Look on the big board, right hand side @ half way up by the blue relay.
(Topic ID: 66172)
Linked Games
F-14 Tomcat
Williams, 1987
Topic Gallery
Chicago, IL
Quoted from GRUMPY:Look on the big board, right hand side @ half way up by the blue relay.
Ok will do once I get a chance, thanks a bunch
Quoted from GRUMPY:Look on the big board, right hand side @ half way up by the blue relay.
I've checked the Q75 and it looks good, didn't do the ground test to it yet but I'm assuming this is what you're talking about right? I've also checked out the c55 resistor it looks burnt but I think I saw that while the game was still working. I've also replaced a fuse and of course it blew on me but the kicker was active for a second. Could it be the LED bulbs I've replaced that's causing the problem?
Quoted from raplaka75:I've also checked out the c55 resistor it looks burnt
This is R-78 resistor and Q-49, this part of the switch matrix.
Quoted from raplaka75:Could it be the LED bulbs I've replaced that's causing the problem?
If you shorted the lamp power or coil power to the switch matrix circuit it could have done some damage to these components.
Quoted from raplaka75:I've checked the Q75 and it looks good
They don't always have visual damage when they are bad, so testing is required to determine there functionality.
I've ordered the non-laminated decals from Bay Area. Has anyone here applied them? A lot of my decals are gone so I want to add them back. I will remove the mylar (Hopefully with minimal damage) and since the decals are ink up the recommendation is clear coating or new mylar. Since I'd rather not pull everything apart would just applying wax regularly be ok? I'm good about waxing but I don't know if the decals will run or if just having the wax over the decals would be enough. I don't want to setup for a disaster later but I'm also hesitant to tear it all apart. Just wondering if anyone has done the same.
Newmarket, ON
Picking up a fully refurbished F-14 tomcat on Saturday and I want to do a full LED swap. Anyone have an entire parts list and where to order them? This is my first pinball machine. The more help the better, thanks!
Quoted from Samuelson3:Picking up a fully refurbished F-14 tomcat on Saturday and I want to do a full LED swap. Anyone have an entire parts list and where to order them? This is my first pinball machine. The more help the better, thanks!
There are two different light socket configurations with F14. They changed it up at some point during production. Some have mostly 44s but some have boards that have a lot of wedge 555s . You need to take a look underneath the playfield and find out. The green pcbs with the black twist in sockets are 555s. You can call or email Mellissa at Cointaker once you know which one you have and she can walk you through it . They have kits for both. Kits are good if you are not comfortable figuring it out yourself but if you do want to buy the bulbs on your on and not in a kit, generally, match the inserts by color, use white in orange though as orange leds dont generally look all that great under orange inserts. And cool or warm white for the GI. Then experiment from there.
Quoted from Samuelson3:What site do your reccomend of getting an LED kit from?
Cointaker . Call Mellissa. she will help you figure it out. Love cointakers customer service. A lot of people recommend Comet led also. I have purchased from them and also agree they a great but my first choice is Cointaker led.
Quoted from aerobert:Congratulations to your first machine. Cant go wrong with F14. (somewhat) Easy maintenance, great gameplay and awesome music. And the light show...second to none.
Thank you I am pretty excited and so is the girlfriend
Quoted from Samuelson3:Thank you I am pretty excited and so is the girlfriend
One of the first things you should do is check and see if the bridge rectifier has been fused. If not, you should do it. Just Google it if you don't know what I'm talking about. Easy mod and will make your pin much safer.
Quoted from SUPERBEE:One of the first things you should do is check and see if the bridge rectifier has been fused. If not, you should do it. Just Google it if you don't know what I'm talking about. Easy mod and will make your pin much safer.
Okay I will look into it. Thanks
Quoted from Lemank:Can someone explain this board?
This a A/C relay board and has nothing to do with your pop bumper, this relay switches between a side solenoids and c side flashers.
Quoted from Lemank:I dont think the two reds should be soldered together.
The red wires are installed correctly even tho it doesn't seem right. The labels on the board are what doesn't make sense.
Quoted from Lemank:I have a pop number that isn't working. Should this piece be soldered together? Can someone explain this board?
|Did you check the fuse ?
