Had an opportunity to get a nice Whitewater and couldn't pass it up. Always loved this game. Great to finally own one!

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Thanks. Looks awesome next to Fish Tales but need to sell Congo. Great game but need to sell it to clear some room. Looking forward to diving into Whitewater (pun intended). Need to shop it out with Comet leds, Titan rubbers, and fix a few minor things. Like to get ocd boards and colordmd but that might be for later.

Anyone know what screws hold the right ramp onto the upper pf? Mine are missing.

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Perfect. Thanks for the link.

Same here. Don't skip the wood glue, though. I have tried it with just toothpicks and doesn't work as well without glue.

Looks great! What lighting did you add?

I like the way the back area under the ramps is well lit above and under the ramps. I don't think it's a good idea using leds in the topper, though. Everyone says it ruins the effect. I plan on leaving the 194 bulbs in the topper but replacing everything else with leds and light strips for boulders.

Look for Rockytop posts in this thread. He did an awesome job lighting up the boulders with the Comet Matrix light strips. I plan on doing the same with warm white light strips and sunlight gi. Nice thing about the Comet Matrix stuff is that if something doesn't look right it is super easy to change since everything is connected using connectors. I also like using the dimmers to tune the brightness just right. Hope to get started shopping my Whitewater this weekend. I don't have a lot of free time so it might take a while. Luckily my game is in good shape but still lots of work to do. I will definitely post pics once I am done.

Question for OCD board users - do you need to program them for Whitewater? The instructions for GI OCD say "The GI OCD board is configured for WPC95 use by default, and strings 4 and 5 will be always on." I noticed there is a configuration file for Whitewater off the website but think that might be for the LED OCD board. Software instructions look a bit confusing and not really interested in tweaking every bulb. I have both boards and trying to figure out what I need to do to just get the correct stock look.

Nice work, soulrider! Beautiful Whitewater. Is that missing boulder the one currently being sold? I know you paint matched it and looks like it fits right in. Tough to mix and match different boulders when everything looks different.

That doesn't include the stuff for the lights and dome either.

Original has the correct foil that was never duplicated.

A few things still need tweaking but mostly finished shopping my WH20. Comet leds, Titan rubbers, OCD GI, OCD LED, Hotfoot mod, and misc new parts. 2smd sunlight in GI and 1smd in inserts. All boulders lit with warm white light strips and bulbs. Happy to share how I did that if anyone interested. A lot of work went into just trying to get everything to fit right. One thing I noticed was my rear bolder has some holes on the right where it was rubbing against the back part of the cabinet. I made the boulder sit lower, lowered the flasher dome, and sanded down the back part of the cabinet where it rubbed just to get a hair of clearance to prevent further damage. Not sure if that is a common problem. I did buy a spare boulder set from Starship but agree that they are much darker than the originals. Decided to just keep them as spares and use what I have.

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Are you saying you want to tie lights behind the standup targets to the inserts? That would be coo but would be a challenge to get all the lighting just right.

Congrats! Short problems suck but could be an easy fix. Look for a bare wire or the ends of a socket/coil touching metal. Coils can sometimes rotate a bit and the lugs end up touching something.

I put OCD boards in mine. Not sure it needs the OCD GI board but might as well if getting the one for inserts. Lighting all the boulders was not easy. I used mostly warm white light strips from Comet. Two 20smd light strips in the rear and another 20smd in the right boulder. For the left, I used a 20smd and 10smd. For the bigfoot cave, I used a wedge socket with a 2 head flex warm white bulb. Comet's Matrix connectors made everything easy to connect with no soldering.

To mount, I used brass strips from Hobby Lobby. They are easy to cut to size and easy to bend. I drilled a hole on one end and used existing holes to mount them. I bent them to get the best distribution of light. I also used some black construction paper in the back to help block some of the light bleeding down.

https://www.hobbylobby.com/Crafts-Hobbies/Hobbies-Collecting/Tools-Blades/Soft-Bendable-Brass-Strips/p/34683

Need to make some adjustments so I can try to get some this weekend

Here are some pics to give you an idea of what I did. The bigfoot spotlight mod had a bracket that mounted on the wireform. It was used to mount the spotlight but also perfect for adding another socket to light the boulder.

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Yes. All comet warm white light strips.

Anyone have an upper pf wireramp like this? I recently learned that the wireform should have an extension that fits in the hole at the bottom circled in the pic. Mine does not. It just hovers over the hole and not looks a bit off. It works okay mostly but hard to get the top bolder to sit correctly and part of the reason seems to be this wire form is in the way. I'm guessing it's some aftermarket one that does not fit correctly but not sure. Only replacement part I can find is on coinoppartsetc.com but it's $80.

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Maybe. It's sits pretty high from that hole. From pictures, that extension does not look that long so things just seem off on mine.

Agreed. Shame they cut into the inserts. It would be hard to patch that up. I wonder how these work. Can you just press the buttons anytime to block outlanes or center drain? That would make the game too easy.

