Not sure why someone decided to install this L bracket in the casters club lane, but seeing a Robertson screw head definitely doesn't sound retail. From pictures I've seen, there should not be anything in there at all. I've only owned my fish tales for 2 weeks, and had not played on real hardware in forever, but I really didn't remember the casters club constantly bouncing my ball out as often as it did. At least 50% of balls would bounce out. The wire frame door was also stuck in the up position. I slightly increased the bend on the wire frame so that it's a bit closer to the drop target and removed the L bracket. No direct shots in the club are rejected now.
I also burned and installed version D-6 (the game came with L-4) and it did fix the ghosting, although I have a GPI OCD on the way.
I had my left flipper sometimes not working or at times it would rattle. I first tried to redo all the solder joints on the fliptronic board, then the ones on the flippers opto boards as well, but the problem persisted. In the end the problem was the connector on the right flipper board. After cleaning the pins properly on the right connector, the left flipper was fixed. So I cleaned both to be sure. Some solder joints for the connector were cracked on the left fish target and some lights would be intermittent. Are there any known weak spots in Fish tales, or pinballs in general that I should be looking into? I noticed at least one connector that seems darkened. I'm not 100% LED, most of the playfield is, but I will soon change that.. I'm hand picking all the LEDs but have no experience with LEDs on a pinball.. Wish I just had a whole bunch and just experiment.. I found a guide here with a bunch details on what to expect from different led types or locations so that will help. Kits are double the price..
Should I swap sram for nvram? To me, nvram would be a logical upgrade, what's the consensus for that in the pinball world?
I'm thinking of touching up every solder joint on all the main and maybe each connector on the other various boards. Would that be overkill?
I've already adjusted the switches for the slingshots, pop cap bumpers. Next I'm going to go touch up the fish targets. When we adjust 30 year old switches, do they tend to keep their shape for a few more years? Should I consider changing the most common leaf switches? My overall adjustments to the game really improved the gameplay so far. I will be taking the entire playfield apart to clean it and change the long cast mylar because dirt settled underneath. I ordered a ton of parts (all metal and plastic posts,sleeves, springs, rubbers, plastics, boat and ramp, etc..) but I did not order any leaf switches.
I got tons more to say about this machine.. I'm on such a high for finally owning it. I wanted this game for the pas 25 years at least.
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