So this is a weird quirk: the "flight insurance" feature only seems to work on the last ball (ball 5 on my game, since that's the way they were in the good ol' days...). I've looked through the adjustments menu, and it's entirely possible that I'm just missing something, but I can't really tell what if anything I can do to change it so that it works on every ball. Plenty of times when you get a drain within 5 seconds that it would be nice to have that little reprieve...

Unrelated question: has anybody out there considered swapping out some of the lower playfield spot targets for banks of drop targets? It looks like the openings in the PF are the same size as the one on my PinBot's drop bank...seems like it might make those lower targets more compelling to shoot for. The upper area I wouldn't mess with as I think ths spots are part of how that setup works, but I wonder if drops were planned and then replaced as is so often the case in the design phase...

@practicalsteve: That's really weird. I believe you, but this is a quote from Steve Ritchie on IPDB:

"F-14 had a first-ever kickback device that fired the ball straight back at the flippers at very high speed, called the Jagov Kicker. F-14 was the first game with "Autosave", which meant the player could have the ball back if it drained prematurely [at the start of a ball], was shot down between the flippers by the Jagov Kicker, or drained during the onset of multiball, etc."

Seems like he at least *intended* for it to work the way we have come to expect on contemporary DMD games...or maybe it's just a case of faulty recall?

Cool, I'll check that out tomorrow. Would be nice to have a little bit of leeway during multiball, but then again, part of what makes the game so good is that it's really hard. If you clean up every time, it would get boring.

No word on drop targets? Somewhere along the line I saw that some people had done the same mod to Firepower, that's what put the idea in my head.

Has anybody on this forum added bulbs to the Tom Cat spot targets at the upper play field? I just switched over all the lamps to LEDs on mine, and thought it seemed really strange that the same lighting detail wasn't in place at all the spot target areas. Doesn't seem like there's a practical reason why they wouldn't have done this from the factory.

I'll probably add them when I get to the Mylar removal project...

As Sorcerer would say, "WELL DONE!"

Does anybody have a lead on replacement chevron inserts? My F-14 still has mylar, and I was always inclined to just leave it alone, but just realized that at least 2 of the red inserts are lifting. Still not sure if I should go into high gear restoring the game, or just leave it and hope for the best. The mylar is bubbling in those areas (and a couple others) but it doesn't affect gameplay at all. Thoughts?

My concern had to do with resetting them while still under the mylar. Seems like you could inadventently create a big mess that way.

Most likely I'll wait until replacement inserts are available before getting into it. I have to get another pin before then also, so I have at least 2 pins to play while restoring the other.

Snux - I think I'm going to let it be a sign once new ones become available. If i'm going to go to the effort, I will want to make everything minty fresh!

Curbfeeler - yep. I laughed too.

How is it that we can't 3D print these sort of things by now?

Sell 'em on Pinside, of course.

Looks like those flippers could use some fine tuning...

Hey all - I want to add lamp sockets under the upper TOM and CAT targets, to add light and match the GI lighting on the other spot targets. Has anybody else done this, and can you give me wiring tips? Seems like I should just be able to tap into the GI braid, but do sockets change the equation?

I've had my PinBot since June of 2012, and it gets the most love of all my (3) pins. It's kind of a beater (playfield isn't terrible but I've seen much nicer ones than mine), but plays great and I enjoy the hell out of it. Still hard. Great sound FX. LED mods are a lot of fun. AND I remember playing it at VA Beach when I was 12, which maybe adds something. But mostly it's just an amazingly well designed game that holds up.

Waitaminute, this is the F-14 thread!

Agreed. I keep thinking F-14 would be the game I'd swap out, but then I play it and it is awesome and I think no way can I let this game go!

Clearly need more room for more pins...

Also, for reasons I'll never understand, the kits aren't *complete*. They seem never to include GI lamps, which is just weird. Do the switch over once and be done with it, particularly with regard to the hard-to-access bulbs...

Art at Comet Pinball is awesome, super nice guy and incredibly reasonable pricing. He'll give you good advice if you want to figure out your own LED conversion a la carte.

Well, I tried putting in the new lamps and now the upper playfield GI is out. Awesome! Won't be able to look at it again until tomorrow at the earliest. Try and do 1 simple damn thing ... <grumble>

Comet sells 2 LED dome bulbs in packs of 25 for real cheap. Go crazy and get two of 'em.

BTW, wired up my upper TOM CAT lamp sockets, they work, never did figure out how I blew that fuse. Now considering lighting mods...it doesn't have as many opportunities for that as other games, but I would like to figure out how to brighten up the playfield a bit as it always seems dark compared to my other games. Have any of you tweaked your F-14 lighting?

Yes, and it's WAY THE HELL easier if you pull the playfield first. You can get at everything comfortably and pull other wires out of the way. Takes about half an hour. I chained the lamp sockets, so you only need to solder to a nearby GI lamp one time per side.

I had the same thought; was actually considering replacing the GI bulbs altogether and using LED strips under the plastics. My LED habit is getting a little out of hand, admittedly...

It's tricky...I did mine back in November, but the single LED bulbs I used were pretty inadequate to the task. I'm gradually phasing out the G.I. bulbs in favor of LED strips on the underside of the plastics. Especially in the upper playfield, since the plastics cover areas that are open on either side, the strips can provide nice, even illumination over the playfield.

It's all really subjective. Some people are sticklers for keeping things original; myself, I'm pretty into tweaking the lighting design - it's all reversible, after all. But yeah, anything you can do while the game is on the rotisserie should probably be done then...live and learn...

I am psyched to get those right hand decals on my F-14, those are gorgeous. And, once you have an opaque sticker on those plastics, you can add LED strips underneath to brighten up the game a bit!

I've never seen any info on how to hook up an external subwoofer. Are there things to know, or can you just clip to the speaker leads?

I have on oldie but goodie Optimus subwoofer, but it isn't powered; would that work? Trying to put my head around it...

Thanks Wayout - you always give really solid tech advice. AND, thanks to your comments on the PinBot thread, now I feel like I have to take on the whole damn mylar removal project on my F-14 (shakes fist)

If CPR put them into production then presumably the elusive chevron inserts would become more readily available. I want to de-mylar and restore mine eventually, but removing and reinstalling all those arrows without breaking any of them is pretty daunting.

"Looking at a F-14- Hook trade."

F-14 Tomcat > Hook. IMHO.

I actually think the blank targets are really boring, kind of like seeing people take some liberties with them. I'm all for modding in ways that are easily reversible.
My brother had my F-14 for a while and he made TOM CAT stickers to go on the spots, and comic book style explosions to go over the other targets (I think he posted about it way back in this thread). If I ever trade the game out (unlikely), they can always be removed.

Tech help needed!
Last week a friend came by and we were playing F-14. When I stared the game, the knocker kicked a bunch of times and "Adjust Switch 44" came on the displays. I've seen this happen periodically since owning the game a year and a half ago, and it's always just been this weird thing that came and went. (Quite odd as switch 44 is just a playfield spot target). Anyway, at some point we got sidetracked for 10 minutes or so while the ball sat in the shooter lane. When we came back to the game and shot the ball into play, the diverter didn't work (ball fed to the right hand lock, not the one of the center locks like it's supposed to). Alarmingly, a minute later i was smelling hot electronics and seeing smoke! The coil burned itself right out.

I replaced the coil yesterday (the old one had gotten hot enough that the plunger couldn't be moved manually) and started up the game. The "Adjust Switch 44" error came on but the game started when I hit the start button. But the problem was still there; the diverter didn't activate, the ball fed to the RH lock, and, weirdly, then it called this a drain and kicked ball 2 into the shooter lane. I didn't have much time to contemplate this before a hot electronic smell started emanating from...somewhere. It wasn't the coil this time. I pulled the back glass the hot smell was coming from somewhere in there. I was overwhelmed by a sinking feeling.

I didn't seen anything obviously burnt on any of the boards, but of course the problem might not be that immediately visible. Any ideas? My inclination is to try to figure out which board(s) have the problem and just send them out for repair.

OK, so the first switch test didn't indicate any stuck switches. Switch edges indicated contact everywhere except for the pop bumper, slingshots, and flipper buttons (though it did register the EOS switches).

Also, somebody has done some work on the CPU board in the past. Thes black thingies - are they resistors? - at Q22 and Q31 have been replaced. Nothing looks scorched on the boards. Boards and electronics are where my troubleshooting knowledge dries up quickly, but it seemed obviously worth a mention.

IMG_2834.jpg

So what happened with switch #44 in edge test, did it work or not?

Yes. I think I've actually checked it in the past and it worked then also. Additionally, when I turned the game on this time there was no adjustment "knocker" warning. Like I said before, that warning has happened before but has gone away so I just shrugged and kept playing.

I'll get on looking at the target connections this weekend if there's time. Any guess how this is connected to the non functioning diverter? Also, is there nothing amiss in the slings, flipper buttons, and pop bumper not working during switch edges test?

OK, so I just did another switch edges check. The cabinet switches (flipper buttons) aren't registering, but the EOS switches are. (If you turn the game on and start it up the flippers are totally unresponsive) Also the upper playfield EOS switches are not registering. The pop does register, just had to move the ring physically instead of just the skirt. Same with the slings. As far as I can tell, all other switches are fine, including #44.

To recap: the game has played perfectly since my brother picked it up over a year and a half ago. All was well until the ball was left in the shooter lane for ~10 minutes while the game was on. Something went haywire with the connection between the ball trough switch and the diverter solenoid; the solenoid burnt out in a major way, I replaced the coil and everything is physically connected properly now, but it still doesn't activate and the game is confused. What next?

For god's sake. I just tried going to the techniek page and half the links are dead. Is the stupid war still going on over this info or is there just a screwy internet connection somewhere?

Hmm, OK maybe it's just a glitchy connection on my end. Thanks for checking.

I'm gearing up to do my first playfield restoration on my F-14. First major step is de-mylar-ing the thing, and I anticipate some of the insert decals lifting off. (No pun intended. Really.)
I thought I'd seen a source for a download of those stickers somewhere on this thread, but my computer is slow and I'm having a hard time scrolling through all the back pages of this group. Can somebody send me the file?
Thanks!

Here's what I hope is a simple question: on my F-14, one time and one time ONLY have I ever had the SPECIAL outlane lights come on during a game. I was super excited when it happened, yet had no idea what I'd done to activate them. And then I drained SDTM and never got to see what happened next.
WHAT IS THE DEAL there?! I looked it up on IPDB and couldn't find anything. WEIRD.

Jesus Christ, no *wonder* I only managed to light it once in 2 1/2 years! Getting 3 landings with at least 2 balls still in play is hard enough!

I second the Evo caps; the light undeneath has the nicest spread of any caps i've toyed with, and the effect on f-14 is just what the upper PF needs!

...with the caveat that raised arrow inserts are more likely than not. Wouldn't be a deal-breaker for me if the game looks otherwise clean!

Hey all, just a heads up on something that only just came to my attention.
My F-14 just blew itself up in an identical way to how it blew itself up about a year and a half ago. Diverter coil overheats, smokes itself before you realize what is happening, which fries the diode, which then lets the current shoot up to the CPU board and fry the transistor, resulting in a board repair job that I'm afraid to do and a replacement coil.

I asked my board guy what the hell is going on, and he dug up this service bulletin from Williams, which was on the IPDB page the whole time:

http://mirror2.ipdb.org/files/804/Williams_1987_F_14_Tomcat_Service_Bulletin_no_number_undated_to_resolve_binding_diverter_gate_assembly.pdf

Turns out the plungers can fail to get pulled into the coil, resulting in rapid overheating. All you really need to do to address the problem is readjust the diverter arms so that they're swung just slightly out when at rest. I wish my guy had known about this a year ago, seems probable that this is what went wrong on mine twice. It's an easy fix, and one that every F-14 owner should take the 20 minutes to make.

I'm sadly having to contemplate trading out my F-14 - for the second time in a year and a half, the lower diverter coil scorched itself and a shock went up the board. I don't know what happened in what order and would be happy to get into it more technically with someone who understands these things, but the bottom line is, my board repair guy can tell me what went bad but he can't tell me why. The Williams service bulletin adjustments to the diverter had been followed already. The diverter arms themselves might do with a good cleaning (they don't travel as easily as a flipper), and I suppose if the plunger somehow wasn't getting pulled into the coil, that could account for it, but that's just a theory. (Unfortunately, a friend had dropped in on his own to play, so I wasn't there when it went up.)

I'm tempted to just trade her for another nice sys11 game, but wonder if the history hurts my trade potential. Advice?

In the adjustments there is actually a setting for the kicker. In theory, it can be dialed back a bit so that it doesn't fire the ball back with as much force. (Sorry, don't have the manual in front of me, but cycle through the adjustments and you'll find it)

Also, there is an adjustment that allows "Flight Insurance", so that if the kicker sends the ball straight through the flippers, the game will kick another ball into the shooter lane for you. I like that setting; it always strikes me as BS on a game if the immediate result of nailing a shot is a drain.

