Just to put a coda on the magnet issue, I corrected the pitch as phishrace advised (turned out the digital angle tool I originally used was not accurate). The situation improved dramatically, but not completely. I reseated the connector to the magnet and tweaked the height just a bit and it has been tossing the ball up and over without fail during the course of several games. I thank you all for the help as I muck my way through adjustments and fine tuning and problem solving. While I was in there, I rebuilt the upper flipper and was rewarded with significantly snappier flipper action. It's amazing how much better and easier the game is now (not that it is an easy game), and I was enjoying it immensely before the improvements. I still need to fine tune the exit flap for the shooter lane, and the Stern or Cliffy(?) protector around the scoop needs to be replaced. Almost there.

Thanks again for the suggestions and advice.

Just picked up RBION and am going through some of this thread. Do you still have plans to make ramps? I don’t think I need them now, but curious about availability down the line just in case.

Pm if interested… I made a few extras.

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FYI - I'm currently making this previously discussed mod to help with speaker hum/buzz. I noticed it on Ripleys and then on my Simpsons Pinball Party. I ended up finding this pinside discussion (https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/tspp-speaker-humbuzz-fixed) which describes how to make them and how they work. The first post on that page has a video showing the process. I have them on Simpson's and Ripley's and they do help. If you'd like a pair and don't have the time or tools to make them, I will ship a pair to your door for $22. If interested please direct message me. Thank you

Hey, having some issues with my RBION, whenever I start a game it says tilt, I can't seem to figure out why it's happening. anyone have this issue before?? Or know why they would be linked??

Have you checked the tilt bob to make sure it's not activated ? If not, open the coin door and look inside. It will be on the left side just inside the cabinet. Make sure the pendulum looking thing isn't touching the bracket that it's floating in. You can adjust the pendulum up and down to increase/reduce tilt sensitivity. If you're unfamiliar with what you should be looking for google "tilt bob" and it will show you what to look for. If that looks good test the diode on the tilt bob.

I just figured out a cool little trick you can do if you have a LED OCD board. I just replaced the scoop arrow light with a color changing led. Normally because this light blinks the color sequence will reset, but if you set the "delay" in the LED OCD settings for this bulb to about 6 the light will not fully turn off between the flashes and will pulse while cycling though the colors.
I normally don't like using color leds for anything but inserts, but this looks really good in this spot.
Other people have probably figured this out before but I didn't see any posts about it so I figure I would share.

Just joined the club yesterday with a really nice example with no cabinet fade that I can tell. Playfield is in excellent shape. It also came with a bunch of mods already done like the scoop light. Looking forward to learning the game.

I have one quick question. When it boots up it says display version 3.00. How do I tell what the rom version is to know if I need to get the upgrade? I don't see anything in the menus.

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The game version will show before the display version. I believe 3.2 is the latest. It flashes pretty quick so taking a video of bootup with your cell phone can help you rewind and review.

Thanks, I tried that and I see some garbled pixels but nothing legible. I checked the rom itself and it's got a hand written label that says 3.2 so I guess it has the latest. Odd you can't verify that in the settings somewhere.

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Game version shows on the temple screens during start up
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Yup I knew i saw it somewhere... You are correct

Interesting, mine just shows three lines on the right of each temple display then moves to the normal animation.

I believe it's an option in the settings to either show the game version or not

Or its the wrong version. Seems unusual that i would change a setting; of course possible.

My game may not be on stock settings. I have not changed it since buying it. I'm planning to do a factory reset to make sure everything is stock but we've been having fun playing it

First or second diagnostics button push will also show running versions on the display. I kept mine one version back because they removed a hurry up mode in final 3.2.

Standard adjustment Fast Boot should always be enabled on Whitestar games, when available. Make sure yours is set to yes.

Thanks for the responses. I've been playing with this and it is the fastboot option that allows you to see the game version. If you have it turned on you only get the display version. With fastboot off you see the game rom version on the dmd and on the temple displays as well as the location id's. I've turned it back on now that I have verified I have the correct version

Alas. the game has been down since Wed though. One downside to buying a location game is you don't know what the condition of the flippers are. Turns out the bottom right flipper was about 20 games from needing a rebuild. The link on the coil plunger broke off. Parts should arrive today to get it back up and running.

Thanks

Curious if anyone else has run into something strange I'm seeing. I'm still going through the thread and I'm aware that there are definitely some issues in and around the optos for both the shrunken head and the idol.

