Anyone have an upper left plastic for me? Mine is cracked, DM me if you do have one lying around. Thanks!

Anyone have a firepower they want to sell me?

Huh, only just now saw this thread. I'll have to spend some time reading it.

I bought this as my first table almost 4 years ago. Within a month I tore the whole thing apart, and then let it sit for 3 1/2 years. I just got EBD as my 2nd table a month or so ago, and it has lit the fire in me to get back to work on Firepower. I've got a whole thread about it here...

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/firepower-my-first-pin-my-first-teardown

...but the quick version is I'm about to try my hand at clear coating in a few days. Since the paint is flaking off in places, I have to do this first before attempting any painting myself. Originally I thought about doing a full restore attempt, but reality about my abilities has set in and I think I'm just gonna do some basic stuff, redo all the insert numbers, and then do a final clear. In other words, make it a players table that happens to show it's age. Like when guys clear coat the patina of an old car.

So I'm taking the leap and getting setup to try to produce cast inserts. Vacuum chamber and pump are on the way and sample materials have been ordered. I'm going to start with the blue crescent "POWER" insert that appears to have become unobtanium. May take a few weeks to get decent results. But I'll post back here if I succeed

I can't believe the ambition of those here!

How about laser cutting the hot dog inserts out of colored acrylic?

Does anyone even make replacements for the 2 hot dog replacements? Cpr had them on the reproductions.?

Infrastructure for laser cutter is out of my price range but that is a good idea . It might be a little tough to do anything but flat inserts though.

You can get the red one from Mr. Pinball (mrpinball.com.au) in Australia. $5.00US each plus around $25US for shipping. I found Teal hot dog replacements for my STTNG there. The blue one is listed at Bay Area Amusements (www.bayareaamusements.com) but has been out of stock for a long time (hence my focus on the blue one).

What are some of the most reliable after market CPU and Driver Boards for Firepower? Have been having strange issues with my Firepower and I'm considering buying some after market boards in hopes of bullet-proofing it. Thanks!

Fred Swemmer

I have great luck with rottendog but others have had a issue here and there but say their customer service is good. You also can try pinballpcb but notice their website says they have discontinued making Williams boards. WTF.

Best bet is to get the original repaired if possible. Clive had always done a great job on all of my original boards. I have had issues with the rotten dog boards in my Williams and data east machines. Mostly the sound and speech calls were incorrect compared to the factory boards.

firepower, what an awesome and undervalued game. i think i bought mine for $950. it has a VERY nice original playfeild its somewhere around an 8 or 9, i know how bad some of them are this one is nice shape. i replaced the balls, the cabinet switches, installed a fuse at the bridge rectifier, installed LED's and replaced the backglass with a mayfair NIB. the back glass cost an arm and a leg but makes the game look allot better. i probably have in total $1300 or so into this game. its such a blast to play and i think one of the best, if not THE very best early solid state. oh, i also got the damn batteries off of the undamaged, clean board. that is the 3rd game i bought that still had board mounted batteries, havent people learn ANYTHING about acid damage and screwed up boards. if you going to spend $1k or more sometimes much more on a game, isnt it worth $3 for a battery holder. my apollo 13 game had the plastic holder mounted to the board. i desoldered that thing and ran wire right to back of the existing battery holder. it literally cost me a few pennies in wire and solder. board mounted batteries were dumb back in the day, but today its just downright stupid because we all know what can AND will happen if they leak.

I'll keep mine then! Thanks for the tip. I'll get them touched up soon!

Yes on my black knight the laugh in attract mode after he says I will slay you is missing. Other than that I "think" they are all there?

I had many voice calls missing on gorgar and firepower as well as my black knight with that combo board. Some switches were triggering the wrong sounds as well it was night and day when I put the original board back in all was well!

Can anyone give me the rubber sizes on Firepower II or at minimum the slingshot rubber size?

Common slingshot rubber ring is 2 1/2"

I printed a rubber sizing chart and put my sling rubber on it and it's measuring 4 1/2". Seems big.

https://www.titanpinball.com/kits/index.php/view/id/510

My firepower kit I used these sizes. My kit and sizes are listed under Jim C. Sling is 2 1/2" on original firepower. Not sure about II.

