Can I also join the robo war fan-club? Im bought one yesterday Think I will change him to LED

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Welcome to the club. Looks like a nice one.

Welcome.

I think this is one of the few games that looks good with a clean set of LEDs, but there’s one reason you may want to stick with incandescent:

The game has a cool trick to emulate bulb fading. It’s really only visible at the beginning of each ball, but with clever programming, it’ll “fade” the last spotted letter of “ROBOWAR” while blinking the rest. That effect is totally lost with LEDs otherwise.

Here’s a video of the effect with the letter “O” being selected:

mbaumle : Wow.....thats very interesting......so let the "robowar" letters without leds and change the rest. Thanks for that information. Bought also a "rollergames" today.

DuffysArcade I finally went through the dips to resolve the issue of getting an extra ball for no reason each game. It was switch #29.

Once i reset all the dips i started to get a knocker hit at 100000 points and 1 credit. This all had to do with the auto-percentage in the bookkeeping section step 11. Go to step 11 and and press the start button to reset the 100000 value to 0.

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Cleaned up my new RW about 4 hours from the inside to the outside and polished the metal today. Looks fantastic Im thinking about to remove the overlay and conservating the playfield with a few layers of 2K clearcoat .........what do think?

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I’m a big supporter of “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.” Your playfield looks like it’s in fantastic shape.

Pulling up the Mylar overlay might also pull up insert decals or artwork that would be exceptionally difficult to reproduce.

Unless you have a lot of experience with that sort of thing, I say leave it as is. It won’t be played nearly enough in the home to wear down anytime soon.

mbaumle : I have experience with clearcoating and also in making insert decals (learned a lot in building homebrew playfields. I was only a bit worried to wear down the great looking playfield. But your comment relieved me a lot right now and I will let it as it is (also it saves me a lot of time and work). Im not playing for hours every day, so it should be lasting very long. Also Ive never removed such a overlay......is it also possible to remove some of the painting when removing the overlay. Didnt even thought that it is clued on the playfield at first.....thought it is only laying on it . Here is a short video of the playfield:

I've pulled mylar up on about 8 Bally/Williams machines without any damage. When I pulled the mylar on my RW the paint came with it. I was already planning to sand the playfield down for an overlay so it wasn't a big problem.

Polish it, wax it, and leave it be.

Playfield looks pretty damn good. Clean and wax it.

Thanks! Yes I will leave it as it is and will maintain it very well.

Thats looks great to me. Better then most Robo-War i have played.

I watched your video and noticed that the high score % is set 100000. I just posted 2 threads up on how to get rid of that if your wanting to.

Thanks a lot guys.....Ive get a lot of useful informations from you

Next steps:

- solve the 100000 Highscore problem
- Add a LED batten behind the backglass
- Add LED's except the robo war letters
- order carnaubawax and wax the playfield
- revise the whole cabinett (fill all scratches and damaged areas and repaint it)
- Polish the cabinet legs

RGarriott : Changing the 100000 Highscore knocker activation was way too easy. Thought I have to change the dip-switches. Also I never recognized that the knocker gets activated much to early, because it was not plugged in. So its really easy to solve the problem in jumping to point 11 in the menu and press start

Thanks for pointing that out.....it was a great help

Changed the playfield to led. Changed everything except the "ROBOWAR" letters and the flashers. Under each slingshot plastic I installed one standard and one extra bright led. But I dont know if Im changing to another color. The "BETA" target inserts are not correct at the moment....I have to reposition the light holders to solve this Tomorrow I will install some leds on other places where there are no lights in the original layout. Will post more the next days. Here is a short video how it looks at the moment:

Did install a new led on the playfield, where in my opinion should be more light......looks great. I think I saw a simila led placement in a tnt-amusement video

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RGarriott :

"Once i reset all the dips i started to get a knocker hit at 100000 points and 1 credit. This all had to do with the auto-percentage in the bookkeeping section step 11. Go to step 11 and and press the start button to reset the 100000 value to 0."

