I have no idea tbh. I've not really messed much with playfield position. The deflector fixed all my issues and my game is a mean-spirited bitch. I'm good with it.

I wonder if the cabinet hangers are all installed in the correct place but the playfields that have the stiffeners raise it up enough to not have this issue.

I've got one ball stuck in over fifteen years there. I also weakened that flipper by making the eos open super early.

Both of the cabs on my Dragonfist and Catacomb has a strange install on the board that supports the play field when you need to stand it on end. I'll post a picture tomorrow to illustrate what I am talking about but it is a real chore to get these 2 play fields back into position.

One possibility is that the two "Z" bracket play field supports at the back end are set 1/8" or so lower. And extra 1/8" clearance is all I think that is needed to allow the ball to pass. And the back legs would need readjusted 1/8" higher to compensate.

The stiffeners would have to be grossly mis-located to interfere with the "z" supports.

For the air ball deflectors there is "S" bracket option. I have a different style of air ball blocker on my Seawitch. But I am thinking of trying something else.

There has been a couple instances where all I had in plastics posts were the tall 1 3/16" posts. I took a couple of tall posts and sanded 1/8" of the top to make a short post. I could take 1/8" off of the posts for this plastic and let the plastic set down a little lower. I am going to try this tomorrow and see if it works .

A bar near me has got this machine in pretty decent condition. I'm starting to really like Seawitch.

I love my Witch when I'm good at it. But they're are frequent "dunk on me" games, full of house balls, etc. which make me much more mad. Lol

All in all I'd hate to not have it here.

I installed the S deflector today, it fits perfectly and I played a few games and it worked great as I did have issues with stuck balls prior.

Definitely recommend the purchase from Mad Dog.

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I just wrapped up a batch of Grand Lizard toppers and I thought I’d try my hand at making a topper for Seawitch. Below are a couple renders. Please let me know if any of you would like one or something like it and I can print one up. All the new games seem to get most of the mod love. Why not Seawitch?

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Any Seawitch owners have a photo of their J4 connector on the lamp board (top left connector on bottom left board)? Want to do a wire harness sanity check and there aren't any good photos on ipdb or pinside. Mine looks like below and is missing a connection at pin 4 (which schematics should be connected) and is giving me display issues when connector 12 is connected:

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Another: Does your A4-J1 (top left connector of top left board) look like the below image?

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No need for pics. Some generous pinsiders helped me sort it out in another thread. Pin for A5-J4-4 had ended up in position 12 (ground!) at some point in its past!

I decided to print one up for a friend last night. Here’s the actual topper

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Can someone with an original paint job post a pic of the side of the head? Repainting mine, pimp stencils have a base color (light blue) stripe at the front by the frame. Swear mine didn't, but already sanded down, and the photos I'm finding all look like repaint jobs.

This is standard.

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Joining the club soon! Seawitch is en route and I should have it next week. I’ve not played Seawitch but I’ve played Beatles enough to know that I’ll love the playfield layout. Plus, those sweet, sweet 80s sounds…Like a big stick o’ buttah.
I’ll play this for awhile before tinkering but ultimately I’d like to give it a new playfield. I put my info in the waitlist page on CPR, but if anyone knows of a replacement playfield floating around the pinverse then let me know. Looking forward to chatting it up with you all!

Oh boy. If you started out with Beatles you may haaaaaate the Witch. Good luck! Lmao

I just sent you a PM.

While Beatles is based on the Seawitch play field, those two games do not play the same way at all.

Hahaha, oh boy! I’m already under her spell…the artwork, the old school cabinet, the sounds… If she plays fast then I’ll like her. I like fast games and I was originally looking for an early Borg or Ritchie design when I started looking at Seawitch.
I was wanting something that had quick games with rules that are easy to understand for casual players. It will be a garage game for weekend pinball nights (usually fridays after work) to hang out with friends and neighbors. Something fun that you don’t have to think too much about.

