OT: that one came as a souvenir with my 2015 C36 AMG... Sorry 'bout that.

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I got a pm from him early this week.

No, I haven't.... his board works flawlessly, so why should I?

Hope it's an easy fix!

I have gremlins in my game.. first I lost a single LED; he sent me replacements free of charge, bless him.
Now they're all out - and it's something on the board, as when the game is first turned on, the LEDs come on and then immediately go out - like a strobe. Maybe I'll send him a PM here. Would like to get it back up before the York show.

Hmmm... that surely sucks....

I'm now a member as of about a month ago. I picked up a great Huo machine and I'm loving it. As for the Ingo topic I just bought one of his clock boards two weeks ago and the board arrived in about one week. He was a bit slow on answering an email and did mention that he has been really busy lately but he did come through.

Hello all, been a member of the TZ club since 1995. Sometimes the game thinks there is a ball in the autofire tough when there is nothing there, and sometimes it will kick a ball in there for no reason so I have a two ball multiball for no reason. I have checked the opto repeatedly and it always tests fine. Has anyone had a similar problem and have any recommendations? Thanks.

Strange indeed.

If that opto is testing fine, I'd actually start checking your other switches and optos, namely the ones that tell the computer to load the auto-fire and send a ball out. You just have to think about the game situations where the auto-fire would send a ball out, is all. Sometimes it's not the thing that messing up that has something wrong with it, but the signals that tell that thing to do what it does are what's really causing the problem.

Do you have the ball save timer option on? If so, how many balls do you have installed in your game? If you've only got the 5 steel and 1 ceramic, I'm thinking there might be a trough switch or the outhole that is activating even when there is no ball there. When the game is reloading the gumball after a LITZ wizard mode, that's exactly what it does. It sees a ball in the outhole but since the trough is full, it sends one to the auto-fire kicker.

Good luck!

To follow up, in case anyone was worried there was a problem with my board -

it was NOT the board, but a *very* oddly specific combination of issues.
In short, a pin was *just* loose enough on the inline Molex connector for the clock.

Why I couldn't track it down -
With the playfield raised - either all the way up or on its stands - gravity was causing the pin to make connection. So I'd disconnect the clock, measure voltage and get voltage! Then I'd drop the playfield, connect the clock, and wouldn't get any lights. It just so happened that in ALL of my testing, I never raised the playfield *with the clock connected*, so I never saw it light up when lifting the field.

Argh.

Oh - and for folks going to York. I'm really stoked about the bottom two door-panel flashers. I got them installed last night, and it's really an amazing look - the flasher animations work with the light animations really well - almost like they were meant to be!(*) Be curious to see what others think.

(* - They were. In development, the center panels (Lock 1, 2, Gum, Ball) each had a flasher. Top two were connected to the Upper Left Ramp and Upper Right Ramp - when you buy a kit for the door flashers, this is where they are connected to. The *bottom* two, are connected to the Pop Bumper flasher and the Upper R Flipper flasher. if you get GLM's board, *it is wrong* - they just feed the bottom two off the top two.)

Can I say "I told you so" about Ingo's board?

Bum Ball? What are you, British!

Post a video, man!

Uhh, Coyote, perhaps i am misreading here, but do the connections have to be changed, did you alter the setup?

I was pretty sure it wasn't the board itslef - more like something funky with my game to CAUSE something on the board to fail. But, it wasn't even that. Honestly, my game has been schitzo since it got delivered from the factory - it's just the way it is. My GI strings put out ~8vac, instead of the normal ~6.3vac. (And it did this with the original PDB, *AND* PinLED's replacement board.) So, my original worry was that the game blew one of the components on Ingo's board - through no fault of the board's.

And, wait.. it's not supposed to be 'Bum Ball'?! What's everyone else's game say?!

I'll get a video tonight. I'm not sure how well my camera will catch the flashers (never tried before..!)

My game was originally shipped with the door flasher board - the small, two-flasher board mounted atop of the door light board - from the factory. There's a plug (in my game - it was removed in production games) that plugs in as part of the factory wiring harness. This is unchanged. The GLM's board (http://www.greatlakesmodular.com/products/pinball/tzdpb.html), while very nice, is not correct for how prototype games had the flashers. Their board wires 'GUM' and 'LOCK 2' together, and 'BALL' and 'LOCK 1' together. When in reality, they were connected to 4 different flasher circuits.

So what I did was use Comet's 'Matrix' system, got two 12v small flashers, and literally taped them to the front of my door light board, and then made molex jumpers to plug into the UR Flipper Flasher and the Pop Bumper flasher points. It took maybe 30 minutes, the longest was spent crimping on the molex plugs to jumper in. I'll get a pic tonight, if interested. (I also wanted it to be easily removable, which it is..)

Lately when the ball comes down the metal wire form and instead of flipping down on the playfield it flips to the back & up. Does anybody know what I can do to fix this? Thanks

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Can't wait to see some install pics and the vid of your flashers, Coyote.

