There you go
Yellow green
yellow red
Key (empty)
red grey?
yellow orange
red black
red yellow
yellow black

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I don't think any wires are missing on my machine.. The boat plays and lights exactly as it should.

Hehe, the wine must have already been kicking in because reading back LTG's post, clearly it wasn't meant for me .

lanfeust if you need any more pics, or need me to trace the wires let me know I'll be glad to help some more.

Bonne chance! (good luck)

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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Comet is where I was making my list until my cart was emptied after a few days of bein left alone. I searched high and low again on comet, but I don't see any recommendations for LEDs for Fish Tales, just kits , with and without flashers, for 209-249$ .. Which is almost double the price of hand picking them.

Well I went crazy and ordered a bunch of LEDs from comet and both a GI and LED OCD. The LEDs themselves added up to 155$ , but I did buy a bunch extra so real cost should be around 140$ for the entire set of LEDs (backbox, topper included).

The last thing I need to order are the various connectors and pin headers on the main boards, not sure if I absolutely want to keep the exact same parts (the white connectors with orange marks) or just use a different manufacturer's versions. The original connectors would make it look closer to retail but are harder to find in Canada.

Which cards do you guys have in your machines? I bought the rule card from marco specialties , but would like to cover the other hole as well.

Shut up and take my money!

I buy anything fish tales, keep em coming.

Mtg381 Not sure how many he had in stock, but when I visited the site 9 hours after his post, it said it only had 1 in stock.. So I bought it. Hopefully he gets more

Hahaha now I'm thirsty.

I'm just about to start rebuilding my machine. So far I've dismantled the top of the playfield, polished as good as I could, waxed, replaced 2 mylars, added a 3rd one (on top of the LIE lanes). Changed every sleeve, every spring. Changed the boat mini playfield for a brand new one. Adjusted most leaf switches(got a few left). I started buffing the flat metal tracks around the boat, got a few more to go. Today I received my LEDs along with both OCD boards (GI and LED).

Should I go color DMD? From the pics / vids it does look very nice. I would only like a real color DMD and not a simulated lcd DMD.. Should I update to color?

Color DMD or pin2dmd? I think color DMD looks better? Or is it me? Anywhere to order from Canada? Kinda fed up of paying so much shipping and duties.. Although this should be my last purchase for FT for a while.

Well, as of monday I consider my machine at about 95% where I want to take it.

I took everything off from the playfield , cleaned , polished to the best I could, waxed it.

Sanded all the metal tracks to remove all traces of balls and other metal parts like the holders for the reel.

Never-dulled all ramps,tracks and metal parts.

Changed the boat playfield.

Changed the plastic ramp.

Changed everything except the coil and the spoons (doh! Going to order the spoons soon, noticed one was pierced so I had to fix it with glue and baking soda) for the bumpers.

Bought all but 4 plastics (Didn't think I was missing the protectors on the ramps , I'm currently using the old ones on the new ramp so I'll order these 2 as well). The other 2 are the one under the far top right plastic which is clear (yellowed) with 2 red posts on it. The other one is the one just below the bumpers , under the boat, clear (yellowed and warped). These plastics weren't included in the sets I found. The only 2 I haven't yet installed are the fisherman and the stretch the truth, because of the rivets. I have the rivets, and a press , but not the correct bit to press the rivet. I made a jig by drilling very little in a coupling nut to get the shape of the head of the rivet, and used a small ball bearing on the other side to crush the rivet.. It was fine to put the studs on the metal tracks back on, but I don't want to risk it on plastic until I get the proper bit to press it.

Installed plastic protectors.

Changed 2 mylars (bumper , reel drop) , added 3 more (on the LIE lane where the ball exits, the captive ball lane, on the blue sticker at the base of the boat).

Even if the playfield had most of its bulbs changed to LED , it was somewhat inconsistent, so ordered a ton of LEDs and right now the only bulbs I haven't installed are those in the topper. I made 1 mistake and ordered a wrong flasher color for the video mode in the captive ball, so I'll have to order it.

Bought the topper dome even if mine looks good. I think the plastic is cracked a bit around the screw holes.

I meant to change every single metal post I could, but I based my order on the manual's list of posts, but it is wrong. I ordered 6 of one type of post and just one of the other , but it should of been the opposite. In the end I had to re-use about 5 or 6 posts because I wasn't going to wait for another order .. and you can't even see them..

I changed every plastic post.

I changed every rubber, including the black ones that were on the flippers, for the original red ones (bought a rubber kit from marco). It also had yellow rubbers on the posts instead of black. Up until then I never knew different rubbers had different hardness to them. It changed the game completely.. The ball now spins like crazy, and bounces all over the playfield. In a matter of a few games the ball jumped twice from hitting the right post on the boat straight into the rail.. That definitely wasn't happening with black flippers and yellow posts (these posts were super old too). Pretty sure its the extra spin on the ball that makes it jump so much more that the harder , black rubber post. Now I understand more how so many plastics end up breaking . I love the faster pace though! I hadn't play on real hardware in so many years and I never played as much so that I could notice so many details on how the game plays.

I ordered black balls from marco, one with a nuke sign, one with a diamond and clubs and the last with patterns that look like the ball is cracked. I am wondering , are the black balls safe ? I wouldn't want to hurt the playfield if these balls aren't adequate. They really let you see how much the ball spins on itself though..

Upgraded my ROM to D-6 to fix the "xtra balle" display bug but more importantly with the new light driver code that doesn't have that spike of power pulling 2 amps constantly (The ghosting effect). Can anyone confirm D-6 works with ColorDMD? It should , since it's based on L-5 with a simple display fix and change in the code how the lamps are driven.

