I have significant cabinet repair to do, so more than sanding.

Did you sand off the original artwork? Or heatgun and scrape?

A little confused as to the background color. You suggested matching the blue in the Retrorefurbs new side art? Or the yellow of the original? I have not had the side art out of the round container long enough to study it.

I am guessing from their photo that the blue does make sense. Thanks.

https://www.retrorefurbs.com/shop/the-whos-tommy-hand-drawn-pinball-cabinet-decals/#iLightbox[product-gallery]/1

My original cabinet was factory paint. If yours is a decal, remove it completely. Then fill and sand.

Yes, I suggest blue since the base color of the retro refurb is, I believe, blue. The decals typically leave the corners and a few other areas uncovered, so the blue base will give it a uniform look.

Good luck and have fun.

Mine is the original which appears to be paint. Any idea if there is lead in it? I know that home lead paint was banned in the '70's, but commercial use extended for many years after.

I have to repair the cabinet also, due to water damage. Then sand. What did you fill with? I know many people that use bondo.

2 SMD are quite a bit brighter than 4 SMD.
2 SMD non ghosting was not needed, with limited demand.

No disrespect, I made them.

I did it outside with a painting respirator. However, I’m the guy that wears a respirator when I go up into the attic. I don’t know if it has lead, but better safe than sorry.
I filled with wood filler. I didn’t have a lot of deep holes, just a lot of minor ones.

My name is Tommy and I like to pretend that I am a pinball wizard, so I finally joined this club!
Scored a beautiful example shipped to me from 3500 km’s away.
It has the 5.0 code, and once I’ve played it a bunch I will probably get the Who music upgrade...
Here she is!

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Congratulations. One of my favorite pins. Not much beats the blinders. Re the sound: I did both the pinsound board upgrade and the pinwoofer upgrade. It’s great. I also recommend the color DMD.

Just joined the Tommy club. Not only My grail pin, but my first pin. So, i have read through a lot of this forum and clearly my issues are the same as everyones issues. My only gripe on this game are the bounce outs which definitely happen more often then not. Bounce outs of the mirror hole and VUK hole. I have seen some people talk about foam in there. Id like to hear from anyone who has been able to achieve 25% or less bounce outs what you did. This game would be perfect but for this one issue for me.

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Question for the Tommy experts here...
Should my game have a knocker?
I never hear a knock when I win a free game or match...
Also, I read somewhere about a simple mod that limits the epileptic flashing... is this something most owners do? Are there instructions somewhere?
Thanks!

Yes, there should be a physical knocker.

...and it would be in the bottom of the cabinet, not in the backbox (like WPCs of that era)

Bottom of cabinet, mine works but does not have the hard TWACK sound like my other games.
I guess it is because of the location, hitting a plate on the cross brace.

tommy (resized).jpg

tommy kn (resized).jpg

Hmmmm
Interesting. I don’t have a knocker then. Nothing near the speaker for sure...
Will investigate further... wonder if I can add one. Will report back fir sure...

that is a sub woofer which was added to the game.

Anyone in the Northeast want to trade their Tommy for my DE JP? It has pinsound + ColorDMD.

Hey everyone! Color LED is in!
So - Full LED Kit / Pinsound / New plastics / ColorDMD - Sweet!
(Man - Hope I don't have to sell it - No one will want to pay

(Honestly, tho - the Pinsound is the best mod for this game - IMHO; I have the "The Who" mix loaded on there, and that is my preference.)

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Working on a Live Who orchestration for Tommy. Just have to find some extra songs to add to make it really good. I think it be nice to have a live version as well as the Who did some great concerts.

My Generation- live at Leeds. Take a listen.

So just reporting back as promised.
My game has had the knocker removed for some reason. The person I got it from had no insight as to why.
I can get a knocker for it, but I am reluctant to wire one in for fear of causing new issues... when i researched data east knockers it seems common for them to blow fuses and or transistors.
Thoughts?

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If it were me, I would want it working. It may have just been robbed, as we call it. You can do another coil there, temporarily, to see if it works, on the coil test. If it works, you can do the expense of replacing.

Yeah man thank you it's fun.

The knocker is super cool when you make the top scores

Just saw the Who live in Houston Yesterday. Man Pete can SHRED the guitar still. They started at 830pm and played almost 3 HOURS!

Tommy is no longer on the top 100

That’s sad. Speaking for us older pinball people, the best music pin, ever, with Pinsound, of course.

It’s easily in the Top 5 DE DMD titles so that’s a shame …. even if the Top 100 is so subjective - there are many games above it I don’t care for.

That list is odd. When something new comes out, it jumps toward the top and pushes all the older games down.

Tommy will always be in my Top 10 list. Especially with pinsound and pinwoofers.

