I just picked up a WCS today!

Having a little minor trough issue, which I know is very common on this machine, but when it detects the trough issue in game, it immediately shuts down, and reboots. Is this normal? Previous owner just replaced the trough opto boards, we fiddled a little bit with some wires and had it working 100% before I moved it. Where should I go looking first?

Make sure all the ribbon cables are sitting properly. Use electronics cleaner and spray them and let it dry for a minute before putting them back. May have dislodged during the move. Check the soldering on the opto boards.

Certainly will check the trough optos and the opto board on the playfield. Could this be causing the power down too? Or does that seem like a different problem (power supply? fuse?)

It immediately fires back up, but yeah, don't want to recreate this over and over if I'm doing harm to it

have pne as well but never set up....

Looks like I can also recreate the shutdown with a magna save activation.... maybe there's a power issue and not just an opto issue

I was having the same issue, and was talking about having to step through the whole power supply during league, and one guy mentioned getting a daughter board for his games to solve the problem. I looked it up and it was cheap(much cheaper than digging through for hours with the power supply) so I figured I'd give it a shot. Sure enough it solved my issue, and was a super easy plug and play fix. Really saved me hours and hours. Saw it recently on the ads that inside added, and it made me smile. https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1013-kahrus-circuits/00092-wpc-power-fix-daughterboard

After beating Germany on Christmas Eve and today, my career record/stats against them:

Vs. Germany

11 W
8 L

78 GF
80 GA

Sweet, bought the daughter board. hoping for some easy installation since I'm pretty terrible with a soldering iron. Of course naturally the problem seems to have gone away and I think I can isolate it to one of three things:

1) I checked all the wires everywhere and disconnected and reconnected everything to make sure it was snug.
2) Asked the previous owner when the last time he swapped out those AAs were, he said "what AAs?" changed those and scrubed off some VERY minor corrosion. Here's to hoping my settings save.
3) Plugged the machine straight into the wall instead of the power strip it is on. Sadly, it has no wall outlet where it's going so it'll be on an industrial power strip when I move it back, I'm hoping it's not #3

When you get to the World Cup Final, are you keeping as many balls on the playfield as possible? Sounds like you might not be. Germany scores more quickly if balls are in the trough or shooter lane.

No soldering needed. It is literally unplug j210, plug in the daughter board, and plug j210 into it....done

It seems that more balls in playfield causes them to hit against each other and not go in the goal. Too much "traffic" in the middle of the playfield. I try to keep balls coming down to the left flipper at a steady pace, whether it's after a goal down the wireforms or out of shooter lane when I need another ball.

I've been playing the heck out on WCS this holiday break, more than any other game this year. My career stats vs. Germany are now (after a 3 game losing streak, including 2 losses in one game):

11 W
11 L

91 GF
96 GA

There is a setting for the difficulty level for the Final. When set to easy, Germany usually scores 3 or 4 goals. I sold my WCS awhile back and bought a new one. The flippers are stronger and the playfield is clearcoated and plays really fast. On my old game, I would average 4-5 goals and win about 2/3 of the time. On the new machine I average 8 goals and have never lost (about 12-0). So, the game setup and flipper strength are important. On the old machine, I reached the final about 80% of the time and on the new machine only about 30% of the time. I really have a hard time making the left loop to travel on the new machine.

Anyone have a spare set of the stencils used to make the speakers look like a soccer ball? Happy to Paypal you the cost of shipping.

Or, point me to where they can be bought.

Hello WCS owners. I just put a used right sling plastic on eBay if anyone needs one. Here is the link:

ebay.com link: loanguy71773

Pretty good ball 1 yesterday

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My 3D back glass ball mod.

Ha~! That's too funny because I was just about to post my 3D translite mod.

Yours looks really cool.

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Anyone have a good idea how to protect a new header plastic? I feel it's just a matter of time before it breaks again.

Also, should one lube the gearbox assembly for the ball? I feel it's a bit noisy. Is there a way to make it quieter?

After having lived safely for almost 15 years in my gameroom, my WCS is going on location tomorrow. So, now the general public of Trondheim, Norway will be able to enjoy it. Wish it luck! Will be exciting to see how it earns in a geek/gaming themed barcade in a line-up with crowd pleasers like GoT, LotR and Hobbit...