Installed LED OCD. (Great product!)

Installed GI OCD. (Great product!)

Printed 2 custom cards from all the ones suggested (thanks guys!).

Ordered CPR's Mirror translite because I read in this forum it looks amazing and I was tempted by it since I saw it.

Just about to order both a LCD and a LED colordmd , because I don't want to decide without seeing them. Will probably get a 3rd one to save on shipping and resell the 2 that I won't use.

I'm looking for someone local to re-chrome the plunger handle.

Overall I spent a lot of money on this machine but it looks so damn good right now. This machine as gotten me obsessed.. I was waiting past 25 years to acquire it. For the past weeks pretty much all I do involves Fish tales in a way. Do we all get that obsessed with our machines?

I posted a bunch of pictures of left over parts that I have. If anyone is interested in any of these parts, every reasonable offers will be considered.. I'm not looking to make money, but maybe to help out someone.

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I just removed them as well, they were already flaking after a day and were leaving their crumbs on the rails.

DJH79 Congrats on joining the club! Can you post a pic of that damage close up ? I'm fairly new to the pinball world , but I've gathered a ton of info from this forum. I believe most people like to use "kwik wood" to repair playfields. I used it to plug a hole one I removed a L bracket that was added to the caster's club (I posted a picture 1 or 2 pages back) and the results were great. I'm sure it would work well for your repair as well.

I picked one up as well. Not sure yet where it final place will be. Bud for size.

Scroll up to post #3252

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And here I thought I couldn't spend more on my machine.. and found out about "Pinball Fidelity / Pinsound" and other audio mods. It turns out I already had a PSW10 subwoofer that was collecting dust because I upgraded my sound system a few weeks back. So I wired the PSW10 with its speaker level input. There definitely is a difference, but since I always had difficulty hearing low frequencies to begin with , the difference is subtle to me. I really can't see how a Pinsound board will make tons of difference when the audio clips aren't high quality to begin with. I know some pinballs have had upgraded sound roms, I don't think Fish tales is one. At what point does it become too much with the mods ? If I changed the translite to mirrored backglass (receiving it today), added mirrored pinblades, color dmd on its way, 100% LED , subwoofer.. The more I mod, the further from "original", like I wanted, it becomes.. These mods are adding value to most pinsiders you think?

400$ more or less, for an amp and speakers ? (Pin Fidelity / Pinsound) That can't be justified, can it ?

Oh, and the pinblade mirrors are so tight, I have to be really carefull now when flipping the board .. but I shouldn't need to flip it much anymore. I used mirrors because they were given to me with the machine. What's everyone's preference ? Decals ? Mirrors ? Naked ?

Top , translite. Bottom CPR's mirrored backglass. The colors are amazing.

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Well, it is true that if we are looking up close, there might be some details missing. I find my translite actually looks better now that it is off and that the glass in front removed. The problem is that once backlight, the translite fades considerably, where the backglass actually stands out more once backlit. I think it would of looked better if it didn't have the "mirrored" part of it.. Once backlight, the mirror reflections dissappear but it still blocks the image behind (in the lightning it is easier to notice). But when the machine is turned off, then the reflection does catch your eye when passing by. One drawback is that the speaker panel looks dull now next to the backglass. If both would match it would look even better. I might increase the backlight from 1smd to brighter, not sure yet.

So overall, translite next to backglass without lighting the translite, the colors are very very close. Once the translite is lit, it fades a whole lot. Are there mods to translites that make them stand out more?

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I'm fairly new in the pinball world, but I saw the very informational video on shorted diodes and what could happen, triggering different switches, and how you make a box to identify them.

During multiball, and casters club is locked again, the ball that was locked is actually not waiting in the reel, but rather in the catapult, ready to fire. So the catapult switch is toggled at that moment.

You then trigger switch spinner.

I think you might have a shorted diode in one of those 4 switches in the image I posted. Spinner and Bob tilt are on the same line, and match that with catapult at the bottom that is closed. Probably why it only happens during jackpot shot.

edit: Actually the shorted diode should be out of 3 and not 4 possible switches , trough 1, catapult or spinner. These 3 switches are really abused in this game so it wouldn't be that surprising I guess.

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What do you mean ? Is video mode flashing green and ready to be collected ? Or is video more not flashing , not solid green, just not lit ? My very first idea with your problem is to ask if you've increased the captive ball by doing a long cast ? In order you must hit switch #26 , Left return lane. This will light the long cast. Once long cast is lit , you must hit switch 62 and then 64 (Top right loop then top left loop) and this will increase captive ball to the next item.

Or do you mean that it's enabled and flashing , but hitting the captive ball once more after collecting hold bonus just won't collect the video mode ?

Edit: oops I had a picture for you.

long cast (resized).png

I have a question myself concerning the long cast. I restored my machine to A1 condition, yet it seems the long cast doesn't always work. Too often the ball hits the gate and doesn't cross it. I sometimes feel it's a software issue where the game was a tad to slow to open the gate VS the speed at which the ball hit the switch before reaching the gate (maybe the game was too slow because it is displaying something else that was collected just moments ago). In my restoration I changed the spring on the gate. Last week I pulled the gate out , increased the bend on the wire so that it requires less pull to open the gate, slightly bent the gate itself so that the gap would be opened faster as well, yet it still happens way to often that when I shoot long cast twice is a row , super fast, the second time it hits the gate. I might need to setup a camera and catch the moments it fails, to see what the issue is. But I'm probably not alone with this issue ?

