If it makes you feel better I've just signed up on the list today for the new CPR playfield. Just picked up a Gorgar over this past weekend. I needed a simpler game in my line up and I think this one is going to be a keeper.

I plan on doing a fliptronic style flipper upgrade as well as LEDs. Are there any other must have upgrades? I've seen a lot of other people have replaced the speakers as well. Has anyone changed the lane guides to the flippers?

FatPanda I would go Xpin personally. Seems to be an awful lot of energy waste just to power some 7 segment displays, not to mention the troubleshooting when just certain segments aren't triggering right. Worth a check of the high voltage at the PSU if you're seeing some flickering I would think.

$650 is the preorder price.

I'm already on the list. I really can't stomach the cost of 2 though...doesn't look like there's a very large market on reselling later, and it's not like my machine will be out on a route.

I don't even know if I can handle one! This will be my first playfield swap when I get to it. My machine could really use it though...keep finding more issues with mine. Got Cliffy's new flipper guides and got my flippers aligned; only to find out that the holes in my playfield won't hold the rails in place securely and after a game or two of bliss the rail has loosened from where it should be

I went and did this over the weekend and boy is it so nice! Now I have to do some work on my drop targets...they're not smooth at all sadly and get hung up often.

Hmm, I was just playing my Gorgar earlier today and was having a frankly bad game, only for it to become a bit worse...I played my first 2 balls poorly, but when the pinball hit the drain, my ball never kicked back out, all the displays went out simultaneously, but the heart beat was still playing.

I assume it's probably time to rebuild the power supply board, but figured I'd check in first. I didn't see any burnt components or blown fuses, so it would seem to me some things are getting power and others aren't. I turn the machine off and on again and I have some lights on the back box and play field, but starting or coining up don't do a damn thing.

Well that's interesting...I didn't know that. All the other boards have been done over in my machine not too long ago except for that one, so I guess I'll start there. I'll let you guys know what I find.

Yeah, I just replaced my power board, and the behavior is no different unfortunately. I don't currently have an eprom burner but I'll look to pick up a GQ-4x4 and see what I can do with your stuff.

Got my Gorgar working again. Now I'm 3/4ths of the way to a Swemmer full board swap in my machine. New PSU (Not the problem), and then found I needed a new CPU board, of course those only come in combo form with the driver. So now I have a spare used working PSU (which definitely needs a cap kit) and a spare driver board which I suspect works fine. By the time CPR does a run of the playfield I'll have close to a whole new machine! lol

Yeah - I was all excited to try your roms only to find I couldn't even pass the first test! lol. My CPU board was giving very strange behavior...Each power cycle resulted in different LEDs lit on the CPU board, sometimes none, sometimes both, sometimes one or the other. The diagnostic button on the CPU board didn't blink the LEDs...not sure quite what's wrong with it, but it was definitely angry.

Yeah, that's the funny part. I came to the same conclusion and bought a new swemmer power board first thing. I knew the power supply was in pretty good need of replacement/recap. The behavior was unchanged with the new power board though.

I kept the old CPU board. Not sure what to do with it though. Is there a good means of bench testing it? I know the pins and connector between my CPU and driver board were re-done not too long ago, so I don't suspect I have any issues there, would be a shame to not be able to use it after all that work.

Actually, I'm glad you linked that too. My big cap I'm thinking is also looking pretty old and I noticed unusual light dimming on my play field lamps during one of my games a few days ago...That fuse based bridge rectifier seems like a much better option than just swapping out the large cap

Hot damn that looks nice! I'm waiting on reproduction playfields to be run before I do too much to mine. Wish there was a way to know how close that list is from being filled...

Alternatively I guess you could just change the voice audio mix down to nothing :p

I keep waiting until my eventual playfield swap before I switch mine. Guess I'll keep waiting >.>

Doesn't that give it a bit of ball bounce on it's way to the flipper? At least it seems that way on mine.

Yeah...I'm using them already. I think my playfield is a bit worn. I can't get them to hold in the right spot. Right flipper isn't bad, but the left one gets some hop.

It's a combination of the 3 screws to hold the flipper post not staying because the post is too worn, and that I can't keep the guides in the proper place even after trying the toothpick trick. Right flipper is good, but the left is still a touch off again. Though I'd really much rather put in fliptronic flippers, but...not on this playfield. Maybe as a test when the CPR ones ever get done.

