I just bought my first Pinbot and brought it home today. After a few things I got it playing as I wanted to give it a try before tearing it down to shop. Funny thing is this machine is German. The manufacturers label is all in german the game display is all german. I can go in and switch to English language but whenever I power the machine down it reverts to German. What do I need? Does this need a new ROM of some sorts? Even when in English I can't find out where to load English. It has 4 or 5 things to "load German" but nothing English.. Factory Reset is all German. Thank.. BTW the tag says "220v 50H" but it plugs in and works on 120v.. so someone must have changed that part at least.

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Hey Neighbor! Thanks for the tip.. this is only my second newer game (Cyclone is the other), I primarily collect woodrail pins. (I used to be an operator though of games from the era of Theater of Magic, Addams Family, South Park etc.. I guess from dealing with the on location I got turned away from them, but now have found a new love especially for these WMS games).

Good thing this was a remote mount.. it was hanging loosely in the head. Ordered a Franks Board today.

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It also looks like you can cut the strips down.. so you could essentially take the 3 light strip and cut off one or two LEDs to make it a 2 or 1 led strip, although your idea of more consistent lighting across the plastic might be the better way to go.

Twinbots! I sold an EM yesterday and while delivering it saw a Pinbot in the lineup. It was nicer than the pinbot I just bought a few weeks ago, so as the story goes, I brought a pin and left with a pin.. Now on to the issues at hand. I'm still learning my way around the system 11 games as I'm primarily a woodrail collector. Pin #1 has a Franks battery board installed and it now holds English language (this is a German game). I'm getting ready to do the fuse upgrade to the rectifiers and am shopping the PF. It is now not booting up occasionally. I plan on rebuilding the power supply next, I can only assume that it's never been touched. Pin #2 the slings are not working I visually inspected everything, nothing stuck, wires all look good, no burnt coils, reseated all connections on board and visually inspected all plugs. Fuses are good. Could this be a driver transistor? if so can anyone point me in the direction of which driver it would be? can anyone with a manual also list the fuse values from top to bottom for me? I ordered a manual but it won't be here for a week or so. The second from the bottom fuse that controls the ball kick out blew and It had a 3 amp fuse, I only had a 2 amp fuse handy to try and that popped very quickly. I want to make sure 3 amp is large enough for the kickout coils.. it sounds small to me.

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Does anyone have a source for micro switch 17 - 1042? This is the bank of three on the drop targets that advance the planets. I have one that is acting erratic and won't allow the planets to advance all the time or reset all the time. I'm fairly certain it's the middle switch since tapping it or slamming the target down hard results in proper function. Solder joints are all good. Marco is out of stock, No Ebay, no Pinball Life. Not sure if the lever can be moved to a standard micro switch.

Thank you for all that good info. SLINGSHOTS - I found a bad solder joint on the main power line coming in to the right slingshot.. Problem Solved. DROP TARGET MICRO SWITCHES - hosed them all down with deoxit (prior to reading this.. I love that stuff!), problem seems to be solved but good tip on the switch. KICK OUT HOLE - proper fuse installed, problem solved.

Free Play? So two questions here. I'm still sorting out my German Pinbot. This is a German machine with W7 jumper clipped out. It's got German labels and was set up for Deutsch Mark.. with appropriate slug rejectors. I put in US slug rejectors and set the menu to accept US quarters, since I'll be putting this in my bar/restaurant I've set it to 50 cents a play. It takes coin perfectly and registers the plays, then subtracts them as it should. I just noticed though that once the credits are gone, it's still plays for free with no credits showing. Here is the interesting thing.. when I get in to the menu there is no On / Off for Freeplay? No adjustment? Is this an issue with the game rom? Also, can I just solder a wire/jumper back in at W7 or is this a special component?

That is the problem. There is no "Yes/No".. Even with no Yes/No displayed I tried pushing the start/enter button in both positions only to still have the game register games with no credits. I was searching the net and saw that someone else with a System 11 game had the same issue. But saw no resolution. I'm wondering if it's a corrupt set of ROM. I ordered a new pair just in case. If there is something else I'm missing I'm glad to hear of it.

I resolved this issue. It looks like the #4 display was dead so no way to tell if you were switching FP on or off as well as some other Adjustments. Fortunately I had some spares from when I upgraded my display on Cyclone. I did a transplant of known good display and issue is now resolved.

Bulb questions.. the manual isn't clear to me. Pinbot face in back box #89 or #1251 (#1251 doesn't seem bright enough). Pinbot face on playfield, red eyes (kickouts) 1251 or 89? and the flashers up on the PF behind the pinbot face in PF 1251 or 89? If some of these get 1251 they sure don't seem bright, especially the face on the back glass.

Thanks!

Good tips, thank you. I ordered V L5 from Mattsbasement arcade. I'l also look into the PEMBOT code.. sounds interesting.

I'm running one of my Pinbots on location in my bar/restaurant. It is such a drain monster on the right side, I think people are not playing it as much as I had hoped they would. Has anyone heard of an operator putting a small post above the existing post to make drains a little more friendly to the player? I have a few new screw in posts in my inventory. I don't want to commit sacrilege, but on many of the pins I've owned I've found operator mods to make a game a little easier (ex. my most recent Sitting Pretty had a mod with jumper wires to keep the bumpers lit after making the top rollover once until the end of game).