My ST has 2 1/2", but the FPII has bigger slings on it. The previous owner added the rubbers and maybe he used a bigger rubber on the slings than it needed. They do seem a little loose, but work well.

hello again everyone...I found a somewhat mangled pop bumper switch stack on my FP and have a question. There is a capacitor connected in series with a resistor between the negative (black/green wire) side of the high voltage (25V) switch and the positive (red/orange) side of the switch. One of the leads of this cap is broken so I need to replace it. The problem is I can't tell what size (uF) cap to use. I can tell it's 25V but can't read the capacitance.

What does this cap and resistor do and can anyone tell me what its capacitance should be?

Thanks a million!

I believe (but don't quote me) the switch is there to slow down the logic enough to avoid false positives with the electronics. It's a 22uF and the voltage can be 25V or greater...

https://www.greatplainselectronics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=CEA-22uF-50V-RMD

There is no high voltage on Williams switch/solenoid
activation circuit. The circuit is designed to hold the
signal low for a moment. +5v to Gnd. The solenoid
its self has the high voltage of +28 volts DC.

Excellent info. Thanks for responding. I incorrectly assumed the switch was directly activating the solenoid. But now that I think about it what you said makes perfect sense.

Thanks again

You'll find is two sets of contacts on pop bumpers (or, as the documentation refers to them, Jet Bumpers). A low voltage set that sends a signal to the computer for scoring, and a high voltage, high current set to fire the pop bumper. The resistor/capacitor combination is on the high voltage set. It reduces arcing and helps to save the contacts. According to the schematics, it's 22uF.

OK...my Firepower was looking lonely, so I picked up a Firepower II last weekend (does that make me a double-member of the club?). It is a project machine, so I suspect care and repair are going to keep me quite busy for the foreseeable future.

One thing that I really like is being able to go to the Planetary Pinball site to view the parts catalog for Firepower (just wish I could download an off-line copy). I'm not seeing one on their site for the Firepower II.

Can anyone point me to a place where I could view the Firepower II parts catalog online, or to a place where I could obtain a copy?

Thanks

So I Finally got a Firepower! AND a sweet backglass from @antennaejim.

Unfortunately I seem to be having an issue with I believe the driver board.

When you power on, the MPU boots and it goes into attract mode, but for some reason all the solenoids fire at once and blow the 2.5a fuse.

I've checked the PS and everything looks ok.

I don't completely understand the blanking signal and how the PIA works, but am I correct if the blanking signal is always high for some reason, it would make them all fire?

Doesn't the PIA for controlled lamps use the same blanking though?

Travish any thoughts, you've always been very helpful to me.

I can't help to much except to say unplug solenoid connector to the playfield and see if a fuse still blows. At least you can eliminate the playfield and narrow it down to the board. You should make a thread in the tech section and more people will see it.

Have you replaced the 40 pin between the CPU and driver boards?

The blanking circuit is supposed to keep the blanking signal LOW while the CPU and PIA's are in an unknown state to prevent the exact issue you are having. Once the CPU starts and initializes everything, the CPU brings the blanking signal high to enable operation of the solenoids and such.

Might want to start your own troubleshooting thread to keep all your troubleshooting advice and what you have done all in one place.

Ghost in the machine ?
I was working on my Firepower the other night, POWER OFF, Play-field propped up. I was working underneath at the Top of the game when I brushed the Flasher in the "POWER" INSERT with a hand and it lit up !........ WTF !. I tapped it a few times and it went on and off and fluttered like it was Ghosting a bit. NOW, the FIRE & POWER Inserts are lit all the time during Game play only, not in attract mode ???
Any suggestions as to where to start would be greatly appreciated. My Pinball Electronics knowledge is about a LOW 4 .....
Thanks in advance.

The power off is concerning. Are the Flashers LEDs? I ran into a problem with mine in that the "warming" circuit for the flashers was causing the LED flashers I put in to stay on all the time. I cut the black ground wire to the little board with the warming circuit resistors and it solved the problem. I haven't heard anything about this circuit being powered with the switch off so this is just a guess.

Yes, they are LED'S, part of a Cointaker kit. I did notice since install that the two Flashers were the only thing that ghosted but it was always very subtle, didn't bother me that much. So just snip the Diode wire connected to them ?. Since I posted I've noticed a few lights out, that seem very random ie. One arrow that points to the left Kick out and the Top one of the three Power target lamps & the 20, 9 & 4 of the center string of lamps, the 10,000 lamp and the right S special lamp & Fire Again. Bizarre. I'm going to have to get out the wiring diagram an try and hunt this down.

