Hammer it

No, there is a science to it. I try to time it so that the ball sling shots down off the rubber then up past the magnet. I've gotten pretty good with it, but only around 30% successful I'd say.

hit them fast as I can, like you said I hit it 75% of the time.

It will not 'fry the board'.

Nothing gonna fry.. Not even leaf switches, if you wear out a transistor... It had it coming.

My strategy has always been to pound away like crazy, at first, to hit the bumper switches and rack up big points. Then I will carefully time my hits so that I'm only pressing when the ball is at the bottom of the magnet to try to hit the hole to double the points. This results in about a 60% success rate but gives really high point values.

Unrelated question but... is it harder to get the balls out the top during powerball mania than during the battle the power? It seems like the magnets are weaker during the mania on every machine i've played. Just curious.

I time mine by flipping once just after the ball gets past the middle of the targets.

When I had my TZ, my best strategy was an "all or nothing" type shot. As soon as the ball dropped into the mini play field, it travel towards the right magnet so once I nailed the timing down, I would hit the right flipper and it would shoot it straight into the power. It took some practice but would work, 70% of the time. I say its an "all or nothing" shot because if I didn't get it on that initial first flip into the play field, I would waste the next 10 seconds floundering the ball. Best of luck.

This, usually on the right side, unless I see it going towards the left and need to knock it back over.

I just bat the ball back and forth until its lined up over one of the black circles, then shoot for the opening, and if it comes back down on the circles again, shoot again. I typically don't try racking up switch points, rather I just go for getting an door panel award. Love the powerfield, its one of the reasons TZ will never leave.

Another pinhead friend goes ape sh%t ( no offense, gorilla ) on it when on that playfield.I tend to thing a little more strategy is involved.

I play the mini-playfield the same way as PinJer. When the ball first enters the mini-playfield I let it drop into the right side magnet area then try and lob it back to the top of the playfield straight away. Normally works for me about 50/50. As davewth says, timing is everything, you need to add momentum to the ball, not kill it, so it's better to press the flipper button as the ball is travelling back off the rubbers at the bottom rather than towards them. Sometimes you can bounce the ball hard off the rubbers and get to Defeat the Power that way. Try to avoid getting the ball moving from side to side on the mini-playfield, as once it starts doing that you will struggle to control it.

Yes the upper playfield magnets are weaker during Powerball Mania, as all the flippers are also in use. You can disable the upper flippers as an option during Powerball Mania, which makes the magnets more powerful again.

I've had the game for 19 years and had no idea you could do this!

/off to adjust my TZ menu settings...

I figured that was the case but was never certain. Thanks for that bit of info. I never knew about the disable, however. That was one of the things about the game that really pissed me off and made me sell it. Wish i had known... Meh, there are more out there.

I did not realize this either. I will also change mine, since during Powerball mania the upper flippers are of little gain.

Just checked in the manual:

Option A.2 29 Low Line:

If the game is being operated where low line voltage occurs, then this adjustment should be set to "Yes". It will disable the upper flippers during POWERBALL MANIA and LOST IN THE ZONE.

Then again, maybe I won't make that change. This has the potential of lowering your LITZ score by losing the upper flipper shots. I've been trying to beat TEX LITZ champion score for years now and don't need to make it more difficult.

Wow, I never knew that either. Cool.

Also, you can adjust the playfield angle by turning the locknut on the right side up or down. There is a spring under the nut/washer. I have mine set to where I can hit the hole like 8 of 10 by hitting just one right flip when the ball first comes down.

+1

This is the best strategy. You definitely want to trigger a lot of switch hits before defeating the powerfield, particularly when you've got that thing maxed out at a million per hit.

I would take the sure victory over the power to collect the door value. That's just me. If you can do both, great. That's one of the great things about TZ, different strategies and such.

Different on all machines.

Same here. Door's more important to me. As for power level during Powerball Mania, I don't really notice the magnets being weaker at all. Then again, I usually get two, if not all three balls up there and eventually one gets up out the top hole.

As for strategy for the normal Battle the Power mode, I usually do a "double tap". It's a move I saw a guy do at PPE this year and he was consistently draining that top hole with it. What you do is you actually wait until the ball is almost on top of the "Flip Here" on it's way towards you and you hit the flipper button twice in succession pretty quickly. The first hit directs the ball toward the switch and after it bounces off, the second button hit will help accelerate it away. It helps to hit the button BEFORE the ball is actually on the "Flip Here" as if you hit it when it's on it, it'll be a little late and actually slow the ball down. I have had very good luck with this method since I got my TZ and I firmly believe it to work. My percentage of defeating the power is probably about 70% or more.

On my machine my rate is probably around there or 85%. Another machine I play it's like 10%...crazy.

Horrible advice. That setting is known as the cheap reset fix. If your game is working properly, the upper playfield should have plenty of power during LITZ.

If this setting is enabled on a location game, players complain. Intentionally disabling flippers is never a good idea. As the manual says, it's for if your supply voltage is low. If your voltage isn't low, I strongly suggest not enabling it.

To get a door panel, I will do pulse (short) flips when the ball is at 4-7 o'clock in "flip here" circle. It tends to get a better sling up the mini pf. Longer flips will grab the ball before it can escape the magnets pull. Still, I'm probably only successful about 2/3s of the time.

I hammer it for points and I usually do get a door panel 3/4 times. I just can't get the hang of hitting the buttons slow, the ball always falls out of th Power when I try.

Before I bought my TZ I used to go and play one that was located in a shopping mall. The top flippers were disabled on that game. When I bought my TZ I originally left it as standard with all flippers working during Powerball Mania & LITZ.

I did try disabling the top flippers for a while, as I had noticed the upper playfield magnets were a bit weaker during Powerball Mania. I returned the game back to standard soon afterwards, as I prefer the upper flippers working. My mains supply is at the correct voltage.

I used to get it 70% of the time when I hammered it. I stoped doing this when after it reset on 10 different Occasions during lost in zone and Powerball mania. Every time it happened I would reseat all of the connectors on the z-connector harness and it would be fine. Now I have a weird issue I can never get it up now I can only get it 10%. It is way too weak. It is like the magnets lost power I don’t know if the is from hammering it but I would not recommend that strategy because now my mini playfield is good as dead. If anyone knows how to fix the low strength on the mini playfield it would be great.
Parker

I got I to work a little better by cleaning the optos on the flipper opto boards but I will order a new thermistor in the line voltage box