I thought you might appreciate some creative plastics. I am taking the playfield apart so I can clean it and I've run across several "creative" (desperate?) graphics. The pic shows one of them, I don't know what the original graphic is supposed to be but I am pretty sure its not 3 separate palm tree plastics cut with a saw to fit the area

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a plastics question. This seems kind of wonky to me but it could be accurate. The plastics on the left side of the playfield are angled and bent downwards. It's hard to tell from reference pics, is this the way its supposed to be?

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It is that way so the ball will run off the plastics and not be stuck.

hi all -
looking to change out my flashers with LEDs. Does anyone know if there are plug and play LEDs for this, or what mods are required?

On my pinbot, I had to lift some grounds on driver boards - was easy to do and easily reversible. Is there something similar to do here?

I did some searching but didn't find anything.

LED flash lamps themselves are plug and play. However, on system 11 games, you'll get some serious ghosting on 4 of the flashers. you'll need to cut some diodes from the driver board in the backbox, then solder some new ones on 4 coils under the playfield in order to get rid of these artifacts. the procedure can be found here:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/adding-led-flashers-to-system-11-games

I've done this on 4 of my system 11 games and can tell you it works.

good luck.

Looks straightforward. Thanks!

...looks like both whirlwind & big guns are going to get some love here.

I’m not sure about LED flashers. They work fine with no ghosting issues in my Taxi, but on Whirlwind they won’t even light up on the skyway ramp so I’m not sure what the problem is.

Make sure you have the power wire going to the center terminal of the lamp sockets.

I’m just using regular flashers which work great! Glad to know that’s all I need to do if I want to change them in the future though!

fair warning on LED flashers in WW - out of all of my games, this one is the most seizure-inducing when the game goes nuts - especially when cellar MB starts.

Good point, I took my led flashers out and replaced them with incandescents--to me they just look/work better in this particular pin.

Does anyone know where I can find some mirror blades for my whirlwind in Canada? Preferably Ontario
Thanks

I'm sure coin taker ships there

I love mirror blades on my Whirlwind. I’m about to strip it to restore and am seriously looking at swapping to the Tilt Art Blades. Definitely worth a look.

Thanks for the heads up, although I don’t see the blades for it. It’s showing for dmd titles, and sterns, but nothing for alpha numerical games. Do they have to be modified aswell? I thought I read that somewhere.

I'm having a problem with the lightning flash across the back of the playfield during the start of a game. The thunder rolls but the lights do not go from left to right, they are dark and come up after the thunder sound is done. Where should I look for the source of the problem?

Going dark is the GI relay switching off as it’s supposed to. The Thunder flashers are supposed to activate at that point. Either you have burnt bulbs or there’s a broken wire or connector or something board related.

If I remember right, there is something like 10 lights on that PCB 5 for GI and 5 for Thunder flashers.

Thanks Jmckune.

I just noticed my blinker bulbs in the backbox aren’t working. Fuse? Any quick fix advice before I pull it open?

Backglass lighting is divided into 2 strings. Upper (which illuminates the title) and lower, which is everything else. You may have lost one of the strings. 9/10 times in my (limited) experience, it’s because of the header pins on the interconnect. Give that a wiggle and see if they come back to life.

Finally got around to replacing my insert lighting with LEDs. Had already done the GI but this really makes it pop!

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Looks good, what did you use for the gi?

Yes, but did you build a new chair while hitting that 3 way combo? I have no doubt you did.

All of them are comet 2SMD cool white clear lens bulbs. The Inserts are color matched 1SMD non ghosting with cool white going behind the yellow inserts as the yellow bulbs look gross to me.

Beautiful. So bright and shiny

Mine has comet 2smd Frosted sunlight In GI, comet 1smd Various in inserts, led ocd for the inserts, comet flashers everywhere except regular flashers under the red domes

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Hi guys, anyone have extra Whirlwind ROM chips? Let me know, I will purchase. Thank you

PM Astill

Thx for the few years folks, i'm out, sold my WW on Saturday. I "just" finished restoring it and moved it out. Got a happy new WW owner

Matt’s basement arcade...vendor here. Fresh roms delivered to your door for short $$. Awesome dude too.

