What a ride this thread was for the last few days, sheesh. Glad that was figured out.

The best part is all the owners and people involved with TBL who worked together to find the solution. It's stuff like this that will build confidence in buying/selling TBLs to other people. Good work everyone!

This same thing has happened on both Stern and Spooky machines. Does TBL use the P-ROC system? Because it was fixed in code.

I do. Charlie from Spooky did hours upon hours of testing on this. He said in the following link that it was fixed in the latest code. Maybe you should reach out to him and see what he says? After all, he likes pinball and he's a super nice guy. Maybe he's share it with ya.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/aw-jeez-official-rick-and-morty-club/page/231#post-6172535

The worst that can happen is you buy the game, spend too much time under the hood, and then sell it for a few grand more than you paid for your troubles.

I don't want to use the "L" word when describing your game but holy crap the hits just keep coming.

Has anyone here figured out a way to keep their pins from breaking in the lower playfield?

Just wondering...

Do you know if the current batch being shipped this week or next already has this installed or not?

My first issue: dead switch behind the car when it closes. Causes the car to shutter or jitter. Test mode shows it does not work.

I assume just replace the switch, but a switch dying is super rare, especially in new games. That’s why I’m posting. I’ll keep this updated.

It doesn't register at all in switch test.

I did bend it out first.

This same exact scenario happened to me just now.

The upper playfield garage switch didn't work, then it did work, then the entire thing didn't work.... also says MPF Scoop (stuck closed).

Maybe I'm going through the same thing.

The whole story: The car / garage started vibrating. I went into switch test and the switch that controls the door closing wasn't in operation. I disabled the car so I could work on it later and continued to play. The rest of the game worked fine.

The day I'm working on the game, I took the garage lid off to get to the switch, put it in switch test and OMG IT WORKS NOW! Why? What!? OK so I put everything back together and went to test the game. I turned it off and turned it back on, and the garage door immediately started vibrating again.

I went into switch test and the switch was dead....... again..... but this time ALL switches on the upper playfield are dead.

I checked for a loose ribbon cable, thinking that was the problem. When things die and work and die etc, something loose is usually the culprit. Not this time.

Below in a separate post are pictures of the game in switch test. Notice the upper playfield with some lights on? That's weird. No other part of the game had lights partially on.

Gonna need help on this one.

And for the record, I re-seated the ribbon several times and tested the F10 and F11 fuses with a multimeter.

No sure what to do next.

omg, now it doesn't even start up! hahaha!

Whole thing is bricked. I turn it on, all I get are 4 lights on the upper playfield that you see in the picture, the backlighting in the backbox, and the LCD screen turns on but doesn't get a signal.

That's it.

I love how this whole thing started with a switch that didn't work.

Thank you for the suggestion. Everything is along wood, no pinched wires.

Yeah it’s not that.

All the 48 V fuses are out. Fuse numbers one, two, three, and eight.

No solutions yet, I just emailed the company.

Oh thanks. I saw the reply but I had a function at my home so I couldn't get over there to look at it yet. I'll do that shortly and report back.

It sucks to see people walk into The Pinball Co-op for the sole purpose to play TBL and then I have to tell them it won't start.... "that's a bummer, man"

Just in case anyone else like me needs help starting the game (possible search words: won't boot, won't start, dead, cpu died). This is in the manual, page 120 and it worked for me:

Big thanks to Rens for helping me out.

Screen Shot 2022-06-18 at 11.58.01 AM (resized).png

The game started, that was one problem (wouldn't start).

The upper playfield still doesn't work even though the ribbon is securely fastened. They are sending me a new flatcable, suspecting that to be the problem.

1) There's a very tiny button on one of the boards in the backbox with a slot in it. That's the sub power or something. You need to turn it down. It's over-heating and shutting off. There's a post in this thread that points it out, search it.

2) Same with most/all other users. I think I'm going to make it so the rug only needs one hit to unroll. I think that'll make the process less painful.

3) Just gotta adjust the switch manually.

beauimpala per3per3

Hey guys, we're all in the same boat. We all had the same exact things happen to our games, and now the MPF doesn't work. I just got my game. Did you both just get yours? You guys are describing the same exact things I posted about, which can be seen on the last page with pictures so you can compare: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/a-lotta-ins-a-lotta-outs-tbl-maintenance-thread/page/25#post-6978646

A friend of mine made a ribbon cable for me to try. We swapped it out and no dice. Same issue, same symptoms.

