I know many members here like to hate on Bally/Williams 1994 Popeye, but there are also many of us here that really enjoy this game as well. This is my first Pin to own as an adult and I have really made it the best playing and most reliable Popeye that I have seen.

The main point of this thread is to share my various modifications with the forum, I know there will be plenty of "why did you put this much effort into a Popeye", and I understand that view, but to me I wanted this pin to be better then new and bring it to beyond today's standards and I feel like so far I have achieved this goal, and everyone who has played this table seems to really enjoy the experience.

Mods and pictures to follow:
-New Fliptronic board with upgraded components
-New Upgraded Flipper Optoboards
-New Upgraded Ball Trough Optoboards
-CoinTaker Premium LED complete kit and CoinTaker bright white flipper button mods
Popeye0.jpg
-Custom Animal Diverter support post mod
-Custom made Lexan cover for old one:
Popeye7.jpg
-Popeye figure placed on left kicker:

-Bluto figure placed on right kicker:
Popeye2.jpg
-Wimpy attached on Wimpy wire ramp shot:
Popeye3.jpg
-Olive Oyl figure placed on top of Oyl ramp shot:
Popeye4.jpg

-Swee' Pea figure mounted above Swee' Pea escalator:
Popeye5.jpg
-Eugene the Jeep mounted inside a life preserver just above the Eugene character on playfield:
Popeye6.jpg
-Upgraded all speaker wire for Infinity speakers:
PopeyeSpeakers1.jpg
-Installing new Infinity speakers:
PopeyeSpeakers.jpg
-Infinity speakers installed with external crossovers:
PopeyeSpeakers2.jpg
-New Infinity sub on left, stock sub on right:
PopeyeSub.jpg

Custom sealed box installed on bottom of cabinet for ported subwoofer (this works really nicely, without this too many playfield items were shaking, this ports all sub noise and air out the bottom of the machine):
PopeyeSub2.jpg
-Sub and port before securing sealed box ontop:
PopeyeSub3.jpg
-Port and sub seen from below with speaker grill (protector) installed:
PopeyeSub4.jpg
-I was not getting enough low levels through the stock power, so I installed a small amplifier to run the sub and put an inline RCA crossover to clean up the signal to the sub, and wow it can shake the cabinet MORE than a shaker! (speaker level adjustment on left is for main speakers, amp on right is just running sub, you can see the ported black box in background):
PopeyeSub5.jpg
-I built this custom topper to house a figure of Popeye about to eat some Spinach:
Popeye8.jpg
-Topper has general illumination bright white LEDs in it as seen here:
Popeye9.jpg

-I also individually custom wired all 5 playfield flashers up to 5 individually wired flashers in the topper to simultaneously flash along with the matching playfield flasher, they are super bright auto LEDs from V-LEDs:

Popeye10.jpg

I have exclusively used Infinity and Harman Kardon speakers for years now. I have 2 pairs of Infinity components in my VehiCross and a digital Infinity amp running my sub in the back door as well. My surround speaker system with sub in my room is Harman Kardon. Great products, and great value.

Very nice

Do you have any closeups of the mirror blades? That is next on my to do list, do you prefer them? Nice paint on the rails and legs, I was thinking about that and matching it with a blue DMD, your thoughts? I might go a little darker on the color of blue though.

Thanks yeah I was looking online for just the right size for the play field for a while and I finally found a complete set on eBay and snagged them, and they have been one of my favorite mods.
I bought the whole set on eBay for $34 with $5 shipping. They were listed as:
'Popeye the Sailorman Mini Action Figures Mezco 2001'

I got the larger Popeye figure in the back box topper on eBay as well for $22 + $11 shipping and it was listed as:
'Popeye Doll 12"'

I got my new ColorDMD in the mail today and a few minutes later it was in Popeye!

This is probably my favorite upgrade so far. It does quite a few things:
1) allows me to select any single color for the display screen
2) eliminates slight humming noise that was coming from the high power board
3) eliminates all LED flickering due to HP board not having to run the old DMD anymore

Here is a video:

And a few pictures:

image.jpg image.jpg image.jpg image.jpg image.jpg

No I don't believe they do. But I like running it in "Rom" mode because when something does match up from the STTNG machine on my Popeye you get full color. For instance when the "coin door open" screen or the "replay at..." screens come up (on my Popeye) I get the same color display as you would see on STTNG.

I think I like this very light blue color best:

So light that in the bright spots it looks white, but in the dark spots it looks like a grayish blue. Kinda gives it a two tone effect. Also note in video that at the start the "coin door open" and after the second ball the "replay at....." screens are in full color since they are identical to the STTNG screens so the ROM just runs the full color because it recognizes those dots.

New video of wizard mode x2 in one 4 ball game.

And..... me missing Olive's purse (wizard jackpot to beat table) by 1 shot twice.

As you can tell I have this machine setup to be as fast as possible, and I love the outcome.

tilt-master thanks for the compliments! And yes definitely please feel free to share all your Popeye related info here. I would be honored to make this the official (unofficial) Popeye owners thread. Finding sweet pea is so gratifying. The bells dinging and all the flashes going off and the DMD animation, really satisfying. Also I think completing Sea Hag multiball is one of the harder things to do on most pinball machines. Keeping track of at least 2 balls while getting at least one ball up to the upper playfield and to make all shots on both upper and lower playfield's is really difficult, and so fulfilling when all flashers go off and the DMD animation and the "ah" sound effect, haha. Great satisfying multiball when completed! Glad you know what I am talking about!

So for those Popeye owners/appreciaters, a few questions:

1) Have you had to modify or replace the ball trough optos?
2) Have you had to fine tune the ball lock to correctly register ball locks, and what method did you use?
3) Have you had to add support to the underside of the animal diverter to get it properly leveled?
4) What strength coils do you have in the main flippers and the mini flippers?
5) What is your favorite art detail (piece) on the machine?
6) What is your favorite audio clip?
7) What is your favorite DMD animation?
8) What is the toughest shot for you to hit consistently?
9) What is your most satisfying shot?
10) What skill shot do you go for consistently?