a machine. I have also purchased multiple machine that the previous owner cheaped out and then I replaced the whole set. Also I stupidly did not throw the ghosting bulbs in the garbage when I should have and used them by mistake only to have to start the task over again. In my experience it cost more in both time and money, just pay the extra up front and save the hassle. Pinballers don't let pinballers buy bulbs that ghost.

Im confused!

Me too , I mean who has only one Pinball machine

Comet pinball for 3 years for me. They maintain brightness and lowest failure rate compared to others in my exp.