Simply put , when I shoot the long cast too fast , the gate doesn't seem to open fast enough. I'm pretty sure this isn't intended by design, and this isn't the first machine that gives me this feeling.

lanfeust : I would think the only possible way for this to happen to your machine is the switch matrix has an issue. Did you go into test mode and manually close the 3 switches and verify that the machine sees them closing ? When you are playing a game (at medium difficulty) and you close switch 26 manually , does the light for the "long cast" indicator light up at all ? That's the very first thing that needs to happen. 26 closes , the long cast light turns on. Then manually close switch 62 (while playing a game). If the long cast light was lit , and you close switch 62 , the gate at the top left needs to open the moment you close #62. Once that gate is opened , then manually close 64. Still nothing ? Definitely a switch must not be registering properly. You said you tried another ROM , but if you didn't have any checksum errors for any of the ROMs, then it is nearly impossible that it is a ROM issue. Which ROM are you currently using? L-5 ? D-6?

Is the video mode bulb in the captive ball area good ? Once you have triggered switch 26, you could simply close 62 , 64 , 62 , 64 , 62, 64, 62, 64 and one by one you should light the different captive balls. (you have about 10 seconds after you closed switch 64 before the long cast light turns off, so you could aim for 62 again and again to make that loop after loop and with 5 shots completely enable the captive ball rewards.

Whatever you issue is, it has to be within the switch matrix.. Either the switches themselves , the diodes or the integrated circuit.

The first thing to check is the switch test. I see you are French, I speak french as well, if it helps you out we can communicate in French (via PM).

Chances that the issue is from the mpu board are very slim. The ball position you are mentioning makes a perfect square and the most logical explanation is there is a short. Remove the balls and go in t1 test, and take a picture? This will show if the system always sees a closed switch when it shouldn't.

Did you check the diode d3 on the coin door interface board? If the test report shows a switch closed other than 24 or 38, disconnect the coin door interface board and see if it goes away?

It really looks like the issue is in switches 14,34,16,36.
Tilt, spinner, trough 1, catapult. Someone a very similar issue in the past days and for him it seems that simply disconnecting and reconnecting the connectors on the board ended up fixing things.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/fish-tales-tilts-after-shooting-through-left-spinner

If in test mode you place a ball in the catapult, in trough 1 and you move the spinner halfway to trigger and hold the switch , does switch 14 (tilt) close on screen as well ?

Thanks for that tip, this was actually part of the issue. It turns out I had 2 issues, the top right rail would send the ball a tad to low and it would sometimes hit the angled track just below the gate, even if the gate was opened. Switch 62 also has seen better days. It worked,but not every time if the ball ran past real quick. I swapped the switch with one of the switches of the LIE lane (until I receive new ones). After both modifications, I can now send the ball flying long cast after long cast without any issues at all.

Awww... My 40th birthday is coming up .. And she asked me just last night what I wanted.. She won't buy me a 2nd pinball she says ... Cheapskate!

Maybe she'd buy me this! Source?

Thanks!

Hahah that's gold.

Those screws are 8/32 SEMS screws. (The same ones holding the metal bar to the apron)

I don't think my switch is original, but the wires colors are good for sure.

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Aren't the graphics for the virtual pinball version of the game high enough resolution?

Non ghosting LEDs should not be necessary if you update your game to Rom L-6 (if you ever can find that one) or D-6 from ipdb.org, or use the LED ghosting patcher software and apply that to L-5.

Or if you buy the LED OCD from comet. And add the GI OCD. Might be overkill for fish tales but it makes a tiny difference.

I'm with northerndude on that, I color matched the inserts and they really stand out. I also used pure white LEDs everywhere for GI and backglass, because I don't think the orange glow of incandescent lamps would of been the first choice of lighting if they had options when designing the game.

Making a list of all the LEDs you need is long, matching the sockets, colors, brightness, preferred types (frosted, no dome, etc). And then you hope they have them all in stock, I had to buy different socket types and convert the few missing ones I needed. In the end it turned out great, even though 1 flasher was meant to be green I ordered white (fixed in the list), but you can't tell. I'll share my list, but it's a total mess and I bought a whole bunch of extras to test different things. It can be used as a starting ground to make your own. Don't blame me if any of these sockets are wrong. I don't remember any being wrong but who knows.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14Pu2fyVC1u6je6g3HQdQr3ykF-xItfJ1jBB7PEW2yyg/edit?usp=sharing

No lens LEDs might be better under inserts , because they focus their light in a single direction so they bleed less to adjacent inserts. I used a flasher that I can bend (flex) behind the stretch the truth pannel to hide the bulb and have just the panel flash. I did that in a few places, like the bait for the fish.

In my machine ,just by the connector for the cast button, the connector for illuminating the switch is right there , with nothing connected to it. I'll post a picture later.

I'm with yzfguy on that one, you should definitely replace the reel belt first thing. It is known to cause all sorts of reel issues when you have the wrong belt.

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/03-8614

They ship you a clear belt , not white like the original. Don't waste time looking for other issues until this belt as been replaced. Most likely it slips when you have 2 balls in there already.

Also when you play licensed virtual pinballs, the licensed table uses lightning flippers with RED rubbers. You can see the lightning. I would assume tournaments make sure their Fish Tales use lightning flippers. I would rather get good playing with lightning flippers and if I see a Fish Tales in the wild with standard flippers it will only be easier.

I took a screenshot from both pinball arcade and Williams pinball on Android, both have lightning.

I used a glue stick when I moved my foil.
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Very satisfying when you finally hear SUPER JACKPOT! Only to be followed by a drain directly in the center .

