Anyone know the DIP switch that controls PARAGON letters being spotted by the in-line drops? I don't want this. Makes spelling Paragon WAY too easy.

So you're both less than 6.0?

It tells you in the manual, or if you have the settings staples in the back box. Cant remember offhand

I've never actually measured it. This is with 3" leg levelers for me anyway. It's steeper than most Paragons I've played.

22 off disables the valley of demons from lighting a Paragon letter.

Related though, switch 24 should be off if you want the letters to sweep continuously instead of being lit one at a time until you land it.

If anyone plays both 22 and 24 on... shame on you ...

Just saw the the artwork is complete at CPR!

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I did this, then added a 2x4 in the back. Soooo brutal... I think of it as my poor man's TNA. I'm thinking that to complete the effect I just need to add some bass and concert lighting

Finally Paragon playfield only a year away.

Hoping Cpr offers Mirrored glass when they start selling playfields ?

That sounds interesting since the original has no mirrored sections.

^There wouldn't be any reason to have it on mirrored glass because of this.

Since I'm here, looking to purchase the Pinitech DIY display kits soon. Making progress on this game bit by bit The CPR will be the pièce de résistance

need a little help. I was repinning connections testing the game after every finished connector.
I turned the game on to hear a pop..... ahhhh shit....

it's the J3 connector on the solenoid driver board, I started tracing down wires back to their source and checking via the manual. Think I already found one issue (not sure how I could of messed it up that bad). I was hoping someone could snap a pic of that connecter with the wire colors.
I had been taking pics of connectors not sure why I didn't with this one. sucks...

thanks

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side note: there was some janky wires on the back that looked like they were put on after the factory. (not sure of there purpose yet)

as for the j3 connector
the only one I moved so far was #4 to #3 since that is what the manual said. then I stopped and was like well let me post on the forum just so I have a second way to verify.

I popped the headers back out because they were to short, plus it seemed a little weird that so many were soldered together.
on the solder side of the board for the J3 connector
1- 10 by them selfs (good based on manual)
11-12 connected (good based on manual)
13-17 connected (good based on manual)
18-24 connected (18-22 connected via manual) 23-24 are just ground pins so I guess thats fine
25 by itself (good based on manual)

something tells me this isn't right and the manual is only raising more questions.

that's awesome! thank you very much.
I knew I put that white wire in the wrong place (makes me feel better knowing the manual was telling me the truth). was on auto pilot repining all those connectors.
looking forward to seeing what other damage I incurred from this mistake.

thought I'd let you know that everything is back to normal, spending hours upon hours repining these connections is a lot of fun.
I even rewired the transformer, since I had all the matching wire colors.
having some issues getting this 7 digit display to work, I emailed xpin they said that its probably the connectors so or the driver board.

Thinking it's the 24 pin .62 connector that connects to the displays that are the issue. Since this is paragon I opted to go with gold plated pins .
they are like 20 cents per pin compared to like 3-7 cents for a tin pin, but hey it's paragon. love games that make me curse the world I was born, they get special treatment.

Hating life after several sub 40K games ....then when you pop off a 300K game...all is right with the world again

I can relate to sub 40k scores , but 300k plus scores are unheard of around my pin. Guess I’m to old and slow!

It's just Paragon's way of letting you know that you're still its b!tch, even if you have a good game every now and again

House rules for us oldies...
5 ball games (I got 5 balls for a quarter in 1979 so I don’t think I should get any less now)
Set up Specials to give me free balls since games are free anyway.
Set up free games (ie special...ie free ball) at 250K 500K 750K
Mega lubed the spinner.

Have not resorted yet to non-sweeping Paragon letters... that’s downright cheatin’

Haven’t rolled it yet but getting close.

Unfortunately even with all those gimmes, there’s still a lot of 40K games. It knows... it knows...

I tend to get better Paragon scores after I’ve spent time on Amazing Spider-Man... is it jealous and trying to make up with me? Maybe.

