LTG : )

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Thank you!

Nice work!
Looks dope!

Thanks for posting your project. Very interesting. My clock gears make a racket, too, but I believe they all do. I've read here about lubing the gears. Cool that you are tackling it! What's your final assessment? Worth the effort? Now whisper quiet or more or less the same?

I learned early on that original TZ's are more often really nice than raggedy. It's unique in pinball, as though the operators were so exasperated with the game's complexity that they didn't bother to rout them and instead just stored them, selling them years later for peanuts to other ops or to collectors. The collectors who bought them lavished much love on them, although so many of the games had many fewer hours of use than, say, TAF's had, and that meant their restorations required a bit less work. The result is that I'm always running into examples of TZ that are super clean. I never see roached examples, and I do *not* think that's because they're all restored. It's because an unusually high fraction of them saw little use!

Oh, and your TZ is straight dreamy!
Awesome!
Congrats!

Ooh! Double sweet! You've got yourself a "Kruzman"!

Look at you go! Nice work! Now you can truly shop a game!

The *whole* thread? Gosh. That would take me hours!

You funny, bruh'. Lots of very knowledgeable people on this thread - like, perhaps the most impressive bunch you will come across on any owners thread! (Which should surprise no one give how complex TZ is!) Heck, I will try to return the favor and help you myself if I can, but that would be one rook' to another. Maybe not so clever!

Go for it! It's a dope, streamlining mod and the extra effort to fit it is worth it.

Those should all be great. I have the flasher-endowed lamp board coming, too. Not sure how long it will take to ship from Budapest. Probably a solid month. That TV mod is super fly, but also spendy! I don't think I'll be adding that one!

Nah there's plenty out there that had a hard life

Robs TZ (resized).jpg

That game was recovered from a flood, then stored as-is for a decade.
I don't think I would dare undertake to shop this one. Probably too far gone. I would like to pick it over though and see if I could possibly recover sone salvageable parts.

Not quite - it was on a topical island, exposed to some of the weather and had some local wildlife (Aussie possum) living in it.

One of the local guys up there restored it over the last year

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Consistent day today... 1.3 Billion on each!

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No. TZ was a commercial flop. Had nothing to do with the game's complexity. They were too hard and didn't get much play on route. That is why when Williams closed you could find nice ones cheap. As in under a grand.

And became a boon to collectors who could get a great DMD pin cheap.

LTG : )

That is true and why i rarely played it in the wild or at the homes of collectors.

I have been having trouble getting my color dmd to accept the firmware.
I am going out this morning to buy a selection of thumb drives.
Will the firmware work with rom version 9.4 HC ?
I know is supposed to be 9.4H.

Keep hearing that but they sure made a lot of them. It was the 2nd best selling game of the 90's with TAF being #1.

Much quieter. I’m gonna order the gear and a new shaft to see if it can get even quieter.

Yes my ColorDMD is working fine on 9.4HC

In my opinion, I don't consider the rules to be any more complex or difficult than Addams; mechs... maybe (Addams had magnets, Thing, bookcase).

I was under the impression that TZ suffered mostly just from being released too close to Addams. People would play Addams, try out TZ a game or two, then go back and empty their pockets on Addams. Some folks weren't there to play pinball, they were there to play The Addams Family. Addams was so much fun, that some subsequent games didn't get a fair trial.

Working at a location with 8-12 pins over 7 years, I saw it happen, so I just considered it as a possible theory- or perhaps a likely contributing factor.

No intent to disagree with @LTG, however.

Taming an Overly Energetic Ball-release Coil:

You may remember I've been trying to scrub some power there by installing coils of progressively higher resistance.  Right now I have a 29-2000 installed (stock is 26-1200) and it's still too powerful.  I bought a 30-3000 Bally coil from The Pinball Resource just this past week and even that is too powerful.

I metered the voltage at the coil (77VDC) and then metered the voltage at the coil on a friend's TZ (73VDC), so I know I'm not getting a screwy amount of voltage at my coil.  Then I did the load-coil-in-series test proposed by Steve at The Pinball Resource.  I desoldered the power lead to the coil, jumped from the lead to a second ("load") coil at the same lug, then jumped from the load coil's opposite lug back to the game coil's power lug.  I laid the load coil on a folded rag in the bottom of the cabinet where the coin box usually sits.  I have the following low-power coils to work with for this test:

23-800
24-900
26-1200
30-3000

None of the first three coils above, wired in series, had any scrubbing effect, even when I combined them.  The 30-3000, however, finally tamed the game's coil - only so much so that the game coil couldn't even push the ball out.  So, I don't have the coils I need to figure out precisely how much resistance I actually need, but I can guess.

The 29-2000 is 33 Ohms and the 30-3000 is 69 Ohms.

69 is too little. The two combined (100) is too much.  So, I'm guessing I need about 85, but there is no coil that I can find on any chart that has that kind of resistance.  At the very least this test has taught me that a dual-wind coil would have too much resistance and would be useless to me.

Do you have any suggestions? Again, this is a serious problem because the kicker will punt the ball clear over the diverter and into the shooter lane. This mucks things up often, especially during multiballs and at the conclusion of LITZ, when the game is trying to reset and must reload the Gumball Machine.