I signed on in November 2017 and didn't get notified in November 2018, not sure they sent out any correspondence yet.

Uh...you guys should have gotten an email that has this text:

GORGAR PREORDER - this email is to confirm the receipt of your email into the preorder inbox. If you were sending a preorder, please keep this email as your receipt for date & time of your contact. Please do not send multiples - if you have this response, your preorder is added to the production numbers. If something changes and you must cancel your preorder, please email into the SAME INBOX using the SAME PLAYFIELD LINK at our site, and state your cancellation. You will also get this auto-response to confirm the arrival of that email as well.

They did close the preorder section of their site and put up a disclaimer including:

"We will get to those last ‘Preordered’ runs this year, and email those on the lists when the time comes to ship. Finishing up the old model once and for all."

It was in the pre-order phase. I still have my email from when I signed up on it.

ugh...Why would they have had pre-orders open for years if that was the case!

Oh man - Thanks so much for posting! I hope CPR doesn't add me to their shit list, but they're kinda on my shit list after what they pulled. I originally bought my machine thinking that a CPR run wasn't too far off in the future. Hopefully all this goes away with their new on demand model.

Just got mine! Looks amazing! Now I'm wondering if I should install upgraded flippers onto it >.>

IMG_20200312_095857 (resized).jpg

How did this go adding it to the new playfield? I've been considering this on mine as I need new flipper bats anyway and have a playfield swap to do.

Alright, ordered all new rubbers, fliptronic flipper mechs, drop target boards/horseshoes. I've got a week of furlough coming up next month and hoping to tackle this playfield swap! Anyone recommend anything else I might want before I start? It'll be my first playfield swap.

Thinking maybe I should get some new posts...but I'm not sure how easy it is to transfer some of the wire guides, any advice for those?

Alright, I'll pick up new bits because I've abused most of mine, and drill stops because I don't trust myself with tape.

I've not used T-nuts before. Just looked up a video online and it looks pretty straightforward, drill a hole the size of the barrel and twist in something to tighten, or if you're real careful, a hammer. Is there a consistent size used? Or should I just try to pick up a variety set on Amazon?

Hmm...bummer on the fact that I can't trust the holes. I've seen that said about both CPR and Mirco PFs though, so I guess it just comes with the nature of a reproduction PF. I suppose top side holes being off will be a bit more obvious than the bottoms, but I'll be sure to fully extend any swings on a solenoid before calling it good.

Wire guides were definitely a concern for me too...I've got one that need reinforcing on my Getaway that I've been dragging my feet on. I guess I'll learn on the old Gorgar PF first.

Yeah, for now my plan is to do the flipper swap, and drop target fixes while the old PF is still there so that I can be sure it's working, then after that I'll start swapping.

Stripped down the whole front of the playfield today.

Big props to the people who recommended insulation foam board. I have no idea where I would've put everything otherwise.
IMG_20200810_161248 (resized).jpg

Only thing I couldn't figure out...how the hell do you remove these?!
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Otherwise...ready to start transferring:
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Any recommendations on how to approach it next? The ground strap on the other one looks REALLY_ tight. Such that I would think I need to get that down first, but it looks very dependent on the final positioning of everything.

The old playfield is free! So when it comes to trying to verify the position of the t-nuts, is it safe to measure from the back side of the old playfield, and cross check that against the new one? So far my dimples/holes haven't been too far off if at all.

IMG_20200814_160427 (resized).jpg

Slow but steady progress. Trying to meticulously measure everything that needs hammered in because y'all made me paranoid. So far I'm coming in within a couple tenths of a millimeter for most holes. Things seem to be going well, but slow unfortunately.

Most of the holes on my reproduction playfield are lining up pretty well. I've only had to adjust a handful. Mostly with the side rails, but for most of them it wasn't hard to adjust. We'll see if I eat my foot later when I'm mounting the top side!

IMG_20200821_220739_674 (resized).jpg

It's a mirco playfield. Only one I know of that's making any repros at the moment.

Wow! Awesome deal.

Wow, that is clean! Welcome to the club. I don't have any mods yet...still working to get mine looking as nice as yours lol

Thanks for sharing! I'm hoping to swap to these on mine while doing my playfield swap. I'm having a hard time figuring out which wires go to what as I'm a bit unfamiliar with how flipper solenoids work. It looks like if looking from the back of the coil stop to the rubber bumper, that the right two lugs go to the EoS switch? The fact that the wires are so similarly colored confuses me.