TBL staff has been nice suggesting issues but so far no luck. Rensh remember me? The issues these guys are having are exactly like mine, 100% accurate.

On Tuesday we'll be disassembling the MPF to look for the error. I have a pretty good crew, I hope to figure it out then and if so I'll share it here.

The fuses work. The led light is on and I tested them anyway.

Nothing on the MPF is working except the four lights that light up and stay lit.

When you went to page 117, you looked at type PC2, right?

There's two ways to jump the game depending on which type you own.

beauimpala per3per3 Rensh

Here's the latest. Just a reminder to anyone reading this, myself, beau and per all have similar issues with our games as the MPF flat out died.

We took the MPF off (super easy to do btw) and disconnected the PCB underneath. Under examination there are some scratches on the board that go across several tracers. The tracers are also cut VERY close to the edges of the board. So close that we had to use magnification to see if the tracers were on the edge or not. It doesn't appear that any of them are but I've never seen tracers so close to the edges of a board before.

We then reconnected the MPF to the ribbon cable (aka flat cable) and then all the lights turned on and blinked and flashed as they should in attract mode, but they were obviously dimmer than they should be. Putting the MPF back on confirmed the dimness of the lights, which were less than 50% bright vs the rest of the main playfield.

We then connected just one switch into the PCB and went into test mode. The switch worked, but when pressed it also somehow activated three lights on the board to about 10-40% brightness each time the switch was pressed. We plugged many switches into different connections and each time the switch worked in test mode but the lights kept turning on.

We then plugged the 4-pronged opto plug in and FOUR lights came on at what appeared to be about 75% brightness. They came on right away. It was the same three lights and a fourth light that appeared to be the same exact lights I showed in pictures earlier. The opto did not appear to be working as we couldn't get it to test.

In all of these tests, no other lights in any other part of the game came on, just lights located in the MPF.

We then noticed everything on the PCB connected to a board called PD-LED1 aka "PCBA-0009-0004 MM167", so we took that board off and gave it a look but we didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

BTW, when I say "we", I mean myself and 1-2 techs I work with. I'm just a peon in the repair world, these other two guys are brilliant. One works in the tech industry and can even make electronic parts for games with supplies he has at his work. He's that knowledgeable.

I surmise the issue to be the PCB. Because the other two guys have experience and education beyond my capacity, they couldn't say with 100% accuracy that the PCB was the problem, but when pressed they both agreed that the likely culprit is the PCB.

So.... your move Dutch.

And keep in mind good guys at Dutch that this game is on location and it's been down for three weeks now. I've had people drive HOURS to come play this game only for them to find out it's broken. It doesn't make me look good.

Update: Customer support contacted me and will be sending me a new PCB. They offered express shipping at 50 Euros. I declined that option, so it'll be about another two weeks but a new board will be delivered and that should solve the problem.

Fingers crossed but after all the testing we did, I feel confident that this is the issue.

Yeah I read all your posts very carefully when I first started having problems. It's not the same exact issues I had, but somewhat similar. My problems became with the garage door closed switch. First it wouldn't register, then it would, then it wouldn't again, then it would again, and then the whole thing died. I wish I had taken your posts into more consideration, as I would have tested the points you so accurately labeled for all of us. I feel bad not doing so after all the work you put into it.

I think I'll mosey on down to the co-op and do just that sometime today and see if that's what we're dealing with and then report back. Thanks for the reply. I needed a little kick in the behind, didn't I.

So this is interesting. In my continuity test, the lights and switches were all synced together. In the process of checking the board, I found the following tracer that appears to be crossing another. Picture below. This copper wire color is not in any other board picture that I can see.

10E65493-A1EC-445D-9C57-D87265281E86 (resized).jpeg

To be more accurate, the middle prong of each three prong switch connector showed continuity with one of the lugs on every single light on the board.

I did exactly that, and while it now tests perfectly (no longer has continuity where it shouldn't be) it still doesn't work right. There must be another area where it's messed up, perhaps under the pins already soldered on the board... I dunno. I tried.

Total guess, but it's almost as if there is a loose screw on the hinge.

The roof of the bowling alley comes off rather easily. Two hex screws. You might be able to access it there.

