Need some help! My extra ball button has no wires coming from it! I see a naked 4 pin connector just dangling near the front of the cabinet just waiting to be tapped. Can anyone snap a pic of their EB button wiring so I can figure out which wires go where? It would be nice if there were a little mini harness I could buy but I am not holding my breath. Anyone know where I could buy this mating connector though?
Thanks in advance!

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thanks! is that an inline fuse holder on the red wire?

Mine was missing also, here's some pics, will put up a link of a wiring harness i bought from a vendor that was very close,

http://www.pinballspareparts.com.au/electronics/cables/h-21542.html

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Diode on the red wire. Skywalkers pictures are awesome!

Hi Everybody,

New TZ owner here. First of all, thanks to everybody who's provided information on this thread--it'll definitely be a handy resource. As part of shopping out my machine, I'm looking to put in a set of Titan silicone competition rings. While I'm fine using standard white rings, I've been really impressed with what people can do with the different colors Titan provides. Anybody willing to share some pics on what they've done? I don't have an eye for creating this kind of thing, and the Titan user-created kits available online are short on pictures. Thanks!

Is it normal for a full plunge to brick off of the plunge scoop sometimes? I replaced the shooter spring and rubber tip thinking I was not getting a hard enough plunge. But it still bricks about 20% of the time. It seems like the scoop needs to be bent open or something. Before I go to work with some needle nose pliers and a blow torch, is it supposed to be like that?

No, not normal. Is your shooter rod aligned properly? Is the scoop aligned straight? Look from underneath. Are the welds broken on the scoop and bent in?

It should actually have a very soft spring.

Ok its fixed! I took off the scoop and found a thicker than usual washer between the scoop and the PF in one of the 3 screw locations (the one closest to the subway). Seemed strange so I removed it. No more bricks! And further bonus. I got LITZ for the first time. Woop!

Hmmmm... I noticed mine had the same washer (on the I.B. side where it opens into the subway) and I get bricks as well about 20% of the time. I think I will remove that washer!

I have not heard much lately about the "Twilight Zone Door Panel Insert Board".

Is this still something that would be worth purchasing? For those who have this.... does it make the game look awesome?

You can get the 12v Matrix flashers from Comet, and get all four, tape them to the door panel board, and wire them up. However, if you have the plug for the upper flashers, I would get the small two-lamp board for the upper flashers - would save you from having to wire all four flashers.

Note that I'm a stickler for details, and I do not care for how they wired the flashers on it. (Don't get me wrong, they make good stuff, I just like it the way it was intended. )

Thanks coyote... which of the 2 choices would you do?

Also... I've mentoned in the past about how my TZ color DMD gets glitchy.... especially after its been on for awhile. People mentioned to change the ribbon cables & or resolder the board. Would the board that needs resoldering... be the one with the red x?

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Yes, that is the DMD board.

I resoldered the DMD board ribbon cable connections but still get glitchiness on the color DMD... it has new ribbon cables. Any other things I could try? Thanks

I actually did the first part and second part.. (I also messed up my post, d'oh. I edited it, and now hopefully it makes more sense.)

I got/had the two-flasher board already, so all I had to do was get two of the v12 Matrix flashers from Comet, and wired them in easily. (So it's very easily removable..) However, since my game had the upper flasher board on the door panel, I didn't have to do any special wiring for those. Since your game may not have the upper plug, it may be easier to do all 4 with the matrix lights.

I like to replace the caps,ribbon cable, and put a HV rebuild kit on any original DMD board. If it wasn't done already. I'll also test other components and replace if bad. Do you have another WPC game? If so swap boards and see if that fixes it.

Any one know where these plastics go? They're all clear, the backing is still on.IMG_20161008_174314_099 (resized).jpg

If he's got the ColorDMD, I don't think he has to do any of the HV stuff?

Second one from bottom goes on the screw that holds down the shooter/autofire lanes.

I know, but it's a cheap kit and everything gets crispy in that area. If your going to take the board out for repairs, might as well do it.

Thanks!