Today wasn't too bad! Gorgar speaks! Unfortunately Gorgar also hurt...GI is out in the backglass and playfield.

I'm sure that dumb braid has an issue somewhere, but I wasn't expecting a Christmas light style issue where if one thing is wrong, they all go out...any tips on where to start looking?

IMG_20200908_204743 (resized).jpg

Oh...I just rewatched my initial power on video closely. The GI did turn on with the machine, but went out in less than 2 seconds... guessing that'd be a short?

Yeah, using Swemmer boards for testing as it gives me LEDs on each voltage path to signal that it's good. New boards that were working well before the playfield swap so it should take them out of the equation unless a fuse blew. I'll double check over lunch, and given the 2 votes on the connector I'll be sure to check that closer.

Thanks boscokid and PhillyArcade you helped me track it down a bit. So, the GI fuse blew. I didn't notice right away because I was testing continuity between both points with the fuse in place because it seemed like all the fuses were fine visually.

Both blades actually test for continuity even without the fuse there...so that's concerning. I then decided to reference what boscokid mentioned. I kept my probes on the blades and removed the main GI connection plug between the backbox and the playfield and suddenly, no more continuity. So I have to assume something on that line is shorted.

I thought that the lower blade came off the transformer, and the other went to the machine. So I'm a bit confused as to how they can have a connection without a fuse, but didn't cause much bigger problems like say starting a fire. Any other places I should pay attention to? I figure next I might try to run jump wires point to point on each GI connection to see if I can figure out the pin and/or pins that are causing continuity between the fuse blades.

Thanks!

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Is it just me...or is this not wired properly for GI. Keep in mind...I have not modified any of these solder connections. They're stock from when I got the machine.

These jumper wires make no sense. It looks like the GI braid was broken and re-instated, but it seems to swap polarity at some point on the line depending on if you're reading from C -> A or A -> C.

GI-Wiring (resized).png

Hmm...pulled the yellow male pin that connects the underside of the playfield to the head. It appears to be shorted to yellow-white line next to it. Good news is that now I have GI in the head, and in the coin door. So that at least isolates the problem to yellow. I'm still waiting on my service manual though so I can figure out how to trace/track this better. Also bought some mini circuit breakers so I don't blow a million fuses when testing.

Really not finding anything obvious though, so that's a bit frustrating. I guess at this point I'll remove all the playfield GI bulbs, and see if the yellow line is still making continuity on yellow-white. I plan on replacing them with LEDs anyway, but if I'm going to be resetting a breaker a lot of times, I guess I'd rather blow an incandescent than an LED bulb.

Hmm...began attempting to troubleshoot the short and it's now gone. Pulled all GI to the playfield and turned it on and my in-line circuit breaker didn't blow. I then took my new LED bulbs and put 1 in the socket and turned the machine on to verify between each bulb until I was done and they were all in and I had no shorts.

So, it's probably one of these 4 things.
1. I re-pinned the yellow male pin that led to the playfield GI.
2. I loosed up some of the playfield harness which may have wiggled free a shorted cable
3. A shorted bulb (which is odd because it had been working with the old bulbs prior).
4. The GI braid was touching something that it no longer is.

Either way I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. First things first I'm going to staple down this GI braid while I turn on the machine between each staple to ensure I haven't caused an issue.

Then, I guess it's time to tighten the harness back up and see if there's a scorched or raw wire somewhere. Then if everything's good, hopefully I can get on with the rest of this swap!

lol same - I'm glad I undertook the experience at least, but yeah it was a lot more work than I expected. I still haven't finished it because I'm busy cursing these GD drop targets...I can't get them to slide smoothly to save my life.

huh...unfortunately I'm still mid-playfield swap so all the rubbers are off, but I'll definitely pay attention to that when I get it all back together.

Finally got those bastard drop targets dropping well. I did the washer trick, new back plates, I originally out on replacement horse shoes and I thought they worked worse than the originals so I cleaned up the old ones and readjusted them. Now they're for the first time in my ownership dropping like they're supposed to!

