This is my first and only machine currently, but who knows what the future will bring.

I've owned FP2 for about 7 years. To make a long story short, It was given to me for free because it wasn't working and I was in the right place at the right time. When I got it home it had a few minor issues. Broken playfield glass, dirty from being stored in a warehouse (flat on the back box with legs against the wall!), corroded batteries, loose flipper connections, burnt bulbs and sockets, bent switches, etc, etc. But with some tender poking around and fiddling, I successfully fixed all the issues and it's been running great until now.

Like many, I didn't know this forum existed until I went looking for solutions to my issue. I'm glad I found this thread, lots of great info here.

Sadly my 31-251-13 plastic is also broken, but I would have never known unless I had been reading the info. Even better is I found the broken chip in the bottom box but wouldn't even have known what it was. I would have probably thrown it away if I hadn't been reading the whole thread here first. Thank you so much for that.31-521-13 sml (resized).jpg

My back glass and playfield are in pretty decent shape. It's hard to judge early 80's artwork so IDK. When I compare mine to other pics I think mine is in excellent condition.
However, I'm totally in for new plastics, Hardtop, Back Glass, Playfield or whatever for this machine.

Which brings me to my new issue. Maybe someone can point me in the right direction. Grateful for any help.

When I power on the machine:
1) The Bell rings
2) A ball is ejected into the shooter lane??
3) Sometimes, but rarely(1 of 25 times) the sound just keeps repeating the same tone over and over. (it's one of the normal game sounds) Power it off and on again seems to have cured this one issue.
4) Highscore and credits show in the display like normal (batteries are good, I just replaced them)
5) It will accept new credits and remember them correctly when powered off/on.
6)All the playfield lights appear to be correct, flashing, not flashing etc. I think this is called attract mode? Seems normal to me in any case and looks good.

The issue is, when pressing the button to start a game the high score and credit displays go blank and playfield lights just freeze in whatever random on/off position they are at the time of the button press. Flippers don't work, everything seems to lock up. No joy.

I managed to get into the limited on-board diagnostics and they all pass with no issues. All the sound, displays, lamps and switches pass, all the solenoids fire correctly. Sound board button does as described in the service manual.

On the CPU board, the single digit display starts at zero (0) then goes blank as described.
When I press the test button next to it, it stops at 6 and stays on 6. (IC14 Game ROM 1 faulty)

I've re-seated the ROM chips and 90% of the other cables. with no change in behaivor.

Any ideas anyone?
Should I start with a replacement ROM 1 chip? (a whole new set of ROMs?) or is this a sign of a bigger issue?

Thanks in advance

Update 2hours later.......

I decided to try the magic of prying the driver board away from the CPU board and pressing them back together. (reseat)

Now on power it up, it no longer jacks a ball into the shooter lane, nor does the bell ring. So I suspect I have the beginnings of issues with that infamous connector.
It still has error 6 on display when I press the CPU test button.

Update 2.5 hours later.......

I decide to give it a whirl and replace IC14 with a replacement.

HOT D@MN!! Back in business now and all seems well again!

I'm in for backglass, playfield and plastics. Can't hurt to make some improvements.
Those pics above of the playfield look better than mine.

I have a pretty decent backglass, just a few small spots starting to flake off.

How would I go about getting it scanned in a useful way?

Are you looking for a pop bumper cap, to replace that broken one?

I think you are describing under the rockets or the jets on the ship? I totally thought mine was wear until I realized that every FP2 machine I saw had the same "wear" Then I got to looking and 1/2 PF has that type of loose 80's style "art" I think the back glass is excellent but the PF could have used some more attention to detail.

snyper2099 I don't like the white caps either, I'd love to see a couple picture of yours before I pop for some red ones. I also wouldn't mind changing the color of the rubber as well. The white rubber sort of matches the white caps, but once the caps are swapped I think the rubber will need swapped as well.

It looks like the scans came from here.......perhaps we can get this moving, if someone else can get a copy to the right person.

https://www.aussiearcade.com/forum/pinball/pinball-restoration-s/solid-state-ss-pinball-restorations/97496-firepower-2-here-s-to-you-dazza

This is excellent news.

I think the picture for the flyer was taken early during production, so they could get started advertising and selling units.

They just so happen to grab a playfield that wasn't complete with all the plastics.
Then later they decided it needed some more logos and swapped out the bumper caps and finished the plastics install.

According to "The Pinball Resource" - the "Release Lock Ball" target is supposed to be square.
Mine needed replaced a while back and we had to have quite a discussion about it. Supposedly the part number listed has always shown a square target. Never round.

Ebay...........it's been listed for a long time. Pretty crappy and expensive.

ebay.com link: Williams Firepower II Pinball Machine Game Backglass 2

I think geometry is the main issue there. That's a tight shot. If that long gate was another 3/4 - 1 inch in length it would run better.
However, on mine, that gate is fairly tight, it will actually trap a slow roller coming around the orbit from the other direction. I can usually bump it loose, but it's a fine line.

I never try to make that shot from the left flipper to the upper lanes, I'm always trying to get the ball captured or shot the gap to release the previously captured ball.

Out of curiosity, Who is working on those?

Swap the coils from side to side. See if it's still blows on the left side or if blowing fuse follows it to the right side.

Paint color.

I need to touch up the black paint inside the cabinet, just below the glass but just above the edges of the playfield.
What are you guys using?

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The swemmer driver board should have the correct connector to attach to your original MPU.
But after 25 years..no key, I wouldn't trust the MPU board with having 25 year old batteries. I'm betting there a lot of damage to that board as well.

My MPU looked similar, I can see a couple of spots that need cleaned up on yours. Get those batteries off of there. Mine had enough corrosion that it ate up the battery terminals almost to nubs. I was able to save it by cleaning it up and installing a remote battery box and just running a couple of jumpers to the MPU. I had zero dripping down on the driver board.

I played it for years that way until some how my original ROM L1 chip died I'm curious to see if you have L1 or L2? (edit: I see you have v2) No one sells the L1 ROMs that I could find. I'm not even sure what the diff is between them, I was just sad that my original died. I wouldn't mind having a working L1 ROM again. Anyway.......After replacing that ROM chip, I went nuts and decided I needed to have spare parts/boards on hand so it would always be playable. So....... I bought a complete set of Kohout Enterprises boards (MPU,driver, sound, power). After waiting about 2 weeks and getting ZERO response out of them, even after I paid, no acknowledgement, nothing. I couldn't stand it any more, so then I jumped and bought a complete set of Swemmer boards (MPU,driver, sound, with an Xpin power board) I must have been lucky as I was able to order them all within a day or so of each other. As the swemmer boards arrived I swapped them all in pretty seamlessly one at a time. As I did all that I also added the FP1 speech/board. I love the speech!

Then a month or so later the Kohout boards showed up, so I had to test them. They work flawlessly. But I ended up going back to the swemmer boards just because of the leds he embeds. I thought they looked cooler when I open it up. By then I was hooked, I couldn't stop myself and upgraded the original glass displays to new LED's.

By the time I was done, I had 3 complete sets of replacement boards, and displays.
I'm invested now (I paid $0 for the game originally, so I'm good) I guess I'm keeping this running until I'm dead.

That's awesome! Nice job.

Almost a month and not a single post..........?

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