I love my Witch. Seems the common complaint is that the geometry is clunky and the loop is hard to hit. There are some modifications you can make to improve on that if you want. The S deflector (scroll up) is absolutely something you should grab just in case you have issues with airballs.

Witch is fast, and simple. And mean.

I love the game, so you won't ever see me in the group of people complaining about it. But it's nowhere near the 'buttery smooth' feel you'll get out of a Beatles. For me, that's part of its charm. The art is a stunner, too.

Ordered the S deflector from mad dog yesterday. The game has a deflector on it, but it must be an older design or something…not nearly as elegant-looking as the one I ordered. I’ve looked through the info for the Riptide shot and I’m willing to do that, but I’m not sure I understand it completely…need to dig into that a little more.
I’m okay with a little ‘charm’ in a pinball machine. Even if this was a game alleged to be buttery smooth, I wouldn’t expect anything smooth from a 33-year-old machine. I’m good with something old school to complement my newer stuff.

…make that a 43-year-old machine. Clearly I was trying to make myself feel younger than I really am.

I got your PM. You have my phone number. Come by and play my Seawitch. It's fast. So is my Big Game. And Catacomb.

Excellent! Looking forward to it. Thank you!

Quicksilver and Meteor are buttery smooth :p

Just joined the club as well! Game is a project that came with a NIB playfield, backglass and plastics from CPR. Currently I know the rectifier board is shot and a few of the drops are busted, but I've got all the replacement stuff on order now for those.

The plan is to remove and clean the drop banks, put in new targets and re-install onto old pf, replace the rectifier board and see if I have any other issues. If I don't have any other board issues I figure I can probably swap the game to the new pf over a weekend. I've never replaced a rectifier board, so that should be interesting, but probably not as interesting as all the sparks and smoke that board made when I turned it on lol

It's quite satisfying, particularly since the Stern/Bally boards are always so toasted and hacked. Congrats on the machine!

I’ve heard that about Quicksilver, and I’ve played a Meteor and I suppose that’s true but I couldn’t get past the constant drone of the sound… “buuuuuhhhhh BUUUUhhhhh BUUUUHHHH!!” I just couldn’t get past it. Maybe if I could’ve turned the sound down I would’ve enjoyed it more. I was at a location, so that was not an option.

Easy fix: Meteor 2021 code. Awesome sound package!

Aha! While we’re on the subject of updated code and whatnot, I thought I remembered seeing something about updated rule set for Seawitch? I did a search on this thread and couldn’t seem to find mention, but I could’ve sworn I saw something as I was scrolling pages. Unless I dreamed it. Or I was looking at an entirely different thread about an entirely different game, which is highly possible!

Nothing that I'm aware of. I'm pretty okay with both sounds and rules on Seawitch personally. I think it's very well done.

Well I guess imma find out in another few days! Definitely looking forward to my first classic Stern.

Welcome to the club. Just don't go grab all the ones I want, bud!

Here is the thread:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/new-software-for-stern-seawitch

As mentioned in the thread as well, the stock code is solid for sure.. these are some adjustments tho which you might enjoy. The high score spinner count mod is definitely pretty good to have. Some other tweaks to add some incentive for loop etc...

I would encourage you to get it running and play it for a little bit and check it out. And then tear it down.

This is me with the awful F2K I picked up. Once I know it's in good working shape I can look at potentially swapping, etc.

Thank you for confirming that I’m not going crazy. That being said I might still be going crazy, but at least in this particular instance it wasn’t a figment of my imagination!

Yep, that's the plan!

Experimenting with Seawitch.

You can see the white along the edge of the orbit.

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Here is the other side.

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I pulled the orbit back a little bit. You can see the screw in a new hole I had to drill. To the right and up from this screw you can see the old hole for an idea of how much I had to move the guide.

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In this pic, to the left of where I drilled the new hole for the bracket, I also have backed the orbit with a skinny post for the plastic. Actually, that is the factory position for that post. I just used it for a convenient back stop for the guide.

