Not on Firepower. The pop bumper lamps are in the lamp matrix. Each side of the pop lamps should have a lamp matrix wire.

That looks right to me. That flat piece of metal where the diode is soldered, leads to one side of the lamp socket in the pop body.

Did you make sure the socket is tight around the bulb?

Or tested the socket with your multimeter?

Doh! That's correct. My bad.

Well what the hell man? I have the Rottendog combo. You have some witchcraft you’re not sharing?

Just checked mine, I’ll never unsee the always lit outlane! I wonder if that one has been re-wired to piggy back off the left outlane?

Thats what I was thinking, with the piggy back wiring. But yeah now that i see it I cant unsee it lol. Sucks!

slochar whats the secret?

Nope, no wiring hackery.

Fixed software.

I think the Drop Target mod is over-rated. They deaden the play, by causing the ball speed to drop. Maybe add flashers to the reset switches for the drop targets? Then you get a flash on the left when the 1-2-3 are made and a flash on the right when 5-6-7 are made. They are listed as ‘Not Used’ on the switch matrix: row4 col3 for 1-2-3 reset. row8,col3 for 4-5-6 reset. Maybe you need a timer circuit or some other way to take the signal and increase the length of the LED flashes, but that’s not too hard. I did this long ago, and liked it better than having drop targets. I’ve owned two firepowers. I even showed a modded version with 7-digit displays and the target flashers to Steve Ritchie at a pinball show in 2009, and he thought they were cool mods. . It’s way too easy to clock a 6 digit game if you own it for years.

BTW- I’m not a drop target hater, it’s one of my favorite features on SS pins, like blackout or AFM for the mothership.
But hey, it’s your game and you can mod it however you want.

Vid of prototyping the effect. I used better LED flashers once they were available.

Decided to just go the combo ROM route since it was such an easy mod and I can reverse it easily if I ever want too. The MPU is up an running now. Also rebuilt the sound board and power supply. Running my spare driver board while I rebuild the original.

Just need to track down the missing b segment on the master and player 1/2 displays. It is the early master with the discrete components instead of the chips. Tried another master and all worked ok,

Found an open 47K resistor for the b segment for the master and displays 1 and 2. It wasn’t burned up, just open. Replaced that and all displays working well!

Since I had the game open I used it to test a friends Rottendog board that had display issues. The PIA chips on it were ok. Removed the 74154 chip, added a socket with a new chip and that fixed too.

The flash lamps weren’t working but it looks like one of the two bulbs was out. Going to put fresh bulbs (or possibly LEDs) which should fix that.

Only remaining electrical issue are three bulbs in the backbox that are out. All three are 455 bulbs behind Firepower. Are those supposed to be 455 bulbs? There is a lot of documentation on Firepower but I don’t recall seeing the bulb layout for the back box. Can someone confirm what sockets are supposed to have what type of bulb?

Every Firepower I've seen or owned had 44's in the backbox.

#455 are used as accents to the back box.
Owners lighting pizazz so to speak.
Like above all #44 is normal.

I just installed single frosted warm white LEDs for the backbox GI. For the 3 spots where the 45t bulbs were I installed three new ones and all is well. It looked like those were the original bulbs. I think everything is working now. Just need to finish putting the new rubber on it and then move on to cleaning waxing and touch up on the cabinet. Can’t wait to actually play the game. I’ve always heard good things about it.

“Can’t wait to actually play the game. I’ve always heard good things about it.“

Never played Firepower? One of the best if not thee best pure in your face games of pinball one can play. If it had double or triple scoring while 2 or 3 balls were on the playfield (like Black Knight) it would be a perfectly designed game as far as I’m concerned.

I haven’t played it but am really looking forward to it. I have a Blackout, Meteor, and Flight 2000 that will all sit together with this Firepower once I shift things around and have a nice group of space games. They all have their unique points and I really enjoy my Blackout.

A friend dropped off some parts for me so once I finish the rest of the rubber rings will try it later today...

I don’t have much time on Blackout but I believe you’ll find Firepower to be the fastest. I have mine set on 3 balls and the hardest settings (00 on most per the instruction sheet). I also have removed the left upper rebound gate which has really made the game harder. It has made a plunger skill shot of sorts where if plunged too hard, the ball goes sdtm and because it goes thru the spinner, it scores so that particular ball is counted. Love me some Fie yur pow whir!!!

With all the new technologies that are available today, as Judy Tenuta would say,
"It could happen."

It's already been done.

Awesome! I would think 7 digit score displays are necessary too then? When in 2x or 3x scoring, does the game indicate that somehow?

That too is already done

Ok so I’m in for this. Who can I pay to do this for me? I have a tendency to screw things up just by looking at a pin and THINKING about modding it. I’m in CT, I’ll drive the game up to 4 hours one way to get it done!

After playing a few games (well more than a few) I can see why people like this game so much! Just a great playing machine with an excellent art and sound package. I've been really happy with Blackout but I really think I am going to enjoy Firepower too.

Sounds like a good idea for tournaments. Otoh, I have never experienced FP to be a machine that halts the progress.

