I plan on making a few more videos of tommy this weekend. I have some small projects i want to get done on it.

Ok, I did a few things: first make sure the spinner is totally level. Mine needed a few small was hers to do this. Second, I sanded the ends of the spinner on both sides where they went through the holes on the bracket. Then I got some very thin 180 grit and 400 grit sand string (a local jeweler gave me some) and smooth out the holes on the bracket. Then put the spinner back in the bracket, and apply a drop of low viscosity oil on the spinner arms, getting some in the holes as well. Haven't had an issue since.

I might have them. I'll check tomorrow and let you know.

Thanks! I found the triangular one, I just need the other one circled.

Also need this if anyone has a set to spare:

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That sweet tommy Backglass is up for sale in the marketplace if anyone is interested.

Still looking for that metal guide as well!

Got a bit of a problem with my Tommy and I cant figure it out. Whenever the ball is in the trough for skill shot, I can hit the right flipper and the game thinks I went through one of the spinners. I can let the ball sit there and keep hitting the right flipper scoring spinners over and over. But when the ball is in play, I hit the right flipper, nothing. It doesnt register as a spinner.

What the heck?

Shooter lane switch creating a path from flipper to spinner? Look at the switch matrix. What numbers are the spinner, shooter lane, and anything flipper related?

Exactly. Most likely a bad diode on one of the switches.

Thanks so much for the insight! I will be working on this tonight and tomorrow.

Oh man. I had this too. Was failing th skill shot. Ended up being bad diode on the trough. But also a wrongly connected diode. The through switch and lane switch was a different brand/style. So the middle lug was a different connection.

Hello! Just picked this project Tommy up today, looking forward to digging into my first DE game...

Haven't gotten it set up yet to inspect things, but when I opened the coin door I noticed two connectors, maybe 10 or 11 pin, one orange wired and one grey+black, they go into the harness near where the right flipper button is. Are they supposed to be plugged into something?

IMG_20170923_162032 (resized).jpg

Yeah that's normal ...same on mine. Not plugged in. No idea what they are for ..... connecting up a printer for audits ???, think there is some print option in the menus

Alright! Replaced a few coils and transistors (some idiot installed the wrong, williams coils backwards :/) and got it up and running... minus the blinders. The blinders still retracted properly, they just wouldn't come out. With my logic probe I found that the clear signal was staying low for some reason. Unplugged it from the cpu board, still low. Eventually determined there was a short somewhere pulling it to ground and after some harness cutting finally found that the grey-black wire was going into a little square board in the front left and when I unplugged that cable the short went away. Googled the board and found that it's a shaker motor board? But I don't think Tommy has a shaker? Also realized that J2 (where it was plugged into) is only a five pin connector, but the connector with the grey-black wire was a six pin, so it doesn't seem like it should go there, but there's no other things for it to plug into, or to plug into the five pin connector? Entire game seems to work fine with that connector unplugged, so not even sure what the board is there for. Do other people have this board? Is J2 plugged in? Is there a six pin plug just hanging out and not plugged in?

More importantly though, can someone take a picture of the back side of their start button and explain how the switch/lamp is supposed to stay attached to the button? Mine just falls out when you push the button, so I have to reach in and press the microswitch directly. Usually with this type of button there's a little twist thing you can do to lock it in (and it looks like that's how the replacements work) but this one isn't made like that.

No, Tommy has no shaker, but the shaker board is used to power the propellers.

Very easy to fit a shaker if you want to - see post #606.

Does anyone have a ratty vuk wireform they would sell me cheap. I'm building a home brew and looks like that is what I need. Hence ratty. I'll get it powdercoated.

Not sure if the pic helps you but, on my Tommy, the lamp "socket/switch housing" pushes in (snaps) to the black start/eb housing.

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Thanks! Once I pushed it in really hard it snapped into place. I guess after thousands of games it had just finally worked its way out

I just got my project Tommy completed and I have a question about the blinders / arch: When are they supposed to activate during game play?

I can play an entire game and they almost never activate. They covered during one multiball during one game. They work. They activate during the test. And if I start the game with Extra Ball pressed, the blinders stay activated for the entire game. But I have only seen them cover that once during game play.

I played a Tommy in PAPA this summer and those blinders activated frequently during gameplay. Mine - not.