It's not the ROM or the machine would tell you there's a crc error with the ROM when booting up.

ROM D-6 has the "extra ball" text fixed and the led ghosting patch applied.

LED OCD is a bit different than a ghosting patch. The ghosting patch does only this, prevent ghosting on the LEDs caused by an older method of turning on the lights. The LED OCD will actually allow the game to properly dim the LEDs, but also has the added benefit that it doesn't ghost the LEDs because it drives them properly. Fish tales very rarely has moments when it dims the lights, so few that I couldn't point you out when it actually happens except after a ball drops or the game ends, and even then it's very subtle. You can however test the dimming in the settings and you'll clearly see a difference where with the OCD, the LEDs actually do dim and without, they flicker like crazy but never dim. It might be of better use in another machine that dims more intensively like twilight zone, but I'm guessing if you have such a machine, the flickering will already have bothered you, and you probably added a OCD already.

If the OCD upgrade was done to cancel out led ghosting, then it could be used on another machine. It is always a good idea to apply the non ghosting patch to the games affected because it removes a spike caused by the bug that creates a large unnecessary power draw every time it ghosts the LEDs.

You can read more about that here : https://emmytech.com/arcade/led_ghost_busting/

I consider myself a purist as well, my machine as no mods at all, but it's 100% LED, color DMD (led) , GI and LED OCD. No changes I have made can't be returned original state. I like to think that of color DMD were available back then, the Devs would of used them. Same goes for the LEDs. If the Devs didn't want colors, they wouldn't have used colored inserts, so I like to think that if they could of matched the bulb color to the inserts back then, they would have. If you didn't have the chance to see a color DMD in action, try to find somewhere where you could see a sample on a machine.. The LED DMD looks stunning.

Or install a GI OCD so the LEDs will dim properly when the game enters power saving mode in attract mode.

I'm really hoping someone has a solution , because obviously I can't come up with one myself. I can't get the ball to stop getting stucked in the longcast switch! As we can see on the picture , the ball gets stuck in the slot for the long cast switch. My first idea was to simply bend the actuator a bit more so that it pushed the ball out.. Every adjustment I made to the actuator never gave any good result.. and I ended up brake the actuator. I temporarily fixed it by using a safety pin that I reshaped, because safety pins are usually pretty sturdy. Yet, I had the same issue again and again, so I tried adjusting it over and over , and then broke the lever on which the actuator is mounted.. I hacked repaired that , and ordered 2 new actuators from Marco. I went ahead and shaped the actuator with trial and error (the location is a total pain to work in). But then I noticed the new actuator was also moving side to side because the lever came loose a bit inside it's plastic case. Since I had the shape , I decided to use my 2nd actuator and be very careful on how I handle it , not to loosen it up too. Well, these actuators are total crap! Even being extra careful the 2nd one ended up loosening itself just as bad.. I opened one of them and added some tension on the lever so that it stops moving as much. Now the actuator really doesn't shift as much, but it probably requires more than the 30g I think was advertised to close the switch.

But no matter how I shape that goddamn actuator, it can never push the ball out of the slot. If i try to lower the actuator so that the ball starts rolling back down the lane, I never managed to make it so that the ball would roll back down, but activate the switch too. My last idea would be to add Kwik wood inside the slot itself, to try and make it narrower so the ball can't hold in the slot, or completely block the first portion of the slot , like 1/8".

Ideas ? It's ruining all my fun.. Every time I play and it gets stuck there I want to do something about it! Trying to shake the ball out often causes tilts ..

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Pretty sure that would be a bad idea. It would affect the ball straight coming out of the shooter lane and would most likely make it jump a little, all while making the gap I want to close or narrow stick out even more with the little wings that are used to protect. I might consider it for the ball drop of the ramps though.. Thanks for the idea!

The one in the caster's club will go up and down depending on balls locked , multi ball and game difficulty. If the game is set on hard , after collecting a jackpot from caster's club , you will need to hit the drop target twice in order to open caster's club again. Normal difficulty you need to hit it only once. It will also block the caster's club entrance depending on how many balls are in play , etc. If you have 2 balls left in multiball and place one in caster's club , it closes the entrance so you can't activated double jackpot, because you don't have the 3rd ball to collect the jackpot with.

At the recommended level from the manual , between 6 and 6 1/2
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The playfield is leveld and yes , I changed the switch because I couldn't just get the actuator.

I got this crap : https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/12-SMSW

If anyone as a source for a better quality switch, I'd be interested.

Yeah, either that or it bounces back up the L-I-E lane from the jet bumpers and end up there. It only sticks there when it has very little speed, but it occurs every 3-4 games..

Yes, correct, without the switch it can roll back down the slot and not get stucked.

I can't really use another switch, because the position of this switch, its actuator is very long and a particular shape. And since the original actuator broke, and the replacement is not designed the same way, I can't move the lever from this switch to another one.

I will start by increasing the slope, then might lower the actuator and increase sensitivity on the switch.

How reliable are magnetic switches? That sounds like a good idea.

Pretty sure nobody has an explanation about that hole in the long cast lane. Every playfield I have ever seen, even digital games, all have it.

Thanks for the ideas! I'll try adjusting it, again, sometimes today.

Thanks for the tip , but that switch doesn't have the proper shape. It is a tight fit in that corner, so the switch has been moved to the side a bit, making the shape custom. I tried increasing the slope of the playfield , but I didn't like the way the game played afterwards, so I brought it back down to where I had it. The issue hasn't been bothering me as much lately. With the current shape of the actuator , if the ball hangs there , just jiggling the machine a bit usually sets it free.

