As someone with a 2 pin collection that has two of the top 5... I like it a lot.

I love my System 11's (BC / ES / TAXI / DINER / DD / GS / MA / WW).

I was surprised they felt Game Show was not desirable. IMHO: It's a beautiful looking game: mirrored backglass, fun, quirky TV game show with host Keith McTeeth. I powder coated my armor a deep red color.

My all time Favorite... Whirlwind. However, I've never owned or even played Radical. May need to be on the lookout for that one

I think High Speed is ranked too high on this list. While it was innovative, it's not particularly deep relative to other System 11s. Taxi is too low on their list. There's more to do in Taxi than High Speed, and it's flat out more fun to play. It should be at least #2 or #3. No issues with Whirlwind being #1. It's Pinside's top System 11 machine as well. Whirlwind vs. Taxi - While Whirlwind is deeper and has a terrific layout, there's something satisfying playing Taxi. It just makes you feel happy. It's fun!

I know Police Force isn't the most desirable title, with the unlimited millions center ramp and steal high score - I'm looking for one for the wife. If she doesn't end up liking it, I will swap it for a Taxi. Have room for two pins in an unfinished area of the basement, and one will eventually be a Whirlwind when the time comes.

I like that list, but more because it keeps the games I want in the avoid list and thus less expensive. I find it funny that I've had a Road Kings, Game Show and Riverboat Gambler and currently have Big Guns, Police Force, and the "middle of the pack" Bad Cats and Dr. Dude.

Games are subjective. I feel that High Speed, while a great machine, shouldn't be in the top 10, but I understand it's relevance in the pinball world.

Most of the other top 10 I don't have any issue with. I'll keep loving my bottom feeder System 11's

Would love to own an Earthshaker or Whirlwind some day.

Chris

Couldn't agree with you more. Gameshow is terrific fun!

I was also surprised to see Mousin' Around in the "middle of the pack." I'd rate that game higher than Earthshaker any day.

I want a Rollergames, fun player and the earworms on that one will annoy one of my pin buddies to no end.
Win-win for me!

^^^

The above posts are why I don’t like lists.

Hey - that blog guy is welcome to share his thoughts.

But just because someone wrote a list and put it on the internet doesn’t make it some sort of factual thing. It’s just one guys opinion - and as we know, opinions are just like …

Do yourself a favour and play the games and make your own decisions. Odds are you’ll probably like some of the games he doesn’t rate.
I know I do.

rd

Road kings is a sleeper and should be in the next tier up. Great shooter.
Space Station is ranked too high.

Pinbot and Taxi are also higher than WW imo.

Same goes for reviews.

It’s just some guys opinion.

I get it all the time with pinball - “someone said on IPDB/Pinside that blah blah”. I always say “Why does it matter what some random guy in Nebraska thinks?” Half the time they say that they played the game in an arcade “years ago”. Lol.

I’m a big movie watcher - I’ll read reviews but more to get an outline of a movie.

It got to the point in the 2000s where if the NZ Herald movie reviewer liked a movie - I knew I wouldn’t. And if he hated it, it was probably one for me. So his reviews worked for me.

Ard

I love system 11 pins, and for 15 years i have enjoyd WW the most, and allways said ww was the best system 11 ever, untillllllllll i got me a Radical, oh man i love this pin, so cool, so fun, made a first impression video of radical, sharing my love:

Exactly, just thought to get your opinion Dave - totally fine either way.
Everyone has different tastes, many folks just don’t have the access you do to some of the rare ones. Always appreciate different perspectives as we are all system 11 junkies!

Of course, that’s the big problem.

Some of these games aren’t seen around much.

Clays VFW has probably 25 of the 30 SYS 11s (when I was there last) - looked like they had most of them.

PHOF has a bunch - museum of pinball would have been heading towards having most of them before they closed up.

And of course if you happen to be in NZ you can come play all of them at my place. They even all work!

rd

My local arcade just got a Radical and I love it! Super fun to shoot, even though I don't know what I'm doing yet.

1/ spell radical - either by shooting all the letters, or shatzing the inlanes (advanced technique).

2/ lock a ball in one of the three lock locations

3/ repeat 1

4/ repeat 2

5/ shoot left ramp for jackpot - MEGA MILLIONS!

