You can buy just that piece here if you want: http://www.pinball.center/en/shop/pinball-parts/playfield-parts/plastics/8762/plastic-14-for-centaur?c=2177

You're hearing things. It's "Slow, aren't you?" You might need to turn down the reverb a bit.

If it's anything like my CPR Centaur that I'm working on right now, there will be dimples instead of drill holes… which is fine, because every single one of those dimples will be in the wrong place, so they need to be ignored. The routing for the pop bumpers was the wrong size for Bally pop bumper bases, and the magnet needed to be routed out too. The neighbours have definitely heard me cussing.

The only playfield I have that was fully drilled in the right place was a Meteor NOS playfield.

They might have improved the process/accuracy somewhat. I bought my Centaur playfield second hand and it's been in my basement for three years before I've made it to the project.

Playfield swap takes me about a month working an hour at a time in the evenings. Connectorizing, bulletproofing, repairing, cleaning, polishing is a very labour intensive process. Lots of folks can get one done in a weekend by just sliding everything from one field to another, but I like to take my time.

I've definitely ended up buying lots of tools to make it easier. Ultrasonic cleaner, tumbler, socket drivers, compressor, upholstery nailer, calipers, router… it definitely adds up pretty quickly.

I think someone mentioned earlier that bgresto has the art...

Here's where I was at a couple of weeks ago with the flippers. I rebuilt them keeping the linears stock. If these don't have enough juice for the chamber I'll revert them to the classic Bally style. I'm not really okay with a fliptronic conversion; I like to keep my machines as close to feeling like the original as possible.

D6DC3364-2253-421A-9522-D8F702C0743F (resized).jpeg

D4FD2F2D-E0CB-4B7D-86F0-A9029515F599 (resized).jpeg

Yep! That was actually one of the first things I did when I acquired it: Drop a bingo ball in the queen's chamber. I've never done a flipper rebuild on this game though, and I was definitely having binding issues that should be resolved with this overhaul.

The other thing I do with my Sterns and Ballys is to install 15/16" balls in the roll tilt channel. They're always missing or wrong and it's not okay for me to just know that.

There is much discussion earlier in this thread if you search for bingo.

Oof. I’m dying here.

I’m swapping in a CPR playfield into my Centaur II and it’s killing me.

The routing for the pop bumpers is off centre and the holes are too small for standard Bally bases. I had to mill them out with a dremel tool and buy a router to fix them.

EEC6F14B-FD7F-46CB-A2A0-0C880174BA98 (resized).jpeg

I tried to install the magnet, and it was also routed too small and in the wrong place.

41FD6F0E-34D4-43FD-9D24-7E5A24CE7B77 (resized).jpeg

And then I went to transfer the playfield brackets, and wouldn’t you know it but a whole line of lamps is also off by a quarter of an inch.

648D29F2-54E0-44BA-98BC-DD820C8FC6D4 (resized).jpeg

Alright… nothing else can possibly be wrong, unless… the holes for lamps are drilled too small for the lamp sockets.

E1C217F5-66CD-4094-8356-1DDB1B6FFA2F (resized).jpeg

9A57D54B-5A85-4972-A26B-C1A98D209399 (resized).png

I bought it second hand from a local friend who didn't ever get around to putting it into a machine. I'm not sure which batch it was from, but it's a boutique run with white bonus inserts instead of red ones.

It is substantially thicker than my old playfield. My drop targets are all at the limit of the range adjustment available.

I've already had to take a razor to the rollovers; they didn't leave the blanks in them so they're totally full of clearcoat.

I have a Xenon coming up after this one. I hope it goes easier. Everything that could go wrong so far has.

It's a very boutique industry with a demanding customer base and tight margins.

CPR has quality control issues that they work through on product lines. It's not uncommon for their first few runs to have significant errors. Wrong colours, missing text, misaligned print heads, etc. These issues get corrected in later runs due to feedback, but they still try to sell existing stock.

More than once on here I've seen pinsiders point out a serious issue with a new product only to get out on blast by them. Responses seem range from "our original was like that" to "we check everything before it goes and it's perfect."

I don't know what to say. It's hard for me to tell people not to buy the first run of something they might never be able to find again.

Any suggestions for worn ramp flap paint?
85219B19-FA63-40E4-B35A-A46F74EC82AF (resized).jpeg

I've used it before. It's gunmetal bluing. I was hoping to restore it black. Was the original powder coated?

oh weird. Mine absolutely has a very thin layer of black paint.

I might go for that. I touched the old one up with a paint marker but I doubt that will be durable for long.

the GI is all from the top on this game.

Probably a short-circuit somewhere on the board. It can be repaired. Perhaps there is something obvious that we'll be able to see. Could you post high-res photos of the front and back of the card?

I feel like this guy waited until YouTube removed the downvote button before posting it.

It's a well-executed project, but he did it to a pinball machine that was in good enough shape that it didn't need to be altered. They could have got an absolutely trashed one if they were just going to to throw out everything but the playfield.

In fact, if he'd just bought a populated playfield, he'd probably have saved thousands of dollars.

And likely have to solder a few jumpers on the MPU board as well, if you're burning "modern" 2732 EPROMs. Factory, they were configured slightly differently.

The process is well documented but definitely not plug-and-play:
Jumpers: https://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Bally/Stern#Bally_AS-2518-35_or_AS-2518-133_Jumper_Info
Free play roms: http://www.pinball4you.ch/okaegi/pro_soft.html

If you need someone to burn the ROMs for you, I can recommend:
Steph: https://www.hobbyroms.com/
Dave Astill: https://www.pinballrom.com/

They're both very easy to deal with.

Alternatively, if you don't wish to modify your board, you can install one from barakandl which will already have free play roms available: https://nvram.weebly.com/mpu.html

That last option is probably overkill if you have a working MPU in your game, but it's certainly easier for the end user.

Take the two molex connectors off the triac in the bottom of the cabinet and stick them together. This bypasses it and the GI will remain on all the time. You lose the flash and also the blackout when orbs are released.

1. Your drop targets are sitting too low. If you have a CPR playfield this can happen as they're slightly thicker than a normal one. Mine are shimmed up with a thin piece of acrylic (like credit card thick) across the bottom of the drop target bank where the targets rest in their down position.

2. If you want to verify a switch, use the built in switch test function to see if it's registering. It could be a shoddy connector, bad switch, or -- most likely in my experience -- the drop trough gate gets stuck open sometimes if someone greased it and it got gunked up or if the balls aren't sitting in the right place under the field. Make sure it closes properly, which it should do reliably when there are four balls in the lower storage area.

I recorded this video a couple of years ago: