Did anyone buy a new set of plastics and not use this piece?
Looking to find a good replacement (part #31-1676-17).

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So update as far as progress goes.
Received the reel from a fellow pinsider.
Seems this one i think was broken like the missing one from my machine.
No biggy, it's sure as hell better than none.

I think the nubs were broken off the side that key the pulley in place.
So i turn the pulley a little so the holes would line up where there was no webbing inside the reel.
Drilled 6-32 sized holes in the reel.
Then i opened up a washer that i pushed on the back, tapped it for 6-32s, then screwed in the screws and cut the excess off.
I was going to get some black or fancier screws when i do the tear down, but i now realize you can't see anything that i just did (i never had the machine with a reel on it, so i didn't know unit install).
Also, swapped out the fork switch which was broken on the up kick, soldered a broken wire on the vertical coil to which was broken off.
No idea how these machines get so broken, how the hell do you play them when 50% of the most important parts don't work?

Only issue is the reel doesn't seem to line up right every time, it's right about 75%, but sometimes it has to move to look for a ball to drop it in the catapult. Bad news is that i'm not smart of to clean the optos, while it was apart.
One of thing that happened, just like on my attack from mars that sat for years, the second it got some play, the pop bumper skirts started falling apart.

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If you catch enough fish you can become a supplier!

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I haven't seen that before , but I do love the fish mod , right up there with the fishing rod mod , in my opinion .

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anyone have a new fish tales playfield for sale that they never got around to installing

sill looking for this promo plastic.....without paying crazy ebay price

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Looks like there is a small set of little clear plastics on ebay with that part in it for $5

I have one do you have a good plastic to trade? I think there is another one like that from another angle,does that matter to you?

When your reel spins, does it spin towards the player or away? In other words, would it roll up the playfield or down if it weren't attatched? It should spin "away" or "up" the playfield. If it's spinning towards or down, the reel will sometimes line up, sometimes not. Been there myself.

i already have the other fish promo......let me see what i have for plastics.....

pm sent with pics

How do you change the flashers under the boat ramp (the ones that indicate the state of the captive ball)? We can’t physically reach them, they’re on a circuit board and I’ve no idea how to detach the board (!).

Do I have to remove the entire boat? And, if so, how do I do that?

I can't rember how I changed them, but you definitely don't have to remove the boat.

Playfield up, from underneath.
You can just twist them out.

You can’t, that’s the problem

We’ve been under the playfield. They don’t have the twist sockets like the rest of the inserts. There’s a line of wedge-shaped sockets attached to a circuit board, and there’s no obvious way of detaching either the circuit board or the sockets.

I can send a picture if it would help?

Pretty sure ya just pull those bulbs straight out from the base

There are insert and flasher bulbs there so there is some confusion.

I think you are asking about the flashers. Here is a photo from my shop out showing how to replace either.

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Thanks, Neal

That’s perfect - looks like I just take out the two nuts on the flasher board

Unscrew the hex head screws that hold it to the underside of the playfield.

LTG : )

Well, that would likely be it. It would roll towards me, or shall I say counter clock wise looking at it from the ball side. What is the fix? Reverse the wires?
Thanks,
Joe
Edit: just to be sure, I checked my machine again and watched some videos, my reel is definitely going the wrong direction.

Yes

You guys do everything backwards down there in south jersey!

looking for the fish promo pictured..........and have the other plastics for trade......the fisherman and the blue wave are new repro's......the back plastic has that melted pimple spot pictured.......also have the batman and shrek flyers

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Easy with that talk, Jackson is central NJ.
Beside this pin came from PA...

Thanks for the answer Neal, love to know how it got this way. The guy I got the pin from pretty much fixes nothing ever and he's had it for a seriously long time. A family member removed the wheel itself to fix it and was not to be seen again. Wires look original and unmolested to motor.

So i reversed the wires on the motor.
All works well now and the reel spins the right direction.
Also drops the balls properly in the catapult.
Before it was obviously dropping them at the wrong time based on when the wheels spins the wrong way, it drops them through the hole in the plate at the wrong interval.

Still the question remains, how the hell did it get this way? The IDC plug on the board end was in so well that i gave up on pulling them out and just resoldered the wires to the motor, which was also done very well.
Guess i may never know.

Thanks for the help, i may not have solved this on my own. Never gave a single thought to the reel spinning the wrong direction. I probably would have started bending up the wire form to make the ball drop in correctly.

Sorry, folks, I’m back.

My FT screen has gone like this. Music still working, the shots still okay, and I can see the ghost of the images drifting across the screen (e.g. 3X, fish on weighing scale) but they’re visibly distorted.

Don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but I was changing some incandescent bulbs to LEDs on/near the Caster’s Club shortly beforehand. This included switching the machine on and off a couple of times to check the LEDs were working. We’ve checked under the playfield and on the back box and can’t see anything obvious (e.g. a wire come loose/pulled out).

Just absolutely devastated because we love the game.

Any ideas where and how to start troubleshooting this one? As an aside, we have a ColorDMD ready to install, but I’m worried we damage it if the problem is elsewhere.

