That was the issue. All fixed. Thanks again.

Anyone get a twitch notification yesterday for Firepower?...went to the site, but couldn't find it...

Yes... I saw it but he was having trouble getting it to work... fuse issues etc.

So it never streamed?

I was watching it for about 20 minutes live but not sure if it's still up...

Jack played a couple games. But then he blew a fuse and didn't have a replacement.

He said it was an all original very low play example. It looked 9/10. I was surprised that the inserts weren't cupped even for a low play machine.

Take off the glass, start a game and bang the playfield in different spots with your hand and see if it triggers any switches. For me it's usually the pop bumpers that get out of whack. The flipper mechs seem to have enough force to trigger them if the switches are too tight. And of course you want them tight so the pops are hyper-responsive.

Edit: Never mind. I see that you got it fixed.

I had the exact some issue with mine. You have a scoring switch that's got too small of a gap. Check how many points it scores and that will help you narrow down where it is on the playfield. Make the gap a bit bigger and you should be all set. In my case 1 switch caused both of the issues you described. It could be more than one.

Hopefully you never have issues with your main 6 center targets...I hate them with a passion. Adjusting those and the metal brackets that stop them is a huge pain. I adjusted them 10 times one day and the next day it was doing it again. I think I got it setup right now, but really I should just replace them all lol

Crap, late to the party. Sorry haven't checked this thread in a really long time. When I posted this I thought I was all caught up on it. Good to hear you got it fixed.

So I need a MPU for my game. I wanted to buy a pinbllpcb MPU/Driver but they are not in stock.
Is the Rottendog MPU any good? Should I wait for the pinballpcb to be in stock?
Any feedback is appreciated.

I would wait. I bought a Firepower with a new a Rottendog board in it and the switch matrix was toast. Add insult to injury, there are no schematics that would let me fix it myself, so I had to send it to a third party for a $150. Not sure the status of the company, heard they were done then a bunch of boards showed up on Pinball Life. I would stay clear. Just my 2 cents.

Thanks
I will wait. Always better to spend a little more now than more later to fix something.

SR230CC
These are both good options-
http://pinballpcb.com/products/williams-system-3-thru-7-main-board/
https://www.pinball-technology.com/produits/nw7/

I redid the 40 pin and the rest of the connectors when I got the game 2 years ago. Recently it started to get flaky so I put new chip sockets in the driver board and now it won’t boot. I’m not sure what the problem is now.

I do have an AMI chip. Where is the best place to get new chips? What ones should I buy?

I tired that and it did not fix the issue. I get solid lights on the MPU. I broke the leg of one of the chips near the blanking circuit so I can't do much more at this time. I will keep reading on fixing these. I will probably get a NW7 board eventually, sounds like it would be fun to customize the sounds.

I have a brand new Swemmer Sys6 with NVRAM I could sell you for $225 + $10 shipping.
That is what I paid for it. I tested it here it works.
Bud

Swemmer (resized).jpg

Love those swemmer boards. My Gorgar has been using them for a couple years now.

Ordered a NW7 board. Going to be a few weeks. Now to find some custom music for it. Buckethead and Tool.

If you don't mind, where were you able to purchase it? Clytor told me about it and it looked like a pretty cool board to try, but with covid, I wasn't able to order one.

Thanks!

The jukebox feature is pretty neat. You can turn it on and off with the coin switch too. I rigged up a leaf switch to my coin reject button and tied it to the coin switch line.

IMG_8056 (resized).jpg

Good idea. Can’t wait to get mine.

Alright, calling all Firepower specialists! I've just begun work on a Firepower and have been working on getting the game operating 100% before doing a hardtop installation, etc.

I have a question about the game rules. When I start 3 ball multiball, then complete the 1-6 targets during MB, a lock will re-lite and accept a ball. Is this correct ??? I can't seem to find any documentation on this.

The game has an Altek mpu/driver combo installed. (Maybe Rottendog)

Thanks.

Yes, that is correct behavior.

Any recommendations on someone who does board work. I want to have my Firepower's driver board debugged. I live in Colorado, but doesn't have to be local.

I got the game about 5 years ago. It already had a new 40 pin connector and combo roms installed. I don't believe there is battery damage but realize that can be sneaky. About a year ago the special solenoids started giving me problems with upper left pop locking on and then slings locking on randomly. I've run the gamut of possible obvious solutions on board and under the playfield; replaced many socketed ic's, even ran the test roms. No solution has presented itself to me yet (I have repair skills but not a great board detective).

firedrive1 (resized).jpg

firempu1 (resized).jpg

Does anyone have experience using the NW7 3-for-1 board replacement offered by pinball-technology.com?

