do they only sell it as a combo with the rec board?
https://www.pinballlife.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=AS-2877-1

Wild Fyre has arrived. It is in pretty nice shape. I might just sell this one instead of using it for my next conversion. You don't see many decent Wild Fyre pins these days. I was hoping it was going to be in worse shape.

20221112_103630 (resized).jpg

20221112_103636 (resized).jpg

20221112_103641 (resized).jpg

Only some sounds? Which ones in particular? Certain kinds are made by different parts of the board.
This page has an excellent overview of how it works: http://www.pinball4you.ch/okaegi/rep_soundsb300.html

That is too nice to convert if you can avoid it. you need a junk Meteor for the -6 transformer.

I lost my ocean wave sounds and the "sqeal" sound when you hit a high score on the rollover up at the top. There were some other sounds missing but I could not describe them. I pulled the sound board from my Catacomb and it checks good.

The thing is that my Seawitch has sat idle for almost 18 months as I used it as a source of parts for the Star Gazer I built. I just got it back together yesterday and the sound issue was immediate. I know cars can deteriorate from sitting for long periods but I was surprised that my sound board died from inactivity.

Thank you very much for the link. I will study it and hopefully figure it out. But the author is using scopes and that is beyond my skill set. Cross your fingers for me.

Smile--if you will . I have been giving Seawitch a workout for the last 3 hours. This mod is no panacea. It is not going to work like Beatles. And while I have managed to get a couple of double left hand orbits in the past over many hours of gameplay, I knocked off two double orbits in quick succession. Where this mod helps is with the lower right flipper shot. This mod really helps with that lower flipper.

You don't have to drill any holes in the play field or do anything permanent. I recommend any Seawitch owner to give it a try.

I think there are two different dip switches, one for background sounds (wave crashing) and one for game play. Are both dip switches in the on position?

I swapped sound boards and got my sounds back. it is a sound board problem.

When you changed the caps, you didn't change C-28 and C-30 and the header pins. Might start there.

I bought in a cap kit from Big Daddy. Those were not included. Now the Great Plains is no more I'll need to find a source for these 2.

Thank you.

So I finally got my Split Second project flipping. Upon my first test game I thought “boy these upper playfield flippers seem a little strong.” Cut to about 5 flips later…
E0D1F0AF-5AC5-4F17-ADEB-2C7717B5D590 (resized).jpeg

Why on earth did Stern put 475s on all 4 flippers in this game? Anyone have experience with swapping in weaker coils? How weak should I go?

On Beatles pinball machine there is an extra target that does not exist on Seawich.

When you drop these 3 targets on Beatles, there is another target sitting behind those 3 targets. This mod could be done on Seawitch mechanically. If the code writers could code and additional switch and some bonus points, it might add a little more to do on Seawitch.

IMG_1805 (resized).JPG

If a 4-place drop target could be coded, the 4th target could be a saucer switch sitting behind the 3 drops. And then the saucer would kick out the ball which would feed into the left inlane. Since the saucer would be the 4th target, hitting it would raise the other three targets and force an inlane drain. Instead of a saucer switch, a standup target or single drop target could also be used.

On this PAPA video you can see Bowen shoot the ball in behind the lowered drops and see it exit to the inlane. You can see it at about 11:48.

This will give you an idea.

Mechanically, it would work. Could it be coded?

Yes, that's not that hard to add.

If you could code that I would make a saucer hole in this old Seawitch play field to use as a test bed. Getting the saucer switch parts is not hard to do. I would need to do some serious measuring but it looks like there is enough room behind the drop target assembly to plant a saucer launch lever and the coil and bracket.

I would only have to get the Forstner bit and cut one hole. The GI lights would have to be moved or removed. And I think I could make it nasty like the Beatles for when the ball is launched it has as good of chance of draining down the outlane as the inlane. The player would have to be on his toes.

Sure tell me what currently unused switch you use for it and what solenoid transistor you want to use for it.

i'll study that over next few days.

White noise failure usually is the 4562 chip. Sometimes it makes all white noise missing or sounds like terrible digital compression.

During solenoid test you can check to see if the white noise is working. I think it's covered in that link above where to probe.

