I have three LW3 questions hopefully someone here can answer.

1) Can someone please explain in thorough detail exactly what adjustment settings (maybe combination of settings?) are needed to enable the VICTORY LAP? I had to replace my battery. I reset all my adjustments but for some reason the victory lap event will never trigger. This was great because normally I would use this, along with the super stunt, as the main challenges when I would play the game. Keep in mind my game is (obviously) in free play mode.

2) How exactly do you enable the "light karate kick" target? Not the karate kick (left ball drain kicker/saver) itself , but the left target that enables the karate kick? I can't seem to figure out the pattern in game play to do this. It just seems to happen at random during a game when I'm not trying to do it.

3) Is there any way to keep the "extra ball is lit" event FIXED so that after 3 ramps it lights the LW1 extra ball kickout hole? I noticed that after several games, the more ramps that are made per game, the longer it takes to activate the extra ball event. It got to the point on my machine (before batteries were replaced) that the extra ball event would NEVER light. Can this be corrected or is this strictly based on ramp shot percentage?

I've made several mods to my LW3. I'm not trying to be redundant by posting this but for anyone interested I made a thread in the mods forum here:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/lethal-weapon-3-pinball-mods

Since posting the thread in the mods forum the last 'update' i made was to switch to a rottendog power supply because my old one failed. The new supply worked well except the speaker hum was so loud it could wake up the neighbors. My original power supply had an annoying hum as well, albeit at a (barely) tolerable level. Anyways, today I installed an ATX pc power supply in my machine to power the sound board instead and there is ZERO hum, and sound is crisper and bass seems to be more pronounced. Sounds great!

My machine is pretty much all LED. In my machine the three (red green yellow) lights in the building over the ramp were retro LED's with bulb condoms over them as is in the original game. Just for the hell of it I tried sticking in some INCANDESCENT bulbs with COLORED glass (with no condom) and they look great! The filament in the bulbs really catch the eye in a way LED's can't, plus it gives a good retro look and it looks awesome in attract mode from far away.

Thanks!

Any idea on enabling or activating the victory lap/ramp? This is driving me nuts. All the manual says is that, once SPECIAL is awarded, victory lap (and its corresponding yellow light above the ramp) should be activated for 20 seconds. This no longer happens on my LW3. For example, I tried setting replay score at 200 million, and replay awards SPECIAL. When this score is reached the game makes crazy sounds but that's about it.

***EDIT: Figured it out. Contrary to what the manual implies, the "Game Award" adjustment has to be set to "Credit" for the Victory lap to work and will be triggered when the current score hits the set replay score. This holds true even if the machine is set to free play. The manual says that "Special" is supposed to do this. In fact, I can't find any documentation as to what the "Special" actually does in this game. The "Game Award" can be set to "extra ball", "credit" or "special", yet there is nowhere to set what "special" actually does. Unless I'm interpreting something wrong here. In all my other pins I can set the special to award extra ball, points, credits, or free game.

Just checked, I can't seem to find it in the adjustments. If you could look I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

Usually subway, but occasionally center drop targets.

Agreed. After a factory reset 3 ramps lights extra ball, it takes progressively more ramps after a few games to get it to light. After 50 or so games it never lights on my machine again unless I wipe audits and factory resey.

I like that you can set reaching replay score to award extra ball but it stinks that there seems to be no way to enable the victory lap AND have replay award extra ball. If I'm mistaken let me know. With victory lap enabled on my game I ONLY get extra ball offered at random with Leo getz, there is no way to actively pursue an extra ball during game play through high scores or multiple ramp shots. Disappointing.

I have my extra ball award adjustments setting to 50% which I suppose makes it randomly more available with Leo getz, although this just awards extra ball, it doesn't light the LW1 extra ball light. The extra ball playfield light for LW1 kickout is never activated on my machine at this point.

Chuckwurt, I recognize your avatar, pretty sure I've seen some of your games at the Cleveland and Ohio pinball shows. Any chance you plan on bringing your LW3 to a show? I'd love to see it in person with the pinstadium lighting

Only shows I'll be at in 2018 are Ohio show and Cleveland show. How many machines do you normally bring?

I'll send you a reminder later on. Thanks!

Im pretty sure all GI is on a single fuse so I don't believe that is it. All of the + pins and all of the GND pins on CN8 are essentially jumpered/shorted together such that you should get continuity between pin 1 through 4, and continuity between pins 6 through 9.

I'd start by checking for continuity at one of the non-functioning light bases (where the wire is soldered on) and the corresponding female CN8 connector pin. Also check for continuity on the PS board CN8 connector male header pins between pins 1 through 4 (should all be connected together) and between 6-9 to rule out cracked solder joints.