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Turn it off and reseat (disconnect/reconnect) the ribbon cables in the backbox. It is common to see glitches of all sorts from ribbon cable connections.

Was just typing the above, hopefully will fix it.

I don't know what it is, but that translite looks awesome!

Same here buddy. I tried everything on my machine, nothing worked. Thank the lord, my friend had a fish tales, and I noticed his reel spinning the opposite way. And, sorry for the late reply, but yes, just reverse the red and black wires on the motor and it spins the other way. Glad it fixed your issue !! :

ANNNNDDDD... Fish Tales is back! Thanx, folks!

I've thought about buying this for so long .
But it's super expensive for what it is , and the money could be better used on a colour dmd , mirrored back glass , lit speaker panel , rad cals and so much other stuff .

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Wow that’s expensive, got mine out of the bag the other day. Seemed a shame hidden away.

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The one you have is diff than the other. Yours is a dime a dozen.

Did you ever find out why your reel went in reverse?
Was it like that when you bought it?
Just seems odd to me like someone would have to go well out of their way to make it happen.
Is the motor known to melt the IDC connector on the little circuit board under the playfield?

Low profile lit cast button finally finished and installed. Decals next!

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I have a strange issue when I'm in 3 ball multiball and drain down to two balls.

I've found myself with two balls in play, I can shoot one into the casters club, and it just keeps it and the DMD shows "Ball One Locked," with the ball lock animation, as if I'm preparing for a new multiball session.

The remaining ball now is still in play, but just like a regular single ball game now. Mb jackpot chances are over despite still having two balls in play. Is this normal that mb jackpots are over if you are down to two balls?

I checked trough switches and reel optos, and they all test without errors.

Duplicate

Seems like the trough is detecting you drained out of MB even though you did not. Could be an intermittent switch error or diode issue and when 2 other switches are pressed, it gets a false trough switch signal. (such as the casters club switch in combo with another in the same row/column as the trough)

when the first ball goes into the castor's club, does it pop over to the reel, or does it just stay in the VUK?

I agree with Neal_W though... it sounds like a trough issue. To check, put it in switch edge test with no balls in it. See if a trough switch still sees a ball (last three switches in column 1). Load the balls and make sure they are registering.

I've done the switch edge test. The switches all register. And the ball does pop over to the reel.

I'm actually thinking it may be acting correctly. I think after draining one becoming a 2 ball mb, the disabled jackpots occur only after I score at least one jackpot. ie, after at least one JP, if you drain down to two balls, you're done earning jackpots.

But if you drain to two balls before scoring a single jackpot, it'll score one JP and then no more.

Does that appear to the normal jackpot mb operation?

2 or 3 ball MB play is the same. Shoot the casters club to light the jackpot on the left orbit for ~20sec. Once you collect the jackpot or it times out, the ball in the reel goes back in play, then repeat.. shoot the casters club to relight jackpot on the left orbit for ~20sec. Each jackpot collected awards a fishing license. Collecting all 3 fishing licenses will light the super at the captured ball until you drain out of MB.

Also after MB, if you collect at least 1 jackpot, the casters club drop target will be up.

Ok, then something isn't right with mine when I only have two balls in play. It's probably an intermittent trough switch.

The game will act like mb is over when I lock a ball, holding it permanently instead of 20 seconds. The drop target does come up after a jp.

What switches are closed when you are in the switch edge test when no balls are in the game? When 1 ball is locked? Two balls?

Thump on the playfield with the glass off. Do any switches activate?

My guess now would be switch 37 or 38 by the way. Ball not detected in the reel.

I believe you figured it out.

Switch 38 will intermittently show as closed when no ball is there. Not always. But the position of the reel when it stops must be so close to that opto that the slightest touch will trigger the switch when no ball is present.

What is the best way to adjust this?

I thought the reel test would determine an opto problem, but the reel test never indicated an error.

What belt is used for the reel ? I have not seen it myself but I've read many times that old/wrong belts caused a lot of reel issues. The clear belt from Marco works well. https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/03-8614
Edit: The reel might actually be misaligned because it is slipping on the belt. Cleaning the belt pulleys can't hurt either.

I have the clear belt from Marco.

The reel works perfectly in test. I'll take a closer look at the opto location for switch 38.

It's strange but when the game
eventually stops the multiball jackpot mode with two balls still remaining, it still remembers it WAS in 2 ball mb, and will feed the ball back into shooter lane if you lock one of the remaining balls and then drain the other ball.

It's like the mb times out if you continue to fail making a jackpot with 2 balls, requiring you to re-lock three balls to have another go at it.

But it still behaves like it knows you were in mb by not penalizing if you drain the remaining ball after locking the other. It just feeds the same ball into the shooter lane which is fair since you never drained before locking the other.

Im starting to think it may be in the code if a player continues to fail getting a jp over and over with two balls. After awhile, it forces you to re-lock 3, but still won't cost you a ball if you lock one and drain the other.

Is this in the code? Its probably a rare case to keep two balls going without scoring a JP or draining one of the two.

When you hit the casters club, the ball goes to the reel and lights the jackpot which will time out if you don't hit the jackpot. Hitting the jackpot or letting it timeout releases the ball from the reel.

Nothing else should happen.