Cool -- I remember seeing the fan motor, but haven't taken apart a CD drive to harvest the motor. Curious to know if you think your setup turned out better (or easier) than the fan motor.

Sorry for the confusion but I meant to say fan motor not cd. Both of them are brushless and should work but it is much easier using the existing casing of the fan motor.

FYI for ToM owners. I was having a SDTM issue getting worse over time from the ball popper/trap door. It was being caused by play between the armature and the coil sleeves. I chose to replace the armatures and coil sleeves in the trap door bracket assembly, which fixed the problem. However, note that the new Marco armature replacement (04-10019) is slightly off (either the hole for attaching the trap door lid or possibly the entire length), so it hovers the trap door slightly above the playfield by a few mm. The fix is either to use the original armature or bend the stop bracket (with the rubber grommet).

I also posted on the old thread:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/theatre-of-magic-trapdoor-help#post-3207341

Well guys, the party is pooped. My theatre crapped out on me and the trap door can't kick out a ball. The trap door comes up but the ball won't come out. I've had this problem before and I think it was something with a bent switch but I can't remember how exactly. Any help would be appreciated. Happy 4th!

Happy 4th indeed! There are two coils relevant to that trap door, one opens it (obviously working) and one is the popper. You can run a test on that in the test menu first (remember to close the coin door while the test is running). If that coil pops, then yes, it could be that the switch that detects a ball is in the cup isn't firing. This is the switch that is mounted to the coil bracket assembly near the coil that raises the trap door. Check that one as well.

Found the problem. Sub ball release, the solenoid that allows you to lock balls, is not firing. Not sure what the deal is here, not a fuse because all other solenoid's and flashers work fine. I'm going to test it for electricity and see if it gets any power when I find my voltmeter.

Hi all, I just stumbled onto this pinside topic after years of frustration with the trunk. Have tried everything- new opto board, aluminum disk, pinbits auto eddy but still the trunk can get stuck and have to reset game. Thought I was the only one. I was getting ready to install anew motor but came across this. I have Pmed Ingo but have not heard back as to whether he is out as I am late to the game,

Should I pursue this or replace the motor?

Bruce

Ingo is out there. He does not have a lot of boards at the moment. He will soon receive an order of more boards to start fulfilling orders. I was looking for boards as well. The last contact I had was 15 days ago. Be patient. I'm sure he's not like a lot of people here who constantly refresh their browser.

Thanks DA- I appreciate that. Just dreaming of a day when the trunk is fixed-lol

I've got one of Ingo's combo boards and it works great. Well worth the wait, but I can understand how frustrating it can be playing TOM just to have the trunk get stuck and essentially not work, and since it is a key part of the gameplay, TOM loses a lot of its fun factor without a working trunk.

To fix the trunk the trunk needs to spin at proper speed to work with the programing of the game.

#1 clean the trunk gear box grease out, I used something like break cleaner. Its all metal parts in there.

#2 this is important, regrease the gearbox using superlube brand grease.

#3 you're all most done, replace the friggin motor it's 20 years old by god.

I got my motor from kimballspinballs, I had to email him to ask for one as thay are not for sale on his websight.

I did this and the trunk never stops.

If I'm not wrong the board you are talking about will make it so the trunk dosent register hits during rotation. Ugh. Do that it You want it's your choice.

Here's a pic of the grease, trust me don't use any other type of grease or oil.

Best of luck
RVH

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I tried the grease and motor. I had to change out the bridge rectifiers and capacitors to get my trunk working 100%. Technically I could have just done 1, CR2 I think, but easier just to do them all at once and not have a power problem in the future.

RVH- since I have a new motor, are you saying do not do the Leon Board fix, that the motor is the only issue for sticking in the same position during game play? I had planned to change the motor as well since Ill be in there- Way different job I understand because of the cable going through the trunk needs to be unpinned or replaced. Should I also orer a new cable to be prepared?

Bruce

Doing all that stuff MIGHT help or fix your trunk problems, but not necessarily. I cleaned the gearbox, relubed it, replaced the motor, replaced the opto board... all that time and money later and the game would still shut the trunk down if it got hit while moving. Leon's board fixes the error 100% plus way cheaper and easier, literally takes about 2 minutes to install (though, yeah, never a bad idea to clean the trunk if it's never been done). The trunk not registering hits while moving is a very, very small sacrifice for a trunk that works perfectly - I've actually come to prefer it that way. Makes the game feel a lot cleaner.