What I'm seeing is incredibly intermittent but it appears that sometimes flipping the right flipper will trigger the idol when the ball is nowhere near it. Usually early in the game. We don't see it all the time, like tonight we played a bunch of games and it only happened twice, but it is odd.

I'm building out a punch list of things to work on for this game and I'm going to clean the optos and the area around the magnet as part of that. I'll also take a look to see about reflowing the solder on them but does it sound like this is a sign of the optos going bad and I should just order replacements? I feel like this could also be a diode somewhere going bad.

Just curious if anybody else has ever seen anything like this.

I'm continuing to debug and watching that idol closely. It's not happening enough to materially change the scoring but it is odd.

I noticed today that when it happens the idol has already been collected and is waiting to be relit. It seems like after x number of minutes of being unlit it just awards an idol. It never lights or anything just hear the idol go off and see the number increase. It's lighting properly and going out properly when the pop bumpers are hit and when the idol is hit respectively.

Next step is to try and replicate some kind of switch issue in diagnostics but that kinda seems like software. I have everything set to factory default. I reset it a few days ago.

I finally finished reading through the thread and in the early 20's for pages was a lot of talk about the optos. I'll try reseating and cleaning them for the time being but will order some new ones.

Yeah like you say, I'd reseat the connectors on the board under the playfield and also clean those optos. Also, make sure the optos are secured tight and aligned properly, maybe they're shaking loose with the vibration of the flipper coils. If all that fails just replace them

I finally received some new optos from pinball life and was able to install them today. It's worse than it was before. I ended a game with 11 idol's and I had only hit the idol twice. The machine does have LED flashers in it and mirror blades so I'm wondering if that could be triggering it. I suppose I could try removing the mirror blades as they are screwed on.

I actually have mirror blades and it hasn't been an issue for me.

I bought a ton of optos so maybe I'll try another set. So strange and unusual

Yeah this damn problem needs to be fixed!

I managed to get a video of it since it happens so often. This one was really strange. I hit the pops and re-lit the idol. I thought that right after I hit the pops it awarded an idol so I trapped up to check the info. While I was in the info the idol light turned off and then a few seconds later, while trapped up with nothing else happening on the machine but an info screen, it awarded an idol. The only vibration was flipping the right flipper scrolling thru the info. If anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them. These are brand new optos from pinball life and I saw no oddness in switch test

There appears to be more going on on my machine than just the opto issue. I'm now seeing some switches become intermittent. We were just playing a game and the vari-target VUK stopped registering. Put it in switch test and still nothing. Pulled the assembly and the switch appears to be good and the diode appears to be good. I replaced the diode anyway and put it back in the machine and now it's working. Went to play another game and half way in the main scoop vuk stopped registering. Put it in switch test and manually actuated it a bunch of times and it started registering again.

This is just the oddest thing. Clearly something is wrong elsewhere in the machine though.

I'm no guru, but it almost sounds like a bad connection on a board in the backbox. If you haven't yet, try reseating the connectors on the CPU and Power Driver board

I've reseated about every connector I can find. The vari-target VUK switch has completely died now and the main scoop is intermittent. It's possible it was just these guys time to die.

I've got 2 opto boards on order along with new switches for both VUK's. I figure replace the cheap things first then start working back. I've read some people have had issues with the pinball life optos so if the boards don't fix that I'll try some from Marco.

I also found one report that mentioned a connector in the back box that goes to the optos that can get pulled apart when the head is put down for transport. Unfortunately, that post didn't include a picture or any real info on which connector. I think I've reseated all of them but there are a lot of connectors not on the boards that it could have referred to. Still looking.

I'm still debugging this opto issue and I was wondering if someone could check something for me. In the standard adjustments there are 2 that don't appear to work for me at all. Under standard adjustments the flasher power dim and off don't appear to change anything. Also the consolation ball option will not toggle from no to yes. I believe both of these settings were working before I factory reset the game. I'm wondering if that factory reset may have mucked something up. There are probably more settings not working but those are the 2 I'm aware of right now. Thanks

Having the same issue as you - did you solve it?
Altough when activating them by hand they work...smashing a ball onto them, they don't.

I can answer my own question on the software settings. I fired up the virtual version and went in and did the same setup as I have on mine and the flashers are not responding nor is the consolation ball option.