I see nothing under adjustments other than to turn it on - and it is on (I think Adj 44). Occasionally people tell me to clear the RAM to fix things like this, but I have NVRAM installed.

Sounds like what you describe is how they should work. The Chad H rom changes some modes and they use the blinders more. It's a worthy upgrade for more reasons than that.

I'd be very surprised if the PAPA Tommy had that ROM though.

In normal play (i.e...not activated using the extra ball button) they will pop on during Tommy scoring, and once you complete the Tommy mirror jackpots in multiball.

In the manual it has descriptions of the modes and they mention of the blinders are on. I think it was just Tommy Scoring and Pinball Wizard

Excellent. Thanks for the answer. I will need to upgrade my EPROM. Mine is 1.02. LOL!

I have a 3b DE and the sound is great - except for the lamp buzz. I minimized that by isolating the board / ground screws to remove the ground loop. I also found that the lamp buzz does not increase with the volume control - meaning it is after the volume control. So I put a resistor pad on the backbox speakers and upped the main volume.

The sound on my project Tommy sounds terrible. There is intermittent hiss in addition to the lamp buzz. But the voices and music sound muted, too. Sound board is a slightly different design than my DE 3b.

I am upgrading the speakers. Is there anything else I should do?

I am amazed how many 10 uF Caps are used to couple the sound between the TDA8199 and U31 / 33. Each channel has TWO! Should I replace those? I am not certain what the other electrolytic caps to ground do (C53, 54, 61, 62, 68, 69). Will replacing those help?

I'll be honest, I upgraded the speakers in mine to one of the kits that are out there. It's better, but a very subtle difference. Just a heads up that I wasn't as blown away by the upgrade as I was in other games (Twilight Zone and Tron come to mind).

Got the game up and running, got a high score, a d u can't enter my initials! The flippers aren't registering in switch test. Anyone come across this?

It looks like the cabinet flipper buttons are connected to the switch matrix. There is a second switch on the flipper switch. I believe it is the switch that is furthest away from the buttons that goes to the switch matrix. Check to see if those close. If they do, use your DVM (power off on pin and DVM set to resistance) to see that it closes electrically. Clean with a Q-tip and isopropyl alcohol (not rubbing alcohol) or drag a business card through the contacts when they are closed.

If the switches are working, then you have likely a wiring problem. Post back and I will trace where it is connected to the CPU.

Thanks. My Maverick sounds quite good. But that is a DE 3B and the sound board is a little different design. Tommy is a 3. Plus, on some games (like LOTR), in order to get all the sounds on the EPROMs, they had to compress the sound quite a lot. It could be that the sounds recorded were too complex, compressed, and will just sound like crap anyway.

I am upgrading the cabinet speaker. That should at least give me better bass. I am a little afraid to upgrade the backbox speakers. Better speakers have real tweeters in them. That just makes the hash, hiss and noise more noticeable in some cases.

Interesting you found TZ to be an improvement. I think all pre-DCS WPC pins have mediocre sounds. I did find a noticeable improvement with LOTR, but not TAF or Hurricane (backbox speakers). The cabinet speaker helps a lot in all pins. In theory, the sound board in DE/Sega/Stern 3, 3b and Whitestar is a better board than WPC (pre-DCS). With DE/Sega, it is a 3 channel stereo amp (2.1 I guess). Stern took a step backwards and went mono with Whitestar.

I just get a woofer (6" for WPC, 8" for DE/Sega/Stern) from Parts Express and find that it helps a lot.

I may just replace all the electrolytic caps in the output section and see how that helps. Then hold my breath and put car speakers with a tweeter in the backbox and hope for the best. I guess I could remove the tweeter if all I get is noise.

For me it was an improvement in the bass. Tommy doesn't really shine in this department.

Pinsound board is the way to go for instantly noticeable sound improvement

Does it have any remixed/replaced audio or is it just higher quality Amp?

There's no extra switch for the buttons. Left button has two (one for each flipper), right has one. All the wires from the cabinet button switches and single eos on the flippers just go right to the flipper board

Thanks. I will check it out. I also plan on putting a pad on the backbox speakers so I can increase the volume to the cabinet speaker vs. the backbox. Would also like to install a low pass filter for the cabinet and high pass for the backbox.

Oh crap, you are right. Double on left - I stopped looking there. One on the right. Sorry.