.

Guess I got lucky then, I'll keep this in mind.
Great info thanks.

Well I found the problem. Trunk magnet and sub ball release which are on the same voltage string are out. There's no fuse for that voltage string so I don't know what the problem is. If someone knows if there is an inline fuse please speak up. Thanks for any replies.

Ingo says he has the single board but is out of the combo. Do I need the combo board or will the single do as well?

If your existing trunk opto board works then you should be fine with the single board. Alternatively instead of buying the combo you could get the "leon" and trunk opto board separately like me. Aside from saving a few bucks and cleaner looking install it works the same as the combo. I haven't installed the new trunk opto board yet but installed the "leon" board right away and it works great!

I found that there was a fuse for the trunk magnet and ball feeder but it's on the fliptronics board. Thanks jsa for the help.

On a related but different solution note, I recently had a problem where the trunk wouldn't lock any balls. It turned out to be my optos in the trunk were starting to get less sensitive. I tried cleaning them but it still was intermittent. I ended up replacing the optos and it corrected my problem. I'm terrified of soldering yet I'm slowly getting the hang of it.

This fuse was blowing in mine when I got it, turned out the magnet on the trunk was melted.

So as I understand to replace the opto board as well as the motor and gear assembly, I need to extract the pins from the molex connector. Is this a process where I could damage the pins and should I have a backup cable?

Bruce

Great question. Ideally you have a molex pin extraction tool, but the first time I did it, I did it with a needle nose pliers. I did not need a backup cable. The worst possible thing that can happen is that you damage a pin (which I have yet to do), which then would require re-crimping a pin back onto the wire.

Regarding molex pin extraction tools, the ones labeled as such all suck horrible ass. I've had better luck with this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000DI7Y4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s02

Just as an aside, I'm surprised you would have to replace the gear assembly. Usually you can restore it completely by opening it up, de-carbing the brown gunk from it, and applying new grease. Did a gear actually break? Motors die, though mine is an original.

The pins have a tab on them that needs to be pushed in as you wiggle and pull the wire out. I use a stiff sewing type of needle to press on the metal tab.
Pull the connector apart and look into the male side and you can see the tab that needs to be pushed in.

The tabs are typically on both sides of the exposed part of the pin, just FYI.

100% agree. VERY rarely would you ever need to completely replace the gear assembly. If you open it up, clean with carb cleaner, add super lube, and seal back up...it should work great. I am curious as to why you think you need to replace?

Most likely the motor would go first (contact Kim: http://www.kimballspinballs.com/contact-form-2/)

I dont "need" to replace, I just have a brand new one and thought I would replace. But perhaps I should just take out clean and lube and preserve the NOS one I have.

I think I actually saw someone remove the molex pins with the plastic sheath of a ball popint pin as well, Anyway will get it all apart and take a look.

Leon sells a little tester also and wondered what that is and do I need one?

Bruce

How do you remove the magnet core from the spirit ring assembly? I want send it out to get plated

Is it glued onto the ring?

Sorry I diddent chime in earlier as I had no luck removing it recently. I tried heating it up on the electric radiator and prying it out with no luck and gave up.
That thing was glued in like a mo fo.
I diddent know how to remove it without breaking the plastic that holds the magnet.
I left it alone and just replayed the 3 wireformes.
Be prepared to tap the screw holes on you're wire forms when thay come back from plating.

Hi, just here to show off a mod we just made for this table, I don't think it looks too bad if I don't so myself.

We 3d printed this using a 'stop and swap filament' technique to get two colors on each part of the mod on different layers of the 3d print. We thought it would look cool if the first color was translucent and we had a "mysterious" looking purple LED getting diffused through the material.

This mod just slides onto the sort-of plain, at worst ugly-ish metal bracket above the card spinner.
We initially had troubles trying to figure out how it should initially fit on to the machine, we we're going to originally use a nut on the machine, but came up with this 'stand that slides on' solution.
It took several 3d printing iterations to get it to slide on easily yet have enough friction to just stay very firmly on there.

We also had a lot of trouble finding a place to run the wire through near the mod's location. We ended up running it through the stand-up hole to the right of the trunk out of sheer desperation, but I don't think it looks terrible. It doesn't interfere with how the stand up functions at all nor gets in the way of the ball.