I think I am narrowing down the issue with the idol and from when I read through this thread I think another person had this problem. I have replaced the optos and the opto boards but it's still triggering. I unhooked the transmitter from the idol opto board and tested the game with the glass off. I found hitting the tombstone target would award an idol when the flashers went off but not when just hitting the idol. I recall someone had that issue in this thread but don't recall the fix. Going to start digging back through.

I unhooked both the transmitter and receiver and testing in game the #1 tombstone is awarding idols

Is it supposed to do that when the idol optos are not working? I don't think the game would have determined that yet as there are no tech alerts.

It kind of sounds like a switch matrix issue to me. Possibly a shorted diode somewhere

I think you are right. On Saturday the machine got worse while we had friends over. The head optos stopped working and then phantom idols were happening between players causing the next player's ball to autolaunch. As a last ditch effort, I disconnected the control wire to the transmitter opto and plugged it directly into the control board so it would be always on. All of the issues were resolved and we've played a bunch of games since and the game is playing perfect, just without needing to relight the idol.

This is not a permenant fix but is good enough while I try to track down what is going on. That idol opto's control appears to come from a switched ground on the io control board so maybe something in the wiring is all I can think that causes funkiness when it's connected to the switch matrix.

Does anyone know how to get a real knocker working with the game? The game came with one already installed in the backbox and I've tried turning the fake one completely off and turning the q24 option to knocker but nothing is happening in game. It's clear it was working as the mech shows signs of the plunger hitting the metal plate. The game manual doesn't have a lot of info on adding a real knocker and looking here

https://pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php/Sega/Stern_White_Star_Repair#Adding_a_Real_Knocker_to_White_Star_Games

it says "The last thing to do is to enter the game adjustments and turn the electronic knocker sound and the European Token Dispenser settings to off. On Starship Troopers, Enter Portals, Adjustments, Sega, and then adjustment 33 (Knocker Volume - set to OFF) and adjustment 40 (European Token Dispenser - set to OFF)."

Just curious if anyone has gotten the knocker working. I'm guessing someone did at some point on this game I just lost the setting when I factory reset it.

Still have not figured out the knocker but my wife got me a colordmd for my birthday so had to install that. Game had speaker lights but I don't really care for them so removed them. Figured it'd be too much color. The dmd mount appears to be another custom addon to the game and I did have to modify it a little to fit the colordmd but other than that the install was a breeze.

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Good call, the color DMD is a great upgrade on RBION!

IMG_20231003_170157376 (resized).jpgIMG_20231003_170119224 (resized).jpgIMG_20231003_170130124 (resized).jpgThe "temples" on this game really bothered me, so with a friend's help, I built some new ones.IMG_20231003_170111925 (resized).jpg
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Haven't seen that specific temple mod before. I had the original BackAlley temple cast mod on my machine, but had not seen the temple mod you have. It looks nice. Where did it come from?

We used some existing designs for RPG games and 3D printed them after a few modifications. Since I wanted the temples to be more of a pyramid shape, the fitment of the pcb in there is quite tight, and I had to trim some of it off. We were thinking of doing a run of these, but with the labor and "scary" work involved, I doubt it's something many people would go for.
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Curious if anyone else's machine does this and only with the Australia mode. If I shoot the vari-target to start that mode it sometimes goes into a ball search right after the up kicker launches the ball. The mode is being detected as it's starting the animations but there is a long pause while the guy throws the boomerang which is longer than other modes which is what I'm thinking is causing the ball search but it's just really strange it's just that one mode. It doesn't always do the ball search but it's happening more and more. I've already replaced the switch for the up kicker so I know it's not that. Just really odd.

Other than that I have the machine working really well now.

I sold mine, but the game usually went into ball search mode if I hit the var-target with extra ball lit and Australia as the next continent.

ok, sounds very similar. I'll have to keep an eye out if the extra ball is also lit when that happens. I don't recall. Thanks

I'm sure it was because the combined animations took long enough to engage ball search. It didn't happen if I cancelled out with dual buttons.

I have seen it now and it is the additional extra ball along with the animation causing it. It's almost like the code isn't taking into account the animations at all for the ball search. I had ball search start on me not long after starting England as well but that one due to bricked shots. I was playing really badly the other day lol. Australia seems to be worst though as it has that extra long animation.

I had wondered about it at the time but it seemed plausible to me that's all it was. Glad you're enjoying the game!

I've been playing so much Bond since that .97 code dropped.

Needed a pallete cleanse so I flipped on Ripley's today.

This game is a blast.

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Posts some pics of your playfield. I see a couple of mods...