Would like to find a new playfield or over-lay for this game someday.

Looking for a reproduction play field and back glass, CPR does not have any in stock or their distributors. Just pick up one as a rebuild project, everything else is in good shape except the play field and back glass.

Question...I have a Firepower 2 and it works fine. I can't seem to figure out why the score displays scroll all the time. I know it's suppose to when you have a ball locked, but this happens from the start. I thought that I had read somewhere on another Williams game, that you could turn that feature on or off.

Any help or ideas?
Mike

Good luck with this guys, basically unobtainium. There are a few out there but they are extremely hard to come by. I think CPR only made around 250 (that number sticks in my head but don't quote me). I looked high and low for one, all over North America. I was extremely lucky and found that a local pinball tech who lives 10 minutes away from me had one. And apparently mine was one of the last few completed by CPR. You can tell because the arrows that point at the 6 centre stand ups are clear arrows rather than orange. I read that CPR ran out of orange inserts and didn't just want to just leave the last few playfields unfinished so they use clear arrows instead. No problem for me, orange LEDs work just fine.

Travish just scored one a couple months ago off of Ebay I think. Price was around $1200 USD.

You may want to keep an eye on this thread and see if they decide to make a Firepower hardtop.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/hardtop-playfield-new-product-announcement-poll-included

As for new backglasses, they can still be had through Mayfair Amusements in NYC. Look back a few posts. Not cheap, but they are original Williams that were done in a second run a few years after the game was released. The colours are a bit different but it looks a million times better than my original.

FYI, I've been watching the Hard top thread as well. I have an extra original FP playfield in ok shape (think I posted pics of removing mylar earlier this month)... I contacted the Hard top folks offering them to use it for creating a firepower version of their product. They haven't said yes, but they haven't said no. I've delayed applying Max2K to it until they can decide one way or the other. REALLY hope it can happen!

-Rob
-visit http://www.kahr.us to get my daughterboard that helps fix WPC pinball resets or for my Williams system 3-7 sound board potentiometer solutions

My Firepower II displays did the same thing, scrolling continuously...it is not a setting. You need to look at the hi voltage section of the power supply. One of my 2 100v caps was only giving around 50v. Since the traces were coming away from the board I just put in a new XPIN power supply which solved the problem. I'm very sure replaceing the 100v caps would have worked.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-bulletproofing-williams-system-6/page/2#post-957584

I had a similar issue where an IC that grounded through the rightmore battery holder to the back of the board (original firepower) was no longer grounding, putting the machine into eternal test mode and scrolling through the test numbers.

Thanks I will check those caps. I am sure it is not an issue with the MPU as I recently replaced it and the display driver with a Rottendog combo board. The scrolling continued with the new board.
Mike

Mine has the Rottendog combo board too, as well as new sound and speech boards

Look again. Is it scrolling (Characters stepping from left to right) or strobing (characters staying in position, but being displayed left to right)? If it's strobing, it's the bad caps. They're not filtering anymore, so you have the high voltage DC pulsing and it's arguing with the strobe rate of the display circuits.

Best of luck.

You are not going to find a PF for a reasonable price, that's for certain.

Just as a corollary, I got mine for about $225, one to restore, that is.

Yes they are strobing as you see the score but the entire display runs from left to right with the score there. It's a Bitch on the credits and ball in play trying to setup as you can only see one of the numbers at a time. Audit #12 shows as 1 ....then 2... then 1...then 2.

The strobing left to right is indeed exactly what mine was doing.

I was able to find a back glass. You'd think that with over 17,000 production pieces, CPR would of made more than 250 pieces of the Firepower play field. I have sent them a couple of emails trying to pick their brain to see if they would make another production run. I have yet to receive an email back. I can't even find an overlay reproduction for this thing. I'm at the point of thinking about sanding the whole play field down and customizing my own graphics for it.

image (resized).jpg

If I had the right kind of scanner, I'd scan mine so you could make your own overlays...perhaps someone else with a scanner would offer to do that for you?

If I had a Cruze scan of a NOS Firepower playfield who could I get to make the overlay for my game?
If I remember right CPR only made 150 reproduction playfields. Which is surprising given how many are out there.

if i remember correctly, it wasn't easy for CPR to get/find the inserts for that playfield, maybe that's one of the reason.

Man, this looks challenging but if you wanted to put in umpteen hours with photoshop, decals, touch ups and clear coat etc, it is definitely salvageable. Mine was almost this bad and spent tons of time and very happy with the result, and it was an excellent opportunity to hone a bunch of restoration skills. I do have some old pf scan files (quite large) so pm if interested.

So I was faced with pretty much the same situation with my firepower project and decided to give the "sand it and paint it" route a shot. Holy cow that's a pile of work! I screwed up my first attempt so I had the privilege of doing it a second time. It's out for clear coat now, fingers crossed everything comes out fine!
This route is one option, if you enjoy a challenge and recognize that the end result won't be exactly as original or look like a CPR Gold. (For some reason my pics are all posted in reverse order, whoops). One day soon I will start a separate thread for my project so any of you firepower addicts can follow along

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oh man, double thumbs up on this, very very well done.

