I like it.

Don't worry guys, the scores on the LCD are off by default. But give that beta code a try, enable it and let me know what you think. This is mainly for streamers and for major tournaments that need the extra redundancy in the score display in case the numeric displays fail for some reason.

Also, there is that new setting to turn off the backbox LED light during gameplay. I think this is awesome as it really enhances the lightshows. I did not even realize the backbox was causing so much glare on my glass until I added this.

Again, both of these options need to be activated in the service menu.

--Scott

I don't even own a TNA (yet), but I'm consistently excited by all the features and polish this game continues to get. This is a perfect example--a simple tweak that can make a drastic difference for the player. Great stuff, man! I'm even *more* excited to own a TNA someday.

Looks good, like the alt color for current player, probably not something I'll use much for the scores, but I agree the backbox light off during games cuts the glare down a lot.

PXL_20200913_190541959 (resized).jpg

Scott many thanks! really appreciate this feature!

Love the fact you (randomly?) chose 42 spins there!! Lol

42 is The correct answer!

I definitely need to install a usb extender for Scott's continuous updates You're the best!

I installed one after I did the last update, this beta was the first time I got to use it, soooo much easier should have done from the start.

My thought was simply like that... it comes up "super spinner" on the display anyway, the vacant space could surely just show spins to go until the point it displays that it's active.

Is that the factory LCD or did you upgrade? I ask because your screen does not look washed out.

I tried to update from 1.4 to 1.4.2 and all it did was back up my settings. I then updated to 1.4.1 first then 1.4.2 and it worked. Maybe just a glitch on my part. But just an FYI. Or maybe that was how you're supposed to do it, and I missed that in the readme.

Nothing too insane, but here's my 2nd T with the new code

IMG_20200913_190858 (resized).jpg

Also while I'm here, throwing in 1 powerball into the mix is beauty. Looks great, plays a little wild, and really suits the game. I realize that is old news. I also love how you can change the mball colors. I like the teal color.

That is the factory screen, TNA #95. i did adjust the contrast and brightness based on some recommendations early on in this thread, but for the most part I've been happy with it.

This is why I asked. Looks good to me!

I am doing the clear drop target upgrade for the first time, but had to take a break due to my frustration with re-installing the circlips (or E-clips). I don't how you guys make it sound/look easy, but I am not having much luck (I am using needle nose pliers).

At this point, I'd rather be held captive in a Turkish prison camp. I'll try again later in the week.

Obviously not everyone has the same size fingers or hands, mine did only just fit, I have reasonably big hands though.

I had Just enough room to manouver 3 fingers in there. No pliers till after, if needed.

Get your drop, spring, washers all in place and compress the spring so that the washer is well past the groove, then with just the point of one index finger hold the washer in that place.

Then with other hand I had success placing the circlip in two methods:

1. Circlip between thumb and index, correctly oriented, and gripping across opposite edges. Bang it in that groove if you can get to it. Once started in the groove on both sides, you can release the single index finger gently... and clip the circlip on the rest of the way with your thumb/index finger, kinda rolling around the pin groove can help it slip around. Orientation is everything. If positioned correctly by fingers in first steps, you should also be able to use needle nose pliers to clip on home if your fingers do not have the strength.

2. Same as above, except once you have your one index finger holding the washer and spring compressed, use long tweezers to place the circlip in the groove, let the washer/spring hold it there in line just on the verge, and clip on with thumb/index ... or pointy nose pliers.

A tiny bit of dry lube on the post and in groove won't hurt, clips go on a little easier. I clipped home all 6 circlips back into place just using my fingers, only just though I must say. Pliers give strengh, fingers dexterity. Or, you can remove the entire mech, but you're pulling more apart. I had litterally no spare room getting the actual drops out and in, but it's doable without damaging anything, like a puzzle Lol

TheNoTrashCougar I have had my TNA working flawlessly for 2 years, but at a tournament we had on saturday, suddenly people reported that the flippers suddenly died for a brief moment during multiball (not sure if it also happened in single ball) but several times during multiball.

any experience with this/potential solutions?

Last time I streamed TNA I realized the flippers had gotten very warm. As in the top of the playfield was warm to the touch through the wood. Is that normal? Any fixes out there for it?