Thanks for that, Davi! Looks great.

Nice! What's the difference between LH6 and LH2?

Stainless always looks great even after years of use and just fits the classic look imo. Painted trim does look good on some machines like super high end restores or new pins. However, one scratch or ding and it looks bad. Plus, I think it actually hurts resale value on the classics. People either don't like painted trim at all or don't like the color choice.

Put some toothpicks in there with wood glue. Works great.

Right. The glue is what holds it all together. The toothpicks fill the gaps so stock screw has something to bite. I repaired holes close to pop pumper holes that were busting out the sides. Works great. Tough break it's on the edge that you can see. Maybe some kind of clamp when gluing can help push it all in but probably always going to have a scar there.

It's really not that bad imo if you take your time, take pics, and keep things organized. If you have thicker aftermarket ramps or other mods, it can be a bit difficult getting everything to line up but really no different than any other game. I recommend just shopping the whole game out if you get one. Fix all issues, replace optos, rebuild flippers, replace rubbers, leds, etc. There are protectors and cliffys that are good to have so you want to get all that on while you shop. Once you do that, everything should be good for long while.

I don't think any parts are hard to get besides the topper. Repo builders are not the same color as the originals but close. The white square targets can be found but they are not quite correct. I got one with a busted corner and could use a stock replacement.

Good details. Labeling connects is extremely helpful. WH20 has a ton of them going to upper pf. I used blue painters tape and a sharpie to note where it goes. You could just make marks on the connectors but I find the blue tape makes it easy to find any loose connectors you forgot to connect.

I don't think you need to store all the parts out like that. Good pictures and bags for hardware work great for me. I recycle bags from parts orders like leds and write notes on them using a sharpie. Label what part they go to and any specific information like where the long screw goes. If you label them well then it doesn't matter if they get mixed up. I then store all the parts safely out of the way so they don't get knocked off something or stepped on. Take pictures of every step of disassembly at different angles. Never hurts to take more pics and get close ups. I've encountered games that were not put together correctly so if something doesn't seem right, look up pictures online.

BTW - what is the clear protector for the mine kickout? Do you mean mylar?

I think we are all a little biased here lol. WH2O is a very desirable game and most people enjoy it. Liked it before I bought one and loved it even more after owning one. I think it has the most character of all 90s dmd games.
It can be a tough game if mine kickout aggressive or setup tough. Easy to adjust those things, though.

I think Whitewater has the best looking translite of all the 90's pins. Love how they made a whole topper for the title and just had artwork on the translite. I wonder why they didn't do that to other games.

Here is my game. I have the big foot spotlight mod. It came with a plastic clamp that attached to the top of the wireform ramp. The light socket then screwed onto this clamp. It's also what I used to attach another light socket facing inside the boulder. For the bulb I used a two head flex bulb. Works great for stuff like this when you can adjust each head independently to get a nice spread of light. Ball clears everything fine but I did have to cut the bottom of the big foot spotlight hood since I had it tucked in so far. I can get picks with boulder removed but think that gives you a clear idea of one way to do it.

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I forget but probably hacksaw. It's plastic so easy to cut.

You didn't mention cost but value of topper is at least $500. If you can score a good deal on the one without a topper, it might be worth it. At least try a lowball offer. I would prefer having the topper but price is the important factor.

+1 on white. I have used different colors on other games but kept White Water stock looking. Colors would clash with the artwork and boulders imo. White bands, black post sleeves, and black stock rubber on flippers.

I don't recall any special tricks when I did it. I recommend the usual. Unplug all connectors under the pf and label both sides of each plug with sharpie. Put all fasteners in labeled bags and take pictures of each step as you strip down the pf. More pictures never hurts. Putting it back together would just be the opposite.

WH2O looks absolutely amazing with ocd boards. I agree with other mods. They just end up looking out of place and awful. Really bugs me when boulder mods don't match color of stock boulders.

It would be awesome if that yeti was able to slowly rise up from the back while people are playing.

Same here. Used Comet's matrix light strips to light up all boulders. The back was difficult because there is not much room. I got some brass strips from hobby store to use as brackets to hold the light strips. They bend real easy so perfect for shaping them right where you want them.

If you have not checked out the Comet Matrix products I highly recommend checking them out. They use connectors that piggy back off bulbs so no soldering. You even have a dimmer you can use to dial in the brightness.

Here is mine. Hard to get good picture of lighting.

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Yes. I used existing hardware to mount the brass strips. Light strips have adhesive back so they just stick on. With the Matrix, they can all be unplugged and removed if I ever need to tear the game down.

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I did the same to my game. Those screw heads left nasty scratches on the head of my game. Annoying since overall game in great shape.

If you order colordmd for WH20, it should already come loaded with correct software. If not, it is very easy to load with the right software. You don't have to make any changes to the game itself. Everything is plug and play. Save your dmd so you can switch it back in the future if you choose to move the dmd to a different game.

