I bought a PM a little over a year ago. Between sorting out some problems with it and buying a house and putting the game on the back burner I am happy to say that today I was finally able to play my first (and second, 3rd, ect lol) game on the table! I've been looking forward to playing this game forever! Feels great and its a fun game!

I do have a couple final minor things to sort out still but the game is now very playable and a whole lot of fun!

What power level do you guys usually keep your flippers at on this game? I turned mine up to 16 just to see what it was like and it was insane! I was afraid I was going to break something so I turned it back down but what do you think works well for this game?

I finally found my magazines with these articles. Hopefully they turn out OK as I don't have a scanner at the moment. Here is part 1

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This video doesn't show the wand doing the silence the critics thing, but its the same idea, the wand moves over to the other side of the playfield, the ball rolls across the bottom, and you can control when it drops by hitting the flipper button and you want to try to drop it into 1 of 2 holes.

edit- video doesn't seem to play for me, but you can copy the link and open it in youtube or it can be found in the pinball magic gallery here on pinside under toys and tricks

Check those big caps in the backbox, they are notorious for causing reboots

I run the NVRAM in my PM, works great!

Yep, what captain nemo said. You'll have to desolder all the legs of the original Sram chip, then solder in a new socket. With the proper tools its not a bad job, but if you're not competent at soldering, then let somebody who is handle it. You really don't want to screw that board up, as replacements are extremely hard to come by. Once you have the socket in though, its a simple matter of plug and play and never having to worry about the sram going bad!

Honestly, nobody knows for sure how long they will last. It could go another 20 years, it could die tomorrow. Really though, its not a very big concern. I don't think I have heard of any of them going bad for anybody yet. I only did mine because I was trying to track down a different problem and wanted to rule that out. It is nice knowing I won't ever have to worry about it however. If it does go dead though, I don't think it will effect you much, your scores and settings just won't save, but I could be wrong on that. I wouldn't let it worry you too much, but if you do decide to go NVram it shouldn't be hard to track down somebody to solder it for you! I would offer to do yours but I no longer have access to a desoldering gun (its on the to-buy list though) and I wouldn't want to do it any other way personally.

I had trouble with my loop because one of the welds broke and the wireform moved about 1mm to the side but it was enough to trap the ball in there. What I did to fix it since I couldn't find a replacement loop was I added a couple washers to the underside of the loop, which raised it up, giving the ball enough clearance to make it through without getting snagged. Hope this helps!

Does anybody else have a problem with the spring coming off underneath the playfield for the ball levitation? Sometimes mine stays on for 20 games, other times it comes off after 5. Its really annoying if you have a good game going and all the sudden the stage doesn't work anymore. Mine always comes off on top where it clips onto that stud. Yes, I get it properly seated every time.

Here is the spring I'm talking about. It hooks to the arm assembly that moves up and down for the stage and it keeps popping off the stud up top

I'm think a zip tie is a pretty good idea though. I'm going to try to get one on there to secure it better

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Its because the arm is at the top of its rotation, but that might be a good call. It should probably have at least a little tension on it when its all the way up like that. My original spring got mangled, but I ordered this one from marcos. Supposed to be the right spring and I am pretty sure it is.

I know of a really nice one that recently sold for $4500 with ease and speed. I'm pretty sure the price on this game is going to keep going up. If you can find one right now for 3000-3500 I would scoop it up while you still have have the chance!

I know of one going up for sale for 5k pretty soon and I bet you it sells. No it's not mine.

Well considering one of the last ones I knew of on here sold for $4500 with a quickness, and apparently one sold at TPF for nearly 6k that sounded to be in rough shape, its pretty easy to see the price going up. I'm sorry you left money on the table with yours. Of course people are going to say your asking too much, thats what the price police do! You should know this better than anyone, since you always appear to be the captain on the price police force. Demand for this game is going up, so are prices. You are more than welcome to continue to disagree with me, but just watch! I know you said you were interested in picking another one up, I suggest you do it now, while you still have the chance. People are catching on to what this game is. But, hey, there's still plenty of people out there who think JD is still a $1400 game too.

