I have a Future Spa that I bought that is in pretty good working order except I discovered a really strange issue. The yellow stand up target at the back of the four drops has stopped working. It seemed to have trouble from the get go but it worked once in a while. Now it no longer works. Note that all the drops and the stand up happen to be on the same switch matrix strobe.

Here are the symptoms:
- all drops and stand up work (one at a time) in switch test
- any combination of two targets down, touching the stand up works.
- if three are down, the stand up stops working, except one combination 1,2,4 down, that one the stand up works.
- all four down, the stand up does not work

I tried changing the diode on the 3rd drop since is seemed to be a common problem but no luck.

Hopefully someone has an idea what this is.

Every other part of the game plays properly.

I will get some photos of that area of the machine. Everything looks factory, nobody seems to have messsed with it. I am wondering if a drop switch could short to the drop target frame and cause this issue. The four drops are all attached to a common metal wall. The stand up is right behind the target bank but is not touching the target bank.

For closure, I found the issue.

At the end of the day, the PIA at U10 on the MPU card had a weak driver and could not drive enough current when strobe 1 had to drive 5 switches. I swapped the two PIAs and the game plays fine now. Still it is an interesting choice to Bally to put 5 switches on the same strobe that are likely to all be closed at the same time.

New question for Future Spa players. Reasonably frequently the rollover switch will not register the ball when shooting that upper right turn-around shot. I have replaced all switch caps in the entire machine and I know the switch is adjusted properly. I suspect the ball is riding part way up the wall as it does the U-turn and physically misses the switch. I get this happening 1-2 times in a good game. I checked and the wall is not leaning outward at all. Anyone else have a similar experience, I am wondering if this is normal for this game. My game is freshly shopped, new rubber, flippers and all mechanisms are rebuilt so ball speed is pretty high.

Good to know, as long as my machine is not actually misbehaving I will leave it as is.

Here is something I noticed today that I have never heard anyone mention before. The special Future Spa lighting in the top left that blinks out its pattern changes its speed depending on the game status. I could never figure it out since during attract mode it blinks at its fastest pace. Start a new game and the pattern slows way down. It ramps up progressively as you fill in all the FUTURE SPA letters. Each time you collect the last one and the 18000 or 36000 lights go on, it drops down to the slow speed again. Since I can see it in my peripheral vision, it should help keep track of where I am in the sequence.

Make sure to post that on Pinside's top score list for Future Spa, that would place you at 13th.

I never thought about it, I guess you could set it up wrong. I think that is what happens 3:11 (

), the ball seems to hit the gate in the second lane over and magically heads towards the flipper. It seems ridiculous to have it that way.

Desoldering is something that is a straightforward affair with the right tools and a nightmare without. I splurged on a Hakko desolder gun, what a difference. If using a sucker style desolderer take your time, until all the pins are released the header is staying put. It takes patience.

When it goes bad, put it into switch test mode, are the switches still registering? If not start at the MPU for a loose connector (top right of the card is the strobe/return for all switches). If switches are working, I would look around the solenoid driver board. Have these cards had all their connector header solder reflowed?

Using conventional spray paints really slows the process down. I have done two cabinets, and from bare cabinet and back box to completed took 5 weeks given all the coats and all the waiting.

I pull the stencil within minutes of applying paint. I keep some Naptha handy and Q tips to touch anything that is where it shouldn't be to clean it up. Can also smooth down any edges that stand up where the stencil edge was. Curious what others do.

4 weeks is plenty long, I have done something similar and was also worried about leaving a mark. I rolled the cabinet on its side after 7 days and it was okay. Not sure what happened in your case. Is it super humid where you are maybe?

I know there are a lot of game play videos out there. I think you will find this one is different.

I uploaded an annotated version of the video to make things more clear. I will add some explanations here as well.

This is a very early working version of what I am calling Beyond Future Spa. My working method is to replicate the original game in the Arduino code, then branch off from there. I like to keep the original game feel because that is why I always liked the game.

Features:
All original rules are there. Collect the FUTURESPA lamps to build your bonus.
There are 3 goals built in so far. Collect a goal and it increments the singles digit in your score.
Goal 1 - collect the 36K bonus
Goal 2 - Pop bumper mode - You must hit the bumpers a total number of times, flashing countdown is shown in the credit display. Total to reach is settable in the coin door.
Goal 3 - Spinner mode - You reach a total cumulative spinner flip total, flashing countdown is shown in the ball-in-play display. Total settable in coin door.

Spinner mode is designed to force you to use both spinners. I have factored in how much harder it is to hit the right spinner. Whatever total you have set is divided into chunks. Everyone goes for the left spinner. After ~40% of the total is accumulated, the left spinner will go 'dead', the lamp goes dark, the spinner sound reverts to a simple tone and it must be re-lit by hitting the right spinner which is now blinking.
Hitting the right spinner for about 5% of the total relights the left spinner. The right spinner will go 'dead' after ~20% of the total.
No matter what you will have to relight a spinner twice to reach the total. The game tracks each spinner separately, you either reset its internal counter by relighting it with the other spinner or by losing your ball. The total spinner countdown is kept between balls though.
Lit spinner scoring increases each time to reach the spinner total, 1000 becomes 2000, etc. You hear a sound effect each time you reach a goal.

Spinner speed, if you hit a lit spinner faster than 10 flips per second (a little slower for the right one), you will hear a special sound and you will get 2000 pts per spin only while the speed is high enough. Otherwise it reverts to the usual sound effect.

Combo shots - only the one so far (more to come)
Kicker-Saucer combo, at any time land in the left kicker, starts a timed countdown. Time in seconds is shown in two displays, the countdown pot is adjacent to the player's score window. Land in the saucer to collect the amount shown.

Displays - Lacking an alphanumeric displays like newer machines I tried to make more use of the displays we do have. The singles digit of the player score shows your total goals achieved. The game will eventually use number of goals achieved as a trigger for other game modes (yet to come). When a new ball is fed to the plunger, if you have achieved any goals, they will be displayed in the other play displays (the video at 4:58) you see '111'. Each digit corresponds to a specific goal. I will eventually make up new apron score cards that have a little diagram showing which is which.

Annotated video

For sure I will release it, I want to get some more stuff in the game first though.

It is really easy. Dick Hamill wrote an operating system that runs on an Arduino board. An adapter PCB lets it sit right on the J5 Diagnostic port on your existing MPU card. There is a really long thread here for the technical details. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/replacing-the-m6800-in-a-stern-mpu100-with-an-arduino

To get the hardware pre-loaded with a game you can just go here, https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1304-roygbev-pinball and order the correct game. Beyond Future Spa is still being developed so I have not released code yet.

I have done a new version of Eight Ball called Eight Ball Plus, you can go to that thread to see the updates I made there. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/eight-ball-plus-new-rules-for-bally-eight-ball

Currently I am working on a Future Spa equivalent to the Eight Ball Plus' 15 ball mode.

I assume you are talking about lenticular sheet (has the grooves cut in up/down and left/right directions). I cut mine oversize, put little velcro tabs at the corners of the opening on the actual lamp insert. So it covers the opening in the insert, is right behind the backglass but doesn't touch it. I just pull it off the velcro to get at the FUTURE SPA lamps.

I wrote a new rule set for Future Spa. Full details are in this thread for those interested.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/beyond-future-spa-new-rules-for-future-spa#post-8114634

Rules video