New Time Lord checking in.

Anyone know where I can get a new translight? The one this came with is just plexiglass and a print.

img_2879 (resized).jpg

Thanks, I snapped up the original on eBay. I didn't see one listed when I looked Saturday night. And the alternate translite's just look too "Photoshop" to me.

Now, maybe next week I can get an order in at Marco and I can get a new glass and trim pieces, along with some other little parts... purchasing with Paypal doesn't seem to be working there right now. I'll try again in a few days.

Thanks for the links!

I’d be interested in it if it’s in better shape then my current mini pf. I just pulled mine out to work on some optos that are misbehaving.

Can you get a pic or two so we can see what shape it is in?

I’ve been working on my time expander, and I’m looking for some replacement parts for when I put it back together.

The main thing I’m looking for is the plastic cover that covers the top of the mini playfield. Mine is pretty banged up.

I’m also looking for the decals that go on that plastic top and the metal shroud that is behind the mini playfield. The Master in the back, etc... mine’s not too bad, but it’s got a few scuffs.

Marco lists the cover, but it’s not in stock.

Luckily, the ball guides I can straighten, grind the mushrooms and polish back into shape. And at least the mini playfield had Mylar covering most of it, so at least that part still looks good...and the Cliffy’s will cover the the edge that has been nearly obliterated.

So does anyone know where some of these parts may be still available?

Yep, that’s the one.

Are you running an ad here on Pinside?

And I saw Marco had the sticker for this part. It doesn’t surprise me that much that the master sticker isn’t available, but I did order a sheet with the insert decal so I can touch up a couple of bad spots on the main play field. So if that exists, maybe someone will get around to the other decals in the future.

I’ll look up your thread shortly.

Marco sold out? I guess that means I bought the last one with the other parts that I ordered.

It also has all of the decals for the Tardis.

Ok Doctors, I pulled my mini out after I had an opto switch stop working and I just replaced both boards with new replacements. (Old boards were really beat up)

Now, my none of the mini optos are working after replacing both boards. I verified both boards are wired to the plug right and I show 10 volts to the leds and 1.5 volts to the optics.

Bad replacement boards? I’m scratching my head on this one.

They are Gulf boards.

I did not replace the carrier, but it does have a couple of spacers in it trying to keep it squared up.

I think I can see the leds working. It looks like a purple laser dot at the end each of the leds.

If I have the game in switch test mode, it doesn’t register those optos at all.

It could be the carrier. It may be warped just enough that the leds and optos are off enough to not see each other.

I may have to order a set from pindorabox whenever they come back in stock. I removed the gulf boards from the carrier and pointed each LED/Opto right at each other and I could get two of them to register....very intermittently. They can't possibly be this tight on how well they have to be aligned...

I have a new one on order from Marco Specialties. I’ll 3d print the isolator that goes in it.

And if I can’t line up a single opto while physically holding just the boards…something is wrong. The best I could do was just barely get one opto to briefly register during the switch test. I couldn’t get one opto to stay open for more than a few moments…and I could actually only get two of the five optos to even remotely register briefly.

The Pindora box boards seem to be out of stock right now...

I did go ahead and placed an order for the Swinks upgraded carrier.

Swinks carrier and Pindorabox boards acquired.

I managed to get four of the five mushroom targets moved before the retaining clip on #5 launched itself into the nether realm. Will a generic e-clip replacement work or will I need to order a specific retaining clip?

I also wired up the Pindora boards, can I just plug them in to the machine without the mini PF to test to see if they will work before I get this thing all back together?

If the clip was somewhere in the machine that worm probably would help...but I didn't hear anything when the clip went flying. I'm guessing its somewhere in the carpet now. My roomba will probably find it someday.

I just did plug in the new boards and...nothing. I'm missing something somewhere...I show 10v on the LED board and (if I remember correctly) I had 14v on the optic board. I tried viewing the LED's with my phone but I couldn't tell if they were glowing or not.

Unfortunately I don't. They likely wouldn't have been much use to you if I did, they were a bit more than just "crispy"...they were kinda crunchy. They were actually cracking apart.

I found the missing clip…Well, my Roomba found it. It had landed a couple of pins down from the Doctor. I heard the click it made when it picked it up.

All of the mushroom targets are now installed on the Swinks carrier. Now all I have to do is figure out why the five target optos aren’t working. I’ll be studying the wiring diagrams this weekend.

And my saga with my mini PF opto's continue...

I checked wiring, triple checked the pin-outs on the plug to make sure I had the boards wired correctly, even tried a different 10 opto board under the main playfield....nothing would work.

Then, on just dumb luck, I had the receiver sensors pass over one of the GI LED lights that I installed a couple of years ago. It detected the opto's! I verified the power was getting to the transmitting LED's but no matter what camera I used it didn't look like those LED's were working. So I switched out the Pandora LED board with a Gulf LED board and bingo. I guess the LED board from Pandora was defective?

So I put it all back together and....well, almost there. Now none of the mushroom buttons register hits. The opto's are sowing on in the test mode, but I guess somehow the combination of Gulf LED's with Pandora opto's is too much for the mushroom targets to break the connection?

And yes, I have the upgraded carrier from Swink and I put a new paper cover over it so now I have some new issue to figure out....

I will figure this thing out.

I’ve done that multiple times.

It wasn’t until I switched the Pandora LED board with a Gulf LED board that I could get the optos register. I just didn’t check the mushroom targets interrupting the optos before I put it back together. At this point, I can strip the mini PF out and apart in about five minutes.

....It was the paper cover that I made out of heavy card stock.

When I acquired my Who, the mini PF didn't have the cover for the opto's. I made a replacement using heavy card stock paper and as I worked backwards removing the PF removing an item at a time...once that cover came off, the opto's worked.

I used some electrical tape instead and put the PF back in the machine and it works. Now I just need to fine tune a few things and get a handful of lights working again. (probably socket issues or cold joints)

The important thing is...the Dr lives again!

Photo Apr 25, 8 51 11 PM (resized).png

It was white. I think I found the print for it on the Dr Who IPDB page. It never mentioned against using any specific color.

Even when I had the carrier below the main playfield where it was dark…it still wouldn’t work. I’m guessing it was reflecting enough light to keep the opto’s open.

I was referring to the IPDB link.

Plus there are almost 5500 posts in this thread. Forgive me if I missed a few here and there. I was so consumed with just getting the boards to work in the first place, I wasn’t focused on other details that would effect the operation after finally getting opto’s to register period.

Hey, I’m just thrilled it’s working. After fighting the different boards for what seemed like forever, to me just getting them working was the biggest step. I wasn’t about to trace wires again.

The Doctor is the fifth pin I’ve owned (traded a Bride of Pinbot for it) and out of the issues I’ve had to troubleshoot on them all, this one definitely has been the most annoying.

Now to get these small issues ironed out (mostly a few random lights not working) and then I’ll move the Doctor to the Bank of Pinball for others to enjoy.

Guess what I'm about to shoehorn in....

Photo May 09, 6 14 44 PM (resized).jpg

You are correct sir.

It worked pretty much right out of the box after installing it. Now I'll play around with it and see what all it can do....before I take the entire machine up to the Bank of Pinball and turn it loose.
Photo May 09, 8 56 50 PM (resized).jpg

Dr Who (resized).png

Yea, I'd likely not buy one if it was just for my personal machine. But this Who will be moving up to our Bank of Pinball in the near future so it'll be an experiment with offering the new tech on the old machine.