Hi All!

I'm hoping to join the club in the next few days, or failing that, the next few weeks. In each of the possible cases, I'll be hauling the game in the back of a van. When I've hauled EMs, I've just pulled off the backbox, and when I've hauled newer games, I've folded the backbox down. I'm pretty sure the RFM will fit with the backbox on, but is this a good idea? Is it attached solidly enough, or should I figure on taking it off for transport?

Thanks!

Great, thanks!

Thanks for the input! I'll see how easily it can slide into the van, but to get into its new home it's definitely going to have to come apart, so this is great info!

Thanks again!

Joined the club! Found one in nice shape just a couple of hours away. I also managed to score a restorable spare WG monitor.

One question, though: Is the game supposed to auto plunge after the ball save is activated? Mine just ejects the ball into the lane, and the player needs to hit the launch button. Is this normal?

Thanks!

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Yes. That would be me.

Perfect, thanks!

Thanks! Love me some Martians!

Ok, another question: The black inside walls of the cabinet are a little lacking in excitement. I see that Pingraffix has these PinBlades, and that's all I've been able to find. Does anyone have any other suggestions? I think I saw that there was a set of mirror blades available a few years back, but they don't seem to be available anymore. What have other people done?

Thanks!

Fantastic, thanks for the input! I did find that the mirrors are indeed available, but with shipping they look to be about twice the cost of the Pingraffix. The scratching had me really concerned as well, I think I'll be going for the Pingraffix,and I'll keep everyone posted.

Thanks again!

Hmm, things just got a bit interesting.

The image on my RFM was a bit too wide, and shifted a bit to the left. I removed the translite, and discovered that the remote pots that were supposed to be there weren't. I investigated a bit further, and discovered that, despite the big "Ducksan" on the label on the monitor frame, the chassis was, in fact, a Kortec KT-2001SF.

This actually helped explain another issue I've been having: on power-up, when the boot sequence gets to the white background, the display appears to collapse into a single horizontal line, then gradually starts to sync. It's still flickering when the sequence returns to a black background, and then settles down. It's not too big an issue, and it goes away after the game has been on for a few minutes.

That's the bad news.

The good news: On the way back from picking up my RFM, I stopped by another collector's workplace, and picked up a WG K7302 that he said hadn't worked since he got his game a few weeks earlier. He didn't have the frame, though, so I got the chassis and the tube, minus a couple of connectors that were snipped. I also got the daughterboard with the remote pots. The chassis doesn't appear to be damaged, and I half expect that a cap kit and a new flyback may be all that is needed (assuming the tube is ok).

What I don't have, though, and am hoping someone here might have a line on, is a spare frame on which to assemble the WG. I've posted an ad in the classifieds, but just in case, I was wondering if anyone who has done an LCD swap might still have their old monitor frame around and might be willing to part with it?

Thanks everyone!

I suspect a re-flow is probably the first step, as almost every monitor I've ever worked on has some cold solder joints somewhere. I'm just stoked that once I get the frames, I'll be able to build up a working, swappable monitor, probably just needing some adapter cables.

I have that as well. I'm trying to figure out how to degauss the monitor with an external degaussing coil. The position makes the usual method awkward at best.

Oh, I've got one, I'm just trying to work out how to make the big, circular sweeping motion that you're supposed to do in front of the screen with the monitor in the position where it sits in the game.

Welcome to this great club!

This sounds about right. $3K seems to be the "sweet spot". Much more than $32, and it's gotta be all original with something special going on.

You're looking at the back of the tube. That could have all kinds of labels on it. Both manufacturers bought tubes from various suppliers at various times. You want to be looking at the monitor chassis (the PCB at the back of the bracket), which SHOULD be either a Ducksan or a WG. I say "should" because mine had the Ducksan sticker, but the chassis had been replaced by a Kortek.

Oh, and welcome to the club!

RFM definitely needs something cooler than black rubbers! I'd suggest red or green. If you go Titan, the Glow-in-the-dark ones look awesome, even when they aren't glowing.

I got it after I managed to snap my old 2D one in half as I was taking it to get signed by Greg Freres. Seriously.

It actually wasn't that much more expensive than a 2D repro. That should be taken to mean that the 2D repro is crazy expensive.

The good news is that it does look REALLY cool, and also showed me just how much my old one had yellowed. Because the brittleness wasn't enough of a clue.

There is, I have it in mine. I am of the opinion that Cliffys are an excellent idea 100% of the time. In the case of RFM, it's barely noticeable, and I've never experienced a single case of gameplay being affected.

Otherwise, Plus one on everything ForceFlow said.

Welcome to the club!

Nice! Looks really clean. Welcome!

Has anyone had any luck running the updater in an emulator running XP under Ubuntu? I've got a Windows 10 dual-boot, but that's about as far back as I can go with "real" windows.

This is the first time I feel like I've got a good reason to update past 1.5!

First, THANK YOU for this amazing Christmas present!

Second, is there any chance you and Jodannar might be willing to share some of the specifics of what caused the issue? I'm on original hardware, and just a little cautious about attempting the upgrade for exactly those reasons.

Thanks!

Awesome, thanks for the reassurance, this will be tonight's project. I'll let you all know how it goes!

Well, it took a lot longer than I thought it would, but I appear to have succeeded!

What didn't work:

-Running fupdate.exe on Windows 10 with the old Cygwin files. It completely failed to launch.

-Installing Windows 2000 in a virtual machine using VMware Player under Ubuntu. In full disclosure, the FTDI-based USB to serial null modem cable that I used does not have drivers for anything older than XP, so that may well have been the roadblock. I was able to get the updater to install and run, but couldn't communicate with the game.