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In this pic ( I have two broken guide brackets) you can see a white rubber ring I have been using for several years to work around the broken bracket. Normally. all you would see is the two rivets in the ball guide hiding the white ring. So, to get this extra "space" added to the orbit the ball guide is only pulled back about 1/2".

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In trying to open up the orbit to make it easier to make, I thought I would give this a try.

How does it work?

I have managed to make 2 orbits twice and 3 orbits once. But to get the 3-orbit shot I had to move the angle of attack on my upper right flipper a little more forward.

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The challenge is that after the 2nd orbit the the ball comes around so incredibly fast that I am having trouble getting a good lead on the ball and wind up hitting it late.

I am going to keep like this for awhile and see if I can improve on the orbit shots. If it does not work out I'll put it back the way it was.

This is my original worn out play field so I am experimenting before I swap in the new Fantastic Pinball play field.

The plastic does not need to be modded. And I can replace that rubber ring with a post so orbit guide itself needs no modification. The only thing that looks amiss is the bit of white paint that is now showing. It is not noticeable when playing.

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New rectifier board installed today, the game boots up, I can add credits, start a game and play...well, I could if the solenoids fired. Most of the switches working, surprisingly most of the lights too, sound is working, but the only solenoid that will fire (even in the self test) is the knocker. I checked the fuses (including the 1a under the pf) and still no dice. I even swapped that 1a one and tested again, since I read that could be the issue in an old thread. Is my solenoid board fubar, or is there something else I should be checking? On the off chance that all of the coils were magically dead, I did swap a coil just to be sure and still nothing. I'm leaning towards it being a bad pinout on one of the connectors vs the board itself, just not sure how to narrow that down.

Any ideas where to start?

I have a mod I'm testing out that's a long these lines but takes it a bit further. Best I've done is 5 loops. You have to eliminate the spring steel flap to have any hope of being consistent. I've also got it to where I'm able to hit the left orbit much more easily with lower right flipper. Still hard, but not frustratingly so.

Let me know if you're interested in trying it out.

I got rid of the flap gate when Beatles came out and modded my Seawitch launch with a Beatles launch ramp. I'm interested. Show me what you have, please.

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Did you take the 1amp fuse out of the clip and test it? Maybe the fuse clip is bad.

That was actually the next thing I did. But after a bunch more testing I realized that while I was getting voltage at all coils, I was only getting ~5vdc. I had used the schematics to re-pin the transformer side of the rectifier board and had assumed they had pinned out the other side correctly (surprise, they didn't). So, after some re-pinning the game is now fully functional!

I have some drop banks to rebuild, a few switches to test/swap but so far so good!

So I designed a couple of 3d printed parts, one being the equivalent of the metal ramp you installed, but set up to only require the original mounts. The other part acts as a guard for the ball guide and exposed switch. I also have a plug for the light socket hole.

I then designed a decal to cover up the unfinished area and a truncated plastic. For the plastic, I bought a laser cutter and a photo quality printer, but still need to complete that aspect. For now, I just have a printed mock up in place.

If you're interested, I could send you a set to test.

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Nice work!! Definitely put me on the list if you're planning on making more!

Sure. PM me. I've been testing for a couple of months and the 3d prints have held up great, so it would be interesting to see how they fit/work on maybe a couple of other games.

To note, I haven't tried actually manufacturing the truncated plastic that sits over that area yet. I have an SVG and did do a 3d printed mock up of that, but for now what I have in that area is literally just a piece of paper. You could use your full length plastic on it I suppose, but it throws off your shot vision and seems likely to break just hanging over empty space.

It looks interesting. I am going to ask for a favor for my old tired eyes. Would you please turn off the machine lights and turn on the house lights so I can better see the contrast in the different parts.

Thanks.

House lights are on in those pics

PM me if there's a specific aspect you're interested in.

i have figured out your launch ramp, but can you show a pic from the other angle to show what you did in front of it?

Thanks.