Check your flipper switches first. Make sure they are making solid contact. Also, please make sure you are on the latest and greatest software.
--Scott

Flipper coils do get hot when playing non-stop. I have measured the temperature of the TNA flippers on default settings against a new Stern and a WPC game and they are all about the same when flipping. If your coils are getting too hot, you can try and turn down the Hold Boost setting or the coil pulse power.

Hold Boost:
Machine (Standard) -> Flipper Hold Boost Level

The default is 3. But keep in mind by turning this down, the flipper will hold up with less power (when the flipper button is being held) and could potentially drop a bit on a really hard hit out of the scoop to a raised flipper. You might want to test this with the glass off to be sure you are happy with how it is set.

Flipper Power:
Machine (Coils) -> Flipper - Lower Left Main
Machine (Coils) -> Flipper - Lower Right Main
Machine (Coils) -> Flipper - Upper Main

Turning down these settings will effect how hard the flipper hits the ball.

This is really just a balancing act, but the only side effect from a flipper coil getting too warm is that it will start to become weak, that is the only time I would start messing with these settings. Having it be a little warm through the playfield is not unheard of, but not concerning. There is a steel plate and an air gap on the flipper assembly that is between the coil and the playfield. Worse case, the flipper becomes weak during gameplay.

One final note on flipper coil heat. If you are a nervous flip type player, meaning you flip the flippers all the time even when the ball is not being hit, this will cause extra heat on the coils as it is pulsing the coil full strength at a higher duty cycle (controlled by you!). I have built a few pinball test rigs over the years and have found this "Duty Cycle" plays a HUGE roll in whether or not I melt down flipper coils. I found on normal-ish settings of about 30ms on 11629 coils, I can fire it about every 1.2 seconds for 24 hours a day and it will not go into thermal runaway. Any quicker than that, and the flipper coil temp will run away on me and bad stuff happens. This also depends on environmental ambient temp as well. OK, this is probably too much info. Back to my morning coffee.

Hope this info helps!

--Scott

Haha. That is all great to know! My take away is leave it alone and don’t worry about it

Cheers! I returned to it today and found my groove (no pun intended). I guess I just needed to take a break from it.
I had to remove the target mechs from the playfield to do it, but totally worth it.

On that note, many thanks to you, JoelBob, Floyd, Herg, and others for leading the way on these new mods. I wouldn't have done it without your guidance, photos, and feedback.

These latest mods make a great game even better.

Oh, that is how I did it on mine as well. I just pulled the mechs down off the playfield so I could get to them easier.

Is there a parts list for the drop target upgrade ?

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/total-nuclear-annihilation-cluball-welcome/page/136#post-5660175

Someone should make this a key post

How do you make something a key post?

#62 , finally checking in!
Scott, thanks for an amazing game, it makes me want to laugh and strangle it, all at once.
It was my first NIB, worked great out of the box. Waiting for my RM # 183, probably get it in the next week or so.

Congrats on two stunning games.

done it

Same thing I was thinking, because I have no clue.

magic.gif

Hi fellow Spooky owners, I tried replacing my screen in my Rick and Morty using the screen mod here, and I ran into some trouble. I'm not getting a picture and am hoping someone can help.

For reference, I purchased these two items
Screen: ebay.com link: itm
Controller: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NCN2BRV/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00

Did I purchase the right products, and is there a way to tell if and which of the two products are defective? The screen does indeed seem to be powering on, I'm just not getting a picture (if that helps). Any thoughts and tips would be greatly appreciated.

Installed 1.4.1 a few weeks ago, completely skipping the 1.4.0 update in between. Since the update I've had multiple games where the game is triggering switches by itself, locking balls, starting end of ball bonus, sometimes when the ball is still in the shooterlane. Never had this with previous updates. Anybody else experience this? Solution?

Thanks

Jonathan

I had something a little similar, I would start a game, and the ball lock would engage, before I shot the ball. Or right after shooting. My tech replaced several optos in the lock mech, but never could figure witch one it was. He tried several times, and different ones. He fixed it. Haven't had any problems since. This was a year and a half ago on older code, so might not help.
Good luck Jon.

The Magazine is Brilliant by the way.

Message from the Freek Kingdom.

