I've had my RFM for about nine years at this point. Out of all the games I've have ever owned it has required the least maintenance. The only thing I've ever had to fix, other than adjusting some switches, is I had to replace the Cherry flipper board on the right alternate flipper button. That was easy to find and was cheap.

Look for wear at the stroke of luck kickout and check the spring steel ramp flap too, as it shows wear easily and is difficult to replace without a rivet gun.

I've heard you want to check for a noisy CPU fan, and if it is noisy, replace it (they are available).

NuCore doesn't make their product at this time. It was a CPU replacement, not a monitor replacement.

You can get an LCD monitor for your machine along with brackets to mount it in there, if it should ever go out.

The computer is the biggest issue with Pin2K. It's getting harder to find replacement parts for it.

+1

Watch out for too quiet of a fan noise too. The original power supply fans are cheap and stop working sometimes and that is a disaster waiting to happen. Replace the power supply with a high quality one and you won't have to worry about it for many years. I also replaced my CPU fan with a fresh ball bearing version when I replaced my power supply just for good measure.

If ya Find a Nice 1 ,, Led it and Enjoy .. Use the New CoinTaker Premium's .. Make Sure the Newest Game Version is Loaded .... after the video was shot RFM was up-dated .. I sold it to Southbound when I was thru Play-n it .. He still has it ....

010.JPG RFM_after_Shop_010.JPG 002.JPG 004.JPG 011.JPG 013.JPG

RFM is a blast! Definitely worth it and a cool machine to have in your collection. I put LED's in mine and sometimes I contemplate wearing sun glasses when I play.

do LEDs give you burned out bulb notices?

This pin is on my short list too.

I've seen one with LEDS and I thought it looked awesome!

The Frosted's did ,, Not Sure about the Premium's . When I did the Pinball Magic Kit w/ Premium 2's

No Error's were indicated .. I Hate a Dot , but @ least I knew what it was from ..

So PK2K can tell when a lamp is out?

Yes it can!

I had my Pin2K for a few years. Replaced the power supply and fan from day one. Started to get into some heat issues at the end of ownership pulled the PC cover and solved it. My board did have a blown capacitor but found a local guy to fix it for me. Like another said very low problems to maintain except for the cheep switches they used. The Prisum card is the one that if it goes your in major trouble.

That's very cool. I never heard about that before. I knew they had fantastic diagnostics, I just didn't know they went to that level.

It would also pull up a picture of the playfield and show you exactly where it was.

Had mine for 2years ,it's a keeper, LEDs made a great difference. Premium 2 s and retros.

I have been looking for a good condition one for a few years...any in the northwest?

I love mine. It is a highly underated game that will stand the test of time.

great collection any for sale?... i am headed your way in a week or two...send me a message if interested.

The glass is pricey so make sure it's good. I bright monitor is key.

Easy to work on and built very well. It was pinnacle of engineering. Great diagnostic menu. Parts easy to come by.

this great game gets a bad wrap..."downfall of pinball" now we are at the rebirth...

I'm starting to like this game more and more myself but I haven't been to any final wizard modes yet... the game is nice and easy to understand and get started playing, which is one of the reasons I like it, but how deep are the rules as you get further into it?

It's a pretty linear game, but there are quite a few modes available. I've been on the edge of 'Attack Mars' a couple of times, but never made it.

There are 8 standard modes, one 'special' mode, where you get one of 4 different modes. There are bonus multiballs every three standard modes you complete (3), where you can get to Mother ship multiball and Grandmother ship multiball, and two other multiball modes you can get (hypno-beam multiball and Martian multiball), and then there is Attack Mars.

So. I'm counting 19 modes in the game.

Thanks for the rundown! Sounds like I've already been through most of it then. Hopefully Grandmother ship and Attack Mars are cool

I found it way frustrating. I had 10 saucer lights, and was on my last bonus multi-ball when I drained my last ball...

I'll get there, one day.

I've been searching for a RFM for a while and finally found one but they are asking just shy of $5000. My hopes was to find one local or semi local hence the jacked up price. The price is to the extreme but its the one i want. I was prepared to pay quite a bit if I found one but not sure if its worth it at this price.

Any words of wisdom?

