I'm guessing the latter?
JK bro! I hope we can play an F-14 together someday & see what's what. Maybe my particular game isn't fast enough? I do have a 6.5 degree angle.

It's definitely the latter, lol. I'm not a very good player, I just enjoy it.

I'll be at the December auction if you'll be able to make it.

A couple things corrected on my F-14 tonight! First, my Cliffy return lane guides arrived! They are stunning and a perfect fit! Here are a few photos of my old ones. Please note the straight lines - not! Check out the flattened edges on these babies. The last photo is the new ones installed.

Don't cut yourself on those raised edges!

Bends where there should be straight lines.

New Cliffy's INSTALLED!!!

Built my first ball gate from scratch tonight too! It came out pretty nice. This was my second attempt, my first was a complete mess because I was trying to get the measurements right (and didn't). It fits and moves around just like it is supposed to. No ball hang ups and no shuffling sounds in the trough. Perfect!

Shiny! Please ignore my old man hands.

Snug as a bug.

That looks better!

Avec pinballs.

Installed a new rollover switch in the plunger lane last night. It's the one halfway up the habitrail. What a pain in the ass! I had to disassemble half of the PF just to get at it. Clear plastics came off, ramp habitrail came off, PF plastic came off... Ugh! The wire form had broken on it so I thought maybe, just maybe this could possibly be a malfunctioning switch that might be causing my two-ball multiball problem.

It was late by the time I got everything back on the PF so I'll be testing out the new switch while playing tonight! Wish me luck!

It's on my calendar!

Does anyone else think it would be cool if someone came out with a replacement backglass for the F14 ? Not a transite but actual recreated painted glass. I love my F14 but have always found the transite to be the weakest part of the machine artistically. What do all you F14 fans think ?

Yes, backglass will be fantastic, if cpr do that it can be a good move.

Awesome idea

So it's been 72 games since I installed a new rollover switch in the shooter lane. The one under the wire ball guide, not the one in front of the plunger rod. I am happy to report that so far I have not experienced the two-ball multiball issue that I have reported on a few times in this thread. Out of those 72 games I've played, many have been intense ones. Multiple multiball games, multiple extra ball games, ball flying all over the place, and multiple people playing multiple styles. My initials are now all over the high scores in spots 1, 2, 3, and 4.

I don't want to jinx it, but so far so good. I am keeping track of how many games I've played so I'll report back after I hit another 100-200 games. *fingers crossed*

Nice work! From chewing on it, and thinking about how I had to code for my Second Sortie re-write, this makes sense. The machine uses that switch part way up the wireform to sense that a ball is on the way to the main ramp. Once it knows a ball is in transit, it will open one of the divertors on the ramp to send the ball to the appropriate lock.

If that switch doesn't register, neither divertor will activate and the ball will always route through to the lock on the far right of the playfield. In theory it should work around the problem but I can see how it could end up confused sometimes and give unexpected results.

Let us know if it carries on behaving

All you F-14 owners, how do you increase the bonus? I understand how to increase the multiplier BONUS X (red chevrons), but how do you increase the bonus (blue chevrons)? I can't figure it out.

Dunno, I always assumed it was just added to each shot in a small amount.

This is why I'm trying to figure it out. Sometimes I'll have a great ball where it's hitting everything on the playfield and then I'll drain and get 6x 14,000. Other times I'll hardly hit a thing and get a 3x 90,000 bonus. WTF? Where are these magical spots on the playfield to hit?

Most of your bonus comes from the upper playfield orbit.

This was my assumption too, but any idea how it adds up?

I'm not at my game, couldn't you just shoot through the orbit and see what amount it adds to your score? Then I assume as this amount passes 1K it lights the 1K blue arrow, then 2K lights the 2K cblue arrow and so on. I guess I never really paid attention that close.

I could do this, but i was hoping someone already went to the trouble of doing this and could just share the info.

Hahaha, whooops.

No sweat Wolfy. I had to look as I didn't know either.

Outlanes? Well I won't be aiming for those. Thanks very much for checking! I just got home and was going to give this a try. Instead I found a package at my door. New COMET LEDs!!!!!!!!! Check out this new pop bumper ring! The upper PF is much brighter now!

I replaced 3 of the blue chevron lights with LEDs, 3 of the red chevron's and some of the white KILL lights with LEDs. The blue is like night and day. The red is not as noticeable as I had hoped, but they really weren't bad to begin with. The white is crazy bright. I might have to rethink them.

Sorry for the quality of the photos. Anyone that has tried to photograph LEDs knows how difficult it is to capture the truthiness of them.

20140825_205433.jpg

20140825_210311.jpg

That pic of the pop ring is fabulous, chief. I might have to get me one someday.

Yes, definitely like the pop ring LED...looks great Fifty! Think I'll include one of those in my next order from Comet.