What place? I travel to Trondheim now and then.

Now that I've had my WCS for about a month, I've had a lot of fun playing and wrenching on it. I come from a reasonable arcade tech background, but I'm relatively new to working on pins. A couple things I've noticed now that I'm a little stumped to approach with my skill set:

-I'm not sure how to stop my TV Award from shooting straight down the middle. Not sure if the strength of the coil is still there? needs to be cleaned? adjust the angle or something? A little lost here.
-Considering adding some spotlights, but concerned about overdrawing from the GI circuit. I'm using comet optimus GI LEDs currently, but it's in a dark room.
-I can't figure out the best way to move the right post to a different position. Access to it seems miserable.

Any pointers for a rookie?

Access to the post is a pain as you say. It basically only possible if you remove all ramps and the coin toss assembly. I did this just yesterday. My post were in the most open position and I put them in the center of three possible positions.

Your TV award coil can be adjusted. Make sure the pin strikes the ball dead center, otherwise you will loose power. Also, pull the coil apart and clean the plastic coil sleeve. Dirt/old rubber residue adds too much friction. Do not put lubrication on coil mechs. They should be clean and dry.

Cool! It will be at Work-Work, where me and hansj66 run the pinball and arcade games downstairs, strictly as hobby operators.

As far as I know Work-Work is the only place in town with more than one machine. Current line-up: GoT Premium, Hobbit, LOTR, Spiderman, Funhouse, AFM, Swords of Fury and WCS. Also we have three arcades: Lethal Enforcers (light-gun shooter) and two generic Jamma cabinets which typically house one shooter and one platformer of some sort.

I had to adjust the metal kicker on mine to get the ball to not eject SDTM. You can bend the kicker arm slightly until it kicks out where it's supposed to.

glad to see you got a WCS. congrats. it's a sweet game.

for the vuk (vertical up-kicker) thing, id tear it apart and replace the coil sleeve. make sure everything is tight when reassembled. check that the entire assembly is mounted in the playfield hole correctly; it's not crooked. check the wires for weak solder connections.

you just need to protect the right side, next to the tackle insert. washers should be enough, i'd think.

You could cutout an extra plexi piece that runs under the right side by the tackle switch. Only place that need protection.
Large washers give some protection but doesn't cover it all. Should be enough for some hard ricochets though.

it's the damn soccer ball. pinballs fly off that thing and pound that section.

I'm looking into protecting the header plastic. That POS is more difficult to swap and get hold off. Not to mention the riveted metal bracket that's stuck to it.

I guess an extra cut out plexi piece to reinforce it is the way to go here too.

I'm fine living with my broke piece. I have yellow rubbers there and it looks nice. Hard to even notice when playing and of course friends wouldn't even know.

I do have a new header plastic and it's easy to swap out by removing pop caps, but then you need to rivet the hideout plastic back on.

I installed the Pinbits protectors a couple of months ago when I installed a new plastic set. So far so good, no broken plastics, but only time will tell.

Back when I replaced mine, I used nylon washers, and a small piece of plexi, I rounded with a dremmel, to reinforce at the weak points.

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I ended up using small, white nylon washers all over the machine wherever I had a screw or bolt head holding down plastic. If you look closely, there are washers between the 2 nuts and the custom piece of plexi. This prevents cracking at these points, where the additional piece of plastic prevents the header from breaking when a ball smashes into the striker billboard.

Hope this helps...
-Dana

WTB a WCS if one of the club members is ready to sell.

Couple questions in rules. Can you stack ultra modes? Bring them into a Multiball? Can you start an ultra mode during mb?

Any tips on tourney play?

Yes, the Ultra modes are running until you score a certain amount of points for each one.
They are active during multiball, and no, they can not START during multiball.

Get to multiball and do well in multiball. That is all. Haha. Ultra modes can be huge for your end of ball bonus, but pretty much require you to hit some of the more dangerous shots.

Avoid the left loop at all costs as it almost certainly puts the ball in danger. Same goes for right ramp as a miss means death.

If you have time to practice on the tourney game see if you can backhand the final draw scoop.