I'm new to the community, perhaps there are recommendations for reputable dealers? Or alternative places I can look? I've even approached bar owners to buy their machine but that hasn't panned out lol.

5k is a horrible price. A local shop in town has had one sitting for 2500 for a few months now. Not sure if there are any for sale in the states close to the border for you but I wouldnt pay anything over $3k if I were you.

Yes, this is a routed $2500 and $4000 HUO game for sure. The monitor is a bit of a pain to deal with since they used two different ones and replacements can be interesting to acquire. The CPU Motherboard is an old 233Mhz Cirix machine that is very hard to replace. After you get the game, get a new CPU fan and replace the power supply in there. The rest is a pretty solid design. I don't like LEDs so I wouldn't suggest it. If you want a better picture on the monitor, get a video amplifier and put it in-line. This adds a ton more detail to graphics. Ultimarc sells them: http://www.ultimarc.com/vidamp.html - I got my RFM the end of last year and had to meet with some "Challenges".

Its pretty ridiculous the prices people are charging where I am from. Any of the prices people quote on here are ridiculously low compared to what you can find in Alberta. At $2500 I would have bought RFM long ago.

Yeah. Have LEDs in almost all the places in mine. Don't think of it as non working burned out notices, think of it as an LED audit telling you all the places you already converted

I have a RFM I am currently doing a major overhaul on and I want to replace my CPU fan and power supply. Is this this ebay auction a good option?

ebay.com link: itm

Thanks

QSS

That would be fine. I bought the CPU fan from Fry's for $5.00 I think. I used an ATX power supply with a 2nd fan built in that moves more air that way. You have to short some pins together on the connector to use an ATX Power Supply, but it works fine. You have to be sure that if you deviate from the original type PS that the new one will fit in the area you have to work with.

flat panel and nucore is the way to go.

If you end up getting one (one that has the original computer) and it doesn't have the 1.5 code or greater showing- pray to god you still have a Windows 98' computer and a 9 pin null modem cable stashed somewhere in the garage!

F- the fupdate!!!

=) Or just a computer graveyard and a copy of win98,ME,xp,vista, 7, 8 ....

Yeah right!
I tried every internet (and YT) method possible to get my 1.2 up to 1.5!
XP, Vista, 7, etc... they all failed.
Sure, the RFM connected (and communicated it's status) to the different PC's all fine and dandy but, when you tried to send the update; yes- even with the manual extraction, *boom* fupdate failure and no progress bar...

Except that Nucore is not available so it is not an option for some of us unless you have a spare one you would like to sell me?

QSS

You can boot 98 from a CD or thumb drive and do it that way.

Only one person above mentioned the playfield glass. The playfield glass is unique and a scratched up glass WILL affect your enjoyment of the game. Everybody wants to talk about LEDs but who cares about LEDs if you're staring at it through a scratched up playfield glass that is hard to replace? Marco has them listed at $239 each before shipping.

The PC is old but not impossible to replace. The prism card is propietary and very hard to replace. NuCore's main role initially was to do away with the need for proprietary NLA hardware and make Pinball 2000 easier to support. Now NuCore is proprietary NLA software that is difficult to get and we're mostly back to where we started.

The monitor is not as specific as people are saying. Yes, a drop in no work replacement is one of two specific monitors, but other 19" raster arcade monitors can be used. You would need to adapt the video connector and mount point of a PCB or two. It can be done by anyone who knows monitors. The game benefits highly from a video amplifier mod that can be found by searching this forum. An LCD can be used instead with a 15khz->VGA converter in a mod also found in the forum.

Check the ramps. These are still available, I think, but not cheap. Check the scoop hole for wear and the scoop weldment for breaks. That thing gets hammered. Check the spring steel ramp that gets pushed up during play. That breaks a lot but can be repaired with an inexpensive kit and a cheap rivet gun.

I was lucky enough to get one of the last nucores available. Right now I'm still hanging on to the old computer which is working fine.

The old computers can be repaired. Main reason I got nucore was to be able to swap in another playfield quickly and potentially if a Wizard Blocks kit is ever released (unlikely)

The main true win for Nucore was going to be that it had an SDK that allowed people to develop their own Pin2k content. The vision was that it was going to put the tools out there to not only keep these games alive but to enable others to do the software for new games.