Yes this is similar. The lights worked fine with no switches attached though they were slightly dim. When I plugged in any switch at all on any connector on the board, the lights would flicker or turn off. The switch would not register in switch test.

There are several boards with the same issue. We are not alone! I hope my board arrives any day now and if so, I'll report back asap.

The upper play field board arrived today and I installed it with great success!

New problem: the car stepper motor is not functioning at all. When I go into stepper motor test, it’s at 0% and it does not allow me to move the garage door open or closed. If I hit the + it just stays at 0% and nothing happens.

I don’t see any blown fuses. Is it possible in my haste to install the upper Playfield that I did not plug-in the stepper motor plug on the board? I find that hard to believe but not impossible.

Edit: never mind I figured it out. The cable that plugs into the stepper motor is not anywhere on the mini play field but instead in a group of wires that are green and blue. They come out from underneath the Playfields and connect into the stepper motor. I figure I'll leave this here in case anyone else makes the same mistake.

Everything works again! IT'S AWESOME!

Make sure there are 5 balls in the game. If you put 6 in the trough (like I did) it'll only give you one ball.

Rug making horrendous sound = it's not sitting where it should be to hit the switch. Lift the playfield up and turn the crank to move the playfield down on the back switch, then turn the game on and go into test mode and check. Should be fine.

Make sure vuk is lined up and kicker screws are TIGHT to the playfield. If one is loose it'll be cockeyed and it won't spit the ball up.

Donny ramp? Donny is an orbit. What did you mean here?

You will have to jump start it. This happened to me too. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/a-lotta-ins-a-lotta-outs-tbl-maintenance-thread/page/25#post-6985674

This is bizarre. The game obviously recognizes the switch but at the same time it doesn't recognize the switch.

At least you can still play it and only at start up do you have an issue. Truly weird though.

Many of us got a game with a bad MPF board. Just on Pinside alone I counted 5 or 6 of us in the May-June batch of games. I wonder what happened and I wonder if we'll see similar problems with this latest batch or not.

I did already post pictures on this thread I believe. When I zoomed in on one spot there was a copper wire coming out of the trace.

I assumed that was the issue or part of it but I have no idea.

bgpin check out what Rensh said above!

I don't know much about that component, but maybe your launcher isn't powerful enough?

I think you can adjust the coil strength of your ball launcher. Check in the settings.

If you go into switch test, I wonder if the switch associated with the vuk is being activated. Sounds like it.

Is there a way you can KEY the service FAQ and other such important documents?

They are brought up a lot and while I have them bookmarked now, they were hard to find originally.

I just had a lights flickering / blinking /other issue and this fixed it, fyi. The two boards are screwed in and they are hard to pull out, but sit nicely back in place.

It's super easy. 2 screws, hex I believe.

Rensh gave the page.

The sub it turning itself off before it dies from being used too heavily. There's a tiny tiny potentiometer in the backbox that allows you to dial down the sub. I have mine turned all the way down, but if I turn specific volumes up too loud, the sub will still turn itself off!

So your solution might include dialing back the potentiometer and adjusting the volume/music levels like I had to.

I can't say exactly (it's at the co-op, I'm at home) but something like 70-80% across the board.

Rensh I keep losing subwoofer sound every time the "Extra Ball" video clip is played. The clip is clearly louder than any other clip in the game, and when the ball hits the floor it's a thud of bass. I had to turn the woofer down so much it's basically off now. Hadn't had a problem before that.

Sounds like a stuck switch inside the scoop. I would look at that.

There's a switch behind the car that's probably needs to be adjusted. This happened to mine, all I did was take a leaf adjuster to the switch and it fixed the issue.

This happened to me. I cleaned the switch/optos in the area and haven't had a problem since.

Check the screws on the switch? Or maybe the housing is broken or has moved, so that when the door closes it doesn't push the switch in all the way? Gotta be something weird like that.

Uh oh. This is what happened to mine before the big issues started. You can search my post history for the full story, but the culprit for me was a bad mini playfield board. It started with that very switch, then went to a light or two, then all the lights, then the whole thing died.

Keep an eye on that.

Rensh i searched and couldn't find it.

Even with the BA limiters, I had a pin break. I need to get a new set. Couldn't find them on the website. What do I do?

I just had a second pin break. I have limiters installed.

