Got my beacon motor installed today as the final piece to mine. Gotta clean and oil the outside beacons I guess. It's squeaking a tad when the rotate.

Are you sure they aren't fixable? I've had lots of luck using a wire brush chucked into my drill and cleaning out old sockets to make them have good contact again.

Unfortunately, they got tossed. I left them near some things that were headed to the trash, and they got tossed. However, the fiber insulators were cracked and pieces were falling out.

I'm not saying that I have tried this, but I would cut off the mounting bracket. Then I would solder on a piece of wire for each lead to the board. Then epoxy the socket to the board lining up the center pin to the hole in the board. Hold It straight until dry. Then solder the wires to the socket tabs.

That's a great idea! Thank you @Grumpy!

Never even thought about doing this. Mine squeal quite a bit too. Good idea.

I wonder the likelihood of F-14 getting a hardtop. I’ve not seen anything mentioned from OutsideEdge about it, but I’m sorta holding out hope that one will be made. My F-14 needs one and I can’t spend the cash for a new playfield.

What do you guys think? Pipe dream?

Vid did a guide too....

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/returning-f14-flashers-to-original-design-vids-guide

Never hurts to email them and inquire. Im sure the club would like to know if its a future possibility.

If your playfield is that bad there's always the option of just selling yours and waiting on a good one. That's what I did. 2 years later I found one that had been clearcoated and abandoned because the guy left the GI bulbs in the game when he cleared it and it basically glued the bulbs into the sockets permanently.

I still need to solder a bunch of new sockets in as I find the time. But my playfield is gorgeous and 100% better than my first F14.

Theres always the possibility of a really nice repro playfield. Top quality work:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/demand-check-f14-tom-cat/page/9

Yeah, I'm sure they're bombarded with emails of "When will you produce a hardtop for [my game]", but if we never contact them they will never know if demand exists.

I don't doubt the quality of Peter's work one bit! He and I did exchange some emails, but the price for his gorgeous replacement playfield is more than I can afford at the present. One of his playfields would be amazing, no doubt.

F-14 Tomcat with no displays. It would boot and play fine with display unplugged. 5 flashes with it plugged in on the diag LED followed by 10 flashes of the reset LED.

Replaced shorted 6557 with new 15031 as per the online guide, and installed a temporary 0.25a breaker since I didn't have a fuse. Powered on and immediately smoked something in the upper right corner on the main board. I have ~95vac at the fuse holder. Nothing looks burnt where the smoke came from.

It now doesn't boot at all even though the LEDs are normal (with display disconnected). Any guidance is appreciated. Would like to not have to call in the professional.

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Hello guys,

I was already often asked if I can write a manual how to refit the prototype flashers back into the F-14 Tomcat.
So I decided to translate my German description.
I will upload the PDF later this evening.

Regards
Averell

cpr now has F-14 Real Backglass with Custom Mirroring available!
https://classicplayfields.com/shop/pinball-backglasses/f14glass/

Here's a short description how to reinstall the proto flasher in your F-14 Tomcat.

F-14 - Retrofitting the Proto-Flasher.pdf

If all else fails, I have a spare light board. Hit me up if you think you’ll need it.

Are all your other test point voltages within range? I'd suggest you start a thread on this in the SS Tech section and you'll probably get GRUMPY and some of the other Sys 11 gurus to help you out with it.

Thank you for the offer cletus , but I got her up and running! I really appreciate it though.

He installed the wrong transistor. He should have installed a 15030. I'm not sure what else is damaged too.

Ah yes, the old PNP'd when you really should have NPN'd!

You should have used a MJE15030 not a MJE15031.
The power supply needs to be recapped too.
The next time you work on the power supply only connect this one connector. Then power on the game and check for the correct outputs on the power supply first before connecting the CPU board.
When done let us know what you got.

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Did the epoxy job work?

My bottom right Player 4 display is out. Im assuming probably outgassed. Is it worth trying to find another standard williams numeric 7 digit display and soldering it in? Or should I bite the bullet and go with the LED before the others follow suit? Opinions?

LED

If you go LED, I'd be interested in your old one as parts. Lemme know. Thanks.

Actually @Grumpy, that's a yes and no hahahaha. I got a board from a gentleman that used to make these boards up with 906 wedge connectors mounted on the new board, with the connector relocated to the back of the board. Im doing my best to improve soldering skills and try to learn to do as much as possible, so I'm taking my original board, and am in the process of attaching the new #89 sockets on the board. Except rather than epoxy, I got a solid carbide drill, and am drilling mounting holes in the board, making sure I'm not anywhere near traces, and will ise the bracket thats on the socket. The Im going to use the idea of soldering wires to the little connections, then to the traces. He contacted me and said he had a board and I jumped on it. Whenever I get the opportunity to improve soldering skills, I'm all over it. But, I was kind of afraid to do it without a backup plan, and he had one

I was also a bit afraid the epoxy would get on the end of the center plunger connection, and make it immoble.

Sounds good, post pics when done.

Playball!

Absolutely! Will do!

Has anyone installed the cpr mirrored backglass.. I am curious if you have, what you think.

Just going to order mine in the next couple days. All my CPR backglasses are very deep and rich looking even with the game off

Please post a lit photo when you get it installed. I am debating it. My f14 is no collector piece but backglasses kick butt over translites

Good Morning F-14 family! While I'm well versed in arcade tech, I'm still a little green with Pinball troubleshooting. Hoping you've had a similar issue that I am and can tell me where to start.

From a cold start, my F-14 plays great! After playing for half an hour (give or take), the pin shuts down. It doesn't matter where I am in the game, and there's no nudging of the table when I play. If I try to immediately power cycle the pin, it will not work. If I walk away for a minute and come back, it plays like a cold start (plays fine) and the cycle starts over.

Any ideas where to start chasing this down? Power supply?

Most likely the 5VDC power supply.

My first guess would be a weak power supply. That sounds like youre losing voltage.

Check your voltages on thre test points.

When it stops working, check the 5 volts on the power supply and on the CPU board. You may have some cracked header pins.

Thanks everyone, I'll check this and report back!

Coming from the arcade game side, I imagine you'll have no issue capping that PS and doing a reflow on the headers. I'm sure it needs it anyway if it hasn't been done prior.

Cap Kits are all day everyday on the arcade side!!

I have the inserts all levelled, all of the graphics applied, all the led's are in, the topper is fixed, the fuses are correct and the bridge rectifier 8amp fuses added. Tonight I'll be putting on the playfield protector, installing new rubbers and flippers, and putting it all back together. Wish me luck that I didn't break anything in the process of cleaning it up. Keeping my fingers crossed.

I didn't quite get it done but I made good progress tonight. The playfield protector is on and I've started installing the ramps and other plastics. I still need to install the flippers and get the flipper rubbers on. They are just sitting on the playfield right now. I also swapped the legs from my VPIN as they are new and clean. The operator of this machine must have either glued or painted the locking bolts on the leg levellers as I have not been able to budge them at all. So just swapped them out.

Has anyone else bought the rubber kit from Marcos? it comes with a 1 1/4 inch rubber that does not have a placement on the sheet. Not sure what that one is for if anything.

Tomorrow I need to head to home depot and pick up some foam insulation for a few of the circle targets. Once I can replace that I'll be able to button everything up and test it out. Getting close
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I got it all back together and have been playing some games. It's a ton of fun for sure. Very fast and smooth with the playfield protector on. I have run into an issue. Before moving it there were no errors on power up. I stuck some moving men under the feet and moved it into place next to my other pin and when I power it on I get two errors with the knockers now. The game plays fine as far as I can tell. Can anyone tell me what these errors are? The bottom left display is dead. Hopefully there is no needed info there.

Thanks. Can't believe it's erroring after I moved it 20 feet.

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I think those are just telling you those two switches haven't been triggered in a while, probably nothing to do with the move at all. Just go into switch tests and hit those two switches and you'll probably see they aren't working properly, probably easy fixes on both especially compared to all the work you've already done.

You will get switch errors when the game doesn't see those switches working in X number of games. Moving the machine had nothing to do with it, they probably haven't been working for a while. Inspect the switches mentioned, because the sling and eos should have plenty of hits during game play. Run thru the switch test and see what those switches are doing.

Beat me by 14 seconds!

Thanks for the info. It's really helpful to know that it wasn't the move Freaked me out just the coincidence.

It appears that I have a part missing on the right flipper. Must have broken off at some point as I am unable to trigger the right eos at all. The left one works fine.

In testing it doesn't look like the upper flippers have an EOS switch. They look completely different from the bottom flippers. Both of them are creating a pretty bright flash when they open up. I'm guessing those need to be cleaned well as they both look a bit corroded. All 4 flippers are using the same coil 11630.

The sling switch must be the one on the bottom of the playfield as both trigger switches above the playfield are working fine. I have not been able to trigger the one under the playfield so I'm guessing it's dead. Will take a deeper look at that one.

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Installed correct transistor. I now have good 5vdc and -100vdc, but no +100vdc.

So I've been trying to figure out what to order and I'm starting to understand this flipper mech. It looks like the part that is broken is not the EOS switch but a lane change switch used for entering your initials on a high score. I don't see anything wrong with the EOS switch so I'm guessing that capacitor is bad? With both bits there I'm not sure what else could go.

All that said I need to do some work on both upper flippers and fix this eos switch on the bottom right. It appears a single flipper rebuild kit will have all the parts I need to fix all three so gonna order one of those tomorrow. I've been ordering a lot form Marco's but a few other places look cheaper like pinballLife. Anyone have a preference on shops to order from?

Also on the other error with the left sling. Reading up it looks like the switch under the playfield is the scoring switch and not the one indicated by the error. What I don't understand is that error states the switch is not working but I tested both firing switches with a poker and each one is firing the sling. Apparently they are wired together and they are firing so I'm not sure what to look for to fix there. Is there a 4th switch I'm not seeing for the sling?

Correct, but in the manual it is labeled as EOS switch. It's not a lane change switch either as High Speed does have lane change lamps. But order a lane change switch for your replacement part.

It is under the play field, all switch matrix switches will have a diode on it. The other pair of switches are to fire the coil and have nothing to do with scoring points.

You need the find the third switch under the play field. The switch maybe out of adjustment, dirty, has a bad diode or a broken wire.

No just 3 for each sling.

I would buy one tomorrow