The beacon thing was just an unplugged connector in the cabinet. I tied the harnesses a little too tight and when the head was folded down for shipping it pulled loose. Easy fix.

Edit: I found that on Friday morning so most of the show got to experience the full Tomcat.

I am now.

Thanks! I really enjoyed showing it off and talking to everyone at the show. I go to these shows all the time and hardly ever speak to anyone for more than a few seconds, but having a nice game to share really gets people talking.

I’m honestly thinking about bringing it out to MGC next year as well as the PATZ show. Sharing a prized game and being able to see everyone enjoy it was is an awesome experience.

Just a couple of plays at home and this happened. These just barely made it through the Kalamazoo show.

These are licensed Williams logo flippers that I think I bought from Bay Area Amusements, in case anyone was wondering.

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Yeah, I have a set of original style flippers that will go on next. I honestly thought these would have held up to more than a few hundred games.

I got a question at the show as to why I didn’t have the flight insurance enabled when the Yagov kicker was activated. I honestly had no idea that there was a setting for this. It’s Ad-45 in the manual and apparently only available if you have L-1 roms installed, but I had a new set of L-4 roms installed which had something else in that spot. I swapped out my game roms with the set that came with my machine. I ordered the L-4 ones because I’m a stickler for updates on everything. Those say that they are L-5 which isn’t listed as a version anywhere I’ve seen and are similar in adjustment content to the L-4 roms.

Here’s the interesting and still confusing answer to my question from a quick google on the topic:

https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/rec.games.pinball/ZSrMAap7eho

I just stuck with the classic white. I might eventually get lighted flippers from @buthamburg. We’ll see.

My little black Yagov plane took a beating and is missing a tail fin that I haven’t been able to locate. It’s probably hiding in the cabinet somewhere.

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I did this a while ago, but forgot to share. A little under-cabinet Red, White and Blue.

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Here’s a picture of how the under-ramp light strip looks. It flashes with the under-cabinet lights. All are hooked up to the right bank of Red White and Blue flashers.
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Those are awesome. Expensive, but awesome. I like the idea of angle adjustment from the top. The flipper length adjust would be nice as well. I could easily adjust between lightning flipper length (1/8” shorter) and standard length based on how much I hate myself that day.

Rumor is that CPR will have a backglass version of the translite soon. I’m definitely saving for that upgrade.

Another cool thing I’ve been playing with this week was to install and Amazon Echo Input on the auxiliary port of the Lepai amp. The machine sound is lowered by half, but I can tell Alexa to play any song that comes to mind as I play pinball and it then cuts the F-14 sounds completely and plays loud music beautifully through the new sound system. I tried a couple of bass-heavy songs and that 8” sub I installed caused the ball to skip around the playfield like crazy.

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Honestly, none of our normal visitors have much interest in pinball. It’s my “weird” hobby, apparently. Everyone nicely asks how my projects are coming and then forgets to pay attention as I excitedly start going into detail. Oh well.

Mostly they just ask how much things cost.

I love this game, but I still suck at it. I still haven’t made it on the high score board.

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Those Sharpe brothers are fun to watch. Watching Elwin play mine was a similar treat. The problem is now I know it’s me that’s bad and not my game’s setup.

Nope. He was doing the same as Josh Sharpe and just nailing the landings for fighter jackpots. My right outkicker threw a curve ball into the loop post and drained a ball on him, but he scored around 3 million. The trick with the multiball is to be able to capture balls with the right flipper and feed the left flipper for landings. I’ve tried this and I fail at hitting the VUK lane. Someday, with enough practice, I’ll figure it out.

Good to hear and good luck!
Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll be happy to go into detail about whatever.

My CPR mirrored backglass Came in today!
It is glorious! The glass is a little shorter than the original so I might need to shim it to prevent it from falling out.
Anyway, here’s the before and after pictures. I purposefully took them with reflections so the mirroring shows through.

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The mirrored front edge of the wings really makes the artwork pop. It’s very impressive in person.

The new backglass needed some brighter cool white Comet SMDs. It really pops now.
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If you look closely, you can see some light bleed in the mirroring. There are also some rather prominent raster lines from the printing process that the brighter lights highlight. Even with those issues it still looks better than the translite.
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Yeah, not a bad idea. I will contact CPR.

I honestly think the raster lines are from overlapping rows of white ink that the whole back of glass is covered with. the artwork looks great with the backlighting off.

Kevin from CPR contacted me about getting the backglass issues taken care of. I missed the call so I’ll need to reach out again. Hopefully, things work out.
I did confirm that the “raster” lines are actually showing because of how the back white layer was applied. The overlap of each row of white ink causes the pattern.

On a cooler note, I was finally able to get my initials on the board! Yay!

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Good news!
Kevin from CPR called me this morning about the backglass defects. On Canada’s Thanksgiving, no less! Kevin took time out on his holiday to explain that I was one of two unfortunate people that accidentally received test prints that should have never been shipped out.
CPR is going to immediately send out a replacement.
When I get my new one, I will need to destroy the defect piece. Mine doesn’t meet the license holder‘s (Planetary Pinball) quality standards and can’t remain in the wild.
That’ll be fun, and I’ll make sure to post the hammer to glass festivities here for everyone’s pinball destruction fix.

I keep forgetting to post the pictures, but the new backglass showed up. It’s the correct size and the white ink on the back is smooth with no lines. I will say that the test panel seemed to have more vibrant colors than the replacement, but they both look spectacular in the machine.

Here’s the destroyed test panel:

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Happy Holidays - 2019!

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Nope. CPR didn’t want a prototype example out in the wild. Smashing the bad one was kind of fun anyway.