Weird thing is, I've only ever known it to activate flight insurance if the ball drains quickly and is the last ball of the game, or if the Yagov kicker shoots it straight through the flippers. Which is fine; it is the character of the game that it isn't just like the later-era version of a ball saver. But I've read that quote before from IPDB and been confused by it.

I don't think you actually can have flight insurance on balls 1&2.
I like being able to select features like that, as players vary. If I'm having friends over and most of them are only occasional players, I like to make the games friendlier for them (so they aren't just watching more experienced players all night). So on a night of casual friendly play I always have the "RESCUE" lit at the beginning of every ball, but if I'm playing against serious players, I like to turn it off so that you have to take the risk in order to activate it. What's fun and challenging for me can be merely frustrating for others. I say, the more setting control, the better.

I'm all for it, personally.

On my game, the ball will usually ricochet off the left flipper and bounce back up to the upper playfield. I keep the flight insurance option on, though, for those times when it shoots SDTM. IMHO, the player shouldn't be penalized for making a key shot!

What I meant was that you can't have flight insurance on the ball time, such as DMD era games have, except on the last ball of the game. Unless I'm missing something.

I'd get in there and carefully inspect and clean *everything*. Sounds like the previous owners really didn't know much about how to care for the game. Hopefully their neglect will prove to have been benign! Congrats!

I must suck at pinball.

I have a file with the waterslide decals on some hard drive somewhere - I got them from Vid, who I imagine will be a happy to send them along to you if I can't turn them up quickly.

How's your restoration coming along? I have an F-14 that plays great, but the inserts are lifting through the mylar so a restoration is likely in the future. I'd be very interested to hear about what worked well, what was harder than you thought, etc. Did you replace your inserts?

I'd ask Vid; he talks about using playfield scans of F-14 at least once in his pf restoration thread.
Nice work so far - I did my first pf restoration this winter, a Rollergames they needed a little bit of everything. I found the work really satisfying.
Are you thinking of putting down a layer of white over the bare wood upper section, to increase the reflectivity under the plastics?

You might be surprised to see how easy it is to do touch ups using a paint pen. I used a Molotow pen to redo keylining and worn insert printing that wasn't so bad as to need a decal replacement on rollergames and couldn't believe how well it worked. If you spray clear first, you can use the pen and simply wipe it off if you aren't happy with the result. Not that you'd want to try to re-write text by hand, but if you're just touching up worn spots, it could work out well for you.

Oh man, can you upload the files? I don't think I need to decal over the whole characters outright on mine, but to be able to use some of those details could be really helpful (I'm amassing a file of F-14 playfield details!)

Did you try writing to Vid? I'm pretty sure he has F-14 playfield scans.

There is no legal reason for anybody ever to object to sharing scans for the purpose of restoration. A legal case could be made if you were creating *for the purpose of resale* a reproduction playfield or playfield overlay decal or some such thing. But if your intention is to recreate an image in order to restore an existing game, a cease and desist letter would be
entirely out of line. The Williams intellectual property owners apparently want everybody to be afraid to do damn near anything, but in a case like this I'm firmly in the realm of "it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission". We are hobbyists, for god's sake. Let's enjoy our hobby.

It would be pretty neat if he dedicated as much energy to making more products available to the community as he does to hurting the hobby.
I try to avoid ordering from them when possible.

In my experience, the "Fliptronic" conversion Vid outlines, while certainly a "cleaner" setup (springs can't scratch the plunger), its effect on flipper action isn't really so noticeable. It's odd that Vid calls it Fliptronic rather than simply putting it in terms of updating the springs, as Fliptronic was a significant departure from the way flippers had been designed previously. That said, rebuilt flippers are pretty much always a good idea on a game you take in unless you know for *certain* that they've been rebuilt correctly by the previous owner. Vid's guide to rebuilds is an awesome asset here on Pinside.

Hey all!
I did a complete teardown of my F-14 over the weekend; mylar pulled, adhesive removed, and now inserts de-inserted (and rubbery adhesive cleaned out of the holes) Next step is a thorough wipe down with naptha to remove the last bits of mylar adhesive. Then, glueing in new inserts, then it will be off to the finisher to put down an initial layer of clear...

Not covering every step since that would basically be reproducing Vids guide, but will post highlights.

1516222743763877836376654757561 (resized).jpg

Flat surface and elbow grease.
Vids guide is very thorough.