First it was the 6 pin, now it's the 4 pin. So it's the same exact pin on both sides. I haven't had a chance to inspect the others.

Info: Game has well over 2500 plays on it. The bowling alley is used quite a bit. I'd say at least twice per game.

Yeah I had the same reaction. First is a fluke, second is not. Gotta be something I can do. For what it's worth, every time I bowl a frame all the pins go up and down (reset) at least twice. So 5000 plays in the bowling alley = 10,000 times the pins have moved.

It's "on location" but only for two days per week at 8 hours per day.

I'll do some digging and report back. Might be a while though.

I'm getting this exact same issue. Not sure what the fix is. I've messed with the coin door switch to no avail. Game was slightly acting up before that happened with lights going funky.

Thank you. I'll be checking this Tuesday evening and then I'll report back.

Problem: Game says "coin door open" and doesn't do anything else. Won't let you start a game, push buttons on coin door, closing and opening coin door does nothing etc.

Solution: F04 Fuse was blown. The red light next to it didn't light up. The game comes with spares (T1.6A) so we popped one in and it worked again.

---------------------------------------------

I wish we had done that at the beginning. Literally the first rule of pinball repair is to check the easiest solutions first and work your way down. But instead we took off the two small boards next to the coin door and inspected the solder; all looked good. We tested the boards with a multimeter; all good there. After talking and analyzing we followed the pathways of the wires up to the main board on the playfield and it was next to several fuses, one of which had a light out. It was labeled "Cabinet". That was the culprit.

Just an FYI if anyone else is having this issue.

For what it's worth, with the fuse blown/pulled the small multimorphic board's lights did not light up.

So if the coin door is open and the small board inside the cab on the left has lights that also don't light up, that's a sign that the fuse could be bad.

Are you sure it's losing its strength or is it mis-aligned? I'd check to see if a screw is loose on the housing or if its binding anywhere.

There are also coil strength settings. I'm not sure if the up-kicker is on there or not but it might be. Increase the strength and see if that works.

Yeah I came here to say this. I don't think I went that far but I def cut my flipper power back to some degree. No problems since.

That happened to me. I didn't remove any wires, I just tugged out then pushed in firmly. The plug probably moved 2mm tops, but I haven't had any issues since. It's been about 2000 plays.

Left of the mini playfield underneath?

Do you mean left of the mini playfield, something under the ball? If that's the case, that's happened to me too. It's where the ramp meets the playfield, yes? I took that entire mini playfield off, removed the ramp, and installed the smallest washers I could find to help make it all level.

FIXED, but just something to mention.

A friend of mine made it to the wizard mode. At the end of the multiball, everything stopped (as intended) and it went through the final scene, then the game resumed, but no ball kicked out. All coils died.

The 6.3 amp fuse (F1) blew for a second time in the year+ that I've had it.

Good thing the game comes with extra fuses. I popped it back in and the game was fine, but make sure you all have spares. I went to Marco and got a 5 pack for $3.

I'm blowing the F1 and F4 fuses slightly over once per year. If anyone plays their game a ton, make sure you have those 10A and 1.6A fuses on hand.

Lift up the playfield and apply strong firm pressure to the boards that plug into other boards. One or more are loose.

Hey @rensh, this is not a maintenance question per-se but I'm curious:

Whenever you guys start sending out those replacement playfields (no rush on that btw), can I add some parts as well? My right ramp is disintegrating aka the welding is coming undone, among other things, so could I add things like:

-- A right ramp
-- A left ramp
-- 20 bowling pins (I broke 3 more, even with the limiters, all in the same row. I think I figured it out, but still...)
-- A set of plastics

I don't mind paying for it. This is a game I plan on keeping forever, and I want to make sure I have everything I need to keep it looking as new for as long as possible. So (a) can I do this and (b) how can I go about making sure I get these supplies?

kermit24 The more I think about your issue, the more I wonder if it's the same thing I had. All my games lighting slowly died out, and the culprit was a bad upper playfield board.

There's one ribbon cable that powers up that whole board, and if I remember the other end is connected at the bottom of the main playfield when lifted up. If you disconnect that upper playfield and turn on the game, I wonder if the rest of your lights would turn on or not.

This is what I did and all my lights came back on, and further inspection revealed that the upper playfield aka MPF was to blame.

If you play this in slow motion, the ball appears to be getting hung up at the top of the eject. Something needs to be bent out of the way imo.