Yea the fuse is good but it keeps blowing a transistor on the board. We're going to trace the wire to see if it has a short somewhere.
Quoted from Lemank:We're going to trace the wire to see if it has a short somewhere.
If the wire is shorted you blow the fuse as soon as you turn the power switch on but it will not blow the transistor.
When we first started diagnosis we found the Q69 transistor (pop bumper circuit) burnt on the main board. We put in a new one and it burnt. Then changed two other chips as I call them and put in new transistor. This get real hot to the touch. Could the short may be in the low voltage circuit? We have been doing some serious research online. Would putting a relay snubber in for the pop coil Silve this? The low voltage circuits are handling too much amps. The snubber will fire the coil and then dissipate the high voltage away from the main board.
Quoted from GRUMPY:In attract mode use a jumper wire connected to the ground braid and briefly touch the metal tab of Q-75. Does the sling fire now?
Hello Grumpy, I finally had a chance to test the ground to the Q75 and no reaction at all. So do I have to replace it?
Thanks!
Lemank
First you need to cut the diode off of the coil and check the coil for ohms. It should be @ 4ohms. Then check that the sleeve isn't melted and the plunger moves freely. Then install a new diode correctly on the coil. Then replace Q-68 and Q-69 on the CPU. Then check that the skirt isn't sticky and the switch is adjusted correctly. Remove J-18 and J-19 and power up the machine in attract mode. Hook up J-19 while watching the coil, if it locks on then turn it off. If it doesn't lock on then start a game, does it lock on now? If it doesn't lock on then connect J-18, does it lock on now? Let me know what happens.
Quoted from raplaka75:I finally had a chance to test the ground to the Q75 and no reaction at all
This means you have a play field problem. Check for power on both lugs of the coil. No power on both means you need to look for a bad fuse or a broken power wire. Power on one lug only means the coil is bad. Power on both lugs means you have bad trigger wire going from the coil to J19 on the CPU board or a cracked header pin on the CPU.
Important Information !!
The beacon motors from all the different shops will not work properly in F-14 !
I bought a motor from marcos but it was only able to run 2 beacon ight, if added the third it starts stuttering.
Today I got my fixed original motor back and it works.
The difference is 5 watt. The repro has 3 watt, the original 8 watt ... it seems that the repro motors are only useable in Highspeed.
Just as an information that you dont spend money for the crappy motors !
I payed with shipping and taxes a hell lot of money for this motor.
Quoted from GRUMPY:This means you have a play field problem. Check for power on both lugs of the coil. No power on both means you need to look for a bad fuse or a broken power wire. Power on one lug only means the coil is bad. Power on both lugs means you have bad trigger wire going from the coil to J19 on the CPU board or a cracked header pin on the CPU.
Oh ok, when testing the lugs on the coil, do I test it with AC or DC settings on my multimeter?
Thanks
Quoted from TomDK:Important Information !!
The beacon motors from all the different shops will not work properly in F-14 !
I bought a motor from marcos but it was only able to run 2 beacon ight, if added the third it starts stuttering.
Today I got my fixed original motor back and it works.
The difference is 5 watt. The repro has 3 watt, the original 8 watt ... it seems that the repro motors are only useable in Highspeed.
Just as an information that you dont spend money for the crappy motors !
I payed with shipping and taxes a hell lot of money for this motor.
I got a repro from Marco and it fully works. I don't know how many watts it is, but I can check.
Quoted from shirkle:I got a repro from Marco and it fully works. I don't know how many watts it is, but I can check.
This will be the motor I have, so you are a lucky guy. I had no luck with this motor. So it seems there is a 50:50 chance that it works 
Quoted from GRUMPY:Dc settings.
Yeah it's saying -0.00 on DC settings, If I'm testing it out at the right spots.
Hey everyone, just picked up my first pinball machine and it is a F14 tomcat. My game has the factory highscores set on it, and I was just wondering how it can save my score since my scores are lower then the factory's. thanks.
Quoted from raplaka75:If I'm testing it out at the right spots.
Game on, DMM on DC volts, black lead stuck under the ground braid and do test with the red lead. You can check a working coil to make sure you are doing it correctly.
