Red Yellow Blue Song

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There went 45 seconds of my life.

I swear I could feel my IQ dropping by the second.

It was a tough choice between red and blue for me. Red matches the speaker panel better. Blue pops more and matches a lot of the backglass, so that's what I went with. Either one is better than the original orange IMO.

Still going back and forth with 21 Electronics. The length of the standoffs seems to be an issue. The board will still be pretty far from the plexiglass. Do I just remove the brackets and screw the board right to the panel?

I don't think you would want to mount it directly to the display. You may want to put some small spacers there. When you receive display sit it on there and take some pics. This way we can see what you have going on.

I don't like the red or green. Orange much better IMO. Blue is nice.

Recently acquired an F14 Tomcat, so delighted to be part of the club.
Photos pending cleanup and metadata removal...
The cabinet is in poor shape paint-wise, but dry.

I was even happier to find that it's an early production run model!

I had a question I was hoping someone here may be able to assist with. It is reporting running software revision L5, which I can't find any reference to. Might anyone else have come across this one?

Never heard of an L5 Rom on F14. Where are you located? I'd love to grab a copy of that rom if it truly is L5 and make it available to everyone. It also could be a rom that someone else made some changes to.

After not finding anything about ROM version L5, that's what I thought , that perhaps it was a modified one. It looks like a sticker on top of a sticker on the EPROM, and they just have the U number and Tomcat hand written.

Located in Ireland, and it came from the UK. The MPU board is from a unit with a different serial (number is 37 higher... not far!, and of course it's a model 554), so thought perhaps an operator swapped it out in the past. The sound board is 65 higher on the serial, again not far away. Flipper board and PSU have the original serial, and the other cabinet stickers all match to that one. Sound board has faded PROTO print on a small sticker on top of the usual printed one, but we know that's very common for early run production machines.

I'm quite happy it's the early run - has the clear flashers at the rear (all working) and has the 4 flashers on the top-right of the playfield too (also all working). That also meant that it used the different display board unfortunately, so a little work to do on getting a DIS200 in there...

Some pics, which were after a light dry microfibre cloth wipe - lots of dust and grime.

Not bad compared to many I have seen here, with the blue nicely intact on the flashers and the beacon yellowing also not bad compared to others.

The playfield wear/paint crack and loss near the Hitman and Yagov heads is unfortunate,but inevitable. This doesn't seem to even have clearcoat, or maybe it was rubbed away with alcohol/similar some other time.
That said, it's not bad elsewhere and the mylar is mainly intact. Some bubbling around the inserts, but again not as bad as many I have seen, and the insert decals (I probably have the term incorrect) are mainly ok.

I'm not dismantling the playfield and re-finishing, that's just not something I could do. I expect I shall Novus the mylar areas very carefully to polish them up. I may have an artist friend try to touch up the paint loss at the "helmet" areas. As to how I protect those non-mylar areas afterwards, I'm open to suggestions. I have Gerlitz wax, but I believe I need something else on those bad areas first. I continue to read Vid's thread...

After the initial wiping and cleaning the inside of the cabinet a little, I tackled the beacons (belts missing and bulbs were both the wrong type and also blown). That worked out nicely as you can see. The covers need more cleaning but I'm quite wary that the plastic may have become brittle over the years, so may be safer not to do any more with them. I then wanted to test with the DIS200, primarily because I wanted to get into diagnostics and determine what does and does not function before_ I go rebuilding flippers and disturbing things - in other words I'll know if it was broken before I started, or if I broke it during my work...

I'll continue cleaning the mylared areas, plastics, wireforms etc and re-rubber. I also have to rebuild all the flippers and a slingshot, some drop targets to replace, various other bits on a growing list. There are 3 slightly damaged plastics also that I have found, the rest surprisingly not at all bad and the colour/artwork are in good shape.

I included a picture showing the version
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Yeah, I'm guessing someone made it themselves then. I've only ever seen the L1 and L4 versions before.

They are likely the proto ROMs - note the machine has all white flasher domes in the back... I think Williams did prototypes internally as 1, 2, 3, etc then once it was deemed released it reset back to L_1 for official release. If anyone wanted to putz around, they could burn the proto roms on IPDB and see what the official L-# is in their setup.

From IPDB...

'Another later serial number of 554 196508 belongs to a game having prototype MPU ROMs labeled 'PROTO5'. For this reason we have marked as a Prototype Game the two images we have of it. The owner states its sound and speech ROMs have red labels/stickers the same as production ROMs of his other games. It has the clear flash lamp domes at the rear of playfield as well as the clear backbox beacons.'

This one is international though - I95337, but mpu board is slightly higher in number (i95370) and the sound board slightly higher again (i95408)

Flipper and PSU board match the various cabinet labels which are all i95337.
Has the regular side art also. Speaker panel is normal too, albeit with the larger display board.