I actually agree with most of this. You're absolutely right, the seller always wants to bring the most money in and the buyer wants the best bargain. I think its fair enough to wait until you see a string of them selling for over 4k to change your mind. I don't think thats unreasonable at all. But I'm willing to bet you'll see it sooner than you think. The game doesn't come up for sale very often but of the last 3 sold that I have heard about was yours for $3800, the one for $4500, and the one at TPF for $6000. I'll be keeping an eye out for others that come up for sale.
As for our spitballing we were doing about working out a trade. Well yeah, we disagreed on the value of the game (as we still do now) but it came more down to me just not being ready to part ways with mine just yet.

I agree with you on WPT too actually lol, I think the asking prices on that have been a little out of wack too, but hey, if they sit they sit, that all comes down to how long the seller wants to wait. Sometimes it takes time for the right buyer to come around. Hell, I just payed 2k for a black hole. I know I over paid, but I wanted the game and it was in front of me and I had the cash on me. I'm not bitter about it, I'm just happy to have the game!

The display board is available still, shouldn't be a hard fix. The problem could easily be in the ribbon cable or some other easily fixed problem as well. The game is pretty rough for sure but it would clean up nice and almost all the things it needs replaced are readily available. PM is not a game that comes up for sale very often. If you are after one then you almost have to take what you can get unless you wait for a really long time until somebody sells a nice one for less than its worth, or you get really lucky.

High voltage, the board you posted is the CPU board, which I believe is still available as NOS assuming you have the CPU chip to put into the socket. More than likely if there is a display problem though it lies within the display board itself which is underneath that CPU board.

Its unlikely you'll pull up any artwork even on inserts with mylar removal as capcoms seem to have really thick and nice clearcoat on the playfields. If you've ever seen one in person you'll know what I mean. It'll probably be one of the easiest and cleanest mylar removals you could do.

Got a good source to get those caps?

I can't believe they would sell them like that. What an outrage! Thats like the number one reason a person would want new decals on the side and it doesn't even address the problem! I am thankful mine still has his feet fully intact. One of the perks of a very low play HUO model I suppose Makes me wonder though If I should come up with some sort of protection for that area...

And Bstyles thank you for the wonderful tips!

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I could have sworn mine was metal. I put it in a polisher and polished it even. I feel like if it was plastic I would have burned right through the "paint"

Fired up my PM for the first time in a while the other day. Noticed i have a bunch of lights out. 2 full columns in the lamp matrix to be exact. Any ideas on where to look? No broken wires. Im guessing bad transistors on the board.

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Forgot to mention- that was my first thought but sadly it was not a fuse. All fuses appear to be OK

Regarding my problem, i may have stumbled onto the issue. 2 of the wires on j23 worked themselves loose. I need your guys help though. I got the yellow back where it belongs but I'm not sure where the purple goes. Cam somebody take a closeup pic of their j23 connector for me please?
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EDIT: I was able to figure it out. Sadly it didn't fix my problem. Looks like i'll pull the driver board out

regarding this issue, it turned out to simply be 2 bad diodes. Easy fix, and now its ready to go to its new home with a pinsider in a couple weeks

The 2 diodes were on the power board. I just have to say, its been a while since I was inside this Capcom and I really really like how well thought out and labeled everything is on these.

Check underneath the playfield. There is a motor with an armature that connects to a peice of plastic that slides up and down. There is a spring as well. Every once in a while mine would come apart and I would have to put it back together. Another time, the switch got slightly bent from the ball flying in there, and I had to make a small adjustment to it so that it would register the ball inside again.

Flip the resistors to the back side of the opto board

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If you're super careful and get some help, there is the ultra super secret playfield resting position too. You can actually lift/pull it right out the front of the cab so its nearly all in front of the machine. You'll definitely need something to prop it up securely though. the backboard will be basically sitting where the lockdown bar would be.