Looks really good! Anyone remember from the movies what the cat reference is, there is the small yet dedicated plastic with the cat printed on it (sitting above the center drop target bank)? Its been a looooong time since I've seen all three movies.

Chuckwurt, are you bringing your LW3 (with the Pinstadium lighting) to the Ohio Pinball Show next week?

This nylon link broke on my left flipper unit in my LW3. What exactly is this part called (or is there a specific DE part number) and can it be purchased individually or does an entire rebuild kit need to be purchased? If it can be purchased individually could someone direct me to where I could find one?

Thanks!

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thank you!

One of the best attributes of this machine is its durability. There is not much you really have to worry about with all ramps being metal and all proprietary components being pretty much protected from the ball. I paid $860 for mine about 10 years ago, did about $600 in LED upgrades, mods, repair, and replaced busted coin door and topper police beacon, power supply, etc. and its like brand new. Not exactly sure what the playfield surface is made of but it is literally flawless and I'm pretty sure my machine sustained very heavy use back in it's days in the wild.

... bottom line is once you own it there is very little risk of big future expenses to maintain it imo.

With my old power supply the speaker hum was present but tolerable. Last year I put a rottendog power supply in my LW3 and speaker hum could be heard from across the street. I ended up using an ATX power supply from an old computer (mounted in the cab) to independently power the sound board and there is ZERO hum and sound is crystal clear and crisp. There is an active thread dedicated to DE speaker hum which is very helpful.

My beacon was toast when I bought my machine. I purchased an actual beacon from a Auto Zone. It plugs into a car cigarette lighter port so its 12v DC. I wired up a relay to the circuit that gives power to the original beacon and then used a 12v DC power supply (unregulated wall wart) to power the new beacon. Yeah, its not the original beacon which i get may be a turnoff to some folks, but its bigger, brighter, faster and works like a charm.

On a side note, I installed a smaller mini police beacon on back right corner of the playfield that turns on and off with the main beacon on the back box. Looks cool to have an animated toy on the playfield in my opinion.

.... the thought crossed my mind to use one of these instead of a mechanical beacon but I like the look of actual moving parts.

ebay.com link: Car 16 LED Red Blue Police Strobe Flash Light Dash Emergency Flashing Light

Looks cool but yes a little cluttered with the text over photo imo. If you made a version with a solid colored background and colored text I'd definitely use it. The color version looks a LOT better than the original black and white if you ask me.

Do you have a template for those instruction cards? I really like them.

Perfecting the subway loop to re-light the karate kick definitely helps with ball drain on left side. Two clockwise loops in a row without hitting any other targets in between to re-light. I actively try to attain this at times and it seems to increase odds of longer play and racks up points.

I put a helicopter in mine (different position) but it really spiced up the playfield. I made mine interactive so the blades spin when the ramp shot is made. Here's a pic and a video link to see it in action.

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I used a 12v relay (with a resistor and diode) connected to the blue flasher bulb circuit (the one directly left of the ramp). When the flasher flashes it clicks the relay. The heli's motor is connected to something like a 3v DC power supply. The relay breaks the circuit when the flasher is off. Works well because this is the flasher that lights up when the ramp shot or subway shot is made. I don't remember the exact specs on what I used, this was about 6 years ago, but you get the idea.

Here are the mods I made to mine a few years ago:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/lethal-weapon-3-pinball-mods

Thank you!

Totally understand if this is currently confidential but what sorts of changes to the game were you considering? LW3 definitely has potential for some rule mods that could liven it up! Keep us posted and let me know if a completed rom update ever becomes available. I'd definitely purchase (legally, of course!) or be interested in a LW3 rom update with rule changes. Good luck with the project!

AWESOME! I'll be donating to support your excellent work.

Quick question, just by taking a quick peak at the MPU, how can I tell if my board has a single or double display rom? I'm going to have someone patch/burn the roms for me but I'll need to know this beforehand. Is it as easy as if I see a 27C040 chip then it's a single, if I see but if I see two 27C040 it's a double? I don't have any experience with these boards and am not familiar with the layout.

Thanks!

Got it, thanks guys!

Thanks for the info!

A bit off topic but in your opinions what is the best IC/Chip puller/extractor for a long 32-pin 27C020 chip?

I see the tweezer type, the 'bent screwdriver' type, and the PLCC type. I've seen some people say the PLCC works really well even though it really isn't mean for these types of chips. I replaced the rom chips in my PinBot a while back and pretty much ruined the old ones prying them out with a screwdriver I don't want to make that same mistake swapping out the chips on my LW3.

I installed the new roms and so far love the changes, although I think I may have found an overlooked bug. Apologies if this has already been addressed... if the ball drains immediately after being ejected from the lw1 kickout hole and is saved by the 3-second bulletproof vest, it consistently kicks back TWO (saved) balls. Is there a way to fix this? The game sounds get confused when one of the two balls drain since it is not supposed to be in triball mode

Every time.

