(Topic ID: 25521)
Linked Games
F-14 Tomcat
Williams, 1987
Topic Gallery
El Cerrito, CA
Quoted from Wolfmarsh:It's a keeper. I've gotten some amount of grief over putting this much into "just an F-14", but I really love the game, and this is the actual physical first machine I ever owned, so it has a special spot in my heart.
Great job! Who cares what others think! You love the game and I think you are loving the process as well. That is worth more than money in my book.
I'm with Steve on this....rub it, look at it, cherish it...its yours to do with as you like. Enjoy it, and the experience of bringing her back.... 
Yeah, I'm completely enjoying it. I've been working on her for about 8 months now. I am so freakin' close.
I just found a bunch of issues on the MPU as I was trying to fix some others. Now I'm getting a U41 PIA failure, so I need to start debugging that board one of these days soon.
You're in the home stretch now! I can't wait to see how fast F14 plays with a clear-coated playfield!
Looking at these pics of the top of essentially a brand new playfield it really jumps out at me how faded and dim looking the plastic is on some of my games. The blue posts especially seem to lose their color over time - your brand new ones really pop.
I am going to have to order a bunch of posts and start replacing them instead of trying to just clean the old ones when I am shopping my pins...It's tough always trying to keep up with the Wolfmarshes....
2 weeks later
BadBrick came over last night and we worked on debugging the MPU issues.
The first issue is that segment h on the alpha displays were coming on with segment a, so there was a short between them.
We spent all night looking at the damn schematics trying to figure out where the short was, only to realize this morning it was the wrong schematic.... The schematic in the F-14 manual is for a D-11416, but later machines like mine have a D-11610 in them. The proper schematic for this part # is in the cyclone manual.
Eventually nailed it down to a short in the player 1 display glass.
Anyone got a 7-digit alphanumeric glass from display board D-11610 they want to donate to the restoration?
Looks fantastic. Excellent work. Wish I could spend that much time restoring my games. Lots of detail into this one. NIce job!
So add an xPin LED display to the list of things I've done to this machine.
Will be here next week I suppose.
What color did you go with? Blue? It will add that extra edge. The old orange displays really don't look as nice in a well lit and restored game. The XPIN will tie it all together nicely.
I had a stuck segment display issue when I set high speed back up. Spent hours at the show debugging it. It was the chip on the driver board. Got it swapped out the first night and all was well.
Jim
Kitchener, ON
I have a red pinscore display for my f-14. But blue would also look cool.
Great rebuild thread. Thanks again
Damn, I went with the orange, because I've never seen any of their displays in person, I figured it was the safest (and also $50 cheaper).
I'll see how it looks and if I'm not happy with it I'll exchange it for a different color I suppose.
I thought the blue might look out of place, but red was my second choice if it hadn't been $50 more.
Quoted from Wolfmarsh:Damn, I went with the orange, because I've never seen any of their displays in person, I figured it was the safest (and also $50 cheaper).
I'll see how it looks and if I'm not happy with it I'll exchange it for a different color I suppose.
I thought the blue might look out of place, but red was my second choice if it hadn't been $50 more.
Not that it matters much, but I personally prefer to go with the orange or red. I feel like the blue ends up making the game look kinda like an early gottlieb SS machine. Not a bad thing, just makes it look too modified to me. I prefer a more original look.
Not that it matters much, but I personally prefer to go with the orange or red. I feel like the blue ends up making the game look kinda like an early gottlieb SS machine. Not a bad thing, just makes it look too modified to me. I prefer a more original look.
I think it matters. I like hearing all opinions.
The display came in the mail today, and I gotta say, I really like the orange. It took me literally 30 seconds to screw the display in and connect it up, and it worked like a charm.
Truly a drop-in replacement.
Quoted from Pafasa:That does look great! I am going to stick with Orange on my FP also.
It really does have the color of a gas display. I am pretty happy with it. The brightness adjustment is great, it goes a lot brighter than I expected it to.
Can't speak to the other colors because this is the first xpin display i've seen in person, but I'm with you on the blue. It does probably look cool, but when I had Gottlieb's Victory, I made fun of the blue "calculator" display, so the blue was a little iffy for me.
Nice! Glad to see one in action since I am about 99% sure I will be doing the same. Did you ever figure out the U41 PIA failure? I think I had that and it was a cap that needed replacing. Let me know and I will go back and look up the info.
Actually nevermind, I went back and checked and it was U10. Do you have Clays system 11 repair guide? Pm me if you don't.
Yeah, badBrick and I got the U41 worked out. I had a very tiny solder bridge under one of the SRCs I replaced. Had to get out the microscope to find it.
Quoted from Wolfmarsh:Yeah, badBrick and I got the U41 worked out. I had a very tiny solder bridge under one of the SRCs I replaced. Had to get out the microscope to find it.
nice!
Ok, I need some assistance on this one I think.
I've been taking a look at my sound problem. I don't get any of the CPU generated sounds (1 through 9). I've finally put the scope to it and think my U9 PIA is bad, but I've not looked into how they actually operate yet.
Apologies for the long picture, but I wanted to get the schematic in (click the pic to get the zoomed version). This is the relevant area on the CPU board. When I am using the oscilloscope, I get data on the pins I've highlighted blue, coming from the sound rom into the PIA. I don't get any signal at all coming out of the pins I highlighted red , which I assume is the data used to generate the CPU sounds?
That leads me to believe the U9 PIA is bad. Can someone confirm my line of thinking before I order a new chip, or at least tell me i'm being stupid and not understanding how they are operating?
I've also looked at U3 pin 3, and there is nothing there either.
U3 pin 9 (clock) is not getting a signal from the PIA either.