Thanks for reading my post!

Addendum:

I did find this dual-wind Stern coil which apparently has 83 Ohms resistance:

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/090-5013-00

It's a "flipper" coil, so it's external dimensions may be wrong for my purposes.

Fair enough.

Williams thought it would rival TAF in numbers built and made them for 9 months. Distributors thought the next Lawlor pin after TAF would sell great too. And operators probably did too. So a lot were sold.

On the street it was up against people working harder for less money. And coin op entertainment often forgets the entertainment part. At that time a lot of players wanted entertainment, not a job.

So TZ performed poorly in earnings for operators. Which is why in 1999 when Williams closed. There were a lot of TZs in good shape available at a great price.

LTG : )

Now you made me want to play a TAF!

Never played one, seems I missed out

TZ is better!

So much better!

So so much better..TAF never hooked me like TZ did. I think the upper playfield my be my favorite mode/toy of all time.

There was one in a local bar back in 93 that I may or may not have been just below the legal age to purchase alcohol. Loved the game, got me hooked and played every time we went there. Fast forward a few short years and after getting my first real job I got a pretty nice bonus for the time, tracked one down for my very own. Guy selling had a few pins, it was either the more expensive TZ or a Creature (I think a Phantom of the opera was in discussion too) a few hundred bucks seemed to be much larger at the time. Wife told me to get the one I wanted.. Still sitting downstairs and it will never leave. Wife too, but she’s sitting across from me enjoying her bourbon.

It’s exactly what I’ve been told from a large french operator couple of years ago. He told me that TZ did really poorly in bars... those were removed or stored and even after, could be found in great condition unlike for instance, MM, MB ... or even CC or Totan.
I honestly think today that is probably one of the best pinball ever made and really a keeper for his gameplay. Maybe this pin was ahead of its time.

Any good topper options out there? A friend of mine has the tilt one with the door in the middle that is awesome but he can’t make them any longer from license…bummer I missed it.

That’s the one most of us want. What’s currently out there, and affordable, isn’t great IMO.

Also, loving this TZ history lesson from you OG’s. Really insightful, thanks for sharing.

Pizza place by my house had one. At 12 years old, I was mesmerized by it, but couldn’t afford to play it much. My $1 didn’t stretch far with this one, compared to 4 games of SFII. The NYE TZ marathons on TV made me fall in love with the theme too. Was always my grail pin before I knew people bought such things for personal use.

I’m finding nothing. That IGT slot topper is the best I’ve seen and I can’t find one available any where.

The IGT TZ slot topper had been on my radar for over 10+ years. Bid on one off Ebay up to $1.5k and gave up. It sold for around 2k. Finely found one here on Pinside and purchased it for $950 shipped which I felt was a good deal. One of the best toppers you can find as it's very mesmerizing to watch even though it's not interactive with the machine.
I do have a 2nd one that I did buy off Ebay, but is missing the computer board for the light effects. Have been looking for a board too to complete it. Since I now have a completed working sign, may sell it off and let someone else chase after a board.

I don't know if you've seen this one already:
https://www.ecflipp.fr/fr/pedretti-special/4379-topper-twilight-zone.html

it's a french website but currently out of stock. It seems like it has been released not so long ago.

Ah, that's the one I have on my TZ.

It's a 3D printed "robot", with a motor behind for the rotating antenna (which makes a lot of noise by the way, fortunately there's a switch), and it has "blinking" stars

Yea, I got one of these from cointaker recently. Looks cool, but the sound was far too loud.

Same here. I was in college when these games came out. They had a TZ right next to TAF in the student center arcade. I don't remember playing TAF all that much but TZ was definitely memorable. I had no clue about rules but it was just exciting to play with so much going on. Hard for me to imagine players passing up TZ to go play something else. Early 90's was full of great games so guess that had a lot to do with it.

That one is pretty cool. I’m hoping someone does an over the top interactive one though.

I finally joined the club, and by that I mean the club of people with a 5V problem. My TZ was a little flaky with resets for a long time but re-pinning and re-connectoring J101 helped... then wiggling J101 helped... but now the game won't even boot and the 5V LED is out. So, maybe J101 was a red herring, or just one of the problems, as 5V is now completely gone.

Several years ago, this game did have BR2 replaced, and it didn't seem to make a difference in the occasional resets I had at that time. (Yay shotgun solder-and-pray fixes.)

The game has NOT had the Z-connector removed.

I do have a Kahr board knocking around.

Of course I will study the wiki resets article but if anyone has additional suggestions I'm all ears.

(I don't have a passion for maintaining the original circuits, so if there's an easy way to add a reliable external 5V supply, that would be interesting too.)

Sounds familiar, I have bought a "no more reset" board from Pinsound and have not experienced any issues since then.
https://www.pinsound.org/products/no-more-reset/

Sounds like your 5v voltage regulator failed. Check the fuses and test points to be sure. If it did, replace it with one of these: https://www.ezsbc.com/product/psu5/

J120 is a red herring. That's GI output. The generation of 5V on the board is a fairly simple circuit. Not a lot of components that can be causing this - if it is a component. It could be a connection. The single most common cause in my experience is connectors and headers. I have been asked to replace BR2/C5 by people who had their reset problems persist. I re-pin the headers and connectors and the reset problems disappear. I have provided brand new loaner boards that work fine in every machine they have been used in and still their machine has reset problems.