Question: for the two "lower" flippers that have both a Normally Open and Normally Closed EOS switch; is that actually a special single switch with two set's of leafs? or is it two switches (one NO and on NC) that are just stacked together on the screw mounts? I don't want to take mine apart just to find out, they're looking a little delicate!

I noticed that the Bally rebuild kits seem to have just the Normally Closed switch. I'm just wondering if you only need to buy an extra Normally Closed switch and stack it together with what comes in the kit, or if you need to buy a special switch that has both switches integrated.

Thanks!

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Nice! Thanks for the quick response Toads ! I took a quick look through the manual and didn’t see any part numbers for flipper EOS switches. This is great.

Hi guys, Thinking about joining the club. But would have to pay for transport. I have never owned one of these bally widebodies. Does the head fold down like a modern game? Or do i need to have head removed and packed? Would hate for backglass to get damaged. would probably do NAVL. thanks.

No head hinges on this big guy! Head must come off

After disassembling the head place the cabinet on its back on a pallet. Buy a set of rubber/neoprene exercise floor mats, the type to build a home gym that you can buy at Target. Lock the head with your key. Cut a piece of neoprene down to fit over the backglass. Shrink the neoprene to the head. With help place the head on top of the neck, the small box attached to the cabinet that the heads stands on top of normally. Shrink the head to the game.

Head is bolted on and must be removed.

any reason the higher pitched sounds don't stop on my paragon?
guessing there is an IC chip that needs to be replaced

maybe re-cap the board, that has fixed several early bally games for me in the past

I had a similar symptom when I accidentally blew Q2 on the soundboard, however I didn't have a higher pitched sound playing continuously which sounds like what you describe ("doesn't stop"). My symptom was that the last note of a tone sequence continued to play for some responses. If a longer series of notes ended with a "null" or no sound, then the sound wouldn't continue; but if I hit something like a bumper that was a single note, it would continue playing the last sound until I hit something else that triggered a new sound. If that is more what you are experiencing, then it could be Q2 or U7. Q2 controls U7 which provides a short decaying pulse into the analog circuit that only lasts the duration of one note.

If it's just a single sound playing all the time, then it's probably something in the analog circuitry (across the bottom of schematic), like a cap as Chosen_S suggests; or possibly adjustments to the sustain rheostat RT2, etc...

In general it’s a good idea to recap any soundboard over 20 years old, those capacitors only have a mfg lifespan of 12 years anyway. Replacing them will help the sound to be healthy and crisp. Of course other issues could be at hand

that's actually almost identical to what I'm hearing, If I read your post right. say the ball goes in the paragon scoop the last sound will continue to play until something like a pop bumper is hit, then it'll stop. awesome, I think I might even have that part if it's Q2... maybe. Thank you

done and done, I only have two factory boards right now in it (since that's the way I bought it). recapped (at least the electrolytic), new headers, new regs, new pins, new displays etc. I even cleaned out some mud dobber nest while I was at it. hope to someday re-stencil the cabinet, but my garage is being taken up by a car that needs to be fixed. my bumper and multiple car parts are all over the place . hoping someday I'll make some time for it.

The solenoid select line goes two places... U2 (the address of the note to be played), and into the analog circuit through Q2 to have U7 generate a pulse that determines how long a note is played (and the sustain circuit and rheostat control how long the decay is after the pulse from U7 ends). See the sample signals in the schematics. Depending on how Q2 is toasted, U7 may never fire at all (ie. no sound generated), or be generating a constant voltage level into the analog circuit, instead of decaying like it should (ie. last note continues to play). U7, or the other components around it could also be bad too... but Q2 transistor is an easy fix to try out first. R21, C15 and C16 will control how wide the original pulse out of U7 is, and C6 and the sustain circuitry controls how fast/slow the decay of the signal is after U7 turns off. If it's not turning off, it would more likely be U7 or the stuff controlling it (Q2/C15/C16)

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Probably everyone knows this already, but if the sustain adjustment on the sound board is turned up too high, the last note played will keep playing until another note is played. If you hear a continuous note, turn the sustain pot counterclockwise and see it that stops it.