It's finally complete! Minus a few tweaks I have yet to do I've gotten the whole playfield swapped. Unfortunately I also didn't learn from the advice of others. I thought_ my sling had enough clearance but it didn't and I got a chip out as punishment. I'm not going to let that ruin my excitement though. It's leagues better than my old playfield!

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While this is true, I don't regret buying and installing a whole new playfield. It was a great learning experience and made it easy for me to work on my drop targets and do the flipper swap.

Then again I wasn't looking to it from a value proposition standpoint :p Considering the playfield is over half the price of most machines, I can understand people not being too eager.

Personally I think I'd be more intimidated trying to do a hardtop properly by sanding, trying to line it up, make sure it adheres, and doesn't lift over cupped inserts, etc. Plus I get some nice wall art as a bonus. Maybe I'll do one on another machine someday, I think it's a great option for people though and glad to see it!

Sorry...I've only got the old wiring on mine. I'm not the best with colors so this image didn't help me much, but maybe it'll be useful to you?
https://www.siegecraft.us/pinball/images/AK-02-010.JPG

I'm not sure where you bought yours or how you happened upon them. I personally don't have them, but siegecraft says they use all surface mount parts and if you order from them it says to let them know what game it's for. I assume to set up the diodes properly before you get them as you wouldn't be able to reuse the originals well.

Then as long as the surface mount ones are in the right places, you can probably just remove the through hole ones - assuming I'm understanding correctly.

I'm honestly a bit confused on the drop target setup, but yeah it's definitely not right. I'd unscrew them from the drop assembly so you can get them a bit more free and easier to see.

As for your magnet have you traced the button press to the solenoid that quickly feathers power to the magnet via the leaf switch reeds (I may be using the wrong terminology)

IMG_20200811_160639 (resized).jpg

So, I have 1 wire from the leaf switch end just to the magnet. It looks like from the leaf switch, a diode to the red wire and to the end of the fuse. Then the other magnet wire goes straight to the end of the fuse.

Sorry for the weird angles, this was from my playfield disassembly.

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magnet1 (resized).PNG

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I'd imagine. I'd be pretty surprised if the magnet itself were dead.

I can sympathize just went through the same GI issue. These were the things I did

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/gorgar-back-from-the-dead-and-terrifying/page/25#post-5866138

If I were to guess it was either a connector issue from my playfield swap or an exposed wire short through the insulation that I never found. Has been going well ever since however. I would recommend some mini circuit breakers. I forget where I bought mine, but those with some alligator clips will save a lot of fuses.

Yeah...this is my problem too. Partial colorblindness and resistor value identification are not my forte let alone wattage value identification. I forget the company that just bought out rottendog's stuff but I know he has a ton of unpopulated boards, so the schematics are somewhere.

Yeah, the playfield looks pretty good. What's with the button by the eyeball? Someone added a credit button?

I'm sure it'll be fine. Power going to it is controlled by a coil oscillating power on and off. I doubt it's gone bad just not being in use.

Pretty sure any of the controlled lamps are the lower ones and any of the ones with a boxing around them.

I assumed they meant that the backbox was just missing bulbs, They're controlled by 2 different paths. When my GI shorted there were still controlled lights on in the box. If they're all out, yeah definitely a lot more going on.

Uh...that first fuse from the left in the first picture (Yellow wires) seems to be jumped...the fuse underneath looks ok, but it's hard to tell. Either way I'd pull that one out and replace it with a proper fuse. It should be a 20A 6.3v fuse according to the head sticker.

In your second picture, you seem to be missing the solenoid fuse. It's a 2.5A 28v slow blow. It might keep blowing if you've been putting in non-slow blow fuses.

When I did my playfield swap having a few sets of circuit breakers with alligator clips really helps. Ex. https://www.greatplainselectronics.com/products.asp?cat=56

You know, I get this every now and then as well...I've never been able to pin it down. Maybe 1 out of every 4 single player games it'll kick in a second player at start.

I did a playfield swap on mine and have noticed the out lane drains are rough. As well as praying for luck as the magnet releases it from the pit to not send it down the middle. I might be able to adjust the out lanes, but not eager to make more holes

That is a good deal. Congrats, and welcome!

I'm 95% sure the original is an 8 ohm. I purchased a 4 ohm blindly following someone else's link years back. I'm also running a non-original sound/speech combo and it doesn't see much extended play and so far I've been alright. Wouldn't run it on location or long term that way probably though.

Board issue?

lol I know exactly that feeling Hoping for the best for you!

