Don't feel bad, you're not alone. I did an entire playfield swap and didn't even look at the switches. I have too many other projects on the go right now and keep forgetting to pop up the playfield and have a look. I know it's an issue but it isn't a big deal. Sometimes when the ball drains I have to bang the lock down bar or hit the left flipper for the switch to register.

Nope, don't feel bad. You are not alone. If a switch is working reliably after cleaning and adjusting, I never swap them.

The enemy of good is better. Don't fix what isn't broken. etc.

Has anyone tried tapping their Firepower transformer for 100V to increase coil strength? Clay describes it a bit here:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/firepower-how-hard-to-hit-top-lock#post-578032

Helping a friend with his Firepower and I can’t for the life of me get the upper lock shot to stick with any consistency. Perfect shots hit the post below the saucer 9 times out of 10.

Game is freshly shopped, new pinball life flipper parts, cab switches freshly filed. MPU/driver board is a new Rottendog so flipper relay and headers are brand new. Rebuilt female connectors on the driver board, completely rebuilt power supply, wires are soldered directly to the 25V bridge lugs. EOS is adjusted so it breaks at late as possible. I even tried removing the spinner and gate and jumpering the EOS closed without any improvements in consistency. Playfield is level at the flippers and up top by the lock. Pitched at 6.5 degrees.

Has anyone tried tapping their game for 100V? Has long term reliability been good? Did you use a bridge to drop the GI voltage like clay described?

Thanks!

I have not tried that but maybe check the bridge for a bad or weak diode? If one diode failed open, you would get a slightly low voltage situation. You should see ~32V on the solenoid or flipper fuses when no solenoids are active.

Did you replace C13 and brighten up (remove the oxidation) or better yet replace the flipper fuse and clips?

I’m putting my firepower back together after a full topside tear down. I’m switching to full leds and the flashers too. My question is should the flashers be lit full time during attract mode? If not then I have to figure out why mine are.

Hdmike444 no, they shouldn’t be on in attract mode. You need to remove the warming resistor or ground wire on the flasher boards.

Ok thx!

There's your problem right there. After rebuilding my flippers with WPC mechs and new System 6 coils I was still unable to hit the top lock more than 50% of the time at 6.0 degrees. I found I had to drop it to 5.8 degrees to get a 90% or better consistency.

The direction I went was to add a System 9 50-volt transformer and use the higher power WPC flipper coils. No problems hitting the lock now at 6+ degrees.

I checked the bridge and got a normal 0.6V-ish forward voltage drop across all the diodes. I don’t have the game in front of me now, but the voltage at the coil did not strike me as abnormally low when I measured it.

C13 has been replaced. I didn’t replace the fuse clips, but they looked clean and had good tension. Will double check next time I’m working on it.

Ooooh, that’s a great idea. The 50V power supply in these games was on a stand-alone board too. Will try lowering pitch too.

Thanks for the input, guys!

Did the flipper rebuild include new flipper base plates? Once I replaced them the shot to the saucer has plenty of power, just aim properly and you will be there. Replacing the base plates is the only way to replace the coil stops.

Don C.

He purchased the full system 6-7 flipper assembly from pinball life, so it has new base plates with integrated stops.

I did the same and can hit that shot without issue. I can check the pitch on my game but I'm pretty sure I had it set at 6 degrees if not higher...

On my CPR playfield the hole is off so it makes it almost impossible to make that shot. It's mostly luck from the top of the lane dividers.

I’ve got an odd issue, that I’m pretty sure I created.

When I press start the flippers cannot be used for about 10 seconds, and after the final drain the flippers can be flipped for about ten seconds. It isn’t totally consistent. After a few games they will turn on right away. But will still be able to be flipped after game over for a bit.

Last week while doing some flipper work I shorted the switch matrix. Replaced IC15-18 and everything worked fine for a few days.

I don’t have a logic probe yet but going to order one. Would IC8 be a good start?

Wow, that really is an odd one!

The signal you need to trace starts at IC5 pin 19 through IC7 out of pin 6, through IC9 out of pin 10, then through IC8 out of pin 1. Use your logic probe to test all those location to see where the signal starts to be slow to react. If these are all good, the problem probably is in the relay driver transistor Q13 or associated circuitry. It could also be the relay contacts getting sticky and dirty.

Anther troubleshooting step you can perform before the logic probe arrives is to see if the slings or pops are active at these times in addition to the flippers.

just coming on to say I got my NW7 this week for my Blackout pinball machine and it is AMAZING. Works wonderfully and is very easy to set up. A GOD SEND!!!