Handy hints:

- 3 centre drop targets advance bonus X and light SNAKE RUN for random award. Can be valuable. Hit the target past the drops for the award

- 3 drops on the right reveal timed shot at a single stand up. This will either spot a Radical shot, or award 1M when lit. You have 10 seconds (ish) to hit it

- top right ramp is generally lit for 1M points.

- left SNAKE LANE awards extra ball after a certain amount of SNAKE letters

- tail slider will light at left centre ramp - shoot it and ball will go around the whirlpool, drop down so you can shoot it over and over for 100k a shot.

Easy!

I’ve been getting plenty of practice, with one in my lounge.

rd

88A2AB75-A979-4009-88A7-6EE4791638CD (resized).jpeg

sign me up !

Sign me up. Currently DINER and recently traded a Jokerz. Enjoy playing most all system 11s machines .

sign me up!
How have i missed this???

Clear coated playfield ..

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Meet completely rebuilt cabinet …

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I see more work in my future …

rd

That looks fantastic with chrome side rails.

Looking forward to the end result!

Those are “bright stainless”. They’re made of BA (bright annealed) stainless, the most shiny type of stainless steel.

Guy in Australia makes them. Railways.

He has three options, original brushed stainless, BA stainless, and raw steel (for powdercoating)

I use them on all my restores.

I was originally going to do this Taxi with all black metalwork … but chickened out. The shiny stuff looks pretty good.

rd

Don't forget to add fuses for the rectifiers or use a Bridge Board.
I hate to see your Taxi go up in smoke.
http://home.kpn.nl/inkochnito/bridge_board.htm

Peter

Taxi is 11B. According to your document, 11B would not apply since I see the use of a fuse on each of the bridge rectifiers on the auxiliary board.

I stand corrected!
You are right.
Taxi uses an aux. power board which has one those rectifiers on board with a fuse.
The only single rectifier is for the controlled lamps, which has its own fuse.

In need of insert decals for my Millionaire , does anyone have a lead on where to buy them? Or another idea on how to fix it? Thanks!

-Rob

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Hello everyone, my diner pin is not involved, the display remains dark, only the VDC diode lights up briefly when switching on. ( 1 sec ) I checked all backups and are OK.
with the PSB I have: TP3 = plus 12 volts, TP1 = plus 5.6 volts, R13 has a resistance of 2
Can you please tell me what else I should measure to find the error
Many thanks in advance and greetings
Sorry for my english im from Switzerland
Tom

Taxi is getting there …

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I decided to try something different under the cabinet … seeing as it was a new ply bottom.
I routed out two grooves and ran some RGB strip. It’ll have its own switch on the left.

Fancy pants LEDs is not something I usually do, but what the heck! Only live once.

rd

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Anyone know where to get replacement speaker grills? I really just need the mesh, I will paint it.

E48408B2-A584-4779-A046-69B410B32BCF.png

Will they actually work and have your support? I’d rather support Victor. He’s not flakey and his boards are far superior. Just my opinion.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/grand-opening-of-the-pinball-basement-check-it-out/page/5#post-6719941

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/grand-opening-of-the-pinball-basement-check-it-out/page/5#post-6718379

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/grand-opening-of-the-pinball-basement-check-it-out/page/5#post-6688127

Make a good product and be supporting or don’t. You haven’t been an asset.

It’s great that you’re making the new boards.

I think the biggest issue raised is the lack of communication (no replies to emails etc)

Like it or not, we live in an Amazon world these days and everyone wants a timely response to their email.

I would suggest getting someone (family member, maybe an assistant) to handle all the emails and repair requests, and set up a ticket system or something.

Nothing is more frustrating than not getting a reply to an email.

Rottendog were like that - their SYS3-7 board had a bunch of issues (their SYS11 isn’t great either) - you’d send them an email with a question, 10-20% chance you’d get a reply back.

So I stopped buying their stuff. Easy as that.

So again, awesome you’re cranking out the new boards. The market needs them. Just up the QC testing and the customer service and you’ll do well.

rd

Check out the mantis protector for the departure ramp. I put one on my Taxi,and now I don’t have to keep glueing the cracks in the ramp,every other week. Some Taxi owners added it to their new ramps to prevent them from cracking again.
You don’t even know it’s there when you play.