Just realized the color DMD doesn't use the J604 plug. So I guess you don't need it. Regular DMDs do though.

Hey... thanks for the idea. I took out the DMD board from my Terminator 2 & it looks great. I'll be sending the bad TZ DMD board to Chris Hibler. He's working on a bunch of my boards.

Captive_Ball, while my TZ is on loan to him, added just 3 GI spotlights (1 each at the top of both slingshots and just above the top left corner of the slot machine plastic). Now I will not mind the lights being out in the room while I play. This is something I wanted to do for a while. The LCD ColorDMD is installed along with the other few basic mods.
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I'm getting balls stuck here, any suggestions? thanks

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Raise your back legs.

I would try adjusting the guide first, if that doesn't work, take it out and give it a little bend so its slightly bowed. Also make sure the machine is level left to right. Sometimes the leg bolts move if the jamb nut is not tight.

At times the ball does not go in all the way & just comes back out (sometimes not) even at a good speed. Is this normal? Thanks

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yeah brick shots are normal for the lock shot

Mine does that also,what a pain in the arse. I have to figure that out.

Search this thread, there is a LOT of talk about it, and it's not normal; likely missing added spacers on the back legs.

Stronger coils.... Rebuilt flipper kits....

Does anyone have the lighted flipper buttons in their TZ? I am thinking about buying these and am stuck deciding if I should get the Blacklight or Blue color.

ain't that the truth.....

Why is this? Is it part of the programming? What's stopping the ball?

No its not programmed. But, I have just accepted that it bricks sometimes because of the passage mechanical design ever since I watched a PAPA pinball tutorial with Bowen Kerins and he mentioned it. BTW, great tutorial, see below...

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/tz-ball-wont-stay-in-lock-why

Guys, read this thread, follow the guides there ...... no more brick-shots, realy no bricks
Thanks again Coyote

A little background, for those *really* interested..

Originally, one of the first lock designs had no ramp there and no flap up at the far end (entrance) of the lock. The exit of the lock area was angled down-playfield. (If you look at the kickout, you'll see the red lane artwork on the playfield is still angled down like this.)

The problem with this was that balls shot into the lock would shoot around that tight corner at the entrance, and go flying into the lock. Ball speed would be to fast that the ball would then jump out of the kickout into the spiral. The lock exit was changed, to straighten it off, to stop ball bounce-outs. This didn't really work well. So, the alternative was to slow the ball down - by sending it up a short ramp to then get deflected back onto the playfield, taking a lot of momentum out of the ball, so it wouldn't go flying out the bottom of the lock.

The problem with THAT was that space was so limited, that on a hard-enough shot, the downward deflector would cause the ball to hit the end of the ramp, lose ALL momentum, and come rolling out the entrance.

In that thread, I mentioned that I used lock-nuts to raise up the back of my lock cage, because my plastic spacers were pretty much squeezed completely out of shape. After over six months of playing, it's still not 100% - I actually have balls coming out of the lock exit now. My deflector isn't angled right to slow balls down enough sometimes. (Maybe, 1 in 10 shots when lock is empty.) So it's a tweak I need to get to.

Hi Coyote, thanks alot for the background. This is very interesting. So, did machines ever ship from the factory with spacers in the cage to raise it up? Mine only bricks 1 in 10 or so and I think it actually adds to the enjoyment of the game. I can see how it would be annoying if it bricked at a much higher frequency though.

My game came with spacers. Over the years (i.e. When I did my clearcoating of the PF) I only had one left, and it was almsot cut-through from the metal pressing down into it. (Overtightening.. ) Likely at some point I likely took it apart, it fell off, and I didn't know what it was for after reassembling. I'm not sure if they were all shiped with the spacers or not - I've heard people say their game didn't come with them, some did. Considering how difficult they are to get on, and stay on while sliding the lock cage back into the playfield, I wouldn't be surprised if many games left the factory with them not on. (If they were even *supposed* to be there..)

