Hey all,

Trying to join the club and looking at a machine but it has an issue where in the lamp A matrix 15A works from the power board by then A25 on does not. Bad bulb socket in A25 causing chain problem? Diode? or other. Any help is appreciated. Just don't want an expensive repair and hopefully fix myself. Thanks!

I separated my prism card manually very carefully so it can be done if you don't apply too much force and bend or break pins when it pops free. If you have access to a 3D printer you can use this tool to make it safer and easier to do: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4250887

Recently moved. First game on at the new house started fine and now I'm getting a scrambled screen. Any idea where to start?

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Try adjusting the horizontal hold.

That looks like the bios boot screen which can't sync to the cga monitor

Check the prism card to ensure it's fully seated. Else check for dead battery on cpu board.

Checked everything inside the computer to make sure it's seated well. The battery is testing at 2.9. Checked seating on everything on the driver board as well. Still no luck.
There was a broken ferrite inside the box that I'm assuming was on the power cable.

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Possibly, but that a missing ferrite wouldn't cause your display issues.
Hooke the pc up to a vga monitor and see what the screen says

Not getting anything

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Not getting anything

Now the power supply fan is not spinning and no more scrambled lines on the screen. Getting marquee light and that's it. Ps might be done?

Well after sitting on it and spending time working on another game, a friend pointed out the red button on the front of the computer. Fired right up after that.
Now that I'm hyper focused on things, the ps fan sounds really loud. Should I order a backup?

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Tooting own horn:
http://pinball-mods.com/blogs/?p=750

Now I should’ve pointed you to that, because I fell for it myself after I bought my RFM, took me a while to find.
But I thought I was the dumbest in the world so I thought suggesting that would just be stupid…
Clearly I was wrong.

Even better than the "just a fuse" fix. Boom!

Same exact thing when I bought mine Worked great onsite, broke it down and drove it home, set it up and.... nothing. Thankfully as it was almost midnight I just shut it off and figured it out quickly in the morning but clearly "check the red switch" should always be troubleshooting step #1

To be clear though, that only fixed that it was dead after I took the computer out to reseat everything. It didn't solve the scrambled screen. Magic apparently fixed that.

Or reseating the cards fixed it.

Sometimes magic is what we all need

I work in IT on point of sale touch screen equipment. 90% of screen or video issues are fixed this way.

I'm looking for 2 RFM translites for some projects that i recently picked up. If you have a used one you would sell please let me know.

Not magic, you did something that needed to be done.......
I had a very similar problem about 8 months ago and here's what solved my problem:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinball-2000-monitor-problems

Yeah, exactly, but only temporarly, he needs to clean the contacts on the cards as well and there he's got the permanant solution.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinball-2000-monitor-problems

I've been looking for one for a while also. I bought a used one but being over 20 years old and brittle from age it was mangled during shipping. I wish they would reproduce these or 3d ones again.

You can have a NOS at these 2 places:
ebay.com link: itm
http://www.planetarypinball.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=PPS-31-1357-50070NOS

Ill get them new from PPS. I could have sworn they were sold out. Thanks

Hi RFM Fans,
I have installed :
- new CPU fan.
- Prism Battery, you have to be very soft to separate the boards.
- CPU battery
- new power box with an adapter.
Have got everything at Pinballcenter shop in Germany.

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I think my fan needs replacing as it makes a bit of a noise now.

Are most just replacing the small fan that is in place? Or doing as above?

I've seen it done by just replacing the fan, adapting the fan
http://pinball-mods.com/blogs/?p=750
Or replacing the heatsink and fan.

The latter is becoming more difficult due to the motherboard/socket age

I don't think there is any ideal situation

Did you sort this out? I have the same shaker and same issue.. I’ve had to turn the shaker off because it vibrates the glass violently and scares the crud outta my young fella.

Thanks

See my reply here

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/rfm-hillary-come-here-you-gotta-see-this/page/102#post-6763401

My game behaves intensity wise similar to stern games maybe slightly weaker, certainly not a bone shaking glass rattling afair. If that’s happening then you did something wrong or deviated from my instructions

Anyone selling plastics for an RFM? I need just two pieces (left side and near drop hole) and would rather not buy a whole set. Shoot me a message of what you have.

Not for nothing, but I followed your instructions and this is the result I got. I have a virtual pincab with a shaker and my buddy has the same cab and shaker I use and mine is more intense than his. It could be as simple as that there is some manufacturing variance. You can actually adjust that one which is why I asked about this thinking I might have the intensity cranked in a menu somewhere.