Does anyone have a Prototype Dataeast Tommy game with six pop bumpers and chimes? Really need a picture of the Auxiliary driver board. Also what software revisions do you have? My proto Tommy has
Display: A0.31 10/14/1993
Cpu: USA 0.04 FP 10/15/1993

Also looking for a new 4 sound ROM dataeast sound board (used on Tommy, GnR, WWF). thank you!!!
[email protected]

Joined the club today!

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Welcome!
Tommy is #1 in my heart

I got my Tommy in near-perfect HUO condition (16148 plays, ~1.5/day), and I want it to stay that way. I probably put too much love into these things, but I enjoy it almost as much as playing, so why not!

12 days owning a pinball machine:
PF cleaned, plastics polished, bulbs checked, spinners lubed, screws checked, cleaned under apron, tuned blinder pot's, cleaned captive ball + area, waxed, retouched spotlights, bumper and mirror leaf switches cleaned and adjusted, LEDs added (Comet retro warm white SMD's only: 11 behind translite and 2 in lanes), rotted 3/8“ rubbers replaced, plastic protective washers installed, outlane posts moved to "easy" positions, VUK playfield parts disassembled & cleaned, mylar installed, cracked VUK plastic reinforced, Blinders re-tuned (still twitchy, getting interference somewhere), 5.0 rom installed, front leg protectors on, trough light and additional spotlight pair installed, pushbutton wear guards (self-cut mylar)

Someday: Protective plastics, Pinsound, LED inserts/GI with OCD Board (for heat), Shaker motor, New speakers

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Love my Tommy. I also added pinwoofers along with the pinsound board. Outstanding. You’ll like the pinsound board. Good work done by others to create outstanding soundtracks. I modified one and love it.

Hi.
Does anyone know if there is someone working in a Tommy Pin2DMD colourisation.
Would be great to get one done.
Thanks

Nice!

I know the black shooter knob is factory but I prefer the look of the red translucent DE variant . I picked a new one up recently after looking for years - think a repro batch hit suppliers.

That'll be one of the things I get in my next order, along with new bumper spoons if they come back in stock. The bumpers are basically the only things that feel bad playing this game, which stands out because the layout is so satisfying!

Edit: oh hey they're back in stock. Ordered!

Link? Thanks

https://www.pinballlife.com/data-east-logo-red-translucent-shooter-rod.html

Or if you meant for the pop bumper parts:
https://www.pinballlife.com/plastic-pop-bumper-spoon.html
https://www.marcospecialties.com/control/keywordsearch?SEARCH_STRING=spoon

Does anyone have a DE Prototype Tommy with blinders installed?
if so, please please please need a picture of the blinders (lower ball arch cover removed.)
trying to get the blinders working on a proto Tommy... i know the implementation of the blinders is different on the prototype models.
thank you!
[email protected]

Red

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Much better

Hi @Ive, new in here and was just wondering if your fb group is still up and running? I found a Tommy group on fb the other day and can't find it now for the bloody life of me. It's drivin me nuts. Was your group taken down recently? I don't actually own a Tommy yet but thinkin of buyin one and just wanted to ask a few questions in there. I suppose I could ask them in here but not really familiar with how pinside forums or forums in general work. Thanks

If you ask here, you will typically get responses (of course now that I say that - you won’t) and the folks on this forum have a lot of experience with this game.
Great game by the way. Blinders are awesome and you can really do wonders with the sound and music selection depending on how much money you toss at the game.
I didn’t know there was a Facebook group on this. I’ll have to check it out.

zahner Thanks for the reply mate. Good to know people reply. There was a fb group a few days ago, but like I said, buggered I find can find it now with any search term and the link Ive posted in here is dead. So if ya find it let me know.

Lot more active users on this site.

Hi
It’s still there - for some reason seemed to have been unpublished ? Anyway it’s back up .

I don’t update it much these days tbh. I started that page maybe 10 years ago - lots of good info on there but you are much better off posting on here with questions …. Someone will answer pretty quickly

Thanks @ive. It was just drivin me mental that I found it one day and then couldn't find it the next. Like ya said, 10 years of info in there and I hadn't finished lurking through it all yet lol. But luckily I found the source of the group. Sounds like I might be better off askin questions in here anyway. I'm thinkin of buyin a Tommy for my first pin and I've heard that DA machines of that era aren't necessarily the most reliable and just wonderin if you guys have more issues with your Tommy than you do other pins and what kinda issues they are? And what issues I should look for when buyin one? I've got a friend that knows his shit helpin and is gunna come and check it out with me but it'd still be good to know some of this stuff for myself. Anyway, thanks again for your prompt response and puttin the FB group back up @ive. And pinballjah for the reply. Thanks guys, much appreciated

All games have soft spots. On DE games the typical stuff is battery corrosion, bad fuse clips (easy to test with the finger pressure test) on the power supply/ppb/flipper boards, and 100mfd/330mfd caps leaking on the power supply board which causes the game to either not work, or the caps leak on the HV section and it starts on fire! ha! Also GI connector burn on the power supply and PPB board. Those are unique problems to Dataeast pinballs.