Since the blue inserts are so faded, blue LEDs really make them look like new again. Which Comets did you put in your chevron inserts? I put Comet's 2 smd faceted LEDs in mine.

http://www.cometpinball.com/product-p/2smd3528-ng.htm

I just used regular old 1 SMD under the entire PF with the exception of the Green LED for the 'radar' I use a 1 SMD flexi for that one. Cheapest bulbs they had. Clear dome for all.

http://www.cometpinball.com/product-p/1smd5050.htm
http://www.cometpinball.com/product-p/1smdflex.htm

I haven't had the chance to play as I just finished LED'ing under the entire PF last night. I'll let you know if the LED's bug me in any way. F-14 is just so incredibly bright and laced with inserts that I thought 2 SMD would be too much.

Red had the least impact. Blue and White had the most. The only colour I am disappointed with is the Orange. I find it too dark. I guess it really shouldn't be Orange, it should be Amber. Comet lists Orange and Amber as the same colour, but I still think it looks off. I tried White under the orange inserts but it was too much - almost washed out. I am going to order some Yellow next time and see if that brings it back to looking the way I like.

I don't plan on converting the GI to LED, except for maybe the blue bulbs in the divertor as the blue condoms let too much of the white incandescent light through. I'm considering doing the translite (but not the flashers).

I also ordered spare 1 SMD flexi LEDs so that I can light up the flipper buttons and spare Orange for the coin slots which brightened them up quite a bit. I might try Yellow LEDs in those too though.

I will take more pictures tonight.

Finished LED'ing my F-14 last night. Holy crap it is bright! Fire up my first LED game and ended up getting my 2nd ever Fighter Jackpot. End score was 3.6M which was good enough for 3rd on the high score list at my house.

Overall, I find the 1 SMD incredibly bright. I cannot imagine using anything brighter. When I walked away from the machine my eyes were wide open. I didn't have a headache or anything, but I felt... uh, off. I'm guessing that it is the flicker of the LED's bothering my eyes. My wife has better vision than I do so I brought her down to take a look. She's able to read the thoughts in my head so seeing flicker isn't a problem for her. She says it's flickering.

I really like the look of the LEDs so I'm keeping them. I've decided to go ahead and purchase a LCD OCD board. There's supposed to be a batch of Sys11 released in Sept so hopefully I'll end up with one.

Oh, and my bumper ring broke. Part of the soldered connection came right off the board and it went dead. Art is going to replace it at no charge. Lastly, I still haven't warmed up to the new orange LEDs. I need to change them out for yellow or try another companies version of orange.

Photos to come I promise!

CT premiums in mine and no flicker. Make sure your power supply is good too. Mine is quite bright with all the LEDs and standard bulb flashers along with the added in missing flashers. I can't play in total darkness, but with enough ambient light it's awesome.

How do I test the power supply? I'm getting power therefore it is good?

Are these the ones you bought?

http://shop.cointaker.com/category.sc;jsessionid=82ECA9E4413AB8D5F09610E027234BAB.m1plqscsfapp04?categoryId=184

These are more than twice the price I paid. I know I went cheap though. I think my entire order with the bumper ring was under $80 shipped to Canada. The money I saved on bulbs I can put towards the LED OCD PCB.

How do you find the orange?

Not quite. There's a system 11 bulletproofing thread on Pinside, I put a list of the readings you should be getting with a DMM/Voltmeter.

Yes those are the CTs. Yes, premium price but I felt they were worth it. On some sys 11s I experienced ghosting with the standard bulbs. Not with the premium supers. Do realize the difference between ghosting and flicker. I did not notice flicker on mine either.

The orange look good.

478385_3200238722526_2120973141_o.jpg

Your blue and whites look very similar to mine. Your orange is definitely better, but I'd wager my red is deeper. It could be the photo, but your red looks more white than mine. You would think LEDs would all be the same seeing as they are all coming from China.

I don't see any ghosting on mine. Ghosting is when an insert is lite up or partially lit up when it shouldn't be - correct?

Flickering I relate to the refresh rate on an LCD monitor. Some people can see a computer monitor refreshing the screen and others cannot. A decent video camera will always capture a low refresh rate.

Strobing is the one that confuses me.

I'll bet it likely photo related. I can take the same picture with my camera, my wife's camera, or my mobile phone and each one will look different - a lot. The ambient light in the room and the types of bulbs there can play havoc with good photo representation of what you see in person as well.

You have the ghosting definition correct. It was so bad on my Taxi, that I had to yank all the CT standard bulbs out.

Flickering like you have said, is also similar to a strobe light. Bad flicker can make it hard to track a moving ball as well. Usually caused by using LEDs in an AC circuit that just can't handle the changing direction. They'll have that subtle 60 times a second flicker, often enough to give you a headache. Strobing can be causes by overdriven LEDs. Flicker and strobing are about the same thing - a "stroboscopic" effect (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroboscope)

Here is what my F-14 looks like with full LED's.

All playfield and most backglass flashers are converted to LED. The backboard flashers are still incandescent so I do not have to remove warming resistors.

All condom'd bulbs removed and color matched to Frosted LED.

I'll update the vid eventually as I have also replaced the flipper rubbers with Super Bands (red on left, blue on right) as well as finished the red on the left, blue on the right GI lighting (AKA: Transformer Style)

I find the biggest change is the green LED. The radar stands out now instead of hiding in the PF.