I can't really justify it for most older games where animations are fairly basic. Newer dmd Stern games make much more difference. True, you don't watch the display much while playing but you still look up at times for info. You still see the display a lot in attract modes and while others are playing.

One advantage of going colordmd on older games is you no longer need the high voltage circuits which can be problematic. It's also nice to eliminate the loud hum/buzz some dmd's make.

My bad. Checked the colordmd website and you are right. It clearly says you have to load software. I could of sworn they come preloaded at one time.

Leds cannot dim by default. You have to turn off dimming and attract mode power saving mode otherwise leds will just flicker. There is no fix for this flicker other than getting ocd boards. Not sure how these boards work but they do. Ghosting can be fixed with non ghosting led bulbs or patched roms. Ocd boards fixes all the led issues and supports dimming. I love these boards and have them in all my games. WH2O is such a beautiful game with great fade effects. You have to get these boards if running leds imo.

This. I don't see how you could get used to it since it's very obvious. Looks like something is wrong with the game. With dimming turned off, leds will look fine for the most part. Things is, you don't know what you are missing until you see the ocd boards in action. You get the brightness and vibrant color of leds with non of the side effects. You can even tune the lighting with the software. Dimming is not just used for parts of the game like when you drain. There are dimming effects from just lighting inserts which are especially obvious during attract mode. The only real downside of ocd boards is the cost. When you add up the costs of all the led bulbs and boards, it's around $450-500. Totally worth it to me since lighting is such a huge part of the gameplay experience.

Actually, the majority of the dimming effects are in the inserts. GI is mostly on all the time but inserts are constantly turning on/off with smooth transition effects.

I have both boards using stock settings. Comet 1smd bulbs inserts and 2smd for gi with custom lighting. Looks fantastic. No harm in playing with the software to see what you like.

Like other said, they work independently so that's not a problem. I don't think it will look good, though. You will still need to disable fade effects and power saving mode in the game since the inserts will not be able to fade. Non ghosting bulbs might help but then you will not be able to use those with the led ocd board if you decide to get it later. I see it as a whole package - both boards and regular quality leds. It does add up but delivers the best result with zero issues.

Agree with others. Probably not going to do any better if complete and no serious issues. It sounds like it just needs to be shopped which is not that difficult. Leds should only be around $120-150 and easy to do yourself. Even if you put $1000 in it fixing it up, I doubt you will lose money when it's time to sell. It's a great game and wouldn't hesitate for a second getting it.

Ocd boards only for gi and inserts, not the topper. I am not aware of any solution that allows topper led bulbs to fade like incandescents. I never bothered trying because many have tried and say the same thing. You lose the waterfall effect. Rest of my game is leds with both ocd boards. Looks fantastic!

Yeah, you just have to play with it to get things to fit right. I appreciate the new ramps being thicker for durability but never had one that just dropped in without some kind of modifications.

Last ramp I bought was for FH. It was like 1/8" too narrow from side to side. I contacted Larry at Starship but he said it fit perfectly on his FH. Not mine. I had to bore out the holes and stretch the ramp as much as I could to get it to fit. Even then I could not secure the ramp with a screw in one corner. Hole was just too far off. Annoying but ramp does function. Maybe different games can be off a little here and there? Or maybe some ramps shrink during production? When I got my WH2O, previous owner put in new top ramp but did not secure it down. Holes did not line up. I did a full tear down so made sure everything fit right building back up. I forget exactly what I did but I was trimming edges, opening holes, and all that. You can use heat to bend ramp but that's risky.

I would install one ramp at a time making sure ball rolls smooth before putting other parts on. I remember having some issues with some original ramps and some repro. I think I had the same issue Estroh was talking about but forget. I just remember spending a lot of time getting everything to fit right and had to make some modifications.

Check to make sure no other switches are triggering when trough switches are activated or any other switch in the game. Multiple switches triggering at once can make the game do funny things. You want to remove the balls and activate all switches by hand to see how the game responds.

The blue on your old cab looks faded/dulled. I wouldn't use that as the benchmark. Decals looks pretty good so I wouldn't stress it. The blue should really pop and stand out. Love that blue. Not sure if it's nostalgia or what but just looks awesome.

CoolCatPinball - Game looks great! I would put bulb condoms or something over the screw heads holding the star posts over the shooter lane. They will scratch the top of the backbox when you rest the pf up. I didn't realize this until it was too late. Your games looks really nice so I highly recommend protecting it.

It would be nice not to worry about heat building up under the dome. Probably a non issue in home environment but still. Those little bulbs get hot.

You would need a rivet press to replace the target which most people don't have. I would suggest replacing both targets at the same time. The new target switches can be a slightly different tints of green than what you currently have. Better to get matching set.

I put a a few rubber rings on the coil plunger to soften the throw. Cheap and easy. That helped my game where the kickout was too fast and often resulted in drains. Try that before replacing coil.