I could take a video of it happening if you'd like.

I will check this, but keep in mind the bulletproof vest 10 second at start of ball does not do this with the patched rom, ever. This never happened with the original rom and it seems to only be associated with the lw1/3sec ball save. I will double check my hardware though just to be sure.

I took the glass off and did a check. Each of the following I did five times in a row. The beginning-of-ball 10 second BPV works perfectly. Ejecting the ball into the shooter lane never had a missed ball occur where the coil had to shoot the ball twice (or spasmed twice from a faulty switch or ball rollback) to get a ball into the lane, or accidentally shot two balls into the shooter lane. Each time the ball drained immediately from the LW1 kickout hole while the 3 sec BPV was active, it ejected TWO balls into the shooter lane, and did so with around a 1.5 second delay between balls, then both balls were automatically shot into the playfield. Furthermore, I never noticed a problem with the coils firing multiple times with the old roms. I am pretty convinced it is not a mechanical issue.

My intent was not to nitpick your awesome work. This patch is freaking amazing, well worth the donation and I intend on keeping it in my machine permanently. Even if this turns out to be a small bug its apparently only on certain machines for some unknown reason, and it is a relatively rare occurrence that the ball drains SDTM from lw1 kickout that its no big deal, plus as long as you let one ball drain and keep playing with just one ball, no harm done. The game plays fine except the end-of-ball music clip plays on repeat for the rest of that ball.

If you think of any other things to test or settings to change let me know.

Again, thanks for the work put into this. This really transformed the game into something more challenging, fun, and fair.

Here is a video of what is happening on my machine. Again. all other functions that eject ball into the shooter lane have been tested at least 10 times now but only with LW1/3-sec ballsave this happens:

On an unrelated topic regarding the LW3 rom patch. If you ever decide to release an additional patch consider a feature that fixes the attract mode bug of the original rom that only allows the attract mode music to play ONCE when the game is turned on and ONCE after a game is played. Perhaps an audit setting where it can be disabled entirely, played only once after a game-over, or once every cycle of the attract mode DMD events.

I will test everything thoroughly and let you know what I find. I'll try to do it Tuesday, if not then over the weekend as my work schedule is pretty busy right now.

So after about an hour and a half of extensive testing and Diagnostics, I can tell you that the problem is for sure a timing issue with the switches or a bouncing issue with the switches. It would take way too much typing to explain everything in full detail, but the bottom line is if I held the balls in place (with apron removed) passively while they were kicked out into the plunger Lane the problem went away. I tried adjusting every single switch in the out hole lane to make them more and less sensitive and nothing seemed to work unless I held the balls passively in place while they were kicked, which leads me to believe that it's a timing issue with trying to read a switch too soon before the balls settled into place, or reading a switch being instantly triggered twice due to bouncing. What may correct this is, once the Outhole switch is triggered that a ball has been drained, maybe put a quarter second delay on every read of the switches in the trough so the balls have time to settle after they've been kicked around. I can almost guarantee you this would correct the problem. I also noticed that the 10-second bulletproof vest ball save algorithm is different then the 3 seconds ball save algorithm and therefore is not affected by this potential problem.

This is correct. During the 10-Second-Start-Of-Ball Ball Save it always works flawlessly, even if i put the ball in LW1 and drain it immediately after (as long as it is under 10 seconds of the start of the ball). I can tell the software is using the 10-second ballsaver code in this instance. After 10-Second-Start-Of-Ball Ball Save ends though, the lw1 ball saver always ejects 2 balls.

And to clarify I did check all the switches in the diagnostic mode and they all were working correctly. I did notice that while in diag mode, when the ejected ball (from outhole coil) rolled down the trough and finally hit the RIGHT Switch 3 (#13) it would occasionally register a double trigger because the ball wobbles a bit before coming to a final rest. I adjusted the rollover wire so it wasn't as sensitive to prevent this but unfortunately it did not correct the problem.

It was very difficult to simulate the the ball pattern with my fingers on the switches (and not get a finger shattered by the coil haha) but there is a possibility it could be that the software is not giving the shooter lane coil enough time to eject the ball into the shooter lane (detected by shooter lane switch) before deciding the ball isn't present in the shooter lane, and is therefore shooting a second ball out into the lane. When the ball is ejected into the shooter lane there is a very slight delay before it activates the shooter lane switch. I'm not 100% sure about this though. As far as I could tell it didn't have anything to do with the left (#11) or middle (#12) trough switch. In fact, with the apron off I went as far as to pull all three balls off the playfield during game play so the trough was empty, I manually put a ball in lw1 kickout, then upon ejection used my finger to push the outhole switch and then immediately stuck a ball in the right trough (#13) position. Even doing this, it would kick the ball out into the shooter lane and then fire the eject coil a second time to attempt to shoot a second ball into the shooter lane even though the middle and left trough positions were empty (and corresponding switches open). If I *very lightly* pressed on the top of the balls in the ball trough when there were two balls in the trough, I was able to get it to work correctly a few times where the lw1 kickout ball save only ejected one ball the correct way. This is what leads me to believe its a bouncing issue with the switches being instantly triggered more than once or perhaps a timing issue where the software isn't giving the ball enough time to settle on the next switch in sequence before deciding it's not there.