.....Ive reset the 100000 to 0 multiple times and it works great. But only till I turn the machine off. When Im turning the pinball on this 100000 setting is turned on again. So I have to set this everytime Im turning the machine on again? Why the setting do not stay saved? Some solutions or ideas to this?

Not sure how i havent seen this until now.

Not to sure on this but I have a similer problem with my high scores. Maybe related to the batterys and memery storage. I have noticed that if I dont play mine for about a wk the #5 high score will drop off and then #4 ect. I went out this past wk and high scores 3-5 were back to zero. I dont have an nvram in mine just a button battery, so maybe its going dead.

Man I wish I could find a nice condition one. It would look great in the Gottlieb lineup.

I do have a big house for trade if anyone has a robo war they want to move

I'm gonna list mine for sale soon. In Germany though...probably doesn't help you. Anyone have thoughts on current market value?

Don’t do it! You’ll regret it!

Not sure how common they are in Europe, but here in the US, I’ve essentially told myself that if I ever sell mine, I’ll likely never find one again at a price I’d be willing to pay.

I stumbled upon mine by sheer, dumb, luck. The gentleman that owned it prior to me, bought it in 1994 from the original operator. In the nearly 30 years he owned it, it was played a bit in the first year, then his kids lost interest. He told me it was basically powered on twice a year from then on there, on Xmas, and the 4th of July for his grandkids and guests to play.

I got it in late Spring of 2021 when he decided to retire and move to Florida.

Game was, as far as I could tell, all original. Including the rubber. I shopped it out, adjusted some switches, touched up some cabinet defects, and put what has to be one of the last remaining NOS translights in it to replace the UV faded original. It's a solid player's game, and one I doubt I'll ever get rid of. It has a tiny bit of playfield wear down by the flippers that I can only surmise was from a lack of wax and cleaning in its first 33 years (not completely worn to wood, but the black dots on the yellow coloring are gone in a small area that I'll eventually retouch). It ran mostly flawless all weekend at Pintastic, aside from a trough switch that needed an adjustment.

I'm planning on finally doing the ground mods at the transformer this week, and would like to replace the fluorescent tube with an led. Is there a straight plug in replacement for the tube? I'd rather not cut anything out of the game to accommodate the swap. I'm pretty sure they have modern tubes that have on-board circuitry that bypass the initial startup voltage from the transformer and starter, and just run off the low voltage run current. Ideally, I'd like to just swap the tube out, and remove the starter. Does such a tube exist?

I replaced my tube with an led batten that fitted in perfect and clips in place so removed easily, these original tubes fade the translite light so do it as soon as possible. Also replaced my translite last year with a new one from Mayfair.
You might be able to get a similar led fitting there.

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Other than swapping in the clips, nothing had to be cut out electrically-wise?

FYI. I have a wanted add for a Robo War here. I have been contacted (by email) from two different email addresses claiming to have one for sale. Both say they are from Texas and use the exact photos from the Pinside game archive. "Both" sellers say they are on pinside but no active account. Sketchy AF.

I guess I'm just making a big deal out of nothing, so I'll just get a regular t8 led bulb, and clip out the transformer and rewire what needs to.

As for the ground mods on RW at the power transformer, is it really as simple as clipping off the 5 connectors from their respective harness bundles, wire nutting the individual wires for each bundle together (but keeping the 5 individual bundles separate for trouble shooting in the future) with a larger gauged wire (12?), removing the old molex connector boards, and connecting the now 5 individual wires to the transformer ground using solderless lugs where the 4 screws that held and grounded the old connectors down before?

It's hard to tell, but there are 5 individual connectors going to the 2 molex boards, they are just stacked 3 on top of one, and 2 on the other.

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This, and also a lot of people didn’t realize that Gottlieb flipper rubber is slightly narrower than the rings B/W used. If you use the fatter rubber, the ball gets slammed into the wood between the flippers, and creates wear. That’s why it’s common on late model Gottlieb games. System 3 titles especially.