I would not recommend this board as a long term solution. You are simple covering up the real problem. It is not a solution. It simply shifts load to a different circuit. That circuit may fail in the future as well. At that point you will have TWO failed circuits that need repair.

This works. It's ugly but it works. I have seen these in machines that I have purchased and I immediately rip them out.

If you need or want help reach out. I am located in a neighboring city.

Thanks folks!

* I meant J101, not J120, I misremembered my connector numbers at some point writing that post and used both.
* After following the wiki investigation steps I found that there was NO voltage at BR2 or C5, hmm

So, I looked farther upstream... When I poked J101 with a DMM probe, the game started to boot! So, all along it was a bad connection.

I had replaced the header and connector at J101 long ago but clearly, I didn't do a great job. I don't know if the fault is with the crimp or the soldering but at least I know where to look now.

If I get in a jam I'll hit you up @dumbass, I appreciate it. Once I get TZ fixed my next project is a resetting WH2O, haha.

Edit to add: I popped out the J101 header... it looked OK but I might as well do it right finally. I'll rebuild the connector again, too. I did post a tech question related to this fix... basically, is it kosher to use trifurcon pins at J101 or do I need the ones I have labeled "high current?" https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/are-trifurcon-pins-ok-for-high-current-headers-like-wpc-j101#post-6549022

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This works. It's ugly but it works. I have seen these in machines that I have purchased and I immediately rip them out.
If you need or want help reach out. I am located in a neighboring city.

Ugly? I think that’s a matter of personal taste - this is a small silver box that is hidden either under the playfield or in the back box. So long as the cables are cleanly done it is almost invisible. Talk to any Data East owner with the humming loudspeaker problem - months of diagnostics and work to see no difference - or a $20 power supply feeding the sound board and silence.
Most machines are fitted with LED’s partly to reduce the stress on the power supply. Anybody with a few Mods has to balance the number vs. power issues or add a new supply.

We are talking about an almost 30 year old device with a power board that was working at its Limit from new.. I don’t think adding a modern power supply that outputs clean 12v and 5v power is ugly. I call it protecting. How many TZ’S now have LED’S, GI OCD, a color screen, a pinsound and new loudspeakers? A lot of that stuff isn’t pretty, and adds more cables and circuit boards. But they improve the game

Each to their own but - my answer is, add a new power supply - buy a dual 12v and 5v version - same day/next day delivery, takes an hour, is barely noticeable, reduces stress on old components - and it works.

Your power supply isn’t repaired - you are acknowledging that the 5v section is no longer able to deliver a sustained 5v due to old components and wearing out.

If a new power supply is concerning - check out the Pinsound no-more-reset solution. This doesn’t replace the old 5v supply - if it drops below 5v it “tops it up” from the 12v circuit. Yes - this puts a strain on the 12v board - but this is tenths of volts for very short periods of time - minimal strain in my opinion - again just an opinion but probably significantly less stress that a 12v Mod. If the 5v supply fails - the board stops working to protect the 12v supply.
I Don’t know how some of the other solutions work - if they disconnect the 5v and use the 12v for the entire load - I agree, this is not a long term solution.

I am not disagreeing with the previous comment - If you find it ugly - it’s ugly. I am just saying, that this is a personal opinion and in my opinion - the Pro’s outweigh the cons.

Gingerbloke my case turns out to be just a bad J101, which I will repair... but I would like to know more about using an external supply. If you have a link that shows the mod I would like to see it. I did a quick search the other day and didn't find anything that spelled it out.

Oh, when I pulled the board last night I found a bad GI connector. I had rebuilt the connectors more than a decade ago... but I didn't replace the headers because I was scared of board work back then. I guess a couple of pins were bad enough that the heat damage cycle just began anew. This time, I am replacing that header too.

This was one of the first times I used my Hakko 808... it made desoldering headers stupid easy! What a cool tool.

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Hakko is da shiiit
Have been using their products for decades and never looked back, money well spent in this hobby.

Yeah what he said.
I broke down and bought one last month.
Money WELL spent!

The colordmd is the best mod money can buy.

Okay, what model number would you recommend?
Always thought to buy one, but never pulled the trigger. I should though.

I have the 808 but only because it happened to be on sale. It looks adequate for pinball stuff but someone might have a more informed opinion.

hakko 808 (resized).png

888D and 301.

I bought the 301.
Changed IC on WPC MPU with ease in 25 min. No damaged pads or traces.
Usually that job would consisted of several nights of sweating and swearing.

Thanks guys, I will do some research and pick one up.

Looking for some advice. I'm working on a TZ and neither the clock nor the gumball will spin in test. The clock's optos all register manually in test but the hands wont turn either forward or backward. Neither will the gumball motor spin in test. Before I go all crazy searching for a solution, any ideas on what might be causing both errors. Possibly they are related?