Joining the club

IMG_0525 (resized).JPG

Wow! I love the bar! Looks great! The "Don't drink and Drive" sign is a nice touch.

"Don't drink and Drive"
You might hit a bump and spill your beer

Haha thank's!
The sign is Dot Matrix with different animations etc...so there's some different stuff going on...such as Pacman appears and eating up the letters etc

Soo...what's your typical scores on this game, and do you have a game plan?
I'am a rookie, but here's some typical games of mine:

Real bad game: <10 Millions.
Ok, normal game: > 100 Millions
Good game: > 200 Millions

My common game plan:
- A couple of ramp shoots to lit the extra ball
- Go for targets to lit Multi ball
- The Jackpot shoots
- After multi ball, Some subway video modes and Leo get's

You can backhand Leo from a trap? How are your flippers set? This is not possible on my game. My flippers are pretty shallow and makes it difficult to trap or backhand anything.

My LW3 is pretty brutal and people rarely break 100 million on it.

Brutal it is but that's what makes it a good party game.... no long wait.
I also backhand Leo, my flippers pretty much parallell to the inlanes.

Sounds like you guys need new coil stops. Haha

Good game there!

Definitely not back handable on my game.

While watching that video, I noticed the top lanes do the same thing as my game - Go out when a ball get into an eject hole, then come back on shortly after.
Anyone else experience this?

Also... My ramp NEVER gives me free balls, how do you change that setting? I'm set to factory

Left ramp awards extra balls with a certain amount of shots. It's auto adjusted through the operators adjustments. Could be 3 ramps or on mine I think you need to hit like 21 of them to get an EB

I belive i got factory settings too. Just recently removed all batteries.
Only changed setting is free play, after 3 ramp shots i get this shout out "Extra ball is lit". And one shot at the VUK 1 gives the Award. My ROM seems to be in german...mabey there's a difference...

That's factory behavior on mine too. My Roms have multiball instead of Tri ball too.

Crazy you can backhand those shots as my flippers seem to have similar travel.

Hi guys, asking this for someone else who has this machine. He's wanting to add some LED lit flipper buttons to his machine. Where's the best/easiest place to tap into the 12V line? I only own Bally/Williams myself so have no experience with Data East machines. Thanks in advance

On my game I can backhand 3 from the right flipper and with a bit of a rap bounce to get the ball to roll put onto the flipper I can backhand 1 with the left. I can also backhand the ramp with the left if I hit it super clean, but that's pretty rare.

As for strategy, ramps can be super valuable, especially if you have collected all the stunts and started the first multiball. My highest is 53 ramps I think, which put the value much higher than pretty much anything else in the game, and is also why you probably don't see this game in tournaments...

This is a fantastic game for tournaments imo. The points for the ramps are only awarded for certain tiers. You're getting nothing until you reach one of the tiers. Sure you can eventually get a bunch of points if you hit 40 plus ramps in one game, but that's way easier said than done imo.

Also if you can get a few double jackpots in multiball that's about the same as hitting like 40 ramps. That's probably want most tournament players would go for instead of ramps.

Good points, but getting to multiball takes lots of dangerous shots to the drops, and a double jackpot is easier said than done. On my game at least, a missed ramp shot is fairly easy to deal with.

My tournament strategy would probably be ramps all day, free multiball on ball three, trap up on the left flipper and ramps with one of the balls until it drains. (that being said, I should probably try it out and see how it actually works in practice...)

I'd say ramps all day is only viable if you can consistently get over 30 ramps a game. I certainly cannot do that. Just glad that uzi modes and the 1,2,3 modes and super Leo awards are good too so that the game isn't a one trick wonder for tournament purposes.

ANYONE?? PLEASE.

Try posting in the mod sub forum or the tech subforum. Also are their instructions with the lighted flipper buttons that tell you how to install into older games?

They are actually my LED button kits but were originally intended for 90's Bally/Williams machines to hook up to either the power driver board or the coin door interface board. I've downloaded the LW3 manual and realized Data East's don't have a CDI board (unless there's a substitute i'm not seeing in the manual). I've identified some plugs on the power board that have a 12VDC power line but i just wanted to run it by the guys in this club first for advice. Thanks for the feedback

Yeah, if the ramp can't be made consistently I agree, orbits and 123 are the way to go

Just to see how it would go, I am going to play some games tonight to see how my strategy would work out.

Game 1: 3 ramps, no multiball, no extra ball, no stunts, ended up with 11,338,370. Let's call this one a warm up game...
Game 2: 29 ramps, 1 multiball, 1 extra ball, 4 stunts, game ended up with 209,977,840. I actually had another ball that I played as well from choosing special with leo getz, which I forgot that I had set to give me an extra ball. Including that ball I had 31 ramps and 246,958,370 points
Game 3: 20 ramps, 1 multiball, 1 extra ball, 1 stunt (maybe), game ended with just under 100,000,000 points (i missed reading it...)
Game 4: 13ish ramps, 1 multiball, 1 extra ball, 3 stunts, game ended with 165,387,200. I must admit that I unintentionally hit the orbits a bunch to start and got to the 4th uzi light pretty fast, which really racked up the points. The way I played this game would probably be closer to how chuckwurt would play
Game 5: lost track of the ramps, (oops!) 1 multiball, 1 extra ball, 2 stunts, game ended with 150,026,200.

