Machine looks awesome!!! I've really got to get mine re-decaled, and whack in the CPR repro PF. Too many projects on the go at the moment...one day

These are helpful, thank you. It seems these are of the power driver board. Mind snapping a few today, if you have a second, of the J connectors on the MPU?

Having an issue which I thought was a switch matrix issue, but just found this wire just hanging out. Anyone know where it goes? One side is attached to the bottom right sling switch.

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Its pretty short look around where ever it will reach and you will perhaps find where it goes.

It is supposed to be at the red arrow.
It is the connection to the second slingshot switch.

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Here ya go bud!Again hope it helps with the hacks...

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You guys are amazing, thank you so much. I really do appreciate the help!

Comet cool white 2smd frosted all around, with LEDOCD, and 2 spotlights on slings. Also a bonus picture for CaptainNeo of some of the colored LEDs that were removed
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Just noticed the topper lights are blue G.I. Damnit, they can wait till tomorrow.

While you have the dome off, the fish looks better with the normal yellow eye IMHO.

A mix of blue and green topper GI compliments the orange translite, but white brings out all the colors painted on the fish.

Recently did a full teardown. Changed all the rubbers and bulbs, waxed it up, put it back together. Problem I'm having is now when I hit the right boat ramp from the left flipper, the shot is so fast it flys off the wireform and 50% of the time drains down the right outlane. It never did it before the teardown and waxing and the wireform didn't get bent when off.

Anyone else expierence this problem and/or have tips to fix it?

Anyone need a fish?

He's not perfect.

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Hey, just had the game of my life. Might not be a big deal to you guys. But a pinball peasant like myself to put this up is awesome.
Had third best score, now I have GC, skip 1,2, ha

That FT put initials in music is sooo gratifying. Don’t get to hear it in any other instance.

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And dancing palm trees!

No, didn’t get one jackpot, every time I had multiball it just went to shit on me.

Ran up the 50 mil monster fish, probably hit 3 at least at different values left. One video mode, got lucky with a couple EB’s but the last two balls drained faster than a muther fucker.
Even a rock the boat and just bricked them, uggghhh

You need those super jackpots to get to the FT Billionaires Club!

SU PER JACK POT!!!!!!! freaking love that sound.

This was the first game after installing a reset board. Had 999 million after 2 balls and choked the 3rd ball. Only one time thru the reel.

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https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/greatest-pinball-game-of-all-time-tournament-edition
In case you missed it they're having a comp to find out the best pinball machine . Fish Tails is currently beating Elvira House of Horrors get over there and give a vote for Fish Tales .

Joining the club Friday! I have a restored Fish Tales being delivered to the door to bring some new excitement to our gameroom. 1 question. It has lightning flippers installed, and I'm willing to give those a try, however.....
I've read the stories and debates about those type flippers, and I'd like to have the game set up to play as it was designed, not as it shipped. So, was Fish Tales actually designed for standard flippers, or lightning??

Lightning from the factory.

IMHO fishtales and bsd are both awesome with lightning flippers. Separates them from the herd

Those who were at Williams in '92 all claim they designed it with standard flippers and ended up shipping it with lightning flippers to satisfy the European customers who demanded shorter ball times for their pins on route. FT is fun and playable with lightning flippers. (Doctor Who, Braham Stokers Dracula, and Popeye also shipped with them.)

Took 4 goes but someone answered the question.

My BSD and FT came with regular flippers, swapped out for lighting and smashed my hs!
Seems snappier and easier to hit shots for me. But more sdtm’s obviously.

That could also be due to the changing flipper rubbers used when you swapped flipper bats. Rubber is bouncy and harder to get control of the ball versus green superbands for example which are less bouncy and drive the ball hard. (switched my FT from rubbers to superbands and put up a new GC on my first play after changing)

Thank you sir! That's exactly what I was curious of. Not so much what the game shipped with, but, what was the playfield designed for. Sounds like it was engineered to use standard flippers then. I'll give the lightning flips a fair chance and see how they play. I know I like the way it plays with standard flips since I play a friends machine pretty often. His has standard style on it.

Getting my new Fish Tales set up. Question.... Is it.just me, or is the bubble level waaaaay off on this game? Yes, it's on Williams legs and all is correct with the playfield brackets. To even get close to centering the bubble, I gotta jack the rear legs way too high. I ended up using a leveling app and set it at about 6.5 or 7 degrees. Seems to play great at this angle. What does everyone else think?

BTW.... I love the lightning flippers on this game.

I've got my back legs pretty much maxxed out to get between 6.5-7. plays great set like that, nice n fast

Last night, was playing fish tales and the left flipper went out. Before the flipper went out, I Turned the game on, the DMD display kind of froze with dots on it for a second and didnt do anything so i turned it off and back on again and it powered up just fine. Doesnt look like a fuse issue as the fuses look fine but going to replace once i get some in the mail. What other things should i look at? I checked all the wiring and nothing appears to be lose or disconnected.

While I wait for fuses to arrive, what else should i look at as the possible culprit?

When random weird things occur, reseat the ribbon cables in the backbox (unplug and reconnect each). Its common for those data connectors to get a little tarnished over time on WPC pins and reseating them cleans up the connection.

The dead flipper is often something simple like a wire loose on the flipper coil, so inspect it for any issues. Also you can test the flipper button and flipper coil in the diagnostics. (separate switch test and coil test to narrow things down)

The explanation is in the manual.....

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Shade over 6.5 it is

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Lol, how about that... mine didnt come with a manual, but, 6.5 to 7 degrees on the level app is.......

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Here's my machine btw. Not a full restoration by any means, but a very clean refinished example.

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Fitted an led ocd board today and much smoother inserts now, just need to work out how to put in the FT file to see if it’s even better.

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OCD PCB looks like nice easy install also looks like a great product.
http://ledocd.com/index.html

Controlled lamp Strobing appears to be worse depending on what LED's are being used. I notice that camera will pick up strobing way more than naked eye.
I am happy with my FT with ablaze, looks fine, and I'm fussy.

Now GI is another story , I think OCD PCB is required for stable GI.

Nice work Lostcause, can you post a video at some stage ?

When you say FT file are you talking about D-6 ROM ?

FT file is a setting you download into the led ocd board with a mini usb cable Via pc downloadable from the website or you can input your own settings if you like.
I bought the board ‘used’ so don’t know what its been set to but it looks ok to me, I used to be a lighting engineer so a bit fussy.
Problem with FT is there is a lot of fast flashing inserts going on. Also I have non ghosting leds in mine and still looks ok with the board, would have been better with standard leds as it would dim a bit more from what I’ve read on the LED OCD website.
Going to see if I have some video of it before the board was put in, but here it is now.
Will have to check out those Ablaze leds as I have a couple of pins that need doing. Left WCS as it dims so much.

Found a clip before led ocd was fitted.
Looks very strobe like, much smoother now.

I don't have a led/ocd board and find the GI and inserts are fine using 2smd comet bulbs but the backbox definitely strobes away. It's distracting if I'm watching tv with the game turned on.

Is the OCD board even required if you have the Rom with the non ghosting patch??

Yes, the rom patch stops ghosting only. The leds will still turn on and off too fast. I had that rom patch already in mine.