If you'd like one, it would be best if you PM me, or just visit our site, charging $30 each.

I'd love to hear what you guys think, take care.

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Its cool but not for me. I think it needs to look a little classier for that game.

Great work, that must have been quite a lot of work to design, well done. I tend to steer away from the cosmetic mods myself, though when I bought my machine it had a real saw blade hooked into the tiger saw mod. Anyway, good work.

Agree! My TOM has six mods on it and they all tend to blend in with the game. To me this mod sticks out too much. Also, would look better if the wires were out the back. Just an opinion!

I'm surprised no one has made a 3D tiger to replace the flat plastic.

I saw a prototype of a 3D printed tiger but it never went to production. I forget the name of the thread.

I was thinking of doing that, but we can usually only print in one color unless you part something out. We'd have to airbrush it, and i'm not sure i'd be great at that even if we had the airbrushing stuff.

Thanks. Yes, it was kind of a lot of work keeping them rotated in Blender, having to make linked duplicates of the objects so I could work on them without them being in a weird orientation but also being able to see what they look like when done. Making them snap together without any hardware and snap onto its own stand took a bit of time as well.

Thanks for your feedback, I don't mind the critique, its pretty valuable. I'm not sure how i'd do this, there is really no room in the mod unless you rotated the mod's 'socket' for the light on the side so it stuck out in back. Perhaps I could make something else that keeps the wires tidy as well if that's really what is keeping people on the fence from buying these.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/theatre-of-magic-custom-3d-printed-tiger-saw-mod

Sadly you are right, OP never posted again, looked awesome.

Yeah, that looks awesome. I'm surprised no one else has cashed in on that.

I sent the link to Mezelmod to see if they maybe they would do one!

Awesome idea, love their stuff, hope they consider this somewhere down the road!

A few years ago I got some red velvet material for real cheap at Jo-Ann with the hopes to make some pinblades. Never got around to it, found the fabric and decided to try just tucking it into the glass trim plastic. Cut a rough piece and trimmed the excess when it was held on. I doubled over the top edge of the fabric a little bit and tucked it into the plastic channel with the head of an insrument screwdriver. Worked great! At the top the plastic was separated from the cabinet a bit so I added a bit more fabric to help it stay.

Other side I'm going to make a more precise cut before installation.

It's not perfect, get's a little crinkled as I left the playfield. I was thinking of staple gunning the fabric against the cabinet. Fabric has a decent amount of stretchiness to it so getting it to hold straight is easy.

The camera only captures the shinyness and pattern of the velvet so well, I'm extremely satisfied! It was super cheap, but I have a ton of extra material if anyone in Chicago wants to come take it.

Getting ready to move ToM to a foster home and maybe for sale. So spending some time modding it out a bit before it goes!

IMG_20160721_231225_(resized).jpgIMG_20160721_231506_(resized).jpgIMG_20160721_233235_(resized).jpgIMG_20160721_233256_(resized).jpg

That's a really cool look for a TOM. Nice job!

I like it! Looks great.

Speaking of "blades"....

I received last Christmas some "inner cabinet decals" for my TOM that look like the image below. I am anxious to get them (finally) installed, but honestly don't how the easiest way to do it. Since they are long decal strips, it seems like it will be really tricky to work around the playfield, but it scares me to death do a playfield removal for something like this. Any tips or ideas?

TOM_custom_decals_pinball.pt__(resized).jpg

I pulled the playfield when I installed them on my JD, not too bad. Helps having another pair of hands to get it out.

I pulled my TOM playfield for my blades and it wasn't that tough. Make sure you have help when you pull it out.

I've installed tons of mirror blades and graphics ones...just pull the Playfield out 3/4 and push to the opposite side. If doing blades just hold in place with some painters tape, then screw in place. If using graphics just line up with the backbox hex screw and you're good. Just make sure it's not covering the glass channel.

So is it as simple as just disconnecting the cable bundles from the back box and lifting it out? (obviously taking into account any wire/cable management, glass out, etc)

Maybe I've been making a bigger deal out of this than it really is...

I just got a set of stickers for my ToM's inside cabinet. I really can't see installing those without taking playfield out, but if someone has photos of how to do it with the PF in, please post them.