Hope this helps narrow down the problem. Let me know if you want me to try anything else.

.... also I checked the wire gate under the apron and for good measure adjusted it forward a bit to minimize any potential backwards roll of any balls in the trough.

I'll double check the sensitivity on the outhole switch and #11 on my machine and see what happens and report back. Keep in mind I would still get double eject even when the trough was empty and I manually stuck a ball in the right trough and left #11 remained open the entire time. On my machine I'm thinking it's the outhole switch.

I installed and tested the updated rom and it works perfectly. Both the start of ball and LW1 ball saver are flawless. Thanks!!!

Looks awesome! Where'd you get the mirror blades?

Contact Stephan from hobbyroms.com. He always does a great job and gets it shipped out fast.

Oh my god that would be the best theme ever! LW trilogy was great and all but first Die Hard alone deserves it's own dedicated pin imo. This would be the perfect table for a retheme

Mine does the exact same thing, like a quarter turn goes from zero to deafening and loud static when adjusting the pot.

Someone else on the thread already had this general idea and I thought it looked cool enough to add it to my LW3. A while back I found an old plastic toy toilet in a pile of old toys and decided to keep it aside in case I ever wanted to somehow use it in my LW3. Just recently my daughter randomly got some action figure happy meal toy that had a plastic piece molded to resemble an explosion. I added them together, stuck a light base in the exploding plastic and connected the light to the "Leo Getz" playfield light for the LW3 kickout hole so it's interactive. I used a #44 bayonet base so I can play around with different color/styles of lighting under the explosion. I'm very happy with the appearance!

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I don't recall mine knocking. Is the knocker just the gun/plunger solenoid in this game?

Where'd you get the lighted flipper bats? How exactly are they set up like that?

Thanks! Looks great.

Looks great! How did you repair the worn and damaged paint by the uzi and inserts? Is that a hard top? Looks like new.

Very nice work. What type of playfield protector are you referring to? Also, did you use standard acrylic paint for the touchup work? And did you put some type of clear lacquer over your touchup paint after it dried? Now I want to do this to a few of my pins!

Adjustments question...

I'm using Chads code update from pinballcode.com but I don't think it should make a difference.

Is there a way to stop the game from auto-adjusting the amount of ramps needed to light extra ball on the LW1 kickout hole? After a factory reset it is three times but the more I play the higher it gets until it maxes at (I think) 17 ramps before extra ball is lit. I would like it so the extra ball is lit at three (or a customizable fixed amount of) ramps and doesn't change.

Can this be configured while at the same time:

- Allowing the SPECIAL to still award an extra ball.

- Keeping the VICTORY LAP enabled?

I cant seem to get all three criteria met here with any adjustment configuration.

Thanks!

So your settings are such that all six drop targets must be completed three times each to activate multiball? And 5 of six remain down until all six in both banks are completed?

If you're using chads updated code the extra ball ramps max out at 17, so after several good games EB will always light at 17 ramp shots. At first I thought it was excessive but the ramp shot is an easy one so hitting 17 in a good game is definitely doable.

I always thought something hand drawn and slightly more 'cartoony' would look cool. A style similar to Taxi translite. Not a big fan of a giant photo of an actor's face as the focus of a translite. I'd definitely consider swapping mine out if a better one existed. Like removing the two big faces, leaving the rest and replacing the space with more references to the movies.

I'm pretty sure with Chad's code it will keep increasing and max out at 17 ramps lights extra ball.

This has probably already been asked in some form in the past, but with DE pins (LW3 in particular) is there a way to somehow incorporate a female headphone jack to the sound board before it hits the amplifier so you could theoretically use headphones or use an auxiliary amplifier or subwoofer without blowing it out?

Thanks for the recommendations, I'm gong to look into both of those.

Upgraded my exploding toilet mod

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Chad's code lights extra ball at 17 completed ramps if I'm not mistaken and doesn't change after that.

Congrats! It's a fun game. I recommend Chad's code update, it transforms the game.

I also have a special force that lives next to my lw3

I put a rottendog in my lw3 and it's great except it makes the already-existing famous DE speaker hum a bit more noticeable than the original power supply.

I agree as well. Keep flashers incandescent. In home use new incandescent flashers should last practically forever.