Screenshot (resized).jpg

I considered that board...but not keen on the surface mounted ...everything ..went with Jeff Kouhut's boards really nice stuff he makes...

Thanks for the tip, Jeff's website currently shows the boards out of stock and not taking orders.

I have the NW7 and an NB2. Both have been working great. The sound features on them are really neat too.

That's awesome. I haven't had to replace my board, but if I ever do that's what I'm getting.

I second buying Jeff's boards. I had to replace the speech board in mine and went with a 2-1 replacement. Works great.

good stuff..

20210417_102625_resized (resized).jpg

I have my name on the NW7 when they come in. The other board is out of stock.
Not sure when I will get to play the game again. If I have some time I will mess with the current boards.

I can't start a game now, I believe I've got a trough problem again. After a test, 57 and 58 are not registering, the right ball and center ball ramps. It's the red-white wire and brown-white wire.. A visual inspection looks fine on the board connection and switch, but I think the board connection is the problem. Is the board connector difficult to re-wire?

The connectors on your boards are IDC and they are notoriously bad. If you think that's what it is, stay in switch test and wiggle the wires in the connector and see if it makes any difference. When I get strange behaviour from my game and I haven't blown any fuses or anything along those lines, the next thing I try is wiggling the wires in the connectors to see if it goes away. Rewiring a connector is not difficult. Just get the proper Molex connector and crimps and a crimping tool and go to town. I'm sure if you do a search on Pinside or YouTube there are probably posts or videos on how to do it if you are unsure.

I joined the club a few weeks ago. I have seen confusing info about the availability of replacement backglasses. I have seen people saying CPR and Planetary Pinball sell them. But apparently not right now - their websites do not show it, even as backordered or out of stock. Just not listed at all.

Sorry if I missed some recent news about it. But does anyone know where (or when) to get one?

Thanks!

I think Planetary was selling them a while back. CPR sold them briefly a few months ago but they aren't any longer. You can still get NOS backglasses through Mayfair Amusements in NY. It's what I have in my machine and it looks very good. I posted some pictures somewhere in this thread.

https://mayfairamusement.com/product/firepower-reproduction-backglass/

I believe the Mayfair backglass is a repro (as per the URL) not NOS

It’s a run from the 90s, I reached out to them last year.

When did they redo their site? Last time I looked at it, it looked like it was from 1998

Need some reassurance here, I'm confusing myself on these flippers. After doing a flipper rebuild, they still seem weak. There are dozens of posts about weak Firepower flippers.
Consulting the manual and looking at Marco's website, it seems the coils in Firepower have the two windings wired in series. Therefore, the EOS switch should be normally open, then close once activated to essentially weaken the coil for the hold.
This machine has newer coils of the same number but normally closed EOS switches. I'm thinking it's wired incorrectly. This may be where the weakness is coming from.
Am I correct? Should Firepower have normally open EOS switches?

Screenshot_20210425-114805_Office Mobile (resized).jpg

Mine are factory coils and are normally closed until opened by the stroke.

I will say that even after adjusting the EOS, my flippers feel a tad weak. Weak as in, can't reliably hit that top lock shot. I probably need to replace the sleeves at the very least on mine.

If super weak, it's very possible that's what's going on. I'm not an expert, but I thought ALL end of stroke switches opened to step down the power going to the coil. May just be my limited perspective of only working on a few pins from 70s-80s.

Anyway...at the very least I can confirm my firepower 100% opens the EOS switch when the flipper reaches the up position.

Given that Williams was the one that manufactured them, would they be classified as repros? I always thought if it was the original manufacturer that produced a part and it was never used and has been sitting around forever, it would be classified as NOS. Splitting hairs here.

Bottom line is that mine was brand new and it looks great in my game. No concerns from my side.

Flippers of this era use normally closed EOS switches. The "hold" coil is shorted out by the EOS switch which only leaves the "power" coil in the circuit when the flipper button is pressed. Once the flipper opens the EOS switch, the hold coil is added to the circuit along with the power coil. The combination of the 2 coils in series reduces the power consumed, reduces the heat generated and reduces the power.

One of the best upgrades you can do to Firepower, or any other Williams early solid state game, is replace the entire flipper mechs with the later WPC style mechs. Not cheap, but well worth it. Just make sure to have them fitted with the correct coils, coil stops, and EOS switches. Pinball Life can custom configure the mechs. My FP is set to 6.5 degrees incline and I can rip the spinner & slam that top lock.

Agreed. I tackled this on a playfield swap for my Gorgar. Makes it really snappy. great improvement. For FirePower how do you manage the lane change? IIRC last time I looked at the underside of my playfield I thought I saw it as a switch on the flipper mechanism instead of by the flipper as I would have expected.