It looks like the connection from the SS Flipper control board at CN1 connects to the CPU. 3 is Switch return 8, 4 is switch drive 8 and 5 is switch return 7. Switch drive 8 corresponds to column 8. Return 7 and 8 correspond to rows 7 & 8. The flipper switches are in column 8, rows 7 & 8.

Since both flipper switches are not registering, I would check the column / drive 8 first CN1 - 4 on the Solid State Flipper board. See page 81 of your manual.

Also check on the CPU. The connection for Drive 8 is CN8 pin 9 on the CPU board.

I would suspect first that it is either the connector header pin on the CPU or the Flipper Control board, the plug, or the wire between them. With the power off, you can check resistance with the DVM between those two boards.

It is possible that the returns are the issue, but it is unlikely since both flippers are affected. That would mean that both returns would have to be bad.

The good news on the board is that the two switch controls are two different transistors, Q7 and Q5. So I doubt it is a board problem. Hopefully. A pretty simple circuit. For flipper switch 'A', it comes in CN1-7, through Q6, which activates Q5 and that tells the CPU that the switch is closed.

LMK if you need more info. I can try to trace the wiring between the two boards.

No continuity between the drive on the flipper and cpu. Jumped it and they worked. Traced the wire through the harness hoping to find a break or a connector. No break, and the one connector tested good, so I just replaced the wire from flipper board to connector and it fixed it.

Is there any better way on DE to find connectors like that? On older games all the inline connectors are mentioned in the schematics but I didn't see any note of them in the manual

Congrats on finding and fixing the problem.

I do most of my work on WPC and early Bally SS pins. Each manual has its good points and bad ones. My favorite is perhaps the Stern Whitestar manuals. Williams WPC manuals are great for finding the connections - each connector and what it goes to.

On this DE, it does not appear to have an equivalent. For example, looking at page 82, CN1-4 just says "Switch Drive" which is not a lot of help. The only place I found helpful information for this board was page 81, where it identifies where the connectors from the flipper boards go. That saved me tons of time.

For the other boards, there are pages 62 - 65 which are helpful. I like how the info is set out in WPC manuals better and this DE manual takes some getting used to.

Much higher quality sound.

And yes you can replace the music with a mix of the original Who versions

WPC are usually pretty good, though I always liked early system 3 games that had a listing of every single pin + color of every connector. After reassembling a PotC I really appreciated the detail in their parts diagrams, even what screws hold things down...

The deafening of the game play audio may be bad wiring or blown speakers in the back box. My Tommy had really bad buzzing from the lights cycling and the dmd. I was able to greatly reduce the noise by installing a dedicated power supply for the sound board. I still get a little interference from the dmd.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/data-east-speaker-noise-ideas-for-a-cure

IMO, if you do replace the speakers, dont waste your money on the high dollar stuff, unless you go with that pinsound board. Just pick up a pair of decent 4" 4ohm speakers and a 8" 4ohm sub.

I finally made my way through checking the switches and diodes. Everything tests ok. Before I go ahead and replace the switches and diodes for s*g, got any other ideas what could cause my problem? TIA!

I'd check all the ones in my shooter lane column too

Yes this x 100. Different brand switches have the common in different order. So the diode can be wired wrong. That caused a lot of problems for me.

Anyone know the 'color' plunger spring that provides the best results in Tommy?

The one in mine isn't strong enough to shoot the ball all the way around to the third flipper and is weak enough that making the skill shot is difficult.

Thought about replacing it with a 'red' spring but didn't know if that would be too strong.

Are you sure it's not hitting the auto-plunger? Green is the 'correct' one, but I had problems with it too no matter what I did. Only other thing I had was red so it's in there now, but a hard plunge goes around too fast to flip, and sometimes does a jump out of the shooter lane. Ordered the colors in between to experiment...

Thanks for the reply! When I looked at it tonight, I thought maybe it's not clearing the auto-plunger like it should (but didn't trust my intuition on it - and wasn't sure how easy that would be to adjust).

So, I figured I'd start with a different spring, but maybe I need to take another look at the auto-plunger and see how it can be adjusted to let it clear it.

Every DE I had something was wrong with the shooter or auto plunger. Make sure. It's not rubbing on the auto plunger arms and everything looks centered.

Mine either hits the autoplunger or hits the ball at an angle that kills even more energy no matter how I adjust it. Even tried shimming the plate to angle it lower.