I joined the club yesterday. My DMD has a single column that is not working. Is anyone aware of a fix for that? (Sorry if this has already been covered but I haven't read all of the posts)

$2,300. It's the one that was listed in Des Moines, IA. Jason did a nice job getting it in a great players condition. It's not perfect, but it is just right for my collection (all nice, none perfect). He put on a new coin door, "treasure cove'd" the playfield, put on new legs, protectors, a new Pinscore power supply and the MPU was reworked by lockwhenlit.com (it worked but had some battery acid damage. Some traces were fixed and an nVRam memory chip was installed).

The DMD column issue I can live with, but it did come with the DMD Extender kit if/when the time comes to upgrade. I will upgrade the speakers and change the lighting a little to brighten it up (I'm an old guy and I like to be able to see what I'm doing).

The DMD Extender came with the machine. I will live with the column issue for a while and most likely do the upgrade next winter. Thanks to all for the feedback.

My BF has an English CPU ROM in it. I am going to upgrade to a 4.01 USA ROM for the CPU along with the display ROMs. Do I need to replace the sound and speach ROMs also, or will the current ones work with the new US CPU ROM (I am having no apparent issues with them)?

I ordered the CPU and display ROMs from John Wart Jr. He said the sound and speech ROMs should be fine.

My BF is NOT set to free play and it won't record a credit or fire the knocker when a game is "won". Is there a setting or something else that I'm missing? I have the latest game ROMS and the knocker is turned on in the settings. Help. I love the "pop" when I win a game.

Checked the manual and rechecked the set-up: Set up for a credit when winning a game and the knocker is turned on. The knocker does NOT work when I run the coil test. The wiring has continuity to the driver board and I have already replaced the driver and pre-driver transistors and I obviously need to run that issue to ground, but the thing that I don't get is that (forget the potential knocker issue) no credit is awarded when a game is won (an additional credit is not added to the existing credits). Is it possible that my electrical/electronic issue with the knocker results in no credit awarded when a game is won? Weird.

My bat cannon has some issues that I need to address. It occasionally doesn't recognize that it is loaded when the ball is present (I assume that is as simple as a switch that is dirty or failing). Once loaded and after starting to pan to the right, it won't consistently fire (using either the trigger or the flipper buttons) until it pauses at the right then pans back to the left. After that point, it will properly fire properly using either the trigger or the flippers. Lastly, it has a slight pause or hesitation about half way through the arc when panning from the right to the left. I haven't had one of these apart before, so I am wondering if there are any trips or traps that I should be aware of?

I just did a bargain upgrade to the speakers and sound board on my BF and the results are very impressive. I put Pyle PL42BL 4-Inch two-way speakers in the backbox ($15/pair from Amazon) and an 8 inch sub-woofer (from Parts Express for about $25) in the cabinet. Both dropped in with no alterations necessary. I played a few games and the sound was better, but not as noticeable as I thought it would be.

I then did the following upgrade to the sound board. I found it a while back on some forum, maybe Pinside. The picture is also from that old post:

"Remove R108 on the cpu board (39k) just right the top left amplifier, and replace with a 100k plus a 22nF capacitor in parallel. This will raise the cabinet volume and cut high frequencies, the cabinet is now working like a subwoofer."

The rumble from the sub is awesome! This can be done to any Data East or Sega machine with the three-channel sound (the resistor value is different with the DE games). Here is a post about the upgrade to my DE Time Machine:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/back-in-time-time-machine-club/page/2#post-3096862

pasted_image (resized).png

I am experimenting with a laser pointer mounted on the Batwing of my BF. It tucks up underneath very neatly and is helpful with aiming prior to firing the cannon.

I used a laser sight that I purchased 10 years ago on eBay that was mounted on a pellet gun. You can purchase something similar on eBay in the form of cartridges used for sighting rifles. I took the three button batteries out (4.5 vdc total) and attached wires to both the positive and negative contacts inside of the unit. I cut a groove in the plug/switch at the rear of the unit to allow the wires an exit from the case. Note in the pictures that there are four set screws at the front that allow for aiming the laser (up, down, right, left) once it is attached.

I drilled two holes through the case to allow for 3/4 inch screws to pass through the case to attach the unit to the Batwing. The front hole was drilled a little too close to the front of the unit so I left it out (a screw was cut off after being screwed into the Batwing to act as a pin in the front hole that keeps the unit aligned).

I wired the laser in parallel with the 5 vdc light on the side of the Batwing mounting fixture (the one that flashes when the wing is loaded and ready to fire). That means that the laser also flashes/pulses instead of being a steady light. Does anyone have any ideas on how to wire it so that it is only lit when the cannon is loaded, but has a steady beam instead of pulsing? It still works OK, but it would be better with a steady beam.

Note the red dot in the last three pictures. That is the laser sighting for the cannon as it sweeps.

IMG_1585 (resized).JPG
IMG_1584 (resized).JPG
IMG_1586 (resized).JPG
IMG_1587 (resized).JPG
IMG_1589 (resized).JPG
IMG_1590 (resized).JPG
IMG_1591 (resized).JPG
IMG_1592 (resized).JPG

IMG_1595 (resized).JPG

I just completed a project wherein I replaced the TIP42 transistors with MOSFETs and removed the 27 ohm cement resistors in the lamp matrix section of the MPU from my Batman Forever, Time Machine and High Speed (the lamp matrix circuitry is nearly identical for all of them). The changeover is seamless and the result is much lower heat in the backbox and the risk of heat damage to the MPU board is eliminated (the cement resistors get very hot). I used 1/2 watt resistors instead of the 1/4 watt mentioned in Pinwiki. Here is a link to the Pinwiki section that addresses the enhancement:

http://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Data_East/Sega#Using_MOSFETs_in_the_Lamp_Matrix_Circuitry

Here are a couple of pictures of the front and back of the BF MPU upon completion of the work. Note the discoloration on the board from the heat of the large resistors:

IMG_1675 (resized).JPG

IMG_1676 (resized).JPG