Hi (waves),

A Fish Tales arrived in our house at lunchtime. It's our first pinball machine and it has its original decals (but is missing its topper). It seems to work fine, but we haven't tested it properly yet. We bought it because it was relatively cheap, due to the missing topper, and we'd played the game on Williams Pinball on iOS and found it really great fun.

I'm hoping to make a new topper (!!) from spare parts (I've found several sets of instructions on the web), but I'm a little concerned about the sheer height of the machine with a topper included!

Is this the right place to hang out?

Thanks! screaminr - I’ve seen that

Slight problem straight out of the gate. The ball is getting consistently stuck here (see photo), and it won’t dislodge without taking the glass off and dislodging it manually.

Any ideas? We’ve never owned a pinball machine before, so this is a new one on us.

D0317915-928A-4CE4-BAA9-DBB4648FF495 (resized).jpeg

LTG Thanks. It seems to be getting stuck consistently between the mini black rubber ring on the single post to the left, and the large rubber ring on the left slingshot.

Both the single post and the slingshots look solid and original, but the rubbers don’t look 30 years old, so it looks like they’ve been replaced. I don’t know if the new rubbers are too big/wide, but - if so - I don’t know why the rubber on the right-hand slingshot is not similarly affecting the right-hand lane (?).

I’ve lifted the rubber ring slightly over the pegs on the left-hand slingshot (see picture), which leaves more room for the ball, but this is obviously an imperfect solution

D9980999-F541-4B66-840D-5C6E6A04C77B (resized).jpeg

So… I took off the plastic fish decoration on top of the slingshot to refix the LED that had come loose in its socket. I couldn’t see any way of adjusting the yellow post or the mini post from the top of the machine and, going by the position of the dirt, they looked like they hadn’t moved since 1992.

The rubbers on the left-hand mini post are the correct size, according to the instruction manual we downloaded off the internet. We switched the two rubbers on the mini posts around anyhow - just incase they were different sizes. The ball still got jammed. We tilted the playfield up using a spirit level. Still got stuck.

I’ve now bought a 3/8” mini-post rubber (correct size is 7/16”) on the internet in the hope that solves the problem, but I’m worried it doesn’t fit over the post.

Anyway, I now have this nightmare in my mind whereby this machine was always dud, the holes were drilled into the playfield in the wrong place when it was made, and it’s been floating around for 30 years hoping to entrap some poor innocent n00b

Anyway, we’ll see.

Sorry, n00b who doesn’t know whether to post here or in the generic tech forum.

We received a Fish Tales last week. My Fish Tales is now reporting a ‘Ball 1 Locked’ near constantly, despite their being no ball anywhere near the Caster’s Club. We must have played the game about 100 times since it arrived last Tuesday and this problem has only just developed. Any idea where we start to debug.

[NB: I’ve replaced the slingshot rubbers on my Fish Tales, which has solved *that* problem. The rubbers on the slingshots were 3” rather than 2 1/2 “].

Having investigated further, it's Switch 47 that's getting stuck. We've had a look underneath and there's a spring attached between the solenoid and the ball popper platform that is completely knackered (it's not springy).

We've ordered a pop bumper spring (https://pinparts.co.uk/products/10-135-pop-bumper-spring), which we *think* is the right part from looking at the schematic in the instruction manual.

Hi everyone,

On Joe's picture (above), the ramp next to the reel has a metal bracket with a lure decal on it. I'm missing the metal bracket and the lure decal on my fish tales.

Can anyone let me know what part number that metal bracket is? The name of that part? Or which section/heading the part number is in? I've checked the manual I printed off the internet, but there's no page 74/75. All the pages have numbers like 4-5, 7-38...

[Sorry for the rubbish picture - I can remove the back glass, but - hopefully - you should be able to see the part from here]

Missing bracket (resized).jpg

Making a template would be helpful because I've found the part on Page 2-37 now. It's an #A-15404 (https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/A-15404), a reel enter ramp assembly.

However, I haven't managed to find one for sale...

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?

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?

Thanks, Neal

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

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.

0B12ED86-FE8B-40D2-8B64-19C61F34CD73 (resized).jpeg

3DE0C3CE-FFDA-411D-93EA-A08A0A9268EA (resized).jpeg

5772D8EA-5616-4C3D-908A-AE366E5F3EC4 (resized).jpeg

8903A163-A444-468C-A7D9-8C07AEC86CE4 (resized).jpeg

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

I 100% love that machine (I’ve seen pictures before). It is an inspiration!

How easy are RadCals to install? I thought decaling was a huge job where you had to remove the playfield, whitewash the entire cab, and then add the decals. But, the RadCal installation video looks really easy.