A pair of new pins for nostrebor

[nostrebor]

I had mentioned a pin retrieval trip recently and caught a bit of flak from a few members for not posting a pic so here ya go.

Blackout came from craigslist and was DOA. Flipping the batteries over the right way and a double reset (after checking all fuse sizes and a few other housekeeping items) and we're playing pinball. It's a pretty fun sys6 with teh awesome speech from the early Williams days. It has since gotten a wax, and sleeves, and a few tweaks to get everything working. I've yet to repair the display driver board, so display 3 & 4 are unplugged.

Firepower is an RGP purchase. I was chasing a dead cragslist Firepower and this one came along for $50 more. It has had all the bulletproofing done to the boardset, been cleaned waxed and rubbered, and every switch and contact has been serviced. The previous owner did not go cheap on the repairs to the hardware and it shows. The downside is that the cosmetics of the backglass and playfield are not too great. The glass is trashed. Flaked all over and scraped by the displays at some point. The PF is not terrible, but all the inserts are dropped. Some quite a bit. This is a keeper for me so a playfield reno is in it's future. I will be on the lookout for a BG, but I'm not holding my breath. They are hard to find in nice shape. This pin is super fun and hands me ---my bottom--- most of the time. The multiball is shout-out-loud rewarding to get.

pic:

[CheffoJeffo]

Nice!

Time to head to

http://www.classicplayfields.com/vote.html

and see if you can get the Firepower backglass moved up the list.

 

[ChadTower]

Blackout is one of those games I've never played but am really interested in.  I hear the visuals when you actually achieve a blackout are some of the best of that era.

[Jeff AMN]

Awesome! If I had more room I'd get more pins. I might still get another one down the line. Those look like HUGE scores!

Hey, I have a JP as well. I love it, but I'm having a strange issue. When the T-Rex eats the ball, it takes like 30 seconds for the ball to pop out into the ramp. Do you think I have a stuck switch or something? Sorry for the thread derail, but I have almost ZERO experience working on pins. I've changed a few ball trough switches, batteries, and some plastic parts, but that's it. I haven't been playing it much lately because this issue just kills the flow of the game.

Oh, and sorry for the thread derail.

[nostrebor]

Awesome! If I had more room I'd get more pins. I might still get another one down the line. Those look like HUGE scores!

Hey, I have a JP as well. I love it, but I'm having a strange issue. When the T-Rex eats the ball, it takes like 30 seconds for the ball to pop out into the ramp. Do you think I have a stuck switch or something? Sorry for the thread derail, but I have almost ZERO experience working on pins. I've changed a few ball trough switches, batteries, and some plastic parts, but that's it. I haven't been playing it much lately because this issue just kills the flow of the game.

Oh, and sorry for the thread derail.

When the ball goes under the playfield through the subway and gets to the VUK, does the coil fire? Mine would get over to the VUK (coil that shoots the ball straight up to the ramp) and the coil would fire, but the ball would get hung up on the playfield and fall back down into the hole. It took a bunch of tweaking to get it to shoot that ball up every time. If the coil is not firing, check the switch at the end of the subway first. If it doesn't close, the CPU loses the coil, and the ball just sits there until the CPU fires all the coils looking for the ball, which then gives your ball back.

[nostrebor]

Blackout is one of those games I've never played but am really interested in.  I hear the visuals when you actually achieve a blackout are some of the best of that era.

Blackout has a very satisfying orbit shot and the blackout feature. Getting blackout is pretty hard for me on one ball, and is a pretty cool show for an 80 model pin. It runs the blackout mode in attract every so often, so if you're really sucky at pinball, you can still see the mode if you stand around long enough The orbit passes through two spinners and comes back at the left flipper like a rocket. If you aren't ready for it, you lose the ball every time.

The pin plays slower than I'm used to, especially sitting between Jurassic Park and Firepower. It has turned out to be popular with my friends though. Almost favored over Firepower, I think, because it's quite a bit less abusive on the player's ego.

[Jeff AMN]

Awesome! If I had more room I'd get more pins. I might still get another one down the line. Those look like HUGE scores!

Hey, I have a JP as well. I love it, but I'm having a strange issue. When the T-Rex eats the ball, it takes like 30 seconds for the ball to pop out into the ramp. Do you think I have a stuck switch or something? Sorry for the thread derail, but I have almost ZERO experience working on pins. I've changed a few ball trough switches, batteries, and some plastic parts, but that's it. I haven't been playing it much lately because this issue just kills the flow of the game.

Oh, and sorry for the thread derail.

When the ball goes under the playfield through the subway and gets to the VUK, does the coil fire? Mine would get over to the VUK (coil that shoots the ball straight up to the ramp) and the coil would fire, but the ball would get hung up on the playfield and fall back down into the hole. It took a bunch of tweaking to get it to shoot that ball up every time. If the coil is not firing, check the switch at the end of the subway first. If it doesn't close, the CPU loses the coil, and the ball just sits there until the CPU fires all the coils looking for the ball, which then gives your ball back.

Well, it sometimes fires immediately, but not always. Usually it waits until the CPU fires off all of the coils to locate the ball. I've already tweaked my table to where nothing gets hung up, so there's some sort of failing with the coil or communication to the coil happening.

[nostrebor]

Awesome! If I had more room I'd get more pins. I might still get another one down the line. Those look like HUGE scores!