I wasn't able to get overly high on the ramps on any of those games, and I didn't have any game that was scored strictly from ramps, so I think chuckwurt is right, the scoring is actually pretty balanced. You'd really have to be on your game to get a really high score from only ramps.

PS hitting only ramps is boring! Don't do it!

Multi-colors added for a wall hanging LW3 playfield.

IMG_7930.JPG

Back in action!

Ok ok ok, joining the club.

Fairly new LW3 owner. One of the first pins I ever played, and now I own it!

Just installed a ton of bulbs and new ROMs trying to get my topper to stop spinning constantly.

After looking at these two posts, it looks like I'll need to learn some diagnostic and soldering skills.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/odd-problem-de-lw3-beacon-wont-turn-off
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/lw3-beacon-wont-stop-spinning-any-ideas

Any tips on where to start?

Hi!
Regarding the beacon light.
I'd start with disconnecting the beacon light
And measure voltage at the connector. Just to make sure the problem isn't at the beacon it self. If that indicates a problem on the board i would examine Q25, see page 46 in the user manual. "Mars light"

Anyone have any spare plastics? my plastic by LW1 is rough but the rest are pretty good.

Just sold my lethal weapon. It was fun game I enjoyed it. My first pin I installed led lights on.

I may be picking one of these up this weekend, but I'm completely unfamiliar with the game. Are there any unobtanium parts I should go over carefully when I check out the game - cracked plastic ramps or whatnot? Any particular wear areas or commonly broken parts to LW3? Thanks guys.

The plastic above the 1 saucer on the left is always broken.

Drops are commonly worn or broken

The stand ups that on the left (bullet targets) are always broken

Everything else on the game is usually solid. Playfields are commonly in very good shape.

Visually inspect the boards as always but the power supplies on these aren't the most reliable. Inspect that one the most for any components looking like they are burnt up and whatnot.

Is that the plastic with the blue dome on it?

Yep

Been told that it's there but not working. I'll find out the whole deal in about 12 hrs.

I got an excellent answer which solved the problem i was asking about so thanks guys. Posting it here as some may find it useful to attach mods, extra LED's too if you didn't previously know about it.

Inside the coin door to the right should be a connector with about 8 pins. The pin on each end, one is 12v and the other is ground. Some reinport games are missing this though. It's already fused as it is part of the system 12v unregulated line.

See step 4 here: http://pinballbulbs.com/installs/data-east-light-strip-installation

For those with a missing or busted dome light and have replaced it (or will be replacing) with the beacon light on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Wolo-3105-B-Rotating-Emergency-Warning/dp/B000BNKTW0/ref=sr_1_1).
This beacon has three magnetic feet. So I CNC plasma cut a metal base for it to stick to, so the beacon would not be mounted to the cab directly. This will allow me to easily remove the beacon if I have to pack it up to move, change its bulb, etc. It just pulls off.

The 16 gauge metal mount uses the existing three holes the original dome used to mount (see pics). I hit it with blue paint just to coat it (doesn't match original color of course). Anyway, I have an extra painted mount that I can let go for $12 shipped if anyone is interested. Or I can provide the file if someone wants to cut their own. The magnets are strong and I can fold the head down without the beacon moving or falling off. May seem like overkill for a beacon, but it was just a fun project to play with .

Plate4 (resized).jpg
Plate1 (resized).jpgPlate2 (resized).jpgPlate3 (resized).jpgPlate5 (resized).jpg

128 millions and 10 beers tonight. This game is good

if you look on page 2 you will see the number 1 hole plastics i had made and sold about 25 of them ... i think there might be a couple of both designs left...

I need a plastic as well. please let me know if you have a repro
thanks

I'll buy it if still available.

PM sent

Can one of you LW3 owners tell me what the height of the entire machine is with the legs off and the backbox folded down? Or just the height of the rear of the main cab and I'll figure out the rest with my Simpsons backbox? Trying to figure out how I would get one of these home and I don't know if it will fit in my ride.

Condition-wise, everything works; playfield is excellent but dirty; typical cracked yellow standups; translite, boards & DMD are perfect; cabinet is solid but could use new decals; legs & lockbar suck and need powdercoating. What should I be looking to pay for this?

Data East Jurassic Park = 30" folded up, 30.5" would allow
complete clearance from the back side of the cabinet and the bottom
of the backbox folded up.

Pretty sure all of these were screen printed.

Based off your description though I wouldn't go any higher than 1200-1300.