I'm surprised that no one has come up with a transparent flexible gasket to fit around the window and reduce/eliminate the gap between the window/playfield

it's only a very slow moving ball that seems to be impacted by the gap, but reducing its size could improve the game's playability a little bit

It's funny, when I bought a replacement plastic for my Monster Bash lagoon, it actually DID come with a (rubber, I think) gasket in the shape of the lagoon. So a larger one for CFTBL / Congo doesn't seem too much harder

hi , new to the club . what is the best way to clean the hologram , its all covered in dust ?

Pressure washer.

Be very careful, keep it out of direct sunlight. I would use some compressed air to blow off any loose dust and then use the cloth you clean your glasses with. If you have to use a liquid just plain water.

If anyone needs to replace their hologram or mirror motors the kits are available again: https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/ad/61571
The original discussion thread is here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/replacing-the-infamous-cftbl-motors-repro

Just curious, would anyone like to trade their Creech for a Hot Wheels loaded edition with less than 260 plays?

Pm me if interested.

Happy Holidays everyone.

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Merry Christmas to all at the drive-in!

Hey folks. I am beginning the wrap up of a big CFTBL restoration, and I am having 2 glaring issues. Maybe someone can chime in.

1. I am not getting that nice pulsating GI effect on any of the strings. Instead, the GI is lit solid all of the time without any 8-step modulation. The last CFTBL I worked on clearly had that nice pulsating or slow strobing effect with the LEDs in all of the GI locations. But again, its all solid all the time now. I have installed GI OCD, but the issue appears with that installed, or removed.

2. The tiny bulbs in the "swirly" ramp are burned out. What kind of bulbs are those? Looking to add LEDs back in.

Thanks

Check out stumblors chase echo mod for the lighting effect goodness.

Theses are what your looking for.

https://www.cometpinball.com/products/86-smd-bulbs?_pos=1&_sid=b80dbf039&_ss=r

Thanks.

The GI issue was a "dimming" setting that was truned off. Once I turned it on, it is pulsing likie it should. Thanks for the link on the bulbs. They are going on the next big order.

You can use the GI OCD to tweak the pulse settings even more. I found the default settings weren't the way I wanted them to be and end up doing so.

And stumblor makes a great chaser board for having LED’s pulse as well as custom pulses.

TECH: We decided to replace the last stock board in our CFTBL with a brand new Rottendog A12697-1 MPU. We also replaced the back-up batteries, and did a factory reset on the game. Fired it back up, and now the game will not start. It's set up for free play, and nothing obvious is wrong. Game seems otherwise normal...but the start button doesn't light, and pressing it has no effect. Tried manually adding credits to the game (just in case.) No joy.

I'm not even sure how to begin troubleshooting this problem. Checked all the connectors and reseated them again. Still no job. Any suggestions?

Les & Abby Rayburn
Maylene, AL

The light ring at the bottom of the whirlpool sits skew. I looked at it from all angles. Both the standoff posts are the same length so why does it sit so skew or is this normal?

You can see I even added a bunch of washers but it is still wonky.

Any help is appreciated.

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Firstly check that the 3 ribbon cables are connected correctly - the red line on the ribbon indicates pin 1 and you need to ensure that it is going to pin1 on the Rottendog board. I'm not sure if the Rottendog board has its ribbon headers orientated the same as the original WPC connector.

Also check that all the connectors plugged into the new MPU are correctly aligned and not off by one pin.

Go into switch test mode and check the start button, cabinet door and ball trough switches are working. Also check that you have 3 balls into the machine and that they show in the trough switches when you look at the switch matrix picture on the DMD.

If still no luck, then also check in solenoid test that all the coils and flippers work

Okay, call me crazy, but wouldn't it make sense if you got the hot dog award when you hit the snack bar the hit dog target would light up? let the pretzel be a filler, but gimme lit targets for ice cream ,soda, hot dog and popcorn! =p

Mod idea for the artistic bunch: the playground plastic would be great if it was standing up vertically and had a 3d printed slide or something. Would be helpful for newbies for visuals and look cool

Also, the color dmd for the kiss scenes drives me crazy, the 3d glasses are supposed to have one lens blue and the other red for the couple. the color dmd is really really nice, thanks to everybody who put in work to get that made!

Swinks snack bar mod with Stumblor Pinball's neon lighting kit is just gorgeous!

Just test playing my Cftbl after a full rebuild. I am getting free balls long after the "Free Pass" light has gone off. I went into settings and reset it to factory defaults with no change. Should I be looking at the switches in the ball trough?

Also the ball plunger has new springs and sleeve yet it barely makes the ball go around for kiss. Is this normal?

Check your shooter Tip rubber, pretty easy to damage it if you lower the playfield when it isn't fully pushed in.
Just did it myself an hour ago. Wasn't the first time and probably won't be the last

Should be a green spring, part 10-148-4. Mine almost always goes all the way around.

There is always a grace period after the light goes off, so it depends upon what you are classifying as a long time

according to randy @ colordmd, this was a limitation to what they were "allowed" to change when CftBL was originally colored.

trust me, I've offered to learn their system and re-color some of the older games (multiple times), considering that they were able to color a lot more on the later b/w games like cactus canyon but I've not heard back.

I am onto the issue.