Would pay to check IDC connectors for opto's, under the playfield. Check the Error reports. I had a couple not fully punched down IDC's which caused all sorts of intermittent wierd behaviour, pre launch multiballs, random drop resets, false drains, repeating ghost drop cycles in attract etc.. Check transmitters are all powered up solid is a good place to start. If any one is not lit solidly the game will think there is always (or intermittently) a ball in there. You can see the IR transmitter side with most phone cameras, if it flickers at all or is out then there is a problem*

I also had some switch adjustments eventually required for the drops, when they were not registering properly or jaming on the drop. Also sounds like for you checking the trough opto operation is a good idea.

Hey Jonathan, unfortunately, this has nothing to do with the code update. If you are getting end of ball triggering when it should not, you have a flaky trough switch. If you are getting issues with the locks, you should change out your IDC connectors on the optos to Trifurcon crimp and stuff connectors.
--Scott

Inspired by some posts on the rick and Marty thread I lit my scoop

Comet slow color changer... I like it !!

20200919_204910 (resized).jpg

Hmmmmm. I like this. I wonder if you could link it to the start reactor light somehow so it isn’t always lit.

You can use the 4th LED associated with the lit drop target mod. Off by default. It will light blue when reactor is ready, green when activated, and red when critical. Turns off after blowing reactor.

Good idea. I just put it into the accessory psw board. However if it could tie it to start reactor + active rea tor that would be cool.

Its been surprising so far how cool it loos with rest of light show as its always changing color and so is the play field.

It looks cool always but randomly seems to match more than it should which is also cool

I love that the community continues to brainstorm new tweaks and mods for this game. I also admire and appreciate Scott for continuously staying active in this thread with troubleshooting, feedback, and code updates. With all due respect, does Elwin or Eric Meunier do this with their games? JUST SAYING.

TNA multiball with the fluorescent green protectors is my jam right now!
Major props to Spiderpin for coming through with this killer mod (and thanks to Scott for supporting it). I don't know of any other game that looks as cool in terms of lighting and "ambiance." I can't stop playing (and getting my bum kicked).

I would love to see what Scott could do with a cool theme like Tron or something similar.

TheNoTrashCougar hey Scott. What are your thoughts here? I light for the scoop would be pretty awesome.

Nice cool night finally, opened the garage and had a friend over. Here's TNA next to its single level brother's and sisters. Fits in perfectly, TNA is simply a perfect pin.

Message from the mercifully cool freak Kingdom.

20200920_193202 (resized).jpg

Thank you guys so much! I really enjoy trying to make the best out of the game. I have said this a million times, but you guys put your trust in myself and Spooky by purchasing this game and I want to do everything I am able to do to make sure you are happy with it. I am very proud of this project and TNA continues to be one of my favorite machines of all time (even though my 10/10 review for it was removed, haha!).

Go ahead and find that LED output and use that! it will interact with the game much better. You should just install an RGB light on that extra reactor status LED driver I put in 1.4.0+.

Use one of these:
https://www.pinballlife.com/p3-roc-single-rgb-insert-led-pcb-assembly.html

Or one of these:
https://www.pinballlife.com/p3-roc-single-rgb-gi-pcb-assembly.html

--Scott

Hey Guys, New owner here! What a great game!!

I bought a very nice used HUO but the Backbox latch is broken, i would like to replace is it the correct part? https://www.pinballlife.com/williamsbally-backbox-latch.html

Also what is the recommend pitch? I set mine as 8.0 THAT'S FAST!! haha

Thank you
C3A2B53A-B68C-46CE-9644-EF718B7BCB6A (resized).jpeg

Mine's somewhere 6.4deg ... although I think most have the game around 7 ?

For TNA, I would recommend 6.5 to 7 degrees. The shallower the pitch the more side to side action you are going to get from it and more side drains, the steeper the pitch, the faster it will play forward to back and the more center drains you are going to get. The choice is yours, I have mine at about 7 degrees.
--Scott

Need some help (running 1.3.1)

Was in the middle of a game and the game starting making a loud humming noise in place of the game sound.

Cycled game, humming noise returned again during game. Reseated the black jack and now I have no sound (or humming).

Cycled game and sometimes I get no signal on the screen and sometimes I get a working screen. In either case - no sound.

Do I have something loose that could be causing the sound and signal issues?

Thanks!

Thanks!

Got it working!