What DID work:

I dug out my old XP home edition install disk, and installed it in another VM under Ubuntu. This worked really well. I was able to use the updater, although when I tried it at 115200 bps, the game reset within a couple of seconds of showing the "flashing" screen. In what was probably an overabundance of caution, I set the speed back to 19200 and started the update. It took about 45 minutes, but seems to have worked just about perfectly. Honestly, I was so relieved that it worked after hours of installing all kinds of variants of Windows that I can't stand, that I'm not sure if I really thoroughly tested all the features out. I know for sure that it is a serious improvement in fun over version 1.5! I think I'll go do that right now.

Again, thank you very much applejuice for putting all the time and effort into this update, it's greatly appreciated!

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So, it looks like I don't have the super skill shot either. Was there any particular "magic bullet" that got it working for you who have it?

Ah, that complicates things. I'll check again, thank you.

Then I will enjoy the game without it until it's fixed!

Holy smokes, this is going to be AMAZING!

With the absolutely wonderful development that has been going on lately with this game, is there any possibility of adjusting the test mode parameters so they don't show LEDs as errors? Or is that something that is baked in at a hardware or too-deep firmware level?

applejuice , I gotta say, before 2.0 came along, RFM was my least favorite among my modest but highly curated collection. That is no longer the case. Thank you very much!

YAYYYYYYY!!!!!

Thank you for all your great work!

I realize I may be dousing myself in kerosene for this one, but has anyone had any luck in brightening the playfield without going completely garish?

My game room is dimly lit, and my 85 year-old father has trouble seeing where the ball is going, so I was hoping to raise the overall lumens a little without going full stadium lights. The RFM at Logan Arcade in Chicago is a bit more than what I was thinking, but a similar idea. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a real good look at where the lights were hiding when I was there.

Any ideas?

I do, yes.

It helps a little, but I think the basic problem is that there just isn't any illumination on parts of the playfield. In any case, thanks for the tip, I didn't even see that option before.

Got my shaker in!

I used the 3rd party shaker kit from Pinball Life. Everything went well, including relocating the tilt mech from the right side of the cab to the left, but when I went to drop the playfield, I found that the foot on the right hand ski was resting on top of the shaker cover. I just cut a small hole in the cover, which seemed like the most reasonable solution. Given the available area and the size of the cover, I'm not sure if this would be avoidable with this particular kit.

I'm more than happy to be wrong.

The shaker really adds a LOT to this game, thanks so much @applejuice!
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Sure.

This kit uses a different concept for covering the weights than the one that applejuice used. That one just covers the weights, this one covers the whole assembly. I assume that the idea is to keep errant wires, etc. out of the swing of the weights rather than act as a dust cover, so I'm not worried about cutting into the middle part. Also, I'm pretty sure that there's nowhere in the corner you could mount this one without interference. Obviously I didn't think about this when I placed the motor, and I'm really glad that the foot fell in a location where it was only conflicting with the cover, and not the frame of the motor, or even worse, the path of one of the weights!

In time, if the cut bugs me, I'll probably end up designing a 3D printable set of end covers.

Also, on a side note, there's no path in the cover for the wires to route through, so there will be some cutting involved regardless. Actually, there is a hole on the top of the cover that I assumed was to catch the mounting screw for the fuse holder. Since this mod involves cutting the connector off, I suppose you could thread the wires through that hole, but then you'd need to mount the fuse somewhere else.

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It's kind of hard to see in the pic, but it's definitely way less than an inch at the top, and the cover flares a bit, so it's even tighter at the bottom, probably a quarter inch. Initially, I placed it assuming that I wasn't going to move the wire tidy on the inside cab wall, which I ended up doing anyway. Based on where the foot hits the cover, even if it were touching the inside wall of the cab, it would still interfere. It turns out that the kit I am using isn't manufactured by Stern, but is a 3rd party replacement. I suspect the "official" Stern kit's cover might be a bit smaller. In any case, the way the cover attaches to the frame of the motor, I'm confident that the weights are protected, and I'm not terribly worried about the actual motor's case.

Also, thanks again for all your work, it's like a whole new game!

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I'm really not sure why this seems to have become such a big issue among people.

The 3rd-party Stern-compatible shaker that I got from Pinaball Life came with an ugly, bulky, flimsy and not terribly well-designed or manufactured cover, which gets in the way of a playfield foot. It's not integral to the design of the shaker, and only attaches to the top of the assembly after it's been installed, and prevents access to anything below it, including the mounting bolts. It seemed to me that it was a better idea to cut a small hole in a cheap plastic part that no one wold ever see rather than drill more holes in the bottom of my cabinet.

I don't see why this is a big deal. Nonetheless, it did start to bug me, so I spent 15 minutes with OpenSCAD and threw a set of end covers onto the Prusa using PETG.

The results are much more compact, much stiffer and stronger, look better and solve the issue.

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Thanks! I've got a couple more little tweaks, then they'll be on Thingiverse. I've also got some translucent red PETG that I think would look pretty cool.

That's the one I got that seems to have a slightly larger cover then the slightly more expensive "Official" Stern shaker.

Even with the cover shoved all the way into the corner, there is still interference with the foot under the playfield. There may be some variation, but mine doesn't fit. For the $20.00 difference in price, you'll need to use something like the 3D printed end covers that I whipped up.

Here's the one that others have gotten to fit without modification:

https://www.pinballlife.com/stern-factory-authorized-shaker-motor-kit-rev-b-for-most-stern-sam-system-games.html

Pretty! I might have to do that as well!

For anyone who was interested, I published my shaker cover design on Thingiverse.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3862516