Quoted from TomDK:This will be the motor I have, so you are a lucky guy. I had no luck with this motor. So it seems there is a 50:50 chance that it works
few things to check: Did you replace the nyliners on the outside beacons? Is the washer on top of the middle pulley stack to prevent the pulley from contacting the mounting plate? Are the rotating arms binding low or contacting the lamp arm?
Quoted from Samuelson3:Hey everyone, just picked up my first pinball machine and it is a F14 tomcat. My game has the factory highscores set on it, and I was just wondering how it can save my score since my scores are lower then the factory's. thanks.
Congrats on your first game!! You would need to go into the settings and change the backup high scores to a really low level and then whatever you score will then be the high score. FWIW I think most people leave the factory scores until they beat them, which honestly shouldn't be too hard after playing it for awhile. Instructions for changing settings are in the manual you can find on IPDB if you don't have one.
Quoted from bobukcat:FWIW I think most people leave the factory scores until they beat them, which honestly shouldn't be too hard after playing it for awhile.
I must suck at pinball. 
Quoted from bobukcat:Congrats on your first game!! You would need to go into the settings and change the backup high scores to a really low level and then whatever you score will then be the high score. FWIW I think most people leave the factory scores until they beat them, which honestly shouldn't be too hard after playing it for awhile. Instructions for changing settings are in the manual you can find on IPDB if you don't have one.
Thank you. I did try to change the high scores according to my manual but the scores I set didn't save and it put the factory high scores back on.
Quoted from gutz:few things to check: Did you replace the nyliners on the outside beacons? Is the washer on top of the middle pulley stack to prevent the pulley from contacting the mounting plate? Are the rotating arms binding low or contacting the lamp arm?
Mechanical is everything well. i did not change the nyliners, only the rubbers.
With the 4 Watt motor middle and left turned and middle and right turned but not all three. That means that the motor is missing some power. I am not a electronic expert but it seems to make sense that 8 watt replaced by 3 watt is a large difference.
I guess this motors are for Highspeed with one rotating beacon .. there might be 3 watt enough.
However .. mine is working nop. It should be just a hint for replacers **IF** they run in the same problem. it might save them some time to figure out
Quoted from Samuelson3:Thank you. I did try to change the high scores according to my manual but the scores I set didn't save and it put the factory high scores back on.
Are you getting an Adjust Failure or Factory Adjust error when you power up the game, are the rest of your settings saved? I've never changed mine but if you follow the process, have good batteries & connections they should save just like any other changes you make to the settings.
Quoted from bobukcat:Are you getting an Adjust Failure or Factory Adjust error when you power up the game, are the rest of your settings saved? I've never changed mine but if you follow the process, have good batteries & connections they should save just like any other changes you make to the settings.
No adjust failure or anything. Machine is basically brand new and fully restored before we picked it up. I will try it again
You probably have to do a reset on the high scores to make the backup ones take effect, didn't think about that before.
Quoted from bobukcat:You probably have to do a reset on the high scores to make the backup ones take effect, didn't think about that before.
Thank you. That worked!
Quoted from GRUMPY:Game on, DMM on DC volts, black lead stuck under the ground braid and do test with the red lead. You can check a working coil to make sure you are doing it correctly.
Ok I'm getting a reading on DC settings on the Kicker coils (Slingshots) & pop bumper coil a 00.9 and on all the rest (flippers etc) I'm getting 72.3
Quoted from Samuelson3:I have a picture and it saved my high scores that I set it at. The second picture is what the home screen displays when playing.
1 million as a high score to beat ? Come on ! You need to challenge yourself more than that !! 
Quoted from raplaka75:Ok I'm getting a reading on DC settings on the Kicker coils (Slingshots) & pop bumper
How much and on both lugs of the coil?
Quoted from raplaka75:pop bumper coil a 00.9
If I am reading you correctly this is bad, but I thought you were have troubles with the kickers.
Quoted from GRUMPY:How much and on both lugs of the coil?
If I am reading you correctly this is bad, but I thought you were have troubles with the kickers.
I only tested one lug from each coil because I thought the other lug was for ground sorry. 00.9
Yeah I am but realized that the pop bumper wasn't doing anything either along with the kickers
Promoted items from Pinside Marketplace and Pinside Shops!
Reply
Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.
Hey there! Welcome to Pinside!
Donate to PinsideGreat to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!