I have two of these that need playfields, there should be enough interest to have CPR do another run, or I'm gonna turn them into coffee tables, lol.

anybody looking for a firepower 2 in super nice condition? if so pm me

That is some absolutely insane artwork...wonderful job.

Phenomenal job on that playfield, you can be proud of how that came out. Can't wait to see the cleared and populated playfield.

So I've started cleaning the FP machine I inherited from my in-laws. I'm not having to do too much to it but there is some warping in the plastics. The graphics are fine but the slingshot plastics are bowed.

Does anyone know if this can be corrected without ruining the graphics? I've been thinking hair drier to heat and a big heavy book to flatten.

Any suggestions or ideas will be appreciated.

From a DIY approach, that's VERY nice work there.

Walamab -

There's lots of threads on how to straighten warped plastics - do the search.

I'm not sure a hair dryer is hot enough. I think everyone has their own opinions on what works best. Personally, I use a hot air gun from a distance, slowly warm up the entire piece, and let gravity do its thing. I put the plastic on a clean piece of glass so it does not pick up any dirt- the plastic is soft and can pick up stuff pretty easy.

Read all the opinions and decide what you think will work best for you. Good Luck

you can leave it under the sun between pieces of glass.
put them in the oven.
use a heat gun, this is what i do, take your time, don't melt the plastics, you'll see them go flat when it's hot enough.

I had warped slings on my Hurricane...i put them on a glass table and warmed them with a hair dryer on hot setting. Does not get too hot so no real risk of melting just have to be patient. Held only 6 inches or so and after maybe 5 minutes they flattened nicely. I set parchment and a ceramic tile on them to cool, worked perfectly.

That is absolutely amazing! Great job!

WOWSA !, great job on the DIY Artwork. Can't wait to see it cleared !!!!

I use the oven and ceramic pizza stone with parchment paper, then the plastic, another layer of parchment then a super flat cast iron dish I have. Works like a charm.

Whatever method you use, make sure the plastics are super clean before you start. Whatever dirt is on them may get embedded in the plastic when you soften them to flatten them. I use Novus 2 to clean both sides. Go slow on the painted side as eventually, Novus 2 will scrub through the paint if you go that long...

Hi guys. I finally created a thread for my project. So if you are bored out of your skull or have chronic insomnia, check it out
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/firepower-restoration-with-a-few-twists

What temperature?

-Rob
-visit http://www.kahr.us to get my daughterboard that helps fix WPC pinball resets or for my Williams system 3-7 sound board potentiometer solutions

I play it safe and warm it up to around 150, heat the plastic for 10 minutes or so and let it cool with the weight on top to let them cool flat. They will typically still spring back up at this cool temp if left to cool without the weight on top. Very little risk of distorting the plastics at this low temp.

Here's my baby with the system 7 CPU firepower deluxe roms and speech as well as 7 digit display and other mods. I love her!

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what is the difference between regular roms and the deluxe roms?

Deluxe rules only work on system 7 CPU they introduce 4 new modes as well as a 5k spinner reward within the first min of playtime. Check the link below this posting. It has made a great game even more challenging. I will never go back to the original rom, the game is so much better now!

http://www.pinball4you.ch/okaegi/pro_softfirepowerdeluxe.html

thanks for the infos and the link.

Thanks to everyone for the great advice on flattening warped plastics. None of the techniques seem to tough. I'll give it a try later this week.

Thanks again!

Sorry to be an info leech but I'm having trouble finding a part that shouldn't be that tough to get. I need to replace one of the transparent red lane guides for F-I-R-E. I ordered what I thought was the right one (correct color and size) but it had ridges on the underside of the plastic.

I'm looking for one without these ridges. Does anyone know where to find this specific type of lane guide that is smooth on the back side? I purchased the one with ridges from pinballlife.com and I contacted pbresource.com but theirs have ridges too.

Thanks in advance...again....

Pretty sure the ridgeless lane guides for FP are unobtainium.

Bummer, I guess I'll just use red LEDs under them to get account for some of the weird problem I'm seeing with their color.

Thanks for the info.

I opted for the hair dryer on hot setting to flatten my warped plastics. It worked GREAT! Thanks for the tips!

I heated each plastic for 3-5 minutes on a granite counter top until I noticed it relax a bit. I then placed a large glass casserole dish on top of it until it cooled...voila...flat plastics .

Thanks again!

Try Mayfair for the backglass they have the reproduction in stock.

Here's a weird one for you guys...I've gotten my FP playable and looking pretty good. I left it on for a while just to see what happens. After about an hour just about every sound in the game started triggering and it ultimately popped the solenoid fuse (F2). I checked for obvious issues (other than the blown fuse) and everything looks fine. I replaced the fuse and everything works and plays fine. I'm gonna chalk this up to a fluke but if it happens again I may have to get some help.

It was lonely and wanted to play. Sorry I will leave now.

Thanks for all your help so far, now that I have replaced all the ROM sockets my problems have changed, when you first fire the game up the LED's blink once then go off, will not go into attract, push the lower button for self test on MPU board, no LED's come on, checked for waveforms on the CPU, getting activity, I have removed the stock battery holder, checked the voltage on the 5101 and replaced the 5101. I will start again on it tonight, I have a Leons test ROM, a O scope and DVMs at my disposal, thanks again, I can't wait to get this game running again,

This made me laugh out loud .