Why? Are you going for a custom playfield design....that would be awesome!

Hey guys, long time lurker on this thread, first time poster as I just got a POTC in that I'm working on shopping out now. When it came to me the ship was essentially stuck in the upright position and will only move slightly back and forth, but will not do whatever is does that causes it to up-end and go down into the playfield. As a result I'm have a heck of a time getting the assembly out of the game so I can work on it. Any ideas? Do you think I would have luck taking the ship itself apart? Luckily for me the previous owner had disconnected the motor on it so I'm hoping once I get it freed that the motor and gearbox will still be OK, but I guess i will have to see.

Also on a somewhat related note what is the trick to removing the spinning disk thing as well as the ramp that feeds it? I have the main giant ramp off and the sneeze guard (which won't be going back on) but neither of these items looked intuitive as to how they come off.

TIA!
Kyle

Your video shows it well and that is exactly what I had in mind and what Stern should have done.

Michi, I was referring to the large chest that came with the game and thanks for the tip.

viper001 getting the ship can can be kinda a pain. Make sure the ship cover is off (the actual ship part made of rubber) then make sure the flags are removed, finally the ship has to be in the lowered position to remove it - without removing the masts. If you can not get it to the lower position you will have to remove the c clips on the back and pull off the masts. Hope this helps pm me if you need more help!
Brady

Thank you very much for the explanation! I will report back either success or failure. Until I get into it my best guess is whatever is supposed to slide along the white plastic thing is jammed in there, I preemptively ordered a new one of those and something called a clutch assembly. I figure if I don't need either or both those are good parts to have around as spares. I'm really hoping the motor and gearbox are still good but at least I see those are available if not.

I doubt is the "guide" which is the white track that the ship slides along that piece I super tough, its basically like chefs cutting board material. Also, keep in mind when you move the ship by hand, there is an order you have to move it... First move the ship forwards towards the bow, then lower the rear, then drop the sails ( you will see a lever to this on the back of the ship ) then move it to the sunk position... if something is binding, look to see if maybe something is stuck in the track.. or is the motor frozen??

Are you able to take a video of what it's doing?

Thank you as well for this. Since I've never owned one that was working I was kind of stumped as to how it worked at all. This helps a lot!

I will try to do that before I dig in any further. I already have the screws out of the bottom but I think I can still do this tonight.

Nicer than normal instruction cards. Where did you get them?

I am getting weak plunges so I replaced the green spring with another but problem is still there. Plunges do one of 3 things:

Go all the way up top
Come back to the plunger
Go far enough reach the short return ramp to the right flipper.

Also the same problem with the auto plunger. I'm going to change the rubber tip to see if that helps. the manual plunger. Any tips on this?

Have you replaced the cool sleeve?

Check to make sure the plunger and the auto-plunger are not rubbing on each other.

Good one maffewl when I did my playfield swap that was a major issue I had to fix

Will do and thanks. I also have an opto question. For the pair, is one sending and one receiving and is either interchangeable or makes no difference which one is doing either?

One side sends, and the other receives. If I remember correctly, they are the same part, and what makes the difference is how they are plugged in to the board under the playfield. I.e., either one can receive, or send. It just depends on which it's told to do by the board.

Ok, so with this newfound understanding of how this thing works I was able to manually free up the ship (I *think* it was stuck because the sails were still up), and by then plugging all the connectors back in and using the test menu I can now get the ship to sink all the way into the playfield. Which means I can remove the whole thing if needed. Before I do that (and lose the ability to run the motor and such) I'm still trying to determine what is still binding. It seems to go down smoothly, and it even folds the sails up by itself like it is supposed to. But now when the ship comes back up the back of the ship pops up and the sails pop back up but it doesn't want to finish it's slide over to the left.

Probably nobody can offer a suggestion on this without seeing it, but I figured I would post before I pull the thing out tonight to get some ideas on what to look for. My guesses are either the slide mech is fouled in some way, this part called the clutch is messed up, or the gearbox has some stripped gears (which will suck to the tune of $200, but at least they are still available). Any guesses? And what can I check once I have the thing out without the power?

Thanks for all the help up until now btw!

Carefully watch as the ship is coming up. Is the motor running and the clutch slipping during the last part of the travel?

If the motor is running, either the ship is binding (causing the clutch to do it's job and slipping to prevent the motor from burning up) or the clutch is slipping and is too loose.

I would take the ship out, disassemble (take lots of pictures!) all the mechanical and pivot points, clean, lube and re-assemble. Look for worn parts and replace as needed. Retest in the game.

Have a look at the wear track. If this is worn, it can cause binding preventing the ship from moving correctly.

Here is the area that Schwaggs is referring to, the white track... there also should be a washer accompanying the bolt that runs through it. if any of the hardware is loose it can cause binding. Keep in mind there should be some play in the track side to side.

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Looks like I found the problem with the weak plunges I was having. At the very beginning of the right ramp (left side) at the shooter lane the ramp is sticking out a bit from that metal piece which has an indented area which is intended to make the ramp flush with it and keep it out of the way of plunges. From what I can see while watching the ball plunge it is hitting that piece of the ramp that is sticking out. There is evidence on the plastic of scraping also. I loosened the screw nearest that area, moved the ramp left and tightened up the screw. It worked for a bit but then I saw it pop back out again. I tried again to move and tighten but it won't stay put. Please take a look at this area for me and tell me if the ramp on your machine is sticking out or is flush. A picture would be even better and thanks in advance. Also I put new opto transceivers on left ramp and spinning disc area and so far the doubling of sound issue seems to be gone. I'll keep any ear on it to be sure.