How was the total cost? Wonder if they will work with the games that rottendog gave up on?

it was about $450 shipped to my door. It has 100% compatibility with system 3-7 games. Also keep in mind it's a MPU / Driver / Sound combo

any link for this and infos. thanks.

Finally got mine finished and able to play. I put a swemmer system 7 board and have the updated roms. Game is a blast to play
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This may be a little late getting here, but for what it's worth...

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Joining the club Tuesday and wondered if anyone knew of a CPR playfield available FS. Thanks.

A hardtop is available

That will be the next option.

Original CPR run playfields are virtually unobtainium. However, CPR has this new fancy printer and they say they will be doing reruns of previously released playfields. I know they are now printing plastics that they have produced in the past whenever you want them and they are doing backglasses as well. Playfields may take longer. You may want to review these links for more info.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/announce-cpr-begins-its-new-business-model
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/cpr-floodgates-open-plastics-amp-glasses-releases

I have a CPR plafyield in mine and I've also played one with a hardtop (and drop targets!). Both games play really well. I've got a hardtop in my BK and am putting one in a Space Shuttle. You really can't go wrong either way.

Just put on a HardTop.
I found a donor PF and I am saving the old one for restoration.
Not sure anyone is looking to restore these anymore with the HardTop and CPR options.

There is talk of Micro doing a run of these.

Got my new backglass. Playfield protector is next.

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SR230CC... what are we looking at with the transformer pic?

It’s a replacement board to replace the big capacitor.
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/5040-09051-RC

Joined.

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Welcome to the club! This was the game you gave me some advice on when I made my own rails! Let me know if I can help you in any way.

Thanks, appreciate that.

If anyone has a game they are using for spare parts I do need the ball guides under the Flipper bats and the shooter lane gate. My game is missing all three.

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If you can't find any, you can bend your own wires for under the flippers. I think PBR or Marco sell the wire, and somewhere on this site is a tutorial for bending.

Hope you can repair the holes that someone put in the playfield for the post in the center drain - FP does not have that post.

I probably have all 3 pieces you need pm me and i will check tonight when i get home

I will be installing a hardtop over the playfield so will take care of those extra holes.

PM sent. Thanks.

Sorry such a late bloomer but can someone tell me if the OEM caps were an off white? Are the repro caps worth a shit?

Before and after

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I think they are supposed to be white. I have 4 new ones I bought on eBay that aren’t bad. I never used them because my original ones actually cleaned up. If you are interested, let me know and I can get you some pictures.

They are supposed to be white.

When I restored mine in 2015/166, the available repros all had awful defects: the lettering was the wrong font, one character was consistently blurred, and the "wings" did not feather to nice points. Subtle but very noticeable side by side.

Here's something worth considering: the human eye perceives white in contrast relative to what's around it. So compared to the rest of the game, those will still look "white". And even brighter when lit. And they will match the other white elements that more or less faded consistently along with them over the same time.

But if you get new, stark-nuclear-white repros, suddenly they will be MUCH brighter than the inserts, death star, playfield text, and other white elements which are far more difficult to change, if you tend to be OCD about those things.

Since they cleaned nice and consistently (no staining or warping etc), I'd keep the originals.

Sorry, I'm not a traditionalist, I hate those ugly caps. Have a look here...

Looking for some help troubleshooting the sound on my Firepower.
The 10 point switches (slingshots and the other ones) are making the "tilt" sound. Also, I think I am missing the word "power" as in: "You destroyed fire" or "fire destroyed you"...it does say "power" when I get the 3 blue targets, but does not say "Fire" when I spell it via in lanes...
Any hints on how to fix this?

The repro pop caps are trash. Mine live in the coinbox.

How long has it been this way? Is this a new behavior?

The signal that tells the sound board what to play are solenoid transistor outputs from the driverboard J9 and enter the sound board on J3. Reseat these connectors and see if it changes.

ok thank you for this...I will try that. I bought the game non-working a year ago. I fixed a ball trough issue and now it plays great except for the sound quirk...I will investigate further and post back here...

If it never worked, it could be issues on the board. Have you re-flowed solder to the header pins on those boards? Its a good idea to do reflow solder to all header pins on all boards in games of this era. Better yet, replace the header pins with new.

Hello - my original Firepower back glass looks good with the back lighting off, but when powered up and lit, it it is crackly and splitting with gaps all over.

I have done some touching up with acrylic paints but it still looks kind of nasty when lit up.

Rather than try further restoring, I wondered what advice or experiences on best source for a (mirrored) Firepower back glass replacement/reproduction?

In like Flynn! What length legs is this game supposed to have? Anybody paint them another color?

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$400? That never happens for me.