All switches are installed and wired correctly and 3 balls are installed. I took my apron cover off to observe and can see the problem.
Normal operation:

Once a ball is lost it first goes to the outhhole kicker that pops it over a metal track incline where it lies on the other side with two other balls and then only triggers the lost ball. Then the ball shooter lane feeder will pop a ball out in the shooter lane in front of the plunger.

My scenario:
From time to time when a ball is lost the outhole kicker hits the ball so hard that it flies over the incline and pops out the end of the row ball into the shooter lane giving you a free ball and because three balls are not present a ball loss is not recorded.

The question is how do I get the outhole kicker not to kick the ball with so much force as to pop out the ball at the end?

is the coil the correct one, a stronger one may have more force, like the flipper coils the left is different to the right

Yes it is what the manuall calls for AE 27-1200

Given that it doesn't happening all the time, can you spot any subtle difference between when the ball is pushed normally into the trough versus being flicked over the top into the shooter lane? Look to see if the drained ball is sitting in a slightly different position, or the kicker arm is positioned differently. Maybe try taking a slow motion video of both and comparing them, it might give you the clue as to why it is happening and where the issue is

The Pin2DMD version has it correct. I was leaning towards a ColorDMD, but Pin2DMD was a better deal and @slippyfish has done a fantastic job on the re-coloring of his original final. It's absolutely outstanding!

I vigorously agree, with the latest Pin2DMD firmware to 256 colours the animations are amazing and the bugs of previous versions have been fixed.

Hey guys. Question about the lamps behind the coin slots. Are those tied to the GI? Mine are not working.

Yes they are part of the GI

Wonder if they will do installment payments?

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Very Cool but to rich for my budget

Hey creech friends. I have a nib holomod video mod for sale if anyone is interested. For those not aware the mod is very similar to the MikeD mod - albeit not identical - which replaces your hologram with a video screen that programmatically plays videos based on playfield events. Only reason I’m selling is I got a new hologram motor . Pm me if interested thanks

Checking to see if anyone has a Mega Menu playfield insert decal left over from a restoration they might part with. The rest of my playfield looks great, and I don't want to spend $75 bucks for a 2 inch decal. Thanks.

Mike

After several years of taking a break from pins and arcade machines to remodel my house I decided to get back to giving love to my pins. After going through storage, I found the MikeD mod I ordered years ago for when my creature hologram turned black. Well, guess what....it turned black So my MikeD mod is installed and working great.

I was curious what people think about side blade decals for creech. I thought I remember someone selling a set that were like a night sky....with stars....seems to go well with the drive thru theater theme. I tried searching but didnt find it. Does anyone remember these or maybe know where to get it.

I remember the night sky one as well but I couldn’t for the life of me remember where to buy or where they were selling them

May I suggest upgrading to the newest ROM for Creech. It is a must-have!

I think the newest rom doesn’t work with the Mike d mod.

Didnt know about this, Ill look into it!

Hi All -- I'm looking for comprehensive teardown pics, or media. My Creech was abandoned by his previous owner after being partly disassembled so I am hoping someone can steer me towards a good detailed source of information so I can resurrect it to it's former glory. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I did a full teardown and repopulate on my playfield when I had it recleared years ago:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/cftbl-pulling-play-field-and-sending-out-to-be-touched-up-and-cleared#post-4263732

What new is in this and where do you purchase ?

I have a beautiful heavily modded CFTBL with lots of chrome (pinball plating and more) and Robert Stone powder coating.
Pinsound, color dmd, snack bar, mirrored CPR bg, etc.
Walk out basement in Madison Va.
It is going to list for 10,000 firm in the market place in the next week, which is what I have in it. 6 for the game and 4 in stuff.
will bring it to Allentown if not sold by then.

Thought I would post it here first.

Details can be found here.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/official-williams-and-bally-software-upgrades#post-5967032

BUYER BEWARE

This Snackbar is a FAKE / COPY as not solid nylon but a very close copy of my Snackbar Mod of about v5 era. This is not a Swinks product.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/snack-bar-3d-illuminated-mod-cftbl

I've never upgraded the ROM, is it hard? How do you do it?

Take a copy of any customised settings
Power off your machine
Carefully remove the old chip (best to use a chip removal tool)
Install the new chip
Power on your machine
Reapply your settings and you're good to go

I reported it as a copyright infringement. I know it is technically not, but by allowing this blatant copy Pinside is opening the door to others blatantly copying others hard work and tarnishing their reputation.

once I made a comment the report button disappeared. I tried reaching out to him and he ignored me....

I just don't want anyone paying top dollar and then be very disappointed plus very rude to copy everything down to the sign and decals etc.

Anyone have a mega menu decal from the insert decal set they aren't using? Mine has worn away and I'm trying to avoid buying a complete set for one decal. Thanks.

Mike

Decided to do some much needed upgrades to my Creature with cleaning, lighting, and installing some mods I've bought over the past couple years before my game moves into the Northwest Pinball Collective space in Seattle for my peeps to play. Thought's on the exposed switch on the whirlpool? I got a sticker for covering it with either the Stumblor or Swinks Snack Bar mods, but what is the best option for covering it? I saw this Swinks cover: https://www.shapeways.com/product/ZHPRRKHSF/cftbl-pinball-whirlpool-bowl-cover-for-mrs-switch

But it's kinda textured and I can't see the Whirlpool sticker sticking to it too well. Has anyone tried this? Or is there a clear plastic alternative that works better? I mean, anything is gonna look better than nothing, but I wanna know my options. Thanks!