I joined the X-Files club yesterday. Had to replace the game rom socket, acid damaged the socket but not the board. Other than that it plays fantastic. Based on some documents I found inside and what the seller told me it's been home since 1998. Can't wait to shop it out and led it.

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Just curious if anyone has put a shaker motor in X-Files. I know there is a DE/Sega/Stern shaker motor board but I am not sure if it requires the game code to support the shaker. And since X-Files didn't come with a shaker I doubt there is game code for it.

I have a game play question. When you shoot the right ramp the trap door pops open. If you mias the trap door and the ball rolls over it, is the trap door supposed to pop back open?
I thought mine did but after changing some bulbs last night it doesn't anymore. But it will open it on the next ball. Not sure what is supposed to happen.

Hmmm...time to figure out why it doesn't pop back open.

Thanks Sevenrites but I figured it out. The green/black wire on the rolling switch came out of the connecter. Its the real skinny one that loops thru and goes to the subway switch.

By the way...you were dead on about using non-ghosting bulbs instead of the led ocd board. I got 4 smd color matched insert leds, 5 smd green and blue flashers and cool white 4 smd for the gi. I also got britemod ufo led pop bumper lights, they should be here by wednesday. I may have gone overboard but I really like it so far.

My X Files is clean and led'd. Plus new pop bumper lights, upgraded flipper coils, speakers and led speaker lights.

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I replaced the speakers and sub and have been extremely happy, but I wanted more bass. So I had an idea...use the non-existent 3rd channel as a second input to the sub. I ordered the amp kit from Marco and after 30 minutes of soldering, and referring to the manual so I knew what went where, it is all done. It did exactly what I wanted...doubled the power going to the sub. I have to say I am very happy with the results. It's nowhere near a powered external sub, but it has more bass and was nice pretty inexpensive.

I installed the kit from led speaker kits. Email him before you order and let him know it's for X Files. He had me order one for Twister and put a note that it needs hardware for X Files. You do not need to order the Sega power cable, there is one already in the pin. You do have to drill out the speaker cover on the right side, and install a speaker because there isn't one. It sounds way more complicated than it is. If you go that route and need pictures I can send you some.

What brand of ball are you using? It looks like it's being magnetized. I have heard of this happening with Marco Silverjet balls.

The checksum is normal. I see it on mine at power on.
I think opto 46 is used during the truth multiball to trigger the magnet to hold the ball.
I would use non magnetic balls. There is no magnet by the cheater post and you can see that the ball is retaining magnetism.

My understanding is that during the "Truth" 4 ball multi-ball the magnet should hold the ball (and multiple balls), but during regular 2 and 3 ball multi-ball it should not (just a quick catch and release). I have the 3.0.3 rom and it flings the ball fairly aggressively.
I am not so sure you want to remove the protective patch, especially if you don't know what it looks like underneath. There may be a considerable amount of wear on the playfield and could look worse without the patch.

I have had the magnet catch all 4 balls during the Truth. After 20-30 seconds it goes through a coil search and flings all of the balls.
I just went and watched a few X-Files play videos on Youtube and have seen the magnet act both ways during the Truth. I read over a few websites that detail the rules and they mostly state that during Truth it should grab and hold the balls.

Yes, it does sound as bad as you think it does. Those computer sounding buzzes and blips shouldn't be there.
I would disconnect one of the speaker channels and rerun the test. See if you can isolate if it is one channel or the other. If it's not the sound board or a bad speaker I would lean towards a bad sound rom.

I exchanged pm's with ChadH about updating a Sega game, either Lost In Space or X Files, and he said he was interested but would need access to a game for a while. Knowing its a 12 hour drive each way I kind of left it at that.

New file cabinet day...woohoo. Back Alley did an awesome job on this piece.

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The color looks good and it fits perfectly. Now that the cabinet is installed it's time to finish the code on the ramp chase lights.

I am adding stadium style side lights and lights on each ramp which are controlled by a pinlightshield and a switchshield.
I need to make a few more changes to the code for the ramp lights before I call it done. Here is a preview of the ramp lights.

I bought the arduino boards come from BigLebowski in Germany https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/always-wanted-to-build-your-own-pinball-lightmod
I also bought some of his adapter boards to make it easier to tap into the connectors on the MPU.
I made all of the connector cables, found the side emitting LEDs on Amazon and wired everything else up myself (lots of trial and error).
The majority of the code came from LyonsDen who makes the Pinduino. He has been a huge help with adapting his code to work on the other shields.
Hopefully I can get some time this week to flush out the rest of the ramp code. Then I will record a game play video. And once that is done I think it will be time for ramp lights on Independence Day.

I finally got some time to finish up the code. I wanted the colors and effects to be as random as possible so it took a little longer than I anticipated. Disregard the horrible game play, its hard to stand behind a tripod and try to play without bumping the camera. The first 30 seconds show off the stadium style lights, the LED effects are triggered based on which playfield lights are lit. After that the ramps effects kick in during attract mode.

Looks fantastic. Love the inner art blades.

I dont think the code to run a shaker motor was ever programmed in. I have an idea to run a shaker a different way but haven't gotten around to doing it yet.