It blits a 2 or 3 depending on scoring level into the left part of the ball in play display. Normal play ball in play display shows 1 (where is blank and 1 is the ball in play, or 2 or 3, etc.) - when multiplied scoring, that display shows 2_ or 3_ for 2x, 3x, blanking the ball in play but flipping back and forth. It is 7 digit, and requires a level 7 mpu board. It's a complete rewrite of the game into the newer (blue) OS rom using information from: http://gamearchive.askey.org/Pinball/Manufacturers/Williams/PinBuilder/text/williams_lvl7_programming.html#compatibility

http://www.pinball4you.ch/okaegi/pro_d7f.html is how you physically install the new display set. The wiring for the 2x/3x version's displays may or may not be different than that, I'll have to double check, but the sound board wiring definitely is. You have to make a short new harness to plug your sound board (and commas for the displays) into the upper right connector on a system 7 board. The software referenced on that page is yet another version, which doesn't have 2x/3x scoring, but some other kind of gameplay with "missions" during multiball.

dothedoo and Gizmonic both have this installed in their firepowers (obviously I do too) - Bill's was at the Texas Pinball Festival either last year or the year before it.

It's definitely not plug and play.... if you had a head harness for the displays from a parted out system 7 you could use that instead of modifying what's there.

The hardest part is mounting the credit/ball in play display properly. The other 7 digit displays all use 2 of the same mount points from the removed 6 digit displays. Luckily on the 4 or so machines I've changed displays on I've been pretty lucky in getting that alignment correct. (Flash, Timewarp, and TriZone are the other 3.... TriZone I've never broke 1,000,000 on for some reason I used to kill that machine in 1980 but now, nope.)
display-sound-signal harness diagram copy (resized).png

I did the 7 digit mod on my Firepower using Oliver's ROMs. I don't recall having to do anything with the sound board harness; it reached fine on its own. Maybe it just needed to come out of one of the harness routing clips?

It was *slightly* tricky coming up with exactly where to mount the display controller so that (1) it wasn't going to interfere with the GI wiring, and (2) the cables would properly reach the displays.

It's been so many years I can't remember what my solution was for locating the credit/match display.. IIRC, I made reference marks on the GI insert board with the original master display in place, showing the location of the glass, then pulled the display and mocked the 7 digit in there so I could see it with the backglass in place. Came out nicely. It's not an exact fit, but the spacing of a 7 digit doesn't allow it to fit perfectly in the divided windows for credit/match.

The point of no return though is when you start cutting holes in the insert board for the display cabling...I used a bit similar size of the old longer slots in the board, but shorter of course for the small display ribbons, and hid them behind the displays.

Posted these pics before in this thread but it's been a while; maybe they're useful to someone as references:

Richard

fp7digit1.jpg

fp7digit2.jpg

fp7digit3.jpg

Oliver's rom doesn't require sound board harness changes. The blue rom which is the 2x/3x variant does because it's a complete rewrite using a different operating system where the sounds are activated via the extra added PIA on the system 7 boards. I'm pretty sure the display strobes ended up being in a different area as well, again, because it's using the blue system roms instead of the modified green ones in the Oliver romset, which were an added on to available space setup vs. something that was purpose designed to be used with the 7 digit displays.

I really like the playfield multiplied scoring feature which is why I didn't use the Oliver romset as is. The original 2x/3x was hacked into Oliver's just 7 digit mod without the mission addition, but that got 'sloppy' fast. Firepower was pretty much at the limit (ram, mostly) of what system 6 could do.

And of course, everyone fixed the right special staying on in attract mode. If only there was one less lamp some earlier in the playfield it would have ended up in column 6 and been part of the original attract mode. The documentation makes it look like there's an empty lamp there, but there isn't - system 6 uses it as a carry, even though there's no physical lamp attracted to it.

Metal-Mods you got skills!

7BE2536E-BDCB-4FD4-8125-E5E347F0ADFD (resized).jpeg

That cap looks fucking awesome. I will get those when I finally do the pf swap.

FP2 Playfeild swap?

No, I have a second Firepower pf (which is in alot better shape than my current one), but it has a weird short circuit somewhere..

Anyone have a transparent red crescent insert? Marco looks to be sold out.

I assume you mean the hot dog? If so one just listed on eBay. Or cut a new one from 1/4" red acrylic.

ebay.com link: itm

That one looks to have broken edges on the back.

Looking for a new one.

Firepower is really an awesome game! I had never played it before but now that I have I can see why everyone really enjoys this game. While it can be cruel, you can also have amazing games on it. After an hour I finally really hit multiball. I tried again this evening and as the pitch changes if you wait long enough the sound changes yet again. That was new and hadn't seen/heard it in any YouTube videos. Overall just seems like a great machine and can see why so many were made. Another example of a machine that doesn't need multiple levels or a ton of toys to just work and be a great game.

While I'm a fan of drop targets (think Meteor) I don't think they would have worked well here and agree to the change to regular targets.

I think I’m liking these! So I buy a solid color bumper cap of my liking and stick these on? I can do that!

I’m in for a set of four. How do I order?

IMO translucent.

Yes absolutely, transparent red

Greetings all, I've had my FP for about 3 years now. Finally springing for the MPU upgrade w/lithium battery. One lingering problem the game seems to have is once you lock 2 balls, the 3rd ball doesn't eject into the firing lane. I'm waiting to see if the MPU replacement with new ROMs fixes that, but just wondering if anyone has seen similar behavior, and what the issue was. Thanx!

Just ordered a set, thanks. Will post pics once installed.

AirWolfNH what caps are you going to use and from where?

I went with translucent red from Pinball Life.

Pretty sure you're gonna be disappointed hoping a replacement MPU would fix a problem that is very likely elsewhere. I'd keep the original..

Richard