First Fuel Injected TZ ever!!

I know back in the day some manufactures would ID the pins somehow to ensure certain distributors only sold to clients within “their zone”.

If a pin with a ID was outside of its zone on location that distributer May face some sort of punishment.

I think I have that correct.

Richard

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That being said. I doubt it would be on the apron.

Operator ID. Under glass instead of side of cabinet. So it's harder to remove on location.

LTG : )

@Scoot, IMHO that operator ID tag sticks out like a sore thumb

If this was my TZ... I would remove that ID tag, and consider filling holes, then paint (easiest) or powder coat apron, then install new decal stickers and make it go away.

That's what I call a hassle. Just leave it as part of the history of the game.

TZ feels different to me than any other pin I’ve owned or played. An absolutely loaded widebody with too much going on to be floaty, it’s a really unique pinball experience. With a fair amount of stop/go, it’s not everyone’s favorite, but it’s a great change of pace game and every game feels different. There are so many different strategies, and it’s not linear at all. It’s like an amusement park for pinballs.

I think I’m in the minority that loved/loves STTNG. Owned one for 3 years and only minor work needed (damn rotating cannons). TZ is never leaving the house. I always get excited about the prospect of new wide bodies… like Scooby Doo! I’ve read the interview with Gomez about widebodies and while he has a point about flipper geometry, my TZ experience hasn’t been that the game is slow at all. Most JJPs I have played ARE slow but I haven’t tuned them or owned any so it could be like that from the factory.

Back to TZ… definitely love the wide body on it. + mirror blades it looks infinite!

Here's my topper set up, only thing missing is pinballs in the gumball machine.
I bought the game with the pyramid/eye topper which had 4 screws holding it down on the head
I added the gumball machine and it's held on top by one of the head bolts, the car is held by a metal stick that is screwed into one of the pyramid screws, exactly the same thing for the blue sign, I have'nt figured out yet how to hold the door behind the sign.

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Here are 2 pictures of how they are held and 3 of the door that is not very clear on the first post.

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Nice, I couldn’t drive a screw on the top Backbox willingly….just me…

I love STTNG. I used to ignore it in the wild when I’d see them in arcades. It seemed like they were everywhere in the 90’s. But once I owned one, I realized what a fantastic layout it is. I had a really nice one last year and I added the cannon lasers, color DMD and several other upgrades. The modes kick ass and getting multiball never gets old. I love the video mode and collecting crystals. It’s one of the very best widebodies, imho!

Me neither...... that's why I pointed out that I bought the game with the pyramid topper already screwed and that I used the existing screws/holes to mount everthing else I added.
When I first saw that the topper was screwed after buying, I was a little discouraged......

I just added a home made mod on my TZ, I was planning to add a Clock Millions mod from the beginning that I bought my TZ but these Mods on Ebay are a little too pricy for me.
ebay.com link: itm

ebay.com link: itm

One is 160$ CAD with shipping and the other is more than 200$ CAD with shipping, plus, they are not made of solid brass like the ones that were sold about 15 years ago, they look cheap, I remember buying one of solid shiny brass for a TZ I had 15 years ago.
So I decided to make my own, I bought this solid brass pocket watch housing off Ebay for only 35$ CAD shipping included:
ebay.com link: itm

and a small solid brass bell off Marketplace I paid 5$ on which I cut the top part of the bell to get a miniature bell.
I printed this from Marco's and zoomed it really smaller (4 cm diameter) and added the missing numbers, 3 , 6, 9, and 12 with numbers I found on the net and printed.
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/31-1751-3P

I cut a small round piece of policarbonate to make the clock glass, I polished everything before building it and added a LED behind the paper, connected to the clock millions lamp.
I'm quite happy with the results and it's shiny and nicer the the ones on Ebay.
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Looks fabulous

Well done! See, what you can do with your own creative talents.

Very nice, creative clock mod! I bought the first one you mentioned with the rotating minute hand. It’s expensive, I agree. I do like it a lot. The minute hand rotates and the face lights up when clock modes are active, or when you hit the clock target. It would be even better if made of brass! It’s made of some sort of metal. My issue is keeping it protected from ball strikes. I mounted a large, clear washer under it, and that seems to do the trick for now. A larger, rounded clear protector would be better!

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Thanks everyone.

Yes, I agree that this clock is very cool, but it's too expensive for my taste......
The large plastic round washer is a great idea, I think I'll copy, I hope you don't mind.

Blue and Red Transparent Clock Housings now available - these are original WMS tools, and original sandblasted finish.

https://www.planetarypinball.com/PPS-03-883X-10
https://www.planetarypinball.com/PPS-03-883X-9

Team PPS

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New to the club here:
Bought a Twilight Zone with 9.4CH rom.
Weird situation when it's time to Buy an Extra Ball:
a) If I'm playing by myself the countdown is fine and I got the 7 seconds to Buy the Extra Ball (after I drained the third ball of course).
b) If I play a two players game then the machine release the extra ball - for player one - while the countdown is still going, without pressing the buy button, but to use it I need to "buy it". Player Two instead is normal countdown without issue.
Any idea why??

Sounds like the game needs to kick out a ball for Player 2 anyway, but is giving Player 1 the choice to buy it before Player 2 starts?

So it's a normal behavior controlled by the ROM?

I'm sorry - I've never tried to buy an extra ball, so I can't confirm.

Yes, perfectly normal, does it all the time when I play with my wife.