I have, the first picture is of me doing it on my playfield swap. Still working great BTW

Yeah...I really should do quick connectors more on my setups...would've been real nice for the drop targets but they didn't have much slack. If you want some different angles just let me know.

I just gave up on my siegecraft ones and replaced them with NMP-3's. Likely no issue with the boards themselves, I just got sick of having to continually tweak everything.

Even then I still get an issue sometimes. A target registers with a nearby pop bumper on occasion which can cause the G to prematurely register as down and complete the bank. Though I'd rather have an eager register than one that won't.

I ordered through pinside, not Marco but I did get magnets with mine. You end up having to super glue or epoxy them to the drop target. So I'd imagine they'll work with new ones as well.

yeah, mine's kinda goofy too. Would like to update it to something a bit more reliable.

I've not done a CPR swap, but I have done one with a mirco playfield. It was my first swap. In total probably took me ~120 hours by the time I sorted all the issues out. Doing it again it'd probably take me half the time. The new playfield is vastly better from a gameplay standpoint, my old playfield had warped and raised inserts galore.

That being said I suppose it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Micro playfields have been known to have issues with clear coat chipping. Mine's no exception. I had one tiny chip occur near the left flipper sling, and the left out hole clear coat has chipped up all around the hole. This was only bare wood on the original playfield so I'm not super concerned about art or gameplay issues. I put a outhole protector over it and it concealed most of it...Still a bummer. The biggest issue I have had is the fact that I cannot get the ball into the left out hole and stay there...something's off with either the size or depth, or location/angle of the metal stopper...it's hard to say for sure.

That being said, do I regret it? No not at all. It plays way better. Ball moves fast, I upgraded the flippers at the same time, fixed up the drop targets with NPM drops so it's very reliable. Game plays fast, and well...unfortunately mean lol. Those out lanes are no joke.

My wear was similar, but the PF was probably cleaner overall. I think that's where you're in a bit of a bind. The PF could probably use some deep cleaning, but I suspect you may be concerned that it gets clean at the expense of the art. My inserts just got so bad that I never tried to epoxy or heat gun each insert to get it level again. I wanted to learn something new - and boy did I. One of the better machines to tackle as a first. There are 3 main connectors to the PF on long enough wires to manipulate it out of the cab, but still plug in for testing. Not to mention, cool wall art as a bonus and some bragging rights for an accomplishment lol.

No, not yet. But I have me eyes on haunted house or the getaway next. Unfortunately 2 kids under the age of 5 means I seldom get that much time to dedicate to it. I plan on doing another in the future though

I use them in mine. Leagues better than the horse shoes. Highly recommend. Though you should epoxy the magnets to the plastic...I went the super glue route and regretted it. Also depending on your machine, the drop bank next to the lowest pop bumper can give enough interference to cause phantom drops. They sell a small piece of shielding which can resolve the issue if it's one you encounter.

Guess it wasn't just me huh? My chipped piece was so large you can still see it with a Cliffy...a bit annoying, but at least that part of the playfield was normally raw wood anyway so no art lost.

I found everything fits pretty well, I know people have talked about alignment issues on other Mirco playfields. The only notable difference I had were the location of the drill holes for the metal stop on the side shot which was easy to re-drill/move.

From a looks standpoint I think it's great, the art is quite nice. The main issues lie in clear coat chipping. I had a minor piece chip near my left sling and if that were the only spot I wouldn't really fault it. The main issue is the left side shot kicker. When the solenoid actuates to kick the ball out it very often causes the clear around the hole to chip. I had it chip once, kept playing, then it happened again, and it just took the clear basically from all around the front face of the hole before I could fit a cliffy to it. So while it's mostly hidden, I still know underneath it's all chipped :/ All things considered there's no art there and on the original playfield that's just exposed wood even, could be worse I suppose.

The time and effort it takes however is significant, I'd say maybe 80 hours. That's not a throw away amount of time for sure...Going the hard top route would definitely be less time, or if you're willing to re-level/replace inserts you can save a lot of time. Mine had cupped inserts everywhere and severely raised inserts to the point I wanted to try replacing the whole thing. Now it looks and plays great, but those clear coat chips still nag at me.

Yeah, if you're going to pull it for a clear, worst case you can leave the bottom populated and hard top it. These play fields come out super easy luckily