Gotcha, I will be rebuilding my claock and putting in a piano mod pretty soon on mine. Might be a good time to see what I am working with. Not sure if I have spacers or not. Do you think that maybe the lock nuts (I assume you mean the steel nuts with nylon locking material in them as opposed to jam nuts) are a little too tall causing the ball to push through to the exit? Just thinking maybe if I do anything I would add a washer or a skinnier jam nut there since I am not getting tons of brick shots and raising it up a 1/4" or so might be overkill. Seems like a thread solution (like your lock nut idea) is the way to go though... Thanks again!

I have the blue and they look great. I have them set to pulse and they go perfect with the the rest of the art package.

Added to mine some time back....I really like the effect....

I wanted to take the time to recognize Ingo for what he had done for me. But before I do I should mention that there’s nothing in this for me, except for maybe a shameless plug for my store

The tl;dr version…Ingo is a generous and great guy with whom you should deal with confidence, yada yada yada

The long rambling version…The clock on my recently purchased TZ had started acting up. Searching through the forum I’d found that there was a permanent solution for the problem, that being Ingo’s clock board. I also saw the special offer he had made available to the Pinsiders about a year ago.

I PM’d him and asked if he would honor last year’s prices and he graciously agreed to extend the offer to me. He was under absolutely NO obligation to honor the prices from a year ago. You may be thinking "yeah but he was bound to make money anyways even based on last year’s prices" and my response to that is I made it perfectly clear to him that it would not be a problem if I could not buy the board at the price advertised last year. I would still buy it at the regular price. Based on my comment, he could’ve decided to be greedy and expect me to pay the regular price thus making even more money but he chose the high road.

Although I’m sure he doesn’t need it, I wanted to put in a good word for him. ( Insert shameless plug ) As an Etsy store owner I understand how far good words and positive feedback go. I also wanted to bring to attention a good person among the questionable people and sellers that I’d heard and read about on this forum.

Kudos, Ingo!

PS - I have not been able to install the clock board because my wife made me pack up my machines a couple of weeks ago so that I could get started on the renovations to the game room But I am confident that, when I do finally install it, should there be any problems with the board, Ingo will be more than willing to help me out. Heck, based on what I’ve read on the forums I know even a lot of you Pinsiders would be kind enough to help me out!

Alright...so I have a minor issue that I'm hoping someone else has encountered and resolved:

When a ball drains and lands in the center outhole, the kicker that moves the ball into the trough sometimes get caught up on the switch that tells the machine that a ball has drained. This has caused the kicker arm to get stuck and not retract properly. It used to happen periodically and I've noticed it happens more frequently. If it doesn't retract and gets caught up on the switch, then a ball that lands in the outhole won't be able to register as drained. When I physically move the switch to ensure that the kicker arm doesn't hit it, the kicker arm is having a hard time retracting more than about 50%. The kicker strength in terms of launching a ball into the trough seems perfectly fine...it's the retract motion that's the issue.

I tested the mechanism and it freely moves back and forth...so there's nothing that seems to be impeding it's movement. A few questions:

- What is that mechanism called that kicks the ball from the outhole into the trough (in case I need to order parts)?
- What do you think I need to do?

Thanks!

After doing some additional research, the 'Outhole Kicker Assembly' is the thing I'm talking about. I would assume that if it moves freely, it's likely just the spring? Should I also replace the coil tubing and the plunger & link assembly?

Thanks!

First look if all is clean and moving freely, at the right angle.
Things can go rough downthere with multiball and sdtm's

Hey guys, I have this extra playfield and I have no idea what it is worth and thinking about selling it. The playfield has gray circles instead of red and there is no flip here language on it. There is a bally official sticker on the back of it. Any ideas of takers on it?

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Good luck selling it. I'm sure there will be a taker out there. Since I still firmly believe that the printer, artist, or somewhere in the line just forgot the red layer (because the keylines around the inserts are supposed to be red as well), I probably wouldn't wanna give up more than $50 for it.

Did some digging and found out it is a CPR silver edition upper play field. CPR does not have a stock of these any longer but that is where it was made and the red was left off intentionally i guess considering your theory