The funny thing is that when you do, you seem to be on such a roll that you go way over, too!

I used 1 SMD ice blue under the blue inserts. They usually look washed out with white or warm white LEDs and some think blue LEDs under them makes them too dark.

The ice blue gives you a nice, beautiful sky blue. Very pleasing to the eyes.

Have a firepower in the shop for a client it didnt boot that issue I solved.

I never played a firepower before this machine so not sure what is wrong.

The top center standup switch registers 1000 when hit even when the 3 bonus lights are on up to the 50,000 . In other words it only scores 1000 pts regardless or the scores when lit lights are on.

Is this a setting choice or a chip issue?

Occasionally a ball in a saucer wont register and the game is in a pseudo locked state. the ball would sit in the saucer . This could be the upper right or lower right saucer its random when it happens The rest of the game would function only the saucer kicker woudnt fire causing the next ball not to eject into the shooter lane.

All switches are clean and gapped perfectly and test perfect in switch test.

New after market CPU board, Power supply and sound board I reworked

Thanks for any ideas!

The middle top target will always score 1000

f5f95c42e9dd0359f6d49de50bcdfb0ba6f28041 (resized).jpg

Got ya so what are the 10.000 30,000 and 50,000 inserts for?

that is the reward for completing fire and power targerts .

i installed okagis firepwower deluxe roms in a system 7 board , everything works but player 1 and 3 only lights one digit in attract. is this normal? When scoring all digits will light

Thanks for the info that means there was only one issue left to address.

I watched a stream on this game this morning and am a huge fan now. Game play looks incredible.

It is very common for Firepower to have leaf switch assemblies that were manufactured wrong - one blade is upside-down, causing the contact to be made on the very small "rivet" instead of the intended larger contact. They can work like this for many years before problems arise. Once they do start acting up, they can be intermittent, and fool you in switch test mode. They can be particularly problematic in the eject saucers (and ball trough) because these are things that will stop gameplay, unlike scoring switches which can be intermittent and not be noticed right away, depending on their location.

Get a good look at the switches. It's a little bit of a pain in the ass to flip that blade over but if the switches are built this way, it's critical to the proper function of the game they all get flipped.

Richard

Thanks I will look into it and it they need reversing Ill do it. Ill post a followup on the weekend when I get back to the machine.

I can confirm this. Mine had several original switches that were causing problems. Re-building them has made things work much better.

Can anyone send me a pic of their slingshot solenoid and kicker setup free/installed? Mine both tilt at a bit of an angle, and I have a feeling they are a bit wonky or worn out. Just want to see someone else for a reference.

Also, can someone show me just where this fuse label goes? The backbox I know, but I'm not sure just where. Thanks.

Photo on 6-18-18 at 4.12 PM (resized).jpg

Right side above the High Voltage sign.

Img_4304 (resized).jpg

Fellow Pinsider is asking for valuation in this thread:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/price-check-nice-firepower-

Thought there might be opinions here... also thought there might be folks near him in Florida that want to give him an offer.

-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

Connector question: Did these originally come with IDC style connectors to the driver board? I am looking into a switch matrix problem, and I'm thinking the connector is loose for the row. It's odd, most of the connectors are standard crimp type, but a couple for the switch and lamp matrix are IDC. Just wondering if this was normal, if so, has anyone converted over?

Yeah, IDC was standardized around that time.

Score, so an early iteration of a less than robust design. I'm guessing you can cut the wire in half and use a crimp, right?

Cut in half, added a lead, soldered them all together, heat shrink and crimped into the new connector...

new_connector (resized).jpg

I hate IDC's. First thing I do is change every single one. Nothing like chasing ghost issues because of wonky connectors.

I'm not understanding why y'all cut the wires in half though? Wire to short?

IMG_4443 (resized).JPG

Because mine come to the connector in a loop...they do not terminate at the IDC. So it will be 2 wires to crimp into one pin for each IDC. Now, don't ask me where each side of the loop goes

Oh I got you. On those I usually crimp both wires in the one pin. I just get a molex pin in a size larger wire gauge and put them together.

IMG_4446 (resized).JPG

This is the smart and easy thing to do! Given that I didn't have the next size up and didn't care to order them and wait, I added an additional piece of wire.

More than one way to skin a cat (sorry for offending the cat people out there)...

Travish, how do you like the rottendog mpu so far?

I have a RD MPU in mine and save a transistor that needed replaced, mines been great. Was on location at a free play arcade for the past 7 months.

I need 4 sets of roms for system 7 upgrades for my Firepowers. Does anyone sell them? I love the game and it definitely needs to be able to go into 7 digit scoring. Just PM me. Thanks

I had the Rottendog 327 in my FP for the first few months. I encountered an odd flaw in that the OEM mounting brackets in the backbox touched the header pins on the RD board and created a short. Might have been incidental to my game only, but you never know... something to watch out for. I posted on PS at the time and Chris added the info to PinWiki.

After modifying the bracket the RD board was fine. Survived Louisville Expo 2017 with no issues. I eventually fixed the original WMS boardset and went back to that for purity's sake.

So I’m having a problem where the same line of speech is played throughout the game. I get all the sounds/speech in test.

Does anyone know where I should start to track down thmy cause of this? Thanks!