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In my fish tales, nothing is interlocked with the coin door. The tests will tell you the switch is opened but it doesn't cut any power anywhere.

I installed mirror blades. It's a tight fit and I need to wiggle the playfield a tiny bit when I lift it or the back panel with the mermaid and L-I-E printed can rub against it.

Next time you order parts, I suggest you go ahead a also by a reel drive belt. Older belts tend to cause issues. Does the ball popper constantly fire at the same time as the reel is spinning? I'd be under the impression that if 47 is stuck closed, the machine will constantly try and activate the ball popper to send it to the reel as it thinks a ball is in there. Pretty sure after it fires the ball popper, it expects switch 35 (reel entry) to close as well. Did you test the switch integrity with a continuity tester? It's possible the lever arm has bent and adjusting the switch arm might fix it for now (your better off with a new switch anyways).

Have you made yourself familiar with the different tests available in the settings menu? Have you gone in switch test mode and physically pressed each switch in the machine to see if they register in test menu? You might discover other things that require your attention and may as well order all at once. Are you familiar with the game rules? I would start a game with the glass off and try and activate all game events. For example, does switch 62 (top right loop) activate the gate properly? If the loop is active switch 62 will open the gate, if it isn't then it will activate the loop and next time the gate will open. Does the drop target in front of caster's club open and close properly? (it will close once you've collected at least 1 jackpot and the game returns to single ball play). On normal difficulty, does that drop target go back down after being hit once? (twice on hard).

Edit : spring 10-135 is the correct spring for the ball popper.

Edit: spring 10-135 should be the correct once for the ball popper.

5 ball is for the amount of balls per game. There should only be 3 in the trough and the captive ball.

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.

That's not normal behavior. Reading this it seems to me your drop down target never goes up to block the entrance of the caster's club. You cannot "lock a 2nd ball before scoring a jackpot with 2 balls in play". If you only have 2 balls in play, and you lock 1 , the caster's club entrance will be blocked until it has put ball 1 back in play, either from collecting the jackpot or running out of time.

EDIT : Unless you mean you locked 1 ball and you have 2 on the playfield , locking a 2nd one, leaving one more ball on the playfield. But to me that would be 3 balls in play, since there aren't any balls in the trough , then they are in play. Please confirm.

I just tried this with the glass off and it never acted that way. I went through 12 jackpot countdowns while in tropical fishing and it always behaved normally, always starting the jackpot timer. Then on the 13th countdown I collected the jackpot. I went through another 12 jackpot countdowns in fresh water fishing and it always behaved the same, starting the countdown. I then just let the countdown drop without pressing any other switches and eventually the game started looking for the missing ball 2 I had kept in my hands during that time. This is the only time it kicked back the ball from the caster's club, because it went through the whole sequence of ball search and since during jackpot mode the first ball waits in the catapult it got shot out.

EDIT : Those tests were done with 1 ball drained and 2 balls in play.

The game is not recognizing it was in multiball but rather the game knows one of the ball in still in play. It has 2 balls in the trough and points are still being scored so : 1) the 3rd ball is not in the trough 2) the 3rd ball is not currently missing because points are being scored.

This happens to me all the time if you got setting A1 33 -> Game Reset -> Instantly. This setting allows you to restart a game after ball 2 or later is in play by pressing the Start button again. If you drain a ball and ball 2 is coming out and you press Start with the correct timing , it will actually shoot a 2nd ball in the lane and fire them right away. You now start a game with a 2 ball multiball. Thing is , the machine isn't in multiball mode so you get none of the benefits. If you lock a ball in the casters club then , it will not put out a 2nd ball in the lane because it knows that ball is not in the trough, so it must be in play. If you score points then , it knows the play really is on the playfield so it won't search for the ball.

My diagnostic, your drop target is not coming up like it should. If more issues are present once this is fixed (or confirmed working) it's time to look at the CPU board for corrosion or bad solder joints or chips like ASIC that might need to be pushed on for better contact , cleaning switches connectors , unplugging and replugging ribbon cables, testing all switches involved in the caster's club logic and their diodes. When the VUK kicks the ball up in the caster's club it creates some vibrations and other flaky switches / connections nearby could be affected.

When the 3rd ball is locked the game raises the drop target to prevent any more balls going in until it has put all 3 balls back in play. Since you arm is broken, it gets stuck there. Otherwise you could lock another ball before it released all 3.

I've done a lot of research on ROMs L-5 / G-5 / D-6. From what I have gathered , there is an official G-5 rom that has the LED fix and the extra ball text fix, but it's not available to download and burn. I saw that it was on sale once but for a hefty price. I know the consensus is to not use roms that aren't official in your machines to prevent damages, but I've been using rom D-6 in my machine for over a year and everything has always worked properly. The guys at ColorDMD were even kind enough to update the color file for Fish Tales so that the little things that now longer were colored were fixed. There's only a few tiny scenes were color is missing now, like when you get hold bonus on your last ball and your bonus is scored twice in a row, the second bonus is just white. It does help to tell both bonuses apart . There is a frame once in a while in the fish finder that goes white but turns back to color right after. Same goes for video mode where a single frame once in a while turns white then back to color. For some reason rom G-5 is very hard to find and has never been made available publicly. It really seems to me that D-6 is just G-5 in disguise and renamed. I couldn't find any information as to where D-6 really originates. Either way it works fine on the real hardware and it's easily available.

The D-6 Rom for the pinmame set on ipdb is the Rom I am referring to. I flashed that ROM last year and used the updated color DMD file and everything has been running great.

Yes it does. Not really sure why Pinmame would require the led fix anyways . One of the first things I did was to update to D-6 when I got my machine.