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Yeah ramp protectors are great.

Especially when a set of ramps costs us Kiwis like $500 bucks (landed). Jeeeezzzzz!

I actually have some stainless sheet so I’ll make some up for my Taxi.

I recently made some for Cyclone (don’t think you can buy them) and they came up great.

We need to be a bit self sufficient down here at the bottom of the world.

rd

Posted this on Facebook (Pinball Repair Help group), but I'm posting my question here too:

A friends Whirlwind suddenly lost half of the power to the coils: flippers and other coils are much weaker then before.
Any advice other then fuses and connectors?

Thanks!

Fuse will be ok or they wouldn’t work at all. But check the holders and make sure fuses are tight.

Get the manuals solenoid chart and mark what things aren’t working properly. Are they on a common plug?

Read the voltages at the test points.

Check molex plugs. Are all the wires in there nice and snug? Not uncommon for old wires to be brittle and be half hanging out of their slots.

Check soldering on the male header plugs on the boards.

Remember WW has the interconnect board so voltages pass from the bottom of the MPU through the IC board to the coils. Check the plugs and cables that join the boards. Those tiny wires like to break. I just had a Pool Sharks (same vintage) that I had to redo every interconnect wire.

That’s a good start.

rd

Wow rotordave thank you! Will try/check this and report back

Police force issue (yes, again)

Right flipper not working. Coil is good. EOS is good. Did a switch test and the right flipper switch does not register at all. I replaced the switch and it still is not registering. I didn't see any issues with the wiring at all, but who knows.

Anything else I should look for?

Chris

How to test …

Get the switch matrix sheet. (See pic)

Locate your switch.

In this case, right flipper pins are 1J8 pin 9 - and 1J10 pin 9 on the bottom of the MPU.

Put the machine in switch test, and jumper those pins together with a wire.

The test should beep and show right flipper.

By doing that, you know your MPU is ok - and your problem is downstream (literally - below) the MPU board.

Either bad plugs between MPU and interconnect, or bad sockets on interconnect, or broken wire to the flipper switch from interconnect.

The meter is your friend here - buzz out the connections and see where the broken link is.

But test MPU first so then you’ll know that’s ok.

rd

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There are three switches or buttons that are part of this circuit.

1. Cabinet button
2. EOS
3. Lane change

flipper_circuit.jpg

1. The cabinet button simply closes the path to ground. Assuming the flipper relay is energized then the path to ground is completed. This physical switch is not detected in any way.
2. The EOS is used to break current flow through the high power winding to the low power winding. This physical switch is not detected in any way.
3. The lane change switch is on the switch matrix and the only switch that is detected in any way. This switch will register in the switch test when closed. There are two 4N25 optocouplers (one for left and one for right) on the interconnect board that are where the switch "closure" happens.

You can verify the CPU board switch matrix detection circuitry by doing the test that rotordave describes. If the CPU board switch matrix circuitry is broken everything in the playfield wiring is irrelevant.

Once you verify that the CPU detects the switch closure correctly enter switch test and press the cabinet button. The flipper should energize and the switch should register in the test. If the switch does not register suspect the 4N25 optocoupler. You can test this with a DMM diode test.

Reference: https://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Williams_System_9_-_11#4N25_Opto_Couplers_in_the_Switch_Matrix

thank you, I will look into this when I get home this evening.

Chris

Be aware that the opto isolators are located on the Backbox Interconnect Board.
There are 3 of them.

Anyone like road kings more than high speed?

I owned a hs for a few years. I now own road kings for a few months. Actually like rk better. Just more fun to play. I get into it more.

I shopping one out now, I love Highspeed and hoping now that I’ll love Road Kings too! I’ll let you know!

Ive had both, and I think I liked the Road Kings better also. Just seemed like a lot more to do and faster!

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Ya. For me it’s about increasing multipliers. And the locks obviously. The shots are just better.

Underrated as hell. Music and call outs are great.

Road Kings is great fun.

I was actually thinking about this the other day … are Mark Ritchie SYS11 games better than Steve Ritchie? Blasphemous!

Mark: Road Kings, Taxi, Diner etc

Steve: F14, Bk2000, Rollergames

Food for thought!

rd

Add in FT and that argument isn't as crazy as it sounds.