Well, Cayenne said their tests weren’t working right either so I’m guessing it’s a bug in regards to how they setup the test menu because if I did connect something wrong, when I change the lighting color\type (Interactive, White, Red, Blue, etc. ) it should then change the wrong strings or zone and that test works right.
Everything works as it should from what I can tell otherwise as I finished the remaining upgrades, summary of remaining experience is below:
Just a warning, this is the way I did it, I am not recommending my way, just sharing my experience for others and in case someone runs into the same situations that I did.
Regarding the finishing of my RGB GI Upgrade, I did install the Topper board a little higher as others recommended and took the Topper over just to double check as while these instructions are pretty good, they do need to be tweaked somewhat. I also did the Topper PCB last vs. first as I wanted to get the GI strings done and read the instructions several times to make sure this wouldn’t be a problem. The last mod I had to do was regarding my Mod Couple Barrel Light mod. It was previously soldered directly to existing GI lights but now with the RGB, there are no leads to solder to. So after thinking last night and this morning, I thought about how the Pop Bumpers (which BTW were a royal pain as the wires are so short, I don’t see how you can use a wire nut for the three and I cut them right at the lead and I ended up using Quick Disconnects and putting two together and then the other two to allow me just enough slack), anyway I am getting off track but the Pop Bumpers are connected to the plugs that are no longer being used for the original GI lighting strips, so I figured I could just do that with these Barrel Mods. I ended up cutting one of the older GI strings so I could use that connector as I didn’t have one, nor any pins to crimp the wires and then just used one of the other 5 open GI connectors and Voila. I just assume that if CGC uses this setup for the Pops, then I should be ok for two LED’s.
So after the RGB GI Upgrade, I moved onto the Speaker XL Display upgrade. I was going to do the Topper next but removing the sub woofer petrified me as my experience so far hasn’t been ideal. Anyway I did this part first as I figured I could then put the playfield down. I had a handheld pry tool that had a sharp end that allowed me to gently hammer it underneath the sub woofer. The shaker motor does get in the way but I was able to work around it vs. removing it. Finally I caught a break and the woofer platform did slowly come up with minimal glue remaking but of course one staple remained. I removed it but as careful as I was trying to be, you have to use force as I didn’t want to pry it out against the bottom of the cabinet and mar it up and you guessed it, I scratched some of the side, not bad and after a Sharpie touch up, it was good enough especially since it was below the playfield. Next I took one of my sharp paint scrapers and removed the remaining glue and then sanded the area smooth (80 grit then 320, just what I had near me). Then after drilling the pilot holes for the new mount, I tried using the #8 sheet metal screw they provide and there just wasn’t enough bite (others also commented on this). Don’t get me wrong, it does go into the cabinet but barely and not enough, at least for me, to tighten. So my though was to just get a 1 inch length sheet metal screw instead of the 3/4 inch but then I was thinking it might eventually wear out. I didn’t have any T-Nuts or those flat end screws that other pinballs use for their woofers, so I just used a bolt and nut and drilled all the way to through the cabinet and installed the bolt underneath so it would stick out a little on the inside of the cabinet and then just installed a washer and nut and it ain’t going nowhere now. It looks good enough for me under the cabinet as all you see are the tops of 4 bolts but they are Phillips head and also a washer. So the next part was the display and that was simple enough, though the instructions didn’t mention about whether to remove your grounding wire that goes to the cabinet so just removed it from my display and left it there (we’ll come back to this later). Now this is where I opted to remove the RGB pins from the connector that CGC provided and installed them in the RGB strip connector (another Pinsider provided his instructions). I was a little worried at this since no one from CGC would confirm and I get why, but thankfully another Pinsider provided me pics from his Special Edition that was already pre-wired to use RGB on the speakers and the connector was exactly the same. All I did was unplug the connector that is setup to only output Blue and instead of using that split connector for power, I just detached my existing Yellow\Black power cable from the cable clamps and that provided me enough slack to directly connect the one 2 pin power connector directly to the display. I ran the RGB cables up the existing cable clamps and inserted the pins accordingly. I just used a metal dental pic to carefully remove the pins. And that was it for the XL Display, everything worked and colors changed and was in sync with my RGB GI. Again this is what I did and I am not recommending this but others have asked about it so figured I would share.
Lastly, was the Topper. I was hoping this wouldn’t be that bad once I did the drilling of the 4 smaller holes and the large one but had a few snags. The drilling wasn’t bad, and for the larger hole I just went really slow as the instructions recommend and it took a while. I did put some tape as it was recommended in the instructions so I had just a little blow out but it was Sharpie again to the rescue. I did have one issue when drilling one of the smaller holes. It was the hole near the knocker, I was catching the end of the knocker plate so I had to move the plate over a little but had to be careful not too far, otherwise it would come close to hitting one of the bolts used to mount the knocker plate. Then I installed the T-Nuts, no issue once I moved the knocker plate (back left if looking from the front). The front right was a little tight but it worked fine. Next was to actually mount the Topper and this went fine with no issues. Lastly was the ground cable. First, since I had two Topper boards (one for the Topper Kit and one for the RGB GI Kit), I went to test fit the ground wire as I was not able to get it on the one I installed on my machine and was cautious as the pressure was getting too much on that board and didn’t want to bend it. The spade connector for the ground wire they provide would NOT fit, it wasn’t possible as the ground lead on the PCB board was wider than the spade connector, so I just cut it off and put one of my Quick Disconnect spade connector and that fit. Next the instructions state to route this though the cabinet, up the playfield and to the ground lead on the playfield PCB board. The cord probably would have reached but I was wondering why do this if all it needs is a ground lead and there is actually a free one on my original backbox PCB (not the Topper board), but remember that ground wire that was originally connected to my speaker display that was tied directly into the ground braid? I figured I would do a continuity test just to see if the ground lead on the backbox original PCB made connection to that and sure enough it did, so that’s what I did vs. having another wire connected to the playfield. Now I’m not sure if there is a specific reason for connecting this ground lead from the Topper PCB to the specific ground lead on the playfield PCB and I am by far no expert electrician but to me ground is ground and this is just what I did, again not recommending this and if someone knows why it has to be to the playfield PCB ground lead, I’d love to know.
Anyway, apologies for the novel but just figured I would share my experience. The scary part was while I did test the machine after each upgrade kit was installed, I didn’t play a game so I was dreading that something might have been disconnected, or a wire broken, etc. but the pinball gods were kind to me in the end as I played my first game about 2 hours ago and it was AMAZING, the interactivity with the lighting and OMG the sound, I had it turned to just 10 and it was so loud and all the call outs were loud and clear so not sure if maybe it’s just the honeymoon phase as I was thinking of getting Kickers since I’ve seen a lot of people going that route with the XL display but so far I am happy as I actually had kickers in my old speaker panel and while they were better than stock, they do not compare to the my current setup now.
Hope this helps and didn’t put everyone to sleep.
Take care and stay safe.
Hopkins, MN
Menden (sauerland)
Pilot Butte, SK