I posted a pic of my wiring earlier in the thread. Here is a couple more. Would you please tell me directly how I deviated from your instructions? What exactly did I not do correctly? I did buy everything you sell for this game so perhaps you can help me out with a bit of support as it seems I'm not alone having the issue. If I did something incorrect I'd really like to know so I can fix it. If it is correct I will know the issue lies elsewhere. For the record I still use it but it is the definitely the most violent shaker in my collection. Everything else is working great and I appreciate the effort that went into these upgrades. Thanks.

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The message above was for the other message (@thesav) as it did not mention what shaker was in use or whether the loom was one of mine or made separately, that is all.

I did offer you help in the reply to your earlier message because i said 'check the 12v voltage'. So i would need to know what the actual output is from the 12v section before knowing if voltage 'drift' is your issue. The 12v feed for the shaker motor is not regulated, so it can be higher or lower depending on the transformer settings and also the line voltage. Also there can be variations on the shakers themselves. (I will contact you via PM with some suggestions on lowering the voltage to the shaker alittle.)

As for adding an adjustment for the shaker 'power' then yes i will look into this to add more fine tuning. I did not think at first there would be much variation on peoples games, but i guess when 100's of people run updates there will be some differences.

That would be fantastic thanks. I have a feeling it's the shaker itself, but I will check the output. I'm certainly not above a mistake and I really wondered if I did something wrong. From what I can tell the wiring is pretty straightforward which was your entire point to making a loom to begin with. I appreciate the response and willingness to look into further adjustments. Like I said everything else works great. I really dig all of the mods. My friends hate drunk flippers btw but I leave that shit on lol!

Ha ha ha, give them a few games with score war on or no hold flippers!

applejuice What’s the best place to test the voltage on the shaker? I tried with the game diagnostics menu, but the shaker only runs for a fraction of a second (and low intensity) and won’t register properly on my multimeter.

I bought a loom from you and have installed it to your specs (I think!), though my kit was an early one and from memory I don’t think it included the diodes - so perhaps I need to install those, but I don’t think this would be causing my issues?

I’ve attached some pictures of my install for illustration.

Thanks

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As a follow up, I enabled the shaker, hooked up my multimeter & it seems that during a mode finalisation, my shaker is briefly hitting 20volts, instead of 12..
Thoughts?

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Adding an adjustment for Shaker would be great.

i unplugged my shaker because of being too strong (particularly Saucer Attack Super Jackpot).

Same for me, I just bought a regulator
ebay.com link: Regulateur Variateur de vitesse pwm 12V a 40V 400W 10A ideale pour moteur DC
I will get it soon, and keep you informed.

Thanks Matt. Please do. That's what I originally had in mind as well but wasn't sure if that was the ideal solution or if programming could address it. If it's getting 20v at certain points, that would certainly explain why it's so powerful.

Other small thing I have done :
Lights in the eyes of the Martians.

2 small DELs in the eyes, serial mounted.

ebay.com link: 307 25 LED 2mm rouge diffusant canon long 25pcs

And 270 ohm resistor, wired to 12v

You just make small drilling in the eyes, and empty the brain to make space.

Looks great

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Its worth noting that the shaker effects are supposed to be varied and some more powerful than others because some awards are worth more than others. It not just a simple shake for everything, its multi layered.

The best thing to do is just test the 12v feed voltage, ie put the red lead of your multimeter on the yellow wire/pin and then the black lead on any ground braid point. What does it read? I just checked mine and it reads 14.6v so that's pretty normal and correct for an unregulated 12v. If its higher than 15v then check your line voltage and line plug settings.

I will test the regulator.
The shaker is really too strong on the big events like super jackpot.
In the normal playing, it is OK.
So reducing at 90 or 80 % should be great.
The regulator is only 10 euros, limited risk.

I grabbed the big o jiggly Martians awhile back.

https://www.mickspinball.com/afm-rfm-big-o-jiggly-martian-led-pi

I really like the way they flail around now. I picked these chrome saucers up recently too.

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A lot of people (including me) put a 3rd saucer above the stroke of luck hole on top of the flasher.

Where did you get the chrome saucers from? They look great!

https://www.pinballlife.com/revenge-from-mars-chrome-flying-saucer.html

Those look pretty cool. I might have to do this to mine as well. I have used PICO leds on my N scale trains that would work real well. They are super tiny.
Here is a 12v Pico with a pencil. They are about 1mm.

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Its amazing how easily Terry jumps on the bandwagon. Thanks Terry!
Sigh
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/rfm-hillary-come-here-you-gotta-see-this/page/95#post-6360040

For the record; I was on the market first (10 months ago)... Terry just like to copy ideas he sees on the market.
http://pinball-mods.com/url/RFMSaucer

Could you maybe then turn down the Saucer Super Jackpot Shaker effect a little bit lower?