Hello all! So my trough sensor has shit the bed, no longer recognizes the Power Ball. Was going to order the TZ Trough Eddy Set from Pinbits, but they've been sold out for quite a while. Just checked Marco, they are out as well. Anyone know where else I could look to order one from??

Suggestions appreciated.

Well, I was gonna say Little Shop Of Games- I bought mine back in April from them but looks like they are out as well..

EDIT- Thought it was K's Arcade- was wrong, changed it to LSOG

FYI, In case anyone is interested, I just listed my all original TZ for sale in the Marketplace. It comes with the trough eddy upgrade kit AND a spare OEM trough eddy board set, along with a few extras.

Greg

whats up with that avatar of yours? is that you?

Marco sells the sensors, but they look to be the OEM ones... No trough board though

Trough sensor:
http://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/A-16528

subway eddy sensor:
http://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/A-16535

Please don't do that.

They sell magnets at various electronic store for like $1 and double side tape at the dollars store to do this mod in a 100 TZ.

I just read this item description in the TZ marketplace "for sale" section and thought it was funny:

Item description

Well-functioning machine!
playfield box must renovation!
Plastic, light bulbs, tires finger!
England transporting the machine door to door minibus 200pounds!

Just sold my TZ today and buyer didn't want some of the mods and had extras for it anyhow.
Don't plan on doing another high end anytime soon, so I thought I'd see if anyone wants this stuff.

Pinbits Gumball Machine light kit [warm white leds] - $35 Instructions on pinbits website

Robby the Robot Mod with lights. - This is a kit with 555 sockets and has a mounting plate where it mounts over the left ramp. $100
Note on Robby - one of the tiny circle "antennas" has broken off. It is included and just needs reaffixed.

Thought I'd post here for you guys instead of creating a marketplace ad. If Mods don't like it, I will if requested to.
Gift paypal preferred and Shipping is a flat $5 no matter how much you buy.

IMAG1639_(resized).jpg

Okay, as asked, here are install pics of the flashers. I marked them NSFW since I'm embarrassed at how it's done. But again, I didn't want to make it permanent. I also included a shot of my Prelim Manual, showing original coil names. And check out those GI Names!

The video follows the pics. Yes the glass is off, I tried to get some of the more common light animations.

Thanks for doing this Coyote. It's always great to get a better understanding for what the game's designers originally wanted to do and what/why things were removed later on.

I wonder if all those extra flashers would have created a necessity for added circuitry that they just couldn't fit on the power board or if they just decided that the game benefitted more just having the flashers on the edges of the playfield and not in the dead center of it. We may never really know, but I'm all for anyone bringing a prototype or sample game back to the way it was meant to be built. I can also definitely appreciate that you didn't make any kind of permanent modifications to anything to get this done. It's the best of both worlds, preserving the game's originality while enjoying its original design.

Well done!

Im unsure if this has been posted here before but all i can say is poor Tz

WOW!!!! That one got the bad taste record. Undisputed!

Holy cow, that has GOT to be a joke. I mean, at the very least, what does Jim Morrison even have too do with TZ?

Only because he couldn't make it himself for less than 50 bucks.

If he knew about the DMDExtender, I'm sure he'd do that at least. Although, I'm afraid to imagine of the colors he'd choose!

FYI-adjusted price on my TZ listed in the Marketplace to match Craigslist advertisement. $5400.00 for everything, $5000.00 for the TZ by it's lonesome.

Maybe he should focus on that credit dot first, it's probably a dot telling him to please stop with the mods. Call him and for $50 he will tell you how to make a mod, what a champ.

It's like..... I don't know..... everything that I (and probably most TZ owners/fans) love about the game is coated & masked with a bunch of garbage... What a shame..

That video is a joke right? Making fun of all the mods for tz ?

I'm gonna give him a call and see if he can hook me up with a talking Jim Morrison mod for less than fifty bucks...

jim morrison of the doors- the doors in the game, get it? put a friggin axe to the door in the shooter lane.

Yeah, I figured that actually, but then also thought that was too much of a stretch...

"Don't touch The Doors...don't touch THE DOORS....DON'T TOUCH THE DOORS

hahahahaha. A dinosaur. This made my day.

Be kind to your TZ. If it doesn't play right, restore it, don't sell for a Ghostbusters. Btw, is it just me or has the value on the pin gone up on avg $1K in the past couple years?

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It took me almost 20 years to find the right TZ for my collection. The Ghost Busters is just an addition to the collection.

DO NOT give up your pins - just keep on adding, justifying, over-spending and rationalizing. Take it from an expert...

I believe it's ok to let go of pins sometimes but a BW TZ for a Stern GB? Reaally....?

Hey, I sold my TZ to raise money for a GOT Premium and six months later I'm still happy I did it.

Not cool, man, not cool!