Awesome, thank you.

How many balls can I add with 9.4 code. What changes are needed in the settings if I do so…thanks

Stuff like that is always in the manual. If you don't have one, you can download it on the IPDB website.

In the menu:
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This is ball per game, looks like. Wow! Up to 10 balls!!!? I’m asking how many can be installed. I think the code 9.4 superseded the manual print… sometimes all my balls are locked in the gumball and I’m stuck with a cycling of two Balls and one is the Powerball….

I have my game set to 6 balls. Three are in the gumball machine.

Oh, oh, oh, I get it now. You mean balls physically put in the game. I know 6 is the standard, but I believe 9.4H has a setting for 7. With that said, if your game is just cycling two balls from the trough, it sounds like you might have one in the ball lock slot to the right of the right ramp. I'm pretty sure there's a setting where it'll kick out any locked balls after a certain amount of time after a game is finished so that there are three balls in the trough, and three in the gumball machine. So check your other adjustments for that first.

If you've got more than three balls in the gumball machine, and your in-menu game settings aren't set for 7 balls already, and it's not kicking out balls from the lock, you've got opto problems. Either one of the ball lock position optos is bad, or one of the optos in the gumball is bad.

Hey guys - That right loop spiral spot - is it designed to hit that post by the camera when it returns (assuming you don’t hit it with top left flipper)? Or should it just come back down straight to your bottom left flipper? My game the ball his that post right by the camera AVS goes to the top right flipper.

No more random resets. Removed the Z tap power coupling between the PC boards and directly soldered the six wires. Simple fix.

Every terminal connection presents a potential high resistance path, causing power sags, so direct solder whenever possible will prevent that issue.

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On mine I wasn’t able to adjust to have it flow to the bottom left flipper, but it sure feels like it should. I’m not sure what intended behavior is though

Mine will make it all the way down to the left flipper. I believe that's the way it's supposed to be, and as the orbits are typically the longest distance shots in the game, flipper to flipper should be the goal. Plus, for Pat Lawlor games, this is somewhat the norm. Also, with the ball returning to the lower left flipper, it makes it so you can repeatedly make that orbit shot if your timing is right.

I did the same with my Williams IJ. Checked all sorts of stuff on the boards/wiring, and still had random resets. Finally removed the Z-connector and now have zero resets.

That was my expectation as well. Would you mind taking a pic of the ball guide and post right by the camera? I’m curious to see how your setup looks like

My TZ right orbit shot flows all the way around to the lower left flipper as well without hitting the post by the camera. Photos are attached showing my TZ near the camera as requested.

Gord

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I once put pinballs in a gum machine like that and the glass broke. It just wasn’t designed to hold that much weight. So just use caution or maybe something clever like fill the middle with some material and just balls on the outside.

When I hit the right spiral, there is a high probably it drains between flippers if I don’t hit the mini flipper. If this is supposed to land on the left flipper, any suggestions on where to adjust? Is it the ball guide? Never knew I had an issue until reading this thread but I know mine doesn’t land properly. And I am definitely level.

Suggestions?

Thanks! I knew mine was wrong. Doesn't make sense considering how Pat designs games. Question now is what to adjust but I'll wait for some feedback and when I have some time to tweak.

So it’s the flipper position I believe. Yours is angled towards the piano more acts as an extended ball guide towards the center. I lifted my flipper a little and out no longer hit that post. Here is mine right now and yours. Mine is dark blue rubber

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Mine goes SDTM if I don’t use the mini flipper and shoot for the piano. I like the danger!

Mine is the same and I fully agree with you.

I would adjust the mini flipper so that it makes the ball slide

Sorry, I quoted the wrong post.

Thanks for sharing, I'll try something clever..... but I don't know what yet, I'll think about it for a few weeks while I'm making mods for other games.

I'm having an intermittent issue that tedious to try to tweak up, and was hoping someone here has a recipe they can share.

When shooting the right ramp to battle the power, about 1/2 the time the ball gets knocked off the rails when the diverter opens to let the ball through.

For normal shots (diverter down to catch the ball), it is smooth as butter.

I suspect I need to tweak the rails, but it is challenging to do this sort of thing in test mode, and tedious to be playing games to test out tweaks.

Does someone have the magic formula for getting the rail to the mini playfield tweaked up?

Thanks in advance!

(as an aside, I finally got around to installing magnet liners on the path to my lock and it is a literal game changer: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-definitive-twilight-zone-lock-shot-fix-thread After cursing bricked lock shots for 28 years, I don't think I've had a single bricked shot since installing the magnet strips....MANY thanks to those sharing their experiences here, it works amazingly well)

Here's mine. My flipper is adjusted a bit more out towards the piano that yours. It looks like the tip is right in line with where the post is if you were to follow the line from the ball guide. It never hits it, though. When I got my TZ, that flipper was further out and made the ball hit the lower right flipper. I adjusted it to where it is now so it hits the left one as I figured that's what the correct position was. I'm glad I did, too because when my nieces and nephews come over to play, they never use the upper flippers on either of my Lawlor games. I point them out every time, too, as a way of scoring more points or achieving game objectives. If it wasn't adjusted correctly, the ball would drain every time they shot that right orbit and I'd never hear the end of it from them!

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My TZ used to have the mini flipper slightly angled out so much so that it would also land in the Piano without any effort at all
I re-adjusted it flat and now mine too goes straight down the middle lol but still prefer this than to make the piano shot too easy

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