The new display really does look great and it's good to know the installation is so easy! Don't forget I've got dibs on your used displays!
*** Also a bump for your CPU sound/speech problem! ***
If a System 11 board repair expert doesn't chime in on this soon, maybe it would be better to open a separate thread just for this issue in the tech help section?
Quoted from BadBrick:The new display really does look great and it's good to know the installation is so easy! Don't forget I've got dibs on your used displays!
*** Also a bump for your CPU sound/speech problem! ***
If a System 11 board repair expert doesn't chime in on this soon, maybe it would be better to open a separate thread just for this issue in the tech help section?
Good advice BadBrick. The title of this one will not necessarily attract a board repair guy. Wish I could be more help here.
I'm going to give Leon's test rom a go tonight, and if that doesn't nail down the issue for me, I will definitely start a dedicated thread for the sound problem.
While tinkering on it early this morning, I noticed that pressure in the right area on the board in the sound area causes the CPU to not boot, so something is going on over there.
I think I am getting somewhere, but I have to wait on another erase cycle to finish before I can test more.
Why in the everloving hell do pinball machines not use eeproms?
Ok, i finally got somewhere.
With Leon's test rom, I confirmed my earlier thought that the PIA at U9 is bad, it is.
After I did that, I also just decided to make sure my roms were all freshly programmed and working, so I erased them and found out one of the sound rom chips is hosed. It won't take a programming at all, and even confuses the GQ-4X programmer.
I didn't suspect this chip because it's one I bought in a set last year to try to fix this same sound problem. The pre-programming was free, so I just had them do F-14. I should have checked it out myself.
I've programmed a replacement for the bad rom, I luckily have a few spares. Now I am just waiting on my new PIA to come in the mail.
Leon's Test ROM is a wise choice. Very useful for testing PIAs, RAM chips, etc.
It's not uncommon to find a bad 27256 or 27128 EPROM. Good plan having spares. Might grab a couple spare PIAs while you're at it.
Any game is worth the effort and $$ to restore, if its a game you enjoy. I don't let 'letter designations' determine what I want to restore
2 weeks later
So, I decided to move on from the MPU sound problem, and will be sending it to a guy for repair.
Since the board works though, and I'm having a bunch of people over this weekend, I decided to go ahead and finish reassembly.
IT'S ALIVE!!
I've gone through the full diagnostics. All coils, flippers and flashers work. I have 14 things to check on between all of the lights and the switches. Haven't checked any yet, so it's mostly just needing adjustments or bulbs have fallen out over the past few months.
It's not even close to the quality that the other guys put out, by any means, but I am pretty proud of it.
I'll post some final pics once everything is together and in it's spot.
Down to 3 problems, the three switches around the loop need to be adjusted. If there is one pinball assembly so far that I hate with a burning passion, its these leaf switches under the playfield attached to the spinner and loop gates.
Thanks Steve, I'll post a pic of the awesome instruction cards you sent me in the machine, about to put them in.
I got all of the switches adjusted and just played my first full game of F-14 in 9-10 months. Holy crap I've missed this game!!!!!
Quoted from Wolfmarsh:assembly so far that I hate with a burning passion, its these leaf switches under the playfield attached to the spinner and loop gates.
RT LFT LOOP 42.... 
Been there just last night...
Sana'a
1 week later
Quoted from Wolfmarsh:If there is one pinball assembly so far that I hate with a burning passion, its these leaf switches under the playfield attached to the spinner and loop gates.
I can second that!! Nice restoration!
My dad and I have a few pins in the collection that we trade back and fourth with a friend and f-14 is one of them. When we got it I thought it was hopeless but the friend took it and really made it nice. We traded it back on friday and it is a blast to play, I love the upper kicker such a cool idea!
Quoted from Soapman:Do you still have old displays?? Need player 4 if willing to part with.
Thanks
I do have them. Ill Pm you tonight, lemme dig it all out.
Do you have any extra posts that go right next to the kickouts in the middle of the playfield? The little metal ones with the small rubber bumper? I only need one if you have an extra I will buy it off of you.
3 months later
6 months later
3 years later
Quoted from Wolfmarsh:A conversation between badbrick and I last night got me thinking about all the things ive done to this machine:
- Stripped to bare wood, repaired, new cabinet decals from planetary pinball.
- New side rails from Doug Huse
- New full speaker set from pinball pro.
- All stand up targets are brand new (all 20 of them, at $7 a pop)
- Lighted flipper buttons from Vid's guide.
- All flippers rebuilt and upgraded via Vid's guide
- All new pop bumper, built using Vid's guide.
- Repaired and clearcoated playfield from Whridlsoncestood
- All new coil labels
- All LED
- All new playfield components (posts, rubbers, fasteners)
- Brand new plastics set
- Flasher resistor boards had the 330 ohm removed, and the 5 ohm upgraded to a 15watt with better thermal performance. Couple that with the LED flashers and the heat problem should be gone.
- Power supply rebuilt using components from GPE. Added the mod to lower display voltage.
- Every single connector on the pcboards has been replaced, and every IDC connector on the cables has been replaced.
- New legs
- All labels have been remastered in photoshop and reprinted.
- Custom blackout lockdown bar with more modern labelling.
- New flipper buttons
- New translucent red shooter rod and new housing/springs.
- New power cord
There are more, but thats what I can think of at the moment. I tried not to take shortcuts on any detail, no matter how small.
After all this, I suppose I'll drop a sheet of invisiglass in it. Hate to cheap out on the glass after all this.
Forgive the newbie questions and resurrection of a really old thread, but...
Is there a link to this "Vid's guide"?
When you remastered the labels, how\what did you use equipment \ products wise? Type or printer and labels?
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