Also, check out my post here regarding the replacement lamp:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/home-for-the-gottlieb-sys1-sys-80b-guys-yep-i-guess-it-a-club/page/89#post-6132296

Yup. It’s that simple. They’re all going to the exact same ground plane. You can tie them all together however it best works for you, just as long as the final connection to ground is solid.

Sweet! Thank you!

I removed the running gear and starter to tidy up but could be left in if you wanted. You can see the dark connector block on the right just below the light, that was there already so just kept it. That went to the ballast.
I did my gold wings too.

would anyone be interested in trading there robowar for my excalibur + 400. it would have to be in california. let me know...

Cut out the spotty molex ground connectors and their chintzy solder dipped headers…it still looks strange to me to see wire nuts in a game (my mind screams “NNNoooooo!!!”), but the grounds are solid, and a few test games proved it. Took about a half hour, and was well worth it.3B398A1F-A501-4069-B350-1425AF35C403 (resized).jpeg

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I seriously can’t believe this game popped up for sale literally right up the road from me. I made 2 turns picking it up. I’d never played it (Pinside maps says I have the only one in Illinois but I’m sure that’s not the case) but love TX-Sector and Robo-War always looked like even more fun to me. It’s everything I’d hoped it would be. I was so smitten when I was checking it out that I didn’t even notice that someone at some time drilled a center post, and not well, until I had it home. It shoots great though (that spinner!) and as an 80s kid everything coming out of the speakers is just._perfect.

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Now that Mayfair is out of original translites, is there anyone reproducing them?

Also, word of advice for new robo-war owners, don’t get the led kit from Marco, it’s not accurate and the color choices are awful. For most lights on the machine, warm white frosted work well. The frosted blue under the slings is a nice touch. Also, keeping some of the incandescent for the back panel of lights looks good.

Today Ive added an protector overlay over the original mylar. Was a more work Ive thought it would be. Needed a few hours (with cleaning). Also you have to desolder all pop bumpers. But Im very happy now with the result. The protector makes this great game even more buttery. Game plays as before with the advantage that shoot up the ramp is a lot more easier. Ive also added a bit of mylar on the playfield where the ball drops from the ramp onto the playfield. Ive seen on other playfields that they are were very worn down in this area.

First three images shows the playfield with removed parts. The last three showing the playfield with overlay (shines a lot more in real live)

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Looks great, Extra buttery for sure.

I hope not too much easier! That shot should not be a “gimme.” Since it’s always lit, only perfectly clean shots (like, the cleanest and most perfect), or shots from a speeding ball passing off the flipper, should feed that ramp successfully. A trapped ball off the flipper shouldn’t make it all the way to the lock.

Could not agree more,
...but there are those who don't do well with challenges.

You are right Today Ive had time to play an hour and test the game more into detail. First of all, it is possible to get up the Ramp when ball is trapped on the flipperfinger on a standard unmodded playfield. Its really hard and as you said it has to be more than perfect. But out of lets say 30 shots one goes up the ramp also after trapped on the flipper. I played my robo war nearly every day before I decide to add this protector......and as you said this hard to achieve ramp is one thing what makes the gameplay of this machine so great I did this protector addon because Im scared playing my nice playfield to death

But now to my detailed tests today. Its definitely true! The Rampshot is a lot too easy now. And after playing an hour I had one highscore after another. Strange thing is, that everything else doesnt feel any different as before. But the ramp isnt challenging anymore..... And thats exactly one of the reasons why I love this old fast machines so much, because they are really challenging. My friend has some new stern pinballs.....but for me they are not such satisfying as some of this great short playing old machines. I cant get enough playing them. This new machines are getting boring very fast for me. Its only my personal preference and I dont say that this new machines are bad.....But for me they are not as satisfying. Next machine for me will definitely a rock encore! Machines like this keep me playing all the time and I would never exchange them with a thousands of dollars new highend pinball

Back to my actual problem....... It was a few hours to install this protector. I like how shiny the playfield looks now and I dont want to damage the playfield over time, because its my most played pinball. So Im searching for a solution to make the ramp hard to achieve as it was before. If someone has an idea, would be nice to know it. Otherwise I have to reinstall everything again. Will place the pinball a bit steeper later and will check if this helps.