So it really doesn't sound like its your warming board for the flashers. I had some random coil problems similar to what you are describing for lights and flashers. I ended up going through the system 6 bullet proofing steps in this thread https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-bulletproofing-williams-system-6 . The step that fixed my problems was replacing the 40 pin inter-board connector. The guide does a good job of explaining things (its by Vid after all). The 40 pin can be a bear to de-solder and remove but Vids guide has some suggestions on how to more easily accomplish it. He even tells you where to get the parts.

Since all the lights and coils are connected via the driver board (2J7 Lamp Row drive, 2J6 Lamp Ground and 2J5 Lamp column drive) it seems to me it could be a 40 pin connector issue. Of course if you've already replaced the connector this is obviously not the problem.

Short of that I could only suggest "ringing" out the wires to the troublesome lamps to ensure no opens or shorts or bad solder joints.

I'm not an expert by any means but I'll try to continue to help. Good luck!

Just looked at the lamp matrix form the manual. The lamps you are having issues with are all on Row one of the lamp matrix (Red-Brown wire). This could narrow the problem (if its not the 40 pin connector) to 2J7 on the bottom of the driver board. Pin 1 of this connector is Row 1 (right most pin when looking at the connector with Red-Brown wire).

I would start "ringing" out with a meter at this pin and work through each lamp to ensure there isn't a loose connection.

Hope this helps.

Just looked at the lamp matrix form the manual. The lamps you are having issues with are all on Row one of the lamp matrix (Red-Brown wire). This could narrow the problem (if its not the 40 pin connector) to 2J7 on the bottom of the driver board. Pin 1 of this connector is Row 1 (right most pin when looking at the connector with Red-Brown wire).

I would start "ringing" out with a meter at this pin and work through each lamp to ensure there isn't a loose connection.

Hope this helps.

oops the 9 lamp on the center playfield is on row 6 (Red-Blue) but shares column 3 (yellow-orange) with the 4 lamp.

so if it was me, I'd start at the connection for 4 lamp (Red-Brown) and check continuity back to pin 1 on the 2J7 connector.

Hey, thanks very much for the reply, and sorry for taking so long getting back to you about it. Our Family has been thrown a bit of a curve ball, and I haven't had any time to look in to this. I'm hoping this weekend I'll get the time. Really appreciate your suggestions & I'll post up just as soon as I have an update. Cheers.

No worries. I'm happy to try to help. Best of luck!

Piddling a little. I really need to get busy. My girl asked what is taking so long.

IMG_3110 (resized).JPG

Travish, is that a reproduction playfield or one you restored?...either way it's looking great!

Ah I see now it looks like it could be a CPR. (starburst inserts, ball trough and slots behind the 1-6 targets for the drop target mod).

Keep posting your progress. I love to see these things come together

And of course there is that fancy dancy gold sticker in the apron area, confirming CPR Gold.

Next of course Travish will need to explain why he's going to go with white flippers and flipper rubbers, rather than the traditional yellow/red pairing. Do you have something special in mind?

So I've finally worked out the process to avoid bubbles in the final parts. So far I only have one mold. I have been able to successfully cast blue crescent/hot dog inserts. Since the blue ones seem to be unobtainium, that's what I started out trying to make.

I used Innovative Polymers OC7086 crystal clear polyurethane resin with Eager Polymers Royal Blue dye cast in a mold made of Quantum Silicone QM 262A.

This was NOT an easy thing to figure out. I spent a month of trial and error and talking with the resin supplier to try to figure how to keep bubbles from forming as the stuff cures.

Turns out adding a few drops of Bismuth Neodicanoate in 4% solution with acetone to ~15g resin as a catalist helps things (but shortens working time). Degassing in vacuum chamber followed by slow mold pour (to avoid air entrapment) followed by cure in pressure pot at 60psi does the trick.

The resin (once cured) feels just like the injection molded stuff and can be sanded like the real thing. If anyone wants more information on this just PM me. I can save you a lot of time on the learning curve .

cast-resin-crescent-insert-blue (resized).JPG

Should mention the rough looking edges are just flash that can be sanded away very easily.

I think that's the flipper color combo that came from the factory. White on white? That's what the color combo is on the pinball arcade version.

Sell those blue things!

Yes please!

Since I don't have a license (and I assume I would need one to sell them) I don't think I can legally charge $$ for them. But, I can give them away . I just don't have the capacity to make tons of them. and I can't guarantee they wont have a few tiny bubbles.

If you are in need of one, PM me and I'll drop one in the mail to you. Bear in mind they may need some sanding to get rid of flash and any unevenness in on the surface. But for free, who's to complain about that, right?