Haven't decided yet.
Painted would be my preferred choice as it and would look more like what would have been done during the 80's, but it's something I've not ever done before so I'm not sure how good I could do it. At the end of the day, it's a departure from the original cabinet design so its if I go this way it's never going to be authentic, it's just my own vision of what the Thunder Man cabinet should have been if it wasn't just thrown into a branded cabinet.

I guess you could say I would go the sticker route if my attempt at painting it turned out really bad. haha

I know we are quite a limited with Thunder Man owners so I'm assuming the answer will be no..

Does anyone have any schematics for the Thunder Man boards?

If not is anyone able to provide some detailed photos of the boards especially in the eprom area.

I have a contact in Italy that is trying to reproduce these boards. He does some quality work as I've purchased a brand new MPU for my Bell Games Cobra off him earlier in the year.
If I can get as much info across to him as possible we may have a source for replacement boards in the future.

Any help would be appreciated.

Have you considered buying the Gen2 evo board, driver board and power board from
Pinballsolutions.eu
I would bet that it was just Zacc gen2 hardware in the original
Then you would just need to put the rom in it

I have not considered this as an option just yet, but will keep this in mind.

I want to quote a message I received from my helpful Italian friend. This is why I have not considered this just yet... This conversation was in relation to the sound board which he is currently working on.

"yes, but... we have a problem for your thunder man. I realized that the card used on that pinball machine is very similar to the Zaccaria, however the printed circuit is different. The t.m. mounts 2 eprom 2764 which have 4 more pins than the original 2532. this means that the board is necessarily different. Without the wiring diagrams, it will not be easy to make the changes. On the CPU board instead, there is already the predisposition for the 2764 and it should be simpler."

This is why he has asked me to see if I can provide some detailed photos of the boards especially in the eprom area.

Of course I'm not dismissing any opinions and suggestions here, so thank you for your suggestion @meldenhut, however because I know the history of his work with Bell Games I'm happy to wait until he has all the info he needs to recreate the boards. If he cannot then of course purchasing from Pinballsolutions.eu will be the next option.

I'm in no rush, I'm poor after my last purchase and I still need to finish my Cobra project before I get started on Thunder Man.

Hey Thunder Man owners I'm hoping I can ask a favor, my contact in Italy is bench testing Thunder Man Audio at the moment and he suspects that there is a problem, but he is hoping to confirm this from another Thunder Man owner.

Have a watch of the below video which is a bench test of the audio for Thunder Man, as you can see, after the number 20 he believes the issues start.
There are some distorted voices, but more importantly, some tests are completely skipped. From 24 and 27, there is a jump, and the same thing happens from 34 and 40. He would like to know if other Thunder Man machines also behave in the same way when running this test.

Bench Test

I took the liberty of running the same test on my computer using the Thunder Man ROM using PinMame (See below) and it did appear to be different to the results he was getting on the bench test, but he would like confirmation from a physical machine to be sure.

PinMame Rom Test

If anyone can assist to confirm this information, it would be greatly appreciated.

Wow that is wild, that is exactly the same sound test as Zaccaria Pinball Champ! So now we know what they used for Thunder Man. If this is what pinmame is giving you, that is what the machine would give you too. The early gen2 games are emulated well, its not until the later gen2 games where they changed the sound board and the emulation is incomplete.

To my fellow Thunder Man owners, I would like to do my part for the pinball community and provide some high-resolution scans taken from my Thunder Man.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Agv5xpyUp3HmpOwNWDYoUga5BMxFcw?e=fUnTNI

In the link provided you will find:
Plastics
Backglass

I have put a significant amount of time into the backglass, as you may already be aware from a previous post, (https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/cracked-backglass-repair-options) my backglass was damaged in transit and was cracked in multiple places. I successfully scanned the backglass and have done the best I can to touch up the backglass as I believe it was back in the day. I believe it's a much better-quality scan than some of the other ones I have seen online, and I hope that this is helpful for other Thunder Man owners.

I have provided these scans freely to these two locations: (And may provide to others at a later stage)
http://www.zaccaria-pinball.com/
http://bgresto.com/ (In hope they will replace the discolored version they have for sale)

This is all about keeping these machines alive and in the best possible condition, so please feel free to use what you need, if you do happen to use the backglass all I ask is that if it's not coming from the 2 websites listed above, please credit my work (see credit.txt in my onedrive link)

Enjoy everyone! Merry Christmas and all the best for the new year 2023!

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Don't suppose anyone has a Zaccaria Gen 2 transformer lying around that they aren't using?
Willing to ship to Australia..

I'm hoping to get started on the Thunder Man project soon.

Not mine and pricey but… ebay.com link: itm

It’s been listed for a LONG time. Use the make an offer feature and maybe get a better deal.

Yeh I've seen that one... wayyy overpriced.
I'm hoping I don't need to go this direction as a last resort.

I saw your post above and it rang a small bell back in a far corner of my mostly empty head. I think that I have one of these.

Here are some pics that I just took of it. I think that it's the right one.

For anyone out there, is there a way that I can test this thing so that I don't wind up sending a boat anchor to the opposite end of this planet?

And speaking of weight, this anvil weighs 31 pounds, 8 ounces, or around 15 killograms. And that's without packing and a stout box.

How about $150 USD plus shipping?

I hope this helps.

Alan

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That looks like it to me. Should be easy to hook up line power and check the outputs

Hey Alan_L I appreciate you looking around and finding that transformer.
I had a chat to my Italian friend and sent across all the pictures, he seems to think that transformer is a Zaccaria Gen1 Transformer based on the connectors. Does this look the same as the one in your Thunder Man machine?

That's not going to work. Here is a picture of the transformer in Appletime Thunderman.
https://www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=4666&picno=60416

Thanks for confirming luvthatapex2
The hunt continues! Thanks again Alan_L for checking.

I'm committed to the project now, purchased the boards and displays off my Italian friend.
They are on-route to Australia at the moment. Oh and he has made the modification so that my Thunder Man will be in English! Yes!

I've also got a lead on a potential Zac2 cabinet, I've been informed its actually 2 different Gen2 machine cabinets. One of them is Pinball Champ, Im still waiting on the photos so I'm not really sure what the other is yet. It also has a Transformer and im hoping some more goodies in the cab that i might be able to repurpose.

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You have English ROMS coming?
Wow! How can I get some?

Hey Alan

I asked my Italian friend what the best way to explain this was.
So, the easiest way to tackle this is to replace your Thunder Man sound board with the sound board from a Zaccaria Pinball Champ if you have access to one.
The ROM on the sound board from Pinball Champ is identical to Thunder Man except...it's in English!

If you don't have access to a Zaccaria Pinball Champ sound board, I'll be happy to pass on the details for my friend in Italy, he can reproduce these boards.

You mean that the words are exactly the same?
Sounds to me like a man and a woman arguing in Italian.
Stealing a sound board from Zac would be something the Apple Time guys would do.

Well, yes it should be, here's a quick comparison I put together for you.

Of course that's what AppleTime would do, they stole everything else. haha