So be warned....everyone who thinks protectors on robo war are a good idea....DONT DO IT if you dont want to loose the challenging fun of this machine. If I dont find a solution to get my old original gameplay back the protector has to go again very soon

I don’t have any experience with protectors but I wonder if the shots will slow down after a week or so of play like a freshly waxed playfield? Outside of making it steeper, as you mentioned, there’s probably not much more you can do.

I also wanted to add that after just over a week of ownership I’m floored at how great this game is. It might have the simplest ruleset of any 80s game I’ve played, but it’s perfect. Also, I hooked it up a subwoofer just for shits and giggles. Holy crap. It’s crazy that it would take 30 yrs for a game to be released (TNA) that would IMO approach the sounds and music of RW and TX Sector. So cool. Also, that ramp is hilariously hard. Especially since I don’t trust any feed from the in-lanes to the right flipper with that evil Snake Canyon you have to pass.

Making it steeper should help but if it doesn’t you could make some adjustments on the flipper, stronger spring might do it or tighter on the bushing maybe.

Its possible that the protector looses speed over time,-). I have also an protector on my rollergames. But it was been added as I bought the game. But compared to another rollergame without a protector Ive played in the past, there is not really a big difference. Could be that it was another story as the protector was new on my rollergames pinball.
Ive also thought to add a subwoofer Only for this "WRROOARRR" bass sound that we get from the left standup target !!! What a great sound!

Yes, the ramp is such rewarding if you make it up. Also the mentioned "snake canyon is a adrenaline kick for itself. Im be honest....Ive screwed down the tilt bop a lot to be able to nodge the ball more often over the snake canyon. And its even hard to do without tilting the machine.

I will keep you informed if I find a way to get the rewarding original gameplay back on a protected playfield. Playfield looks really great with it. We will see if we find a way to have both...a protected nice looking plyfield and a similar original gameplay at the same time

Would be great to hear from others how their experience is with protectors over time......does the ballspeed decrease over time when the protector has been played a lot?

The flipper adjustments you mentioned are a good idea. I will take this into account......

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Would be great to hear from others how their experience is with protectors over time......does the ballspeed decrease over time when the protector has been played a lot?

I have not noticed any slow down with protectors, my FT has been on there a while now.

Hello again.....i got it!!!

A solution was achieved by a mixture of two things!.....first Ive added a stronger spring, because steepness alone didnt help eneough. After adding shortening a stronger spring to the correct length (the spring on the attached image was even too long and not powerful enough so I had to shorten it more after Ive shot that image). Then I changed steepness of the playfield again for the fine-tuning. So that the ramp is only achieveable when the ball is motion. When trapped on the flipperfinger its only barely possible if you have a lot of luck that everything is timed absolute perfectly (nearly impossible). Gameplay is very similar as before.

But without a stronger spring it is not possible to get the rampshot as it has to be.....even with an extreme steep playfield. So for the first Im happy with the result. Thanks a lot to everyone for the great help/hints Especially to "Lostcause"!

Image: left side original flipper spring, right side modded spring to weaken flipper strength
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It's simplicity is what makes it so perfect since there's no handholding or rules script to follow. It's a choose-your-own-adventure. Build the bonus and go for (risky) multiball where you can build your own best jackpot (if you can even make the jackpot shot), or just go for letters in robo-war early in the game and cash out big with a focus on maxing out the 15x multiplier, all while ripping that sweet sweet spinner and sweeping down those perfectly placed beta targets and shooting down the Alpha targets in the correct order.

MAN! What a game. Great tournament player too, since there's no dominant shot to spam, and no lock stealing. Too bad there aren't more out there. Easily the best Gottlieb, and wipes the floor with many System 11s.