I am enjoying this mod. I have made quite a few 2 loop orbits. And for a first time, this afternoon I made a 3-loop orbit.
==========================================

To jazz Seawitch up a little bit more, I swapped sling shot coils. Blue print for Seawitch sling coils is J-26-1500. All of the MPU-100 pins use the smaller J-26-1200 coils. I had a pair of J-26-1200s from the Hot Hand I parted out. I swapped in the 1200s; They make the slings just a bit more snappy. It is not like playing TNA with its lightning speed slings, but they are just a little bit snappier.

I figurde if the MPU 100 pins can handle the 1200s, then an MPU 200 pin will handle the 1200s with ease.

Hello All - I have a Wild Fyre question. The game now plays perfectly and every switch scores and produces a sound. When I go into solenoid test 1 - 4 are unique sounds, 5 - 6 are nothing while 7 - 19 are actually solenoids firing. I think this is correct, but I want in make sure 5-6 aren't used. Can someone confirm? There is no mention of it in the manual. I know the sound card is capable of 6 tones, but I only think 4 are used in this game.

Sounds at solenoid tests #5 and #6 will only play when you have the game set to "Computer" sounds rather than "Chime" sounds. Computer/Chime sounds are selected via DIP switch 23 on the MPU board. OFF for Chime sounds, ON for Computer sounds.

My Lightning is in need of a new set of legs, where is the best place to purchase?

Hey folks… have a new meteor that’s set to 5 ball. How are the dip switches ordered on the cpu board? I see one bank positioned horizontally in the middle of the board, and three banks vertical on the right side…

Sounds like you either have the AllTek or Nvram.Weebly board. There should be 4 banks of dip switches veritcally on the right of the board. You want to change switch marked 7 to OFF.

The single dip in the middle of the board is for selecting the game ROM.

ballspergame (resized).png

https://www.pinballlife.com/search.html?Search=legs

https://www.marcospecialties.com/control/keywordsearch?SEARCH_STRING=leg

If you don't know which leg you need, Steve at Pinball Resource can fix you up.

Scroll all the way to the bottom.

http://www.pbresource.com/legs.html

Well, that made a difference. I can see why it was set for chimes. That early sound board is super basic. At least the tones are nice a clear after I swapped out the capacitors on the sound board.

A while ago I did a couple mpu100 from sb100 to chimes... nugent and I think dracula? Some of the games wouldn't be conducive to a swap back though, like hot hand, the bonus countdown is too fast.

Yes, it’s NVRAm… it’s just that all of the dip switch banks have a 7 in them.

Here’s what mine looks like. Not sure up from down here. Hoping a Meteor junkie can give them all a quick peek and see if anything is out of sorts… but mainly wanting to get this puppy on 3 ball

991BD41A-6A74-40B1-8259-5B22DB547610 (resized).jpeg

DA72A937-DA20-482B-A1FA-91F6EF838097 (resized).jpeg

It is dip 7 on SW1.

Everything is set to ON on your board. You may want to go through the Meteor manual and adjust accordingly to all the rules/settings you would prefer starting on page 10 in the manual.
https://www.ipdb.org/files/1580/Stern_1979_Meteor_Manual.pdf

2022-11-14_13-07-36 (resized).png

Ok. Made all of the adjustments. Thanks!

I don’t see reference to the game selection switches in the manual… any trick to them?

image (resized).jpg

bunch of pdf on his web page that show what those need to be depending on board version. https://nvram.weebly.com/mpu.html

Thank you!

these are good replacements, if you really care, you can refinish them with hammered grey + a bit of bleu for factory Stern look:
https://www.pinballlife.com/bally-gray-legs-set-of-4.html

I swapped boards before your post. The board I had in Catacomb went into Seawitch and the Seawitch board went into Catacomb. The annoying hum went away when I put the board in Catacomb but some of my Catacomb lights are acting up.

I'll swap back and try the solenoid test.

I don't know which chip is the 4562 chip. I have chips with numbers like 8040, 8033, 8033, etc. I even have a chip with the country of origin as El Salvador--which is a surprise.

EDIT: I almost forgot this. I don't have the 7 start up sounds. The game turns on and plays. Just no start up sounds.