Good old rec.games.pinball

Not exactly definitive, but in the right direction

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/rec.games.pinball/f14|sort:date/rec.games.pinball/9fPVC8KigAg/_1XL8dImBaoJ

Very interesting! Thanks for posting that.

Is everyone's translite mounted on glass?
Mine is plastic with the translite mounted on it, and then the trim glued around it. It certainly appears to be an original translite, but I'm not sure if this was just someone's fix for a broken glass at some point.

I wondered if there was a mix of glass and plastic output during the production run?

F14s were plastic faces , not glass. Sounds like your is original but the trim should not have glue around it. Should be just a friction fit.

Installed Pinstadium lights.
This pin was soooo dark it was difficult to play... not anymore.

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How does the pin stadium light effect the look of the ball.

I know in some machines the LEDS seem to make it hard to track the ball. I wasn’t sure if this was an issue with f-14 because the ball moves so fast.

I really like the look of it.

It isn't a case of seems to make it harder, it makes it harder, more so for some people than others due to differing flicker frequency sensitivity.

Incandescent glow for some time after voltage is removed. This means as AC swings + to - or the lamp matrix strobes, the globes continue to glow for a period even while they don't have power. This leads to a continuous light.

LEDs are much faster to turn on and off. So as the matrix strobes, the light strobes. The best example I have of this is the standups on my Space Station. With incandescents under the inserts, nothing seems wrong and all movement seems normal. With LEDs, I can see the targets shake after the ball hits them because the light from the insert is (to me) noticeably strobing. The LEDs I'm using in that machine are far better than some I have seem previously, but I still get a strobing effect a lot.

LED GI is even worse for me, especially when there's no supplementary light. The worst machine I can think of was a Getaway in a dark bar. Instead of seeing a ball travelling down the playfield, I see 50 frames a second, distinct, individual balls on the playfield. That might be down to the particular LEDs used by that operator as the GnR there is horrid too. The Green LEDs that came in my Space Station were also far worse than the current ones too - that might be down to them being sensitive to polarity and therefore actually being off 50% of the time when powered by AC.

It happens with other LED lights too. A friend of ours has all LED lights in their house and I get a massive headache there because everything strobes at 50hz, all the time. It's like a disco when anything moves.

Kind of like this:
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See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flicker_fusion_threshold and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroboscopic_effect for more.

Very interesting read on the wiki pages. Thanks

Hello everyone! I'm having an error problem on my F-14 Tomcat saying adjust the switch 55 (Kill Gen Yakov). I've actually replaced the switch and it's still giving me the same error. Can anyone tell me what the problem may be? Thanks!

I have them installed on 6 of my pins and have never experienced that. The ability to perceive that flicker varies greatly from person to person.

Could be a bad diode somewhere else in the matrix.

Take the balls out, go into SWITCH TEST

Are any switches stuck on?

Now trip each switch, is every switch reading the correct number that's in the manual? (start by rolling a ball over yagov

Are any switches reading 40 then quickly flashing 32 (or some other double combination)?

Remember to check the coin door switches that have diodes on them - they are often trouble, and often forgotten

Mine came with a huge amount of broken glass inside and a torn up translite, and was pulled out of a storage unit where it'd been sitting for quite some time in the mid 2000s. I'm assuming it was original, but I'm also working with a sample size of one... I can't imagine an op would have replaced acrylic with glass though, and this was definitely a routed game.

The one I own is a translight on real glass.

Ok thanks I will check it out and then report back.

Might anyone have thoughts on how best to stop the paint damage on the upper flyby areas getting worse?
Full strip and clearcoat is not an option currently, and I'm not taking the mylar up. The inserts are good as are pretty much all the decals on this early production run machine. From reading it doesn't have clear, which the damage kinda confirms.
Thoughts on something to just protect it for now?

Thanks again to all here
Would naphtha and wax be of some help? I have gerlitz wax.

If you can't clear waxing is the best protection you can give to a playfield. Naptha is a safe cleaner and won't mess up the wood (depending on how much damage you have and if it's bare wood). I've never heard of Gerlitz wax - but make sure it's pure carnauba - nothing with cleaners or abrasives. Generally, people on here like Blitz wax and Mother's pure carnauba.

Once you wax if it's still a concern you can always put another small piece of mylar down where needed. if it's well waxed, the mylar will pull up pretty easy if you ever decide to have it restored.

Ok, I've tested all the switches and they all work except for the Yakov Switch (55), I might just need a diode for this right? And which diode works with that switch? Thanks!

First, raise the playfield, and try to close the switch by pushing the leaves together with your finger.

Now does it work in the Switch Test?

Thank you. Yes, it is carnauba wax and recommended by some other forums in Europe. It's for guitars but very well thought of here.