I'm starting to put mine back together and I was wondering if people use anything other than white LED's on the playfield. Especially way in the back, from the youtube videos it seems like that might be a good place to put blue's but I'm curious what people do.

It’s never a good idea to use blue in the GI.

Mine came with half red half blue. It’s so dull I don’t like it. However...... in conjunction with pinstadiums it’s bearable. I will eventually change them to warm whites or sunlights I think

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That Whirlwind certainly has been heavily modified, but it looks good.

:DYou know when you think you’re in the pinbot thread..............

After worrying that it got lost in transit, it finally showed up! Wow what a difference! New translite!
(The old one is on the bottom picture)
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My discs started to squeak a little the other day I think its the center one but I'm not sure.they all seem to be spinning smooth with no play or rubbing.has anyone else experienced this?

Anybody have a scan of the plastics to the left and right of the main ramp? I'm thinking about replacing mine (which are broken on the bottom).

Try oiling the motor shaft

Not sure if this is a bug in the Whirlwind code (or at least a weakness) or problem with my third switch in the lock. I was playing a two person game with my daughter. She had two balls in the lock and I had credit for a single ball in the lock. I was up and I plunged the ball straight to my flipper without triggering any hit on the playfield and I hit it right up the ramp and into the lock. So there were three balls in the lock. It is possible that the third ball sitting there didn't register with the third ball switch because of the position of the third ball. If it would have registered some hit on the play field first - the ramp would have gone up. It did go up right away as soon as the switch on the ramp detected the ball but by that time it was too late.

The game then went into search mode and kicked all three balls out of the lock. My third switch in the lock is registering but like I said - maybe it was a position thing (where the ball was sitting). I never did get credit for the second ball locked.

You have a switch issue in the lock. Check the three switches and diodes.

Anytime you can lock a third ball or they get popped out early, there's something wrong with those switches.

I know the first two switches are correct because the multipliers show correct and the game behaves correctly. I am going to check the position trigger of the third. I assume I would have a credit dot if the third switch was stuck or something. The only question is the position of the third ball sitting there.

I thought the real interesting part was this: You get a compass point on the first playfield switch triggered after a plunge. In this case the first trigger was the ramp as the ball passed by. By the time that the game reacted to that switch trigger (awarding me a shot at the lock) - the ball was already in the lock. It couldn't react to raise the ramp.

Do you not have a diverter? That would have had to fire if you were going to get a 3rd ball in the lock and if it fired it didn’t know there was a second ball there

Yeah - the game plays flawless. I have played 1000+ games without any strange issues. This is a really unique set-up though that will probably never happen again. You are correct about the diverter though - it would have had to fire for the ball to go in the lock.

That is why I think a software weakness could be at play. The ball passes the first switch on the ramp and I get awarded a compass point, thereby triggering a set-up for a lock (raising the ramp because there are already two balls in there from the other player). Maybe it threw the diverter in a sequence of events error (knowing the ball is coming and a lock shot has been awarded and the ramp is still in the down position).

I am going to pull the glass and verify the third switch activates with three balls sitting there. That will only explain the searching for a ball routine though.

Did the second storm end on the second ball lock?

When the other player got the second ball in the lock everything was normal - storm ended, multiplier awarded. When I shot the third ball in - the storm continued and it went into ball search after a short time. It actually started the storm (what seemed like in real time) after the third ball was already parked in the lock. Of course the ball travel happened really fast and the audio took time to catch up.

I have to believe that the third switch did not detect a ball sitting there.

If the diverter was still open, then the second ball wasn't being detected. Does the diverter work normally?

stripped mine down for shop job, forgot which side the metal slide that goes under upper lift ramp goes on, and is the flat side of the the pin that raises and lowers ramp go up or down?

The diverter is 100% functioning normal. It opened for the ball. I really think there was some race condition in the logic.