OK, my ship is now fixed and working properly and what I found might be of interest to other POTC owners. So after I got the assembly out of the machine I removed the motor/clutch so I could freely work it by hand. It kept hanging up at the point when the rear part of the ship completes it's rotation out of the playfield and becomes level with the front of the ship. I noticed the thrust washer that is installed between the slide mechanism was hitting the screw heads that hold that plastic slide to the frame. I suspected the washer was too big, but checking the manual it looked correct. Finally I realized it was natural that the washer is supposed to pass over the screw locations on the one side, but because my game had pan head screws installed they were not sitting flush and were an obstruction to that process. I pulled out the slide and very clearly it has been CNC/Designed for flat head screws to be installed, not the pan heads I found on my game. I went to the hardware store and found some of the following:

6-32 X 5/8th flat head machine screws (my Home Depot only had these in stainless but I would guess any material will work)

Don't make the mistake of settling for longer ones as those will interfere with re-installing the ship cover, a second trip to the hardware store for me. I wasn't able to use any kind of lock washer because of the clearance issues so I'm putting locktight on the treads to hold it in place instead. With this arrangement my slide is now a smooth surface where the ship moves without any hangups at all.

I looked at the Stern web site and was surprised this isn't a service bulletin. I know the previous owner has worked on the ship trying to get it to work but from the minimal wear to the wiring harnesses in the ship itself, and the fact that the motor was unplugged when I bought it I'm guessing my game spent most of it's life with a non-working ship. Bad for all the folks that put quarters in it, but good for me as I didn't have a bunch of sail mechanism wires that needed to be replaced.

Thank you to the several pinsiders that helped me out with advice on getting this thing out of the game to begin with. Maybe what I found will help you guys out?? If your mechanism is mostly working but has to jump over those screw heads I would suggest you should replace them as I did. The blowout in the manual does not show these particular screws, I'm wondering if that could be what caused the factory workers to install the wrong ones?

Yay. It is home. Only had a couple of games on it but loving it.

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Congrats stoptap such an awesome game!! Yes color dmd on this game is awesome I have one it's a must do

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Thanks chaps. Yes it will get a ColorDMD at some point. They are very expensive over here though.

They're very expensive here too, haha. I like the leds under the pirates logo in the compass. Is that just cool white?

For some reason there were LED flashers in there and they (obviously) weren't properly lighting. I have taken them out.

Cleaned up real nice. Very happy with it.

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rai what do mean the game resest to zero?

Oh sorry maybe I'm confused, if at th end of s ball drain (not end of game) you lose you progress a setting iss off. If at the end of the game you lose progress that is correct. Otherwise pinball would get old real fast if it carri d scores and progress over. Some games do this to a degree however very low

Someone else can chime in here but I think your progress on the 4 wind mb is saved but you do have to go thru the compass again to get back to that mb....true?

Hi Guys, making some progress with the talking skull topper. Hooked it up to a spare 5V in the backbox but am still unable to make it interactive with the game.

This might be a bit off-topic but since my electronics skills fall short, I’m guessing you guys might be able to point me in the right direction.

The talking skull has a single IR diode in the nose that should detect movement in the room. It works miserably but I wanted to hook the skull up with either an opto of the chest made switch anyway and don’t use it again.

There’s a very small current running over the IR diode. When I short the leads nothing happens but once I disconnect the leads afterwards, this triggers the skull. So apparently that’s what he IR diode does? When light in the room changes (movement is detected) it shortly disconnect the circuit?

Is there any way to make a switch (like chest made) disconnect the shorted leads on the talking skull? Or are we talking more complex schematics here?

Thanks!

Hope to be a member soon, any tips on what to look at on a routed one?

Wait until after next week when JJP unveils the new POTC. I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few for sale after that, and you can probably find a bargain.

Why?

I get the wait and see what the JJP PotC has to offer part, but don't understand how this correlates to people selling their Stern PotCs at a bargain.

Because there will no doubt be some people (as with Hobbit) that sell their like-themed game to "upgrade" to the new one. I certainly will if I like it enough.

I have an alert setup on Marktplaats (Dutch Craigslist) That way I’ll receive an email for anything regarding ‘pirates’ in the pinball section. These machines come and go on a regular basis. You should be able to find one quote soon I presume.

I bet there are some glum faces on the folk who sold a LOTR to buy a Hobbit.

Nice one in germany.

http://www.flippermarkt.de/community/forum/showthread.php?t=187870

Agreed. I cancelled my Hobbit order, and sold LOTR just to avoid 45-minute games.

Might be simpler to tie into the chest lid solenoid. You could simply use a 48V relay. Tie the relay's coil onto the chest lid coil. Connect the relay switched leads to your topper. Something like this should work:

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Omron-Electronics/G5LE-1-DC48/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMtSzCF3XBhmW%2fyoRnyfeNYct49MMbUY9H8%3d

I love the odd 45 minute game; it's great to have variety in a pinball collection . (And most of my games are short ball time pins)