I had the launch diverter coil melt the coil sleeve and stay open... which is it's natural resting position.

I swapped out the coil but nothing happens. We (tech crew) suspect a bad transistor.

We'll report back with more findings after next Tuesday, just a heads up for those who eventually have the same problem someday.

I'm sorry to be so late in responding.

The replacement coil does not have a diode, and we ground-tested the coil to make sure it fires and it did. We used a multimeter to test the mosfets and the one we suspect going to the coil is showing different readings than the others that are attached to the same connector.

Good call on the coil connector swap. That's an easy way to test, just to make sure.

Rensh we officially swapped the cables. The coil operates fine when we do.

Bad mosfet.

To anybody who needs this info in the future, when you need to pull the transistor to replace it, there are two arms and the backing you need to undo. We had one guy using the solder gun on one left with another guy pulling the leg with needle nose pliers. With the legs removed, we then used two solder guns on the bottom of the transistor and it popped off in 10-15 seconds.

The issue was the shooter lane coil. The transistor in question is the one missing in the pic below.

IMG_4806 (resized).jpg

The current mosfet / transistor is "obsolete" (VNB10N07-E) so you need to buy a replacement. Below is what we found at Digikey and should work.

Screen Shot 2023-11-07 at 9.42.02 PM (resized).png

I'll report back when the part comes in and we find out if it works or not.

lol. Yeah... we have a guy that I believe had something like that in his truck if we needed it, but we had bravado!

Thanks for the tip on leaded solder. I may have some and if not I'm sure I can pick some up real quick.

Agreed.

About the backglass, that sounds like a loose connection. Tap it and it turns on? I've never gone into the backglass assembly, but the problem has to be in there somewhere.

Just to update this one last time.

The transistor / mosfet was the issue. We put some solder on the backside of the transistor and pushed it onto the board with a soldering iron. We soldered the legs back in place and we were good to go. That means Rensh you have had two go bad, total.

The wire ramp(s) are coming apart. I brought mine to a local guy to get them soldered back together. All set there, too.

Honestly, the game is pretty rock solid despite some issues here and there. I've had a bad board (UPF), some bowling pins broke, the standup targets were all replaced (three green two orange), one transistor, and the ramp re-soldered. This is a game I've had on location (two days per week, 4 hours per day) for 2 years.

Hoping to get that new playfield down the line, and if I could add a few bowling pins and a plastic set somehow to all that, that would be great. I have one broken pin and a plastic that's cracked. Someday I'll replace everything and bring it to my house where it'll reside for the rest of its life, but I gotta get it into tip top shape first.

I used to have that issue.

Fuse issue. I think it's the 1.6 amp under the playfield. It should be a 2 amp btw. F04. Put in a 2A otherwise it'll happen again. This has been verified OK by Rensh.

I'm going to double check but that same thing happened to me about 3 times and I think that's what it is.

EDIT: Found it. Just fyi, if you have any issues with this game, it's probably happened before and we have answers

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/a-lotta-ins-a-lotta-outs-tbl-maintenance-thread/page/34#post-7342912

I'm about to go to the co-op to work on TBL.

The issue is that the ball gets into the VUK on the skill shot or Jesus shot and just sits there. The game acts as if it has no idea where the ball is, then in ball search it'll kick everything but the VUK. Sometimes in the fourth or fifth search it'll kick the VUK, but more often than not it'll bypass it.

I've read of about 10 other people in this thread who has experienced the same thing, but no real solutions were posted by any of you. One of you guys said you are adjusting the VUK switch and even buying a new on to see if that fixes it, but no updates. Another said the pitch of the game helped a little, and another said the adjustment of the switch itself helped. There are probably many of us who have this problem past and future, with no real solutions yet.

Anyway I'm going to go down and adjust the switch and also the pitch and see if any of that helps. I'll report back here.

You're the sole reason why I bought the game, Rensh. I wouldn't have made the purchase without seeing you give feedback and help to others.

Anyway, the little rubber piece that's supposed to be at the end of the plunger fell out on both the trough kickout and the VUK. Both were giving me tons of issues. I put the rubber piece back and everything went back to normal. I just had a huge tournament today, zero issues with the game. I can't believe that was the culprit. I happen to have extras so I'll be replacing them on Tuesday.