I know what pinmame is, I'm saying there is no reason to apply the led fix to the ROM if you are using it in pinmame.. Because obviously the emulator is not driving real LEDs.

You can always film the ball going up the shooter lane with a mobile phone and the slow motion mode to see exactly what happens to the ball as it gets shot up.

There's definitely a bend, that side's track runs over the left side's one.. So it's shaped to run the track higher. Hard to see if yours is bent more than mine, but I doubt it.

Just tested this on my machine that works flawless and this happens. Power up , start a game , close tilt switch and right away it casts the ball. It doesn't give me any error then but if I go in the menu , sure enough switch 31 has an error. This will continue even after a power off. Going either in switch edge mode and closing cast or during the game casting a ball for real (either ball #2 or a second ball after caster's club) will clear this error and not show up in menu or upon boot up. If the error is "activated" then closing the tilt switch will no longer cast the ball. The minute you cleared the error , closing the tilt (at least on ball 1) will launch it again.

To me it definitely feels like a software bug. Some bit must not be set correctly before the first ball is launched or when the very first tilt signal is received. Thankfully I never tilt the machine when I'm about to launch a ball. It should generally not be a problem because if you continue playing that game you will most likely press the cast button to launch a ball eventually , which will clear that issue all together..

My VUK definitely has a spring to keep the contact apart. Strangely I never noticed that the manual for fish tales or hurricane both don't show that spring. Looking across the net, the D-11335-1 Ball Popper Assembly does not use that spring originally. I'm guessing it relies on the leaf switch contact itself to keep the ball popper cap raised above the other contact until the weight of the ball closes it and then it gets fired. What you should try to do is to bend the upper part of the leaf switch (the one shaped like a Y on which the ball popper cap sits) bend it high enough so that the weight of the cap itself isn't enough to make contact, but obviously the weight of the ball will be enough. If you must , bend both contacts to keep the gap a minimum.

20211218_112748.jpg

The 4 switches involved in the boat motor are 42 + 32 , and 43 + 33. If you receive 10 points, its either 42 or 43 (left or right boat entry). If its 100 000 points, it would be both 42 + 32 or 43 + 33 one after the other (unlikely). This gives 100 000 points if the corresponding PORT or STARBOARD is NOT LIT. If it is lit , then it would show the boat animation on screen and give 500 000 to 3 million (i think the max is 3mil). Anyways, should be switches 42 or 43.

I changed my decal because it was pretty worn. The one I got from Marco doesn't use the exact same font. It was also slightly off for my machine, but after modifying the holes slightly, the black lines and the motor handle lined up perfectly, but there's about 1/16" of the metal plate not covered on the right. Most machines might already be like that though , with the metal plate not 100% covered, you can't really tell Now sure why they originally missed matching the colors properly for the outline of the engine though. The different font is sad though. The original was much better.

I just pushed the research a bit more, both my emulators have the same issue as well. Pinball arcade (android) let's you go into the settings menu. I set auto plunger to 5 seconds. Tilt first ball and it puts it in play. I let the other balls launch with auto plunger and drain. I can only get to the settings menu when the game is in attract mode, so I let the game end and return to attract mode. Enter settings menu and same switch 31 is in error. Like on real hardware, casting the ball will clear the error.

I tried in Williams pinball. You can still tilt launch ball 1. To my knowledge you can enter settings menu in Williams pinball (or it requires a higher level of table unlock, which I don't have).

Here's a pic from pinball arcade.

Screenshot_20211218-122759_Pinball Arcade.jpg

Are there launch buttons also in error in the settings menu after the tilt? My guess is , it's a little bug they never caught , and since they most likely always use the same base code to make new games, the bug just carried out to other games. Since launching a ball clears the error , maybe they did catch that bug eventually but it doesn't really need fixing.

What I'd like to figure out is how sometimes the spinner gets tied to a crazy amount of points. Somewhere deep inside this thread someone explains how he triggered this bug. I had the exact same bug , but I didn't do all the steps he did. It happened to me just once , but hitting the spinner gave me nearly 400-500 million points. All of a sudden I was up to 630 million. When it happened I tried to remember a bit of what sequence I did to trigger this, but forgot what it was since and it's never happened again. I stopped that game because I didn't want my high score on the machine based on a bug.

Another bug I noticed is in attract mode, during the very first time it does the light show , after swiping the lights up / down , left / right , the sequence will be missing "Lite long cast" and all 3 lights of the left fish. Then next time around they will light though. When it swirls all the lights around , both "extra" light won't turn on during the light show either (might not be a bug though, but at the same time I don't see why they would be part of the light sequence).

I saw your fix, well done!

It's clearly a bug, otherwise why would it give a switch error when there are none? Also, once the bug is triggered, if you never clear it by pressing the cast button the next game the first ball will not launch on the first tilt.

If it's not a bug , then how do you explain that after you tilt the game on ball 1 and it is cast into play, and you drain the ball, tilting ball #2 doesn't cast it ? Tilting will no longer cast the ball until you use the cast switch.. By your logic , the player starting a game with a flakey switch gets to play ball 1 , but he never gets to play ball 2. It will sit there until the machine completely tilts and then get shot out.. There's no way to continue playing .. Wouldn't that get them ever more mad at the machine? The only real solution is to either activate the option to use "flipper plunger" or "outlane autocast" options to ensure that if the cast button doesn't work , game will keep playing and it will eventually register a real switch 31 error.