Anyone looking for an F-14, I have one for sale in MN. $1350

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/wtt-for-an-acdc-premium-have-ngg-nascar-f14-id4-to-trade-minnesota

I had the two-ball multiball issue happen tonight. Actually I had quite a few oddities happen tonight.

The first weird issue, happened with the diverter. I was just playing a normal game. Ball was in play and I heard the diverter engage. I'm not sure which diverter arm was active because I have a decal mod on that clear plastic. The ball was no where near the VUK, or any of the switches that typically engage the diverter.

The second weird issue, was the two-ball. I had 3 balls locked and RELEASE was lit. The ball was in play and the next thing I know it kicked the ball out of the right lock.

Crap! It had been almost 150 games since I replaced the switch midway up the habitrail in the plunger lane with no issues until tonight.

This is definitely pointing to a diode issue. There is voltage leaking backwards somewhere. However, it could all be related the diverter, but I honestly haven't looked at the diverter in enough detail to know what could be wrong with it.

Searching for one of these in a bad way.

what is the best led for diverter?to bright will be not good,cointaker
led frosted is good?

I used Titan Pinball's frosted #44.

https://www.titanpinball.com/products_detail.php?ProductID=28

The caps on their LED's are longer than CT or Comet and look great for the diverter, IMO. They are bright, though, so I put the condoms back on the LED caps and it turned out awesome.

This pic doesn't do it justice...

multiballLights.JPG

ok,thanks,the cost of shiping is correct from titanpinball?

They look the same as the bullets Comet sells:
http://www.cometpinball.com/product-p/1ledbullet.htm
http://www.cometpinball.com/product-p/8mm-led.htm

I just used the cheap 26c Comets with brand new short silicone caps from PBL and the rich color is great and you can't tell the lens is flat topped underneath it when sitting in the diverter tray due to the cap.
LEDBA9S.jpg

1LEDBULLET-2.jpg

I just want to confirm something with everyone that I believe is common for F-14, but I'm not sure. When set to FREE PLAY if your games ends and there are balls locked the game will go into MATCH mode and kick out the locked balls.

If I press START before the balls kick out it will start a new game and the balls will remain in the locks. The CPU doesn't seem to care. So now I'm starting a new game and I have balls already locked. Is this just an F-14 thing?

Correct, this is an F-14 thing. In addition (I believe I posted earlier in this thread or another thread), if you press the start button (on free play or with extra credits loaded) *while* the last ball is draining, it will improperly give your bonus onto your new game, AND eat your first ball leaving ready to shoot ball #2 instead of ball #1. This is a bug I have only noticed on F-14.

Cool. Thanks! I'm bringing my pin to a show here in Ottawa and I was a bit concerned about this.

Guys, I need to know the proper diode number for flipper coils. I have a broken one. It's a 1N4003. I took a look at the other diodes on my coils and the numbers are all different. 1N4002, 4004… what diode is supposed to be on the coils??? The manual doesn't list the diode number, just the coil and the diode for the EOS switch which is a 4001.

4004 or higher is all you need on a coil.

1N4004 (400V max) or 1N4007 (1000V max): http://www.onsemi.com/pub_link/Collateral/1N4001-D.PDF

While 1N4001 (50V max) are normally used on switches due to very low +5V they use.

Back in the day the higher voltage ones cost more so they used them appropriately. Nowadays you can get 25x 4004's from China for $1 shipped, the same or even less sometimes than 1N4001's

Note, for F14, the EOS is at flipper voltages, so a 4004 should be used, not a 4001. On newer games with just 5V running through the EOS, or on plain playfield switches, 4001's are just fine.

4004 for the flippers it is. Thanks.

In the F-14 manual is states that the banded side of the diode should be connected to the solid blue wire and the non-banded side goes to the trace wires. On mine, none of the bands are connected to the solid blue wire.

Should they be?

No....

Just took a look at my old playfield and the manual. I see where you found the comment in the manual (on the page with the flipper assembly, right)? The comment there about the blue wire is wrong - checking my old playfield and the schematics later on in the manual, they are not blue. Also - this comment would only apply to the flippers anyway.

For general coils, there is one power line which daisy chains around all of them (there might be a couple of chains, but you get the idea). This one is easy to spot as generally there are 2 wires on that lug. One bringing the power line in from the previous coil, the other looping off to the next one. Only exception is the last coil in the line. You can also tell which one is the power line as the cable is thicker. The other lug has the ground connection - this gets connected to ground by the driver board when it's time for the coil to fire. The banded end of the diode goes to the power side, so generally speaking the lug with 2 wires on.

Add: If they were installed backwards, you'd pop your solenoid supply power fuse.

Yeah, it was in the flipper assembly notes.

What do you mean it would only apply to the flippers? The coil controls the flipper action. Aren't we talking about the same thing here?

If the banded side of the diode goes to the power side, then for me that is the blue wires and my diodes are all backwards.

Sorry, maybe I'm misunderstanding something...

By only applying to the flippers, I meant the blue wire. The other coils have all different colours. But then the manual is wrong about blue too

And if the flipper coils were backwards, you'd pop the flipper power supply fuse, so you should be fine.