Yes; this is my second restoration project (I did a somewhat less labor intensive Rollergames restoration last year). Mylar came up very easily, no paint loss. The big pain about restoring mylar games is the yellowing of the paint in between mylar pieces. I have to decide whether the significant effort of repainting and overlaying half tone dots is worth it to eliminate the narrow bands of yellowed background art...

The arc above Hitman and Yagov I will definitely get rid of by repainting the entire background. Color matching is the hard part. Masking is just a matter of being super fussy and not rushing.

I may just be lucky (this game perhaps was never stored in a damp/humid environment?), but planking isn't really a problem on this machine. Under the mylar everything is pretty much mint.

One of the many virtues of 2 PAC finish is that it locks down the paint. If you have planking, it seals everything in and enables you to do seamless touch ups.

After having read Vid's take on ME, I'm not a big fan. You can remove a lot of artwork or lettering inadvertently.
The yellowing isn't a result of dirt, it is the a difference in how the paint and topcoat have aged. If it is just the varnish that has yellowed, in theory ME could cut through that - but the line between "all varnish removed" and "starting to now remove paint as well" is a very fine line. I'm planning to airbrush fresh paint over significant areas of the blue background. (More pics soon)

Installing F-14 inserts continues...

The smaller ones can be pushed gently into place using just a wood block to get them flush to the playfield surface. The big, irregular arrows are a pretty tight fit and tend to want to rise up a bit. For these, I clamped a block of prefinished plywood above and below the insert and left it for as long as I could (even 5-minute epoxy takes a while to fully cure, so I don't want to relieve the insert from clamping pressure until I'm certain it won't move). Prefinished plywood is great, as glues really don't stick to it. If a tiny bit of epoxy ends up on the block, you haven't glued a chunk of plywood to your playfield.

Festool makes F-clamps with a very skinny profile; these are super useful for clamping as they will fit into even a pretty small cutout, allowing you to clamp with as much pressure as you need, directly on top of the insert.

MVIMG_20180120_170704 (resized).jpg

MVIMG_20180120_170745 (resized).jpg

MVIMG_20180120_172126 (resized).jpg

Mine too! I pulled the weird extra plastic thing off and cleaned it up. Made no difference in actual gameplay; hard to figure why those were deemed necessary.

I like how shitty F-14 is to you, no matter how much love you give it. It's all "D I EEE!" and "YOU CAN'T WIN!" and "NOW YOU DI-DI-DIE!!!!"

Send this description to Clive at Coin-Op Cauldron and he'll tell you which boards to send him.

Play field restoration: complete. It really deserves a new plastic set, but the originals are decent, so they’re OK until I scrape together the $ for a repro set.

Every insert is a replacement, lots and lots of paint repair, a ton of water slide decals, 3 coats of clear, the works.

06D78611-4CC1-42D9-8137-31E2115B3DF9 (resized).jpeg

528C2AE9-26B1-4684-85ED-363FD0E6C8B3 (resized).jpeg

796287E9-DA3B-4055-A65D-45104C77C8FC (resized).jpeg

C205053D-CCA0-4466-941B-73FE2AFCCD31 (resized).jpeg

D3497B0C-D52C-4910-B4CF-4FCB3D9F249F (resized).jpeg

Thanks guys!
If you know anybody in New England looking for a restorer, I’m seriously considering doing this full time...

(This one is my game. Probably aren’t too many people who would want to go full restore since the repro playfields became available, but I wanted to save my original and go through the full process.)

Read Vid's Guide to Rebuilding Pop Bumpers elsewhere on Pinside for a full rundown of how they work and how to get them dialed in properly. If the bumper has not been rebuilt, it is almost certainly worth the effort; you may want to just replace the switch stack outright if it has been bent up over the years. Al/so, a leaf adjuster tool is a little overpriced for what it is, but it's REALLY worth having.

+1 for Vid's Guide. Magic Eraser & alcohol work on swirls, but you *must* use clear coat afterward, as what little protective varnish was original will be instantly dissolved and removed.

I’ve got the same thing going on and haven’t yet attended to the problem. The best fix is to just replace the switch outright. The metal arms can get fatigued and break if you bend them too much, dirt may be causing the switch to stick, any number of things. It’s a pain to correct since it’s way in the back and Sys11 games use that delightful single pivot point for under playfield access, but you’d be in there to do anything else as well. I’m planning to just clip off the old switch and solder in a new one and bet that fixes the problem.

If you buy the ones from PPS, you can scan them and make waterslide decals off the scans, and just ditch the original sheet.