Start with sound board diagnostics by pressing the diagnostics button on the sound board. If that plays all the sounds and speech, look to the connectors between the sound board and driver board. Reseat those to see if anything changes.

I know some people here frown on some of the rottendog products but... I have 3 games with William combo boards and power supplies and never had a single issue. The laugh is missing in attract mode on Black Knight but that's all.

I have about 6 years on Gorgar. 4 years on Black Knight and about 3 years on firepower.

There's not much I frown on. I'm not a traditionalist and I don't need to restore things to their original state. I want something solid, that works properly so the game doesn't fail and I'm not constantly fixing and tweaking shit. Seriously, how often do people look under the hood of your games?

Do what you want, screw the whiners and complainers...

Is anyone here at Pintastic?

Yeah, I hear it on mine like once a year, and celebrate -- really odd.
-mof

Ok guy, im pretty sure you are going to tell me my display is going to s*it the bed any time now, but after taking my FP back from pietistic, my #2 player display developed an issue that i am sure came about from transporting a 38 year old display. It looks like a little crack or trace developed that is allowing gas to either leak in there or let a stray current of electricity leak from (in the circle). It affects the upper-left area of the first digit (as you can see, it is flickering in the pic). Sometimes it causes a brief flicker of all those segments in the screen. I know someone will say "convert to LEDs" but not my style, I need to get a replacement gas one. It's sad, though, because all my displays are all stamped with the machine's serial number, meaning they are all original.

Is there anything I can do about it other than trade the display out?

display (resized).jpg

Unfortunately I don't think there is anything you can do with any certainty. I have fixed some by going into diagnostics and setting the displays to a number that lights the minimum number of segments including the flickering one and leaving it on for a few hours. Sometimes that fixes them.

The good news is it may flicker like that for years before going totally dead.

I read a post or article some time ago on the concept that little conductive whiskers can develop that can cause this. Hopefully someone will try building a rejuvinator for these. Something like a CRT rejuvinator that zaps the segments with higher current than normal to burn the whiskers away.

Swap the display with another player number (like swap #2 for #4) and see if the problem is still there.

It's not from transportation.

Pins are subject to constant vibration, dropping to dislodge balls, bangbacks to save balls - none of that hurts the game.

You can lower the display voltage to make the displays last longer, but sooner or later, they kick despite your efforts.

You can just install a new glass panel display, and keep your original decaled display board.

This has probably been done several times in the game's life.

Well I did swap the connectors...same deal. I would absolutely love to install a new one ,that would be my ultimate goal. The trouble is finding one: where would one find a swap-in? I did find one place:

http://www.competitiveproducts.com/list.php?id=333

Are those compatible? Do you have another source for new ones other than that?

You swapped positions or connectors?

Did you plug #2 display into the #4 position?

You want to make sure it's not the cable....nor the driver board.

You have to make sure that the nipple that sticks out of the back matches your display circuit board. You might have to call them

Some of these displays have a nipple on the back that you need to pay attention where the replacement nipple is vs your board.

There were also several different manufacturers which is really obvious when looking at the front of the display with the power off. The masking and color is different so look for that too if you truly want to make your new display original, serial number matching looking.

https://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=539
http://www.pbresource.com/brddis/dis-6n.jpg http://www.pbresource.com/brddis/dis-6n.jpg

I am finishing a pf swap on my firewpower with a CPR gold pf. It looks really beautiful. I have a quick question - also posted this to the restoration forum but thought this group would have more information.

On the original pf and on some original pf images I have seen online there is a metal post just below the left pop bumper and slightly above and to the right of the 3 left targets. The CPR pf does not indicate that anything should be located at that position. Is that an original post location? I don't want to drill a new hole in the pf if the post is not necessary.

Thanks

That post is on every Firepower I've seen/owned. Here's a close-up top-down shot of it that should help position it if you're looking to add it to your CPR playfield.

Richard

ac834da1287244f55d2cc3b5e42ec83ec106373d[1] (resized).jpg

That's odd because I have a post there on my CPR playfield. I did my swap a couple of years ago so perhaps I drilled it myself. I know it was on my original.

fpplayfield15 (resized).jpg

This image is from the CPR website and it's not there so maybe I did put it in myself...

Does anyone know why I keep blowing the 1000uf 25v cap on the sound board at the c26 position (second cap from the bottom)? I replaced all the caps and this started so obviously I’ve done something wrong. Wrong values? I’ve checked the polarity of these a few times and they are correct according to the board.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

0695F348-8A14-4013-86C2-88E76026DFF0 (resized).jpeg2BEE967E-1565-4DB5-B7BD-BB1344B2EC59 (resized).jpeg

Because all the caps are installed backwards.

See the little + sign on the board?

See where you have the "-" side of the cap connected to where the board says + ?

The side of the cap with the "collar" indent on it is the + side.

Well that’ll do it. Thanks, vid!

My first recap

You got to learn sometime.

At least you did not blow up a MPU or something......

My original playfield had the post. My CPR did not have the hole but I drilled and installed the post.

Great news if you are looking for CPR plastics and playfields!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/cpr-floodgates-open-plastics-amp-glasses-releases

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/announce-cpr-begins-its-new-business-model

Plastics are already available for sale again! Yeehaw!

I just bought plastics for $40 more :/. Regardless, this is completely amazing.