That doesn't mean it's not a bug. All these games are programmed with the same underlying back bone for the code. It uses the same code all over, hence why the led bug is present in most games until it was fixed, and also why you can use the same patch to fix all versions of the code with the led bug. Everyone who programs microcontrollers will recycle their code from one program to another instead of re-writing everything, hence why the led bug affects so many titles.

Why would they make it so that only one ball is put into play when the very first tilt is detected? As I said, if cast doesn't work, the tilt will only put one ball in play, it won't ever put another, not in the same game, not in the next, never until cast switch error has been cleared. So that "feature" could only work once until cast button was pressed one day.. Making that feature totally useless because it can ever only put one ball in play and doesn't solve any issues for the next player who starts a game with a broken cast switch.

If they really wanted to make sure the game keeps playing with a broken cast switch, they could have switch 31 error set the auto plunger timer to 5 seconds and it would allow the machine to play, and not rely on shaking the machine to play.

OCD boards too I hope

For those not lurking in the tech forums, dvschaller posted a nice solution for the top right loop switch that jams the balls. You can read more about it in his thread : https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/fish-tales-ball-stuck-at-top-of-right-loop

If your boards are clean then it can be the thermistor in the box that has the utility socket and the power switch. This thermistor might be acting up which usually causes issues around boot time, until it warmed up properly and then resets go away.

Screenshot_20220208-114438_Adobe Acrobat.jpg

Use a continuity tester and do the basic tests to see if both the white/orange and green/BROWN (you mentionned black, but black is column 5 according to manual) can be traced back to the connector. One probe on the white/orange at the switch , one at the connector, then do the same for the green/brown. Both must have continuity. Then test the start switch continuity with a probe on each side and press the button, if the switch is good, next is to check the diode at the switch. Same idea goes for the cast button. Test the continuity of both wires all the way back to their respective pin on the connector, then the switch itself, then the diode. If you can't measure continuity from one of the wires all the way to the connector, follow that wire from switch to switch and see if the connection is broken somewhere.

It's very possible one of the connectors on the coin door interface board is dirty or has a cracked solder joint. In red is the wires related to the start button (white/orange + green/brown) and in blue the only wire related to the cast button (white/brown).

Start.png

+1 for the belt. If this was the original belt then it's about 30 years old now.. If it was a NOS replacement after, I dunno 10-15 years.. It would still be 15 years old.. It's also possible someone used a rubber ring as a Band-Aid and it's not even the right belt after all.. In any case you're going to want a new belt for the years to come.. Changing the belt solved the issues a lot of users have had in the past.

Gone fishing! Leave a message.

Does the caster club have that metal "W" shaped wire preventing the ball from kicking out of the casters club? If it's missing then it's needed . If it's there, it needs adjusting so that after the ball bounces off the back of the casters club, the wire forces the ball to fall back in the vuk.

The drop target will only block the entrance when you've locked 2 balls for a double jackpot, making sure you won't lock the 3rd one. And then once you've collected the jackpot, it will close then and force you to hit it once (if difficulty is set to normal) or twice (if set to hard) before it drops down and allows you to lock more balls.

So, if it doesn't stay in the casters club it's most likely the W shaped wire. Before I restored my machine I had a lot of balls kicking out. Ever since I adjusted the wire just right I've never had an issue (well over a year now). In my case there was a hack that had been done adding a "L" bracket to stop the ball.. I patched and sanded all that nonsense, fixed the wire and it working top notch. I don't think the speed of your table has to do with it because I tested by hand, rolling the ball in the casters club much faster than the flipper could.

OK, I wasnt aware difficult would start the game with it closed. Must it be hit twice then as well? Or only after a jackpot?

Here's the w wire I'm talking about.

Screenshot_20220319-103017_X-plore.jpg

For your sound cutting out.. It could be a number of things, but if your boards have been recapped already, it's possible the defective part is the digital potentiometer that the game uses to change sound volume. If I remember correctly it's an 8 pin chip. It's possible to test that chip to verify its output driving the amp. I'm pretty sure I've talked about it in this very thread a while back. I changed that said chip on my sound board because I had a similar issue. I seem to recall it was acting the opposite way though, the sound blasting super loud sometimes. I'll dig the thread and see if I find something.

It's in another thread, here it is.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/wpc-sound-board-help-please-#post-6212072

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/fish-tales-casters-club/page/47#post-4944377

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/fish-tales-casters-club/page/47#post-4889225

The manual doesn't have a part number for this gate. I searched marco for "wire gate" and didn't see an exact match. Maybe you can get a similar one but bend the one side that doesn't match.

His decal is custom, made by his wife if I remember correctly. When I got my fish tales the ball was rejected at least 50% of the time. Someone added an extra l bracket behind the vuk and my wire gate was out of shape. Now my gate is perfect and no rejects ever!

I believe the oil is there so that the 2 parts don't rust together. I don't recall precisely how you open the gear box but you can definitely open it to clean the inside and add more grease.

I pointed out testing the digital potentiometer a few days ago but unsure if you've tried this. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/wpc-sound-board-help-please-#post-6212072

I had to change that part on my board because I had volume issues, I can't recall my exact issue, if sound was cutting out completely or whatever. I remember it jumped around some times. I know your pin has been restored, but was there any work done on the boards? Were the electrolytic capacitors changed during the restoration? Are all the pins of each connector good and none have cold solder joints? Reflowing old solder joints is never a bad idea. What tools do you have to try and diagnose your issue? Meter? Logic probe? Oscilloscope? The idea is to measure things when your sound works, then measure them again when it dies. Is it the sound processing part that acts up or is it the amplifier part , or like I mentioned above, specifically the volume control part of the circuit. Let us know what has been done to the boards (rework , corrosion cleaning, etc)

Make sure all the trough switches are working properly and the ball shooter lane switch. (Switches 18,17,16,56). Always use balls to test the switches. Take all the balls out and go to switch edge test, place a ball in the ball shooter lane and make sure when the ball is in the switch is closed. Wiggle the machine around to make sure it always remains closed (This switch usually causes the plunger to auto plunge and doesn't put a second ball in play).