Many thanks, I shall naphtha and wax. At least then I can bide my time to decide what to do later in touch up of the area etc.

Thanks
- Sf

I finally fixed some reset issues with mine (thanks @grumpy) and also thought the playfield was a bit dark so I threw some spotlights in. I really love how lit up it is now, and I like the aesthetics of the spotlights. I feel it works pretty well with this game!

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I've replaced the switch with a brand new one and it still doesn't work, but had to use the old diode because the new didn't come with one.

So did any # come up in switch test when you manually close that switch?

Was the diode bad in the first place (did you test it with your meter while you had it out)?

Did you put the diode in backwards or on the wrong tabs?

Get a roll of 100 diodes for $2, you are going to need them in almost every pinball repair.

All fixed! Thanks GRUMPY

Turns out the diode wasn't bad after all, when I close the leaf switch together it made the sound that it is working. So I guess I have to adjust the switch. What 100 diodes should I get?

1n4004 diodes - good for your switches AND coils, kinda universal.

I’m in the club, Goose!

Just picked one up and brought it home. The guy said he had to it for 20 years! Turned it on and there were some switch errors. I’ll check later what they were. Hopefully the work I’ve done on Space Station will pay off. No toppers which is a bummer, so need to figure out something for that. Was super glad that the ancient batteries showed absolutely no corrosion!

Needs a major cleaning, but there is one ugly spot on the playfield! Looks smashed in and chipped away, not sure what would cause that! So thinking I need to hit up a playfield protector if this thing is going to play smooth. But I might also have to pull up the Mylar... if I dare do that. IDK, anyone have thoughts on that?

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Oh ok thanks for the advice, I've just placed an order for 25. The problem was the leaf switch is spread out to far and the switch won't touch each other. I thank you for all your help sir, I appreciate it!

Just bend them back flat with some needlenose pliers.

Hi,

I am restoring my F14 pinball machine and I'm looking for print grafics for the slingshot plastics.
maybe someone has this graphic ?

thx Mike

Yep, if you do remove the mylar, be prepared to do some touch ups. Almost guaranteed you WILL lose some art. So its either get ready to do some arts and crafts and then clear , or put a playfield protector on it and play, or just play it the way it is. I used the freeze spray method on mine. It went pretty well but i did lose some art. Just go slow if you decide to do it. Just keep in mind that system 11s are known to lift art when removing mylar and once you start removing a section... there is no going back.

I took the mylar off mine almost a year ago and the only paint I lost was near the left sling which had some minor planking and small flecks around a number of inserts. I used the freeze method - extra heavy on the freeze. Use the flour method to remove the adhesive. It's held up remarkably well with so far with just a thorough cleaning and waxing. Mine had multiple raised inserts screwing with the mylar (entire kill zone, 60% of TOM/CAT inserts, some of the 1-6 targets), so I went the whole removal route then reset the inserts with fresh epoxy.

That said - I agree with Superbee - System 11s are very hit or miss with paint loss and it can turn into a major headache if it goes the other way. Is there a reason to remove it? If it's just the one spot, you may be able to remove the chip manually and put a fresh piece of mylar over that (Can't tell if that's a divot or a raised insert pushing on the mylar...). It'll be an eyesore due to the original mylar damage, but I can imagine pulling the existing may cause that to get worse before it gets better (and only if you're willing to repair, paint, and clear). Also - if you wax it first, you can always pull the small new mylar easily if you feel up to the full repair later and can be playing in hours, not weeks.

Same Problem. Got an old one and the mylar was full of bubbles and some damages on the playfield.

Here is my way how I do it:

Think the only way to get a beautiful F14 is to remove the mylar (i used hot air - but the glue remains on the playfield).
Then remove all inserts (Watch they break easily - use hot air to soften glue).
Then clean the playfield with adhesive remover.
Wet grind all inserts and insert them plain on the playfield.

So you have a good ground playfield.
Fill in deep damages to got plain.
Now clearcoat the playfield to get a straight surface.

At this point (if you have a straight surface) you can begin to make the insert decals and correct the damaged parts of the playfield with overlays.

After that you have to clear cote again to save the overlays.
It may be that you have to do it several times.
if you use a strong varnish you do not have to make a protector - otherwise a protector comes on it

I'm working on it right now

best regards Mike

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BACK IN THE CLUB BABY! First time I have bought a pin for a second time. It is now bolted to the ground. Oh, how I have missed this game!

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Good to hear, and congratulations. How is the playfield on this one?
Still in the early stages of my project one. Coming along though. Playfield is actually quite good with minimal insert lifting, but there is some planking and flaking in the upper area. Main area and mylar will Polish and wax well though I think.

Playfield is great. Previous owner removed mylar, put down new decals, and clear coated it. Plays great.

Sounds like a keeper indeed - well done.