Warsaw
Today I finished some of the upgrades on my TOTAN. This thread will be updated as I go on, so make sure to favourite it if you're interested.
What's done:
- LED conversion (missing a few bulbs, waiting for the mailman)
- treasure chest mod
- gold trim
- gold flipper bats
- bazaar homebrew scoop light
- gold plunger ball
- gold newton balls
- pinblades
What's left to do:
- skeleton mod
- 24k gold plating of the apron
- 24k gold plating of the sword
- 24k gold plating of the skill shot assembly
- switching out washers for lexan ones
- pop bumper LEDs
- gold lamp
- replace the bazaar/harem plastic
- replace rubbers (I'm not racist, but rubberwise I prefer white)
- playfield touch ups (only after serious consideration), but the cleaning will also allow me to fix ALL the damage and get all LEDs in there
- cabinet touch ups (mostly specks of black here and there)
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By no means is this game new. I bought it in January 2015, and it's the game that got me into pinball. Again, by no means is this when my adventure with pinball started. I knew what it was since I was a child, but the only time I properly got into it was in 2010 on a skiing trip where I actually spent more time playing the one pinball machine they had than skiing. You can probably guess what that game was.
I bought this TOTAN for €4000, which, considering this title and the state in which it was in, was a real bargain. I'm quite comfortable in listing the price since I will never ever part with this game. To me it's priceless. The playfield is in excellent condition, only some wear near the pop bumpers and the scoops. The only thing that pestered this game from the time I got it until two weeks ago was battery leakage onto the CPU board. I replaced it with a Rottendog board.
Most of the upgrades took place across the two years since I bought this pin. I've had the lockdown bar powdercoated gold. I didn't want the chrome gold/brass trim because, and I don't mean to insult anyone, it's just my opinion, it looks crap. But, as I've said, that's just the way I see it. I saw the MMR gold trim and I thought that looks much better, so I've decided to get that. The lockdown bar was done a long time ago, possibly over a year, but back then I didn't really know where I was going with this TOTAN. Today, I picked up the rest of the metal elements from the painting facility.
- TRIM -
I took the siderails and legs off the other day. I only gave the two front legs for painting since I have a spare set that I'll replace that are also powdercoated gold, so I didn't want to have half of a leg set painted gold.
Siderail installation was pretty simple. I used siderail tape from Ministry of Pinball, it's very strong and I'm happy with the results. I clamped it for an hour, then put all the screws back and put the lockdown bar in.
- LED SKYLIGHT -
As I've mentioned, my TOTAN has an LED conversion, but I always thought that the translite lighting was a bit dim (I took it apart a few weeks ago and noticed that half of the LEDs were not lighting up, so no wonder...). After fixing the LEDs it was still not colourful enough for me. When it comes to translites, I'm a superbright freak.
I took an LED strip and adapter, and I installed them in the translite box. The WPC95 solution is so annoying... I get really frustrated when I have to get something done in the backbox in my TOTAN when I know how much easier it is in my TZ or CFTBL. I have no idea why they changed it...
Once the strip was installed, I soldered the adapter wires to my mod wires. They're excellent, and you can really feel the quality. It's a shame that I can't remember where I got them from as I'm running low. I isolated the wires with tape. The LED strip is powered through the 12V test point on the power board - it's the most convenient solution.
The result is amazing. The sky is a beautiful deep blue (I got the LED strip to shine blue). I can see the difference even in broad daylight. I'll post another picture in the evening when it's dark so that you can really see the colour.
I remembered that I had an adapter so I didn't end up soldering the wires and isolating these connectors, but that was how I did the lake lighting on my CFTBL.
Hockley
Van Alstyne, TX