Do the same thing with the trough switches, in edge test put one ball at in the drain at a time and watch the trough switches. Move the machine around to see if any of the trough switches stop registering momentarily.. Does it feed a second ball when a ball is locked in the reel or does it never happen then?

The more details you can give the better we can help.

I once had a wire catch in the sub woofer pins as I pulled up the playfield and it cooked a coil. It does seem like you have a short circuit somewhere. I would turn off the machine, try to replicate the conditions of the multi ball when the coil locked (if all 3 balls were on the playfield, then take them out of the trough) so that all switches are in the same state as when it locked. Then, use your multi meter in continuity mode, and start probing wires from both sides of the coil to the ground. Disconnecting the coil and checking just the wiring would be the best way to go.

So, recreate conditions with power off, check for shorts.

Yes, but it's a feet simple procedure. Find the file on colordmd's website, place it on a USB stick and follow the instructions from the site to upgrade. It takes just a few seconds.

Actually you'll probably be fine. I had in mind upgrading from L-5 to D-6, where some scenes no longer were detected properly. I'm not sure if there ever was a version for L-4 specifically or just one for L-5 that was backwards compatible. In any case you should visit their website and see which files are available for your game(s), then make sure your games have the recommended revisions matching the DMD files.

This error means your machine is seeing an error with the ROM at u18 on the sound board. Since your issue is intermittent, locate the chip and make sure its firmly pushed in the socket and that every pin is in good shape. If it is, maybe removing it, cleaning the pins with an eraser and putting it back in might solve the issue.

It could also be the socket that is dirty and needs a change, or one of the pins of the socket needs its solder to be reflowed. Send us pics of u18 and the area, maybe we can spot something.

The further away the objects are the more points they are worth. You can focus on shooting everything but the jet skis for more points, but if you do so the extra ball will never pass by. You need to hit 3 targets on each row to make the extra ball appear.

I think the player used the screen as an excuse for his poor video mode performance. It's not like timing as to be precise to the millisecond to hit the targets, and I see and feel absolutely no difference between playing with a plasma DMD or colordmd (led). The only moment you best take your time is the shot following the extra ball you collected. The animation slows down the targets and sometimes won't even register a button press, so I usually let the next target go by and make sure the speed of the targets return to their orignal speed before finishing video mode.

There are more than one position for outlane posts?

I have both of mine right in the middle and the outlanes have been ruining my fun for a while . What's the default position? Higher surely?

Moving the posts to the bottom position changed the dynamic of the game like I never thought it would. It made the game so much more fun for me. I'm one to keep everything as factory default as possible so I'm keeping the lightning flippers and every other difficulty settings mentioned by Neal_W stock. But those side lanes were eating the ball way too often.

Anyways, now that I'm playing more, I seemed to be having constant issues with the center jet bumper. All bumpers have a new leaf since my restoration less than 2 years ago. Bumpers were rebuilt including the inner white part. To this day it still feels like these white housings are losing tiny little specs of white plastic. Problem is that the center bumper just doesn't respond at all to the switch. If I go in test mode, the switch isn't detected either. When I press the switch a bunch of times it ends up working for a while (usually for the rest of the session). It sometimes feel like the switch is dirty (maybe some of those plastic specs end up there, although I don't find any specs inside the cabinet really). The connections are solid at the switch, I tried changing the diode in case (didn't think it would change anything since it tested good and isn't damaged). No other switches act up so it doesn't seem like a wiring problem either. I placed my meter right on the switch and it never fails according to my meter either.. I'm starting to wonder if it's something on the board because the switch is almost always not working when the machine isn't turned on for a while.. Like the chip needs warming up or something. I wonder if this is a recurring issue with bumper switches in general? So intermittent it's kind of a pain to troubleshoot.. Once it starts working I have to wait for the next time I'll power on the game.

I did follow the wires and they aren't loose anywhere. I guess my kind was elsewhere earlier because I know the switches work in a matrix, which is why I said earlier that no other switches are acting up, but for a moment trying to think too far I forgot that it's a matrix and all switches would be affected..

So again thinking even further I wonder if there's a problem with the leaf switch and its contact? Maybe it isn't properly soldered or pressed in the leaf switch properly.. Right now it isn't acting up so nothing I can test.. I'll report when I find the culprit. Thanks for reminding me that it's not the board the issue. I'll double check the wiring once more but visually I saw nothing at all!

It's the first thing I do/did.. It's kinda why I'm asking if others have issue with this particular switch and if it gets dirty fast for them. It's a brand new leaf switch that isn't 2 years old and has just a few hundred plays. If it's dirt.. How does it get there within a day and why does it only happen when the machine has been idle (or so it seems at least) for a while. I'll go try and power it up now, it's been about 12h now.

Welcoming any ideas no matter how basic or complex.

Thx

Can you recommend which leaf blade I should get ? I'd like to only change the blades with contacts instead of the whole thing with spoons and all. I can't seem to find dimensions or part number for the blades alone.. I'll keep looking but I might have to take a switch off to start measuring but even then marco doesn't have dimensions for most blades they are selling..

No extra work, but extra wasted money on parts that I don't need since I've already replaced the spoons before. Also, it's not eco friendly to replace everything just for a tiny contact.