EDIT #2: I found the 4562 chip on the board. However, sourcing this part is not easy. Mouser is quote only. DigiPart quotes $13.11 each. Absunshine.com quotes in 100 units only. A UK company shows 9 in stock so I could buy it from here.

And I am thinking all I will be doing is trying to repair a 40 year old board with obsolete parts. I'm leaning to just buying a new sound board from Weebly since that is an available option.

Need a little tech help on Big Game.

Yesterday, was playing a game and the right flippers went unresponsive, then came back online, and then permanetly stopped working.

So far, I've inspected for broken wires around the flippers (can't find any), confirmed the leaf switch at the flipper button is making contact and is clean. Checked fuses on the rectifier board... and gave boards in the back of the game a visual inspection.

Is there a bank of fuses I'm missing?

Thoughts?

I own two classic sterns, but really haven't needed to dig too deep, tech-wise. So, a little green here

Check voltages would be where I would start.

Off rectifier board, correct?

Since both flippers are not working that suggests the flippers are OK. Try a jumper wire from the yellow power wire on any other solenoid to the power lug on your right flippers and see if that helps.

or

Desolder the orange and green trigger wires from both sets of flippers and jumper criss-cross the orange and green wires and see if the problem follows the jumped wires. DO NOT jumper across from orange or green trigger wire without first desoldering them.

or

and maybe....(this one is circuit board and I am at a loss) but maybe something happened with your SDU. Since you own two classic Sterns you could swap in the SDU from the other Stern and isolate the SDU that way.

I follow the first suggestion... not the second.

The Driver board is new, so, hopefully that's not it!

I hear that. But I had a new lamp board blow out two transistors. So anything is possible.

Your flippers are pretty easy. The blue/white wire from the rectifier J1-6 feeds the fuse block for the 1 amp slo blow fuse. The fuse feeds the yellow wires to the solenoids.

It could also be the wiring for the right flipper button. But I think that would be remote.

Did you check the fuse between the flippers on the bottom of the playfield? Sometimes the easy stuff gets overlooked.

The left flippers are working, so I’m assuming that’s not it.

That fuse is only for the controlled solenoids not the flippers. The flipper power splits off before the fuse.

Assuming you have power at the coils, I would start a game, hold in the flipper button and lift the lower flipper by hand (assuming that’s the one with the double EOS switch). If that triggers the upper flipper, then your problem is with the double EOS switch or the lower flipper coil.
If that doesn’t work, clip a jumper to the cabinet ground braid, start a game and touch the jumper to each of the flipper button wires. One of them should activate the flippers. If not, then the problem is with the flipper button, SDU or connectors in between.
If that worked, then the last thing to check would be J2 on the rectifier.

nothing like a quick and easy ground test with alligator clip between the non-working flipper coil tab that doesn't have the yellow wire and a ground braid/metal cabinet part

Whenever I have a problem like this, and it could be any mfg, Classic Stern, Modern Stern, Bally/Williams etc. First thing I want to do is measure WITH A Meter, do I have voltage at the coil. Measure from the ground braid to the power lug on the coil. You should see significant DC voltage. That's a good starting point.

Yep, that’s correct. Don’t know what I was thinking. Time to ohm out the flipper coil.

I wonder what the thinking was to not fuse the DC side of cabinet(head) coils and even the flippers. Knockers and chime box transistors and coils are so often burnt up in a way a fuse would have saved. Seems like an oversight.

Q3 (knocker) is burnt and traces vaporized on too many SDBs.

Thanks for all of the tips, everyone. I’ll report back!

Thought I would share this rare bird…

I was able to play my buddy’s Iron Maiden for the first time tonight Gameplay might be a bit lacking, but you sure have to admire the unique mechanical ball lock feature, the Heavy Metal inspired artwork, pulsing layered backglass, and the odd ruleset. I did manage to start multiball, which was rather difficult, so that was pretty satisfying. Cool game for sure, but way too rich for my blood.

0409C99B-B80E-4C54-BA2B-8B0E5563E520 (resized).jpeg

9ED22E53-3672-4314-BACA-BA70B15BC617 (resized).jpeg

cant wait to get to mess around with that maiden whenever it gets here. pumped to finally get to play one.