Hey, I have a JP as well. I love it, but I'm having a strange issue. When the T-Rex eats the ball, it takes like 30 seconds for the ball to pop out into the ramp. Do you think I have a stuck switch or something? Sorry for the thread derail, but I have almost ZERO experience working on pins. I've changed a few ball trough switches, batteries, and some plastic parts, but that's it. I haven't been playing it much lately because this issue just kills the flow of the game.

Oh, and sorry for the thread derail.

When the ball goes under the playfield through the subway and gets to the VUK, does the coil fire? Mine would get over to the VUK (coil that shoots the ball straight up to the ramp) and the coil would fire, but the ball would get hung up on the playfield and fall back down into the hole. It took a bunch of tweaking to get it to shoot that ball up every time. If the coil is not firing, check the switch at the end of the subway first. If it doesn't close, the CPU loses the coil, and the ball just sits there until the CPU fires all the coils looking for the ball, which then gives your ball back.

Well, it sometimes fires immediately, but not always. Usually it waits until the CPU fires off all of the coils to locate the ball. I've already tweaked my table to where nothing gets hung up, so there's some sort of failing with the coil or communication to the coil happening.

I banged out a nice long description for this that the forum sent off to who-knows-where so...

Running from memory here but I think the switch is like this: Test the switch in test mode that is right at the VUK. It has a long arm that the ball rolls over when it gets to the end of the subway. If it tests good by hand, put the field down and test it with a ball by dropping into the upper right scoop (it's name has escaped me). Do this in a game so the VUK will fire. If you get random triggers, adjust the arm on the switch by lightly "tweaking" it up higher into the subway. You just want enough exposure to get the switch to trigger.

The other thing that may give you trouble is if the subway sags in the middle. My game will do this if I don't tie up the middle part of the subway with ties. The ball loses momentum and does not roll into position like it should. My game had a really hacked up subway, so that issue may be a longshot on another JP.

[Jeff AMN]

Thanks a million!

I'll poke around today after work. We have a party coming up and the last thing I want to do is have to keep explaining to people that they just need to wait it out.

[nostrebor]

I had my JP open this weekend and while I was in there I took a look at this switch/VUK arrangement and realized that my memory was not quite correct... so just for future reference:

The switch at the end of the subway is UNDER the mushroom top of the VUK. So the ball rolls onto the VUK, which drops a bit and triggers the switch, and then the coil fires launching the ball up to the top. The repair is the same, the switch still has a long arm on it, but it rests under that mushroom head, not out in the subway.

[Jeff AMN]

I poked around and was getting consistent fires when I dropped the ball in there, so I closed it back up and it went back to random fires. So today I'm going to open it back up and adjust it so it fires with less pressure. I think it's just not settling into the switch properly.

[nostrebor]

Sound like you're on the right track.

You jinxed me by the way... I had friends over Friday night and my JP started acting up. I'm getting perfect switch closures in test for the scoop switches, but no in-game triggers. It really screws up JP if you have no modes and have to wait around for the pin to poll the coils to get your ball back in play. 

[Jeff AMN]

Bend the lever on your trough switch so that it sticks up further and has to be moved more when the ball rolls over it.  Your finger is actuating the switch more than the game is doing when you're playing it.... or you're dead dropping the ball during your tests into the trough and it's not fighting those crazy in game physics when it's rolling down.

This is what I ended up doing last night and it seems to have done the trick. I took the arm and put a bend in it to make it require about 1/3 less travel to fire off. I haven't had an issue since, and we played it non-stop for about 2 hours.

[nostrebor]

Bend the lever on your trough switch so that it sticks up further and has to be moved more when the ball rolls over it.  Your finger is actuating the switch more than the game is doing when you're playing it.... or you're dead dropping the ball during your tests into the trough and it's not fighting those crazy in game physics when it's rolling down.

On Firepower, get the Oliver ROMs -now-.  He added 'missions' to it and changed around scoring during multiball.  I haven't played them on an actual machine yet, but owners have told me that his ROMs essentially elevate Firepower to the top of the early-SS pile.

Yeah, I'm guessing that something odd is happening with the ball motion in the scoop when you shoot it from the flipper, thus causing it to not activate the switch. In test mode, dropping a pinball in the scoop, it works 100 out of 100.

I'm actually glad it broke because when I opened it up to check it out the whole scoop assembly was extremely loose and floppy. All the screws were backed out about halfway. Actually, on JP you've got to go in there and check a lot of the under field screws regularly. It does so much shakin' and jivin' during gameplay! It practically disassembles itself after a few months of gaming.

On Firepower... I've read about the rom-hacks briefly. I *think that you have to go to 7 digit displays with that set, and a sys7 board. Or maybe I'm thinking of another rom-hack? I'll definitely chase the info down. Thanks for the heads-up!

[More Cowbell]

Oh great! Now I guess I'll have to get a Blackout and Firepower to go with MY Jurassic Park and Class of 1812. Thanks a lot!

[More Cowbell]

Update!
Just picked up a Blackout and Firepower, moved them into my basement (they fit!), and updated the noisy code.
WOOT!

[nostrebor]

Update!
Just picked up a Blackout and Firepower, moved them into my basement (they fit!), and updated the noisy code.
WOOT!

:tommy

* nostrebor starts frantically searching for obscure pins that cowbell cannot possibly buy in 30 seconds flat.

[nostrebor]

w00t!

Big Bang Bar just added to lineup!

w00t!

[Jeff AMN]

w00t!

Big Bang Bar just added to lineup!

w00t!

Sweet! I love the arrangement too!

[More Cowbell]

w00t!
Big Bang Bar just added to lineup!
w00t!

Curse you! Your eye for layout is impeccable.