Good to know. I didn't think the adjustment would push the decay that far... never tried it. Thanks!

Never even crossed my mind to check what those were for . I just tried adjusting them, and still the same. The game has gotten progressively worse as time went on, so I'm guessing it's probably one of the board components srcdube mentioned. definitely good to know though

it's getting easier to see what the issues could be when you understand how the system works. gonna check on it tomorrow, hoping it's q2.
hoping I got a q2.

If the sustain pot makes little difference at all you may want to try cleaning it... Spray some contact cleaner inside and work the dial back and forth a buncha times. "Steadily worse" could be increasing oxidation in a pot or a capacitor dying... I'd expect a transistor would just die. You never know. Cleaning a pot is even easier than changing a transistor

I was doing some experimenting with Sustain today and was also able to adjust far enough to cause some sounds to continue. If you haven't started removing components yet I'd say try what RoyGBev recommends and play with sustain a bit... also spray in it with contact cleaner and work it around so you get a good even sweep of resistance.

Yeah been messing around with tax stuff and TNA, been meaning to check out the issue. I tried adjusting those two potentiometers like he mentioned and no matter how they were adjusted it didn't seem to help. After looking at the transistor, I don't think I have that specific one but something close. Gonna check the specs to make sure it's gonna work. can't seem to find any info on f2n3904, I have a 2n3904. assuming it'd be fine but....

EDIT: Never mind, I found it in the topic gallery. Thanks to the original poster!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/paragon-club-enter-the-valley-of-demons/page/4#post-2698913

~~Hi all, I have a small favor to ask. The red wire popped off of J1 of my rectifier board connector, and I can't tell which pin it goes to. Can someone take a quick pic of their rectifier board's J1 connector? You don't even have to remove it from the board (which is mounted to the bottom right side of the backbox).~~

Just before I repinned it.

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Joined the club! This is one of my grail pins among some other early solid states that I hope to have some day.

Question, where are you guys setting the playfield again? Someone previously said 6.5? Isn't that pretty steep for these older games? It seems the game is designed in such a way that it would be a challenge to even get it that steep unless one would use non factory legs and levelers, but I thought I'd ask.

Paragon is more challenging at a shallower angle, more left-to-right action. I like to keep mine around 4.5 degrees.

I have mine more or less all the way out in the back and all the way in at the front. This gets me around 5.5 degrees. It's nice and fast, good size to side action and not too floaty. YMMV.

question, there seems to be a slight delay between my two right flippers. I know there is going to be a delay to some degree, but it shouldn't be that noticeable.

My two left flipper are almost instantaneous as soon as the button is pressed. I checked a video to make sure, and yeah there is something off.

All the flippers were rebuilt with all new parts, except the brackets.
I tried adjusting the EOS to see if that would make a difference... didn't see much of any. Probably will revisit it though.
was thinking it might be the flipper leaf switches (pitted really really bad)? it looks like the flipper switches go direct to the coils (via schematic), so if they aren't getting enough current then I would assume there would be some issues.

Still waiting on the leaf switches and a gate to come in from PBresource, but until then if anyone else has an idea I'm open.

Power to the top flipper comes from the EOS switch on the lower flipper so make sure it's adjusted correctly.
Yes it could be the flipper button leaf switch as you say a well.

Just joined the club. It in rally nice condition. I am thinking of restoring it. Clear coat playfield.

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That thing is beautiful, I would leave it as is, or get a populated junk playfield and swap in a new cc playfield and sell that really nice one as is

Finally got my NOS Kruzman cleared playfield! Going to start my swap soon. Pictures don’t do the playfield Justice.

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