I figured I'd chime in here now that I finally got around to taking a few pics of my Laser War. I absolutely love this game. I haven't touched anything on it yet, LED's really do make these look awesome but mine is so fresh, new and clean feeling I've decided to keep it all original for now.

I had to remove my ramp to put in a new yellow flasher in the upper right corner of the ramp. Took me a minute to figure it out but it goes like this - remove the wireframe ball return from the ion cannon ramp - it just pulls straight down towards the flippers out of the ramp once the nuts are off. Then on the right side of the ramp, to the left of the yellow base lane, there's 2 screws on a black metal frame piece holding the ramp you can get to. Take those out, and then under the little flap at the ramp entrance, there's a 3rd screw. Remove that and the ramp should come out easy without removing the playfield.

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The wireform that loops around the back, I have not yet touched. I was behind it to do a flasher but that's it. This game was so clean when I got it, I did not feel the need to tear it down. I didn't even want to put my hands on a bulb socket without wearing white gloves. It was very well cared for its entire life.

Yes, please! Someone out there has one. I'd prefer an original but a well done remake to spec would serve the purpose. I can't even find schematics / blueprints on it. Gary Stern could probably help, but he's probably too busy with the new Stern & I suspect he could care less about the games that got them to this point even though there's a huge potential market wanting access to some coveted Data East and Sega pinball archives and history he probably holds the keys to.

Yep, the OEM one in the flyer is what I'm after.

Harvs, please share pics of your minty one when you get it... I consider mine minty as well and think I already shared a few pics. I'm actively trying to find a nicer example just to see how mine compares.

The cliffy ramp flaps look good, his products usually seem to be better quality and durability than OEM.

The stickers look great too. I don't need anything on my game at all, if I did I'd hit you up. It's good to know someone is taking care of these things though!

My biggest concern is I'm afraid to break the original chrome ramp. I have to keep my game raised pretty high in the back to weaken the flipper impact. I'm tempted to buy the black ramp and put it on and save the chrome one. But my Laser War has virtually never been apart, all factory stock still. It's probably had less than 1200 plays ever.

Been dreaming of a day when I could put all 3 together myself...

I'm still wondering who is sitting on a topper, and what the price is. Someone out there has one... Someone on Pinside knows about one... It's out there. I want it.

I didn't want to be telling myself that, so I've managed to keep it even after several very nice offers. I couldn't even let myself put LED's in it, it's so fresh and new feeling still.

Now where's that darn topper hiding at?

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Good catch. I'm not sure what the story is on that. I never realized most of them seem to not have one. The one I have is an HUO from a private collection a coin op had via a family member.

I'm assuming you're completely level and have the right pitch here. Mine usually hits the right flipper and I did not have to adjust the guide. I do have my pitch a little steep though because I don't want to break anything since mine is so fresh and new.

I just flipped the score 2x last week and finally hit 25,000,000+. I wasn't able to save my initials on high score because the game code thinks it was 5 mil+.

It would be cool to see more activity on the score board.

Stern Pinball at The Westin Chicago North Shore
Friday, October 14

"Something you don't see everyday, Joe Kaminkow playing Data East Laser War, the game he designed, and the first in our companies 30 year history. #SternPinball"

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Thank you, very much. I'm certainly very proud of this specimen, however yours looks quite immaculate as well!

Welcome back into the club! Congratulations are definitely in order! Such a great, significantly historical piece of pinball history! Imagine if Data East would have flopped and not went on to become Sega or Stern, would anyone still be making pins still today?

P.S. - looks like we are both very deserving of the elusive and infamous topper...

Yeah, it's been very difficult to obtain. I've been hunting it for over a year now, and usually check around at least once a week. I have not seen an Ion Cannon plastic anywhere lately but I'm keeping my eyes open for you.

It would be sweet to have a lower price point chrome replacement ramp because all I can find is the black one and I'd like to keep my original chrome one pristine.

I’ve never seen a chrome ramp available but that’s what’s in my game also. A black ramp comes up on eBay from time to time but the person selling them has allegedly ripped this community off on occasion.

Anyone know if there was a process to make those ramps chrome looking, did they all start out black?

I have a translite in my backglass.

When you checked these, did you do it with the playfield in normal position and drop balls in there one at a time? I’m thinking one of the switch arms might not be depressing far enough with a ball on it, but enough when pressed by hand to register.

I'm not an expert, but if you took coils out that had diodes, the replacements should probably also have diodes. If the ones you took out didn't have diodes, then the ones you put in shouldn't need them either. This is what I'd check first based on the information you provided.

I believe the Data East Laser War coils have diodes on them. I've seen some Williams 11630 coils come with diodes, and some without. I guess it depends where you order from.

If this is what happened, you should be able to move the diodes to the new coils, but be certain you have them oriented the right direction and make sure you have them soldered to the corresponding lugs on the new coil.

Are you sure the Data East coils each had 2 diodes? I thought there was only one on each of them.

And does it make a difference if there are now 2 diodes per coil? Do the 2 equal what the one used to? And the 2 of them are joined together on the center lug, and not just one diode across the two outer lugs, so does that make a difference?

Someone with more electronics knowledge and better understanding of these things would be more helpful than me. I'm just noting what I'm observing that appears to be different than what you started with.

If it wasn't such a pain in the ass I'd suggest putting the old coils back in and see if you still have the problem. Then you know for sure it's something with the new coils and/or their diode(s) and positions. But there's likely a better and easier way to figure this out.