If I should avoid the left loop how can I advance my cities to get the the wizard mode? I was reading that when you can't really shoot the final draw scoop you can focus on getting cities and then start multiball after you shoot enough ramps and left loops.

also We'll be streaming World Cup Soccer Thurs at 7p at Arcade Super Awesome. Which is why I ask. I had a strategy and I wanted to check it against the experts.

twitch.tv/boomgo_pinball

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You can't get to wizard mode without shooting the left orbit. Correct. Most of the time though, if you shoot that, the feed from the pops shoots out from the right of right ramp and straight into the left sling shot throwing the ball out of control.

If I'm playing for fun I always go for cities. But playing in a tournament I would avoid it unless the feed is very kind. In that case have at it.

Either way if you cant find the final draw scoop shot, you're dead.

Yeah, I was thinking of using cities as an alternative to not being able to shoot the final draw scoop. No matter what you need to be able to shoot it. So........maybe if the ramps aren't as friendly.HA.

At the start of every ball, I try to get a goal, to enable an ultra feature, and then I hit that feature as much as I can.

Once you get into multi-ball, the gaol is to get goals. The goalie and ball will be going initially. Once you get a goal, they stop, but you re-enable the goalie by hitting one of the ramps. So... Multi-ball, goal, ramp, goal, ramp, goal, ramp, etc... You will build your score quickly. Also, you can re-enable the goalie during multi-ball ONE TIME per multi-ball by pressing the Buy In button. (not a documented feature, but it's there).

Ultimately, the goal of the game is to win the world cup finals, and get that 500M points. You have to get a city flashing, then travel to it. You get it flashing by hitting both ramps, and/or both lanes above the jets (pop bumpers), which you can toggle with the flipper buttons. Travel by hitting the spinner. (I often go for this by hitting the spinner from the top, entering the lane by the goal, instead of hitting the spinner head on)

The TV awards are good for points too... The first is Big Goal Round, where you hit 3 goals for 15M, 15M and 30M. Second is Extra Ball Round, where you go to Striker's hideout. Third, and my favorite, is Go for the Goalie, where you just drill the goalie as much as you can. Last is Where's Striker, where you hit the orange targets until you find him, hearing audio snippets from other games along the way.

Getting all 3 lights on Coin Toss is good for points, plus travels automatically to another city.

Traveling to Boston starts Boston Tea Party, so hit the spinner as soon as you can after, so you get the max possible points.

Traveling to Washington D.C. enables extra ball, like the TV award.

Striker awards can do a lot of things, from 3 Goals (enabling multiple ultra features), Advance 3 Cities, Extra Ball, Unlimited Kickback (left drain lane), 20M bonus, or enabling Multi-Ball (for regular multi ball, if locked).

When in the world cup finals, don't get carried away and launch all 5 balls. 3 is usually enough. Shoot them out and shoot straight at the goal. If some drain, no big deal... Just keep launching. You really only need your right flipper to do well.

I never use magna-save... Neet feature, but does not seem to serve any real purpose.

One shot to practice is holding the ball on the right flipper, and doing a short flip to hit the Final Draw hole.

If you follow a system, 2B+ scores are common, but I often get 3B, 4B or higher scores. 6.8B is my highest, on default settings with 3 ball play.

WCS has a very simple rule set, but it's just such a fun game.

I'm planning on purchasing a sigma LCD display from ColorDMD for my WCS94 (I'm a sucker for the HD Upscaling feature). Any good single color recommendations for me to try out before it gets fully colorized? I was thinking purple, or green, but someone said light blue looks good in a different thread. I thought I'd ask the people who actually own the game and found this thread.

I'm looking to join the club if anyone is interested in selling their WCS. PM me. I'm willing to arrange pick up via STI/NAVL if need be. Thanks!

My take on a tutorial;

Is your ball motor out? I notice the goal moving, but the ball never spins. Maybe you mentioned this and I missed it...

Just spotted this....I've had a Sigma in mine for awhile, and purple rocks ( until it gets colorized, of course)...purple has a nice theme in this game, imho...

Spot on....I try to use magna save just for fun, but usually drain in my attempts....it's just a smooth, pure fun game. Highly, highly underrated ( due to theme I guess) , but if you want an affordable, fun game to score billions of points, this is it!!!