Hello Zaccaria Owners, I am new to this forum, I have a Devil Riders, it’s in really nice shape, the previous (Italian) owner completely refurbished it but it’s having programming trouble, I posted some of my questions on the early solid state topic.
It still has the Italian sound board btw ! I live in the Netherlands so no clue what it’s saying except for the ‘Ciao, come stai ?’ Hope to get some help here get it running again ! Thanks, Gus
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Thanks Captain Neo, the machine is ‘all over the place’ it doesn’t hold credits, gives random points or stops in the middle of a game, in other words it cannot be played.
By programming I mean all the 37 settings, it will only go to #20 and no further. I was informed you always need to go trough all 37 settings after the boards were removed or such.

The boards were checked and repaired/tested by a pinball repair shop but you’re right on the random glitches, maybe they messed up.

Neo, Gianfri, I will check the NVRAM this evening, the machine does have problems as I stated in my first post, it’s ‘all over the place’ doesn’t hold credits, locks up during play, gives random points etc etc, it’s just acting crazy. The second thing is; I assumed this was related to the previous owner maybe didn’t set all 37 settings properly and I figured I’ll start doing that. But I only got to #20 (no. of balls) and can not proceed with #21 up to #37.

But I’ll leave that for now and start with checking the NVRAM tonight. I will post my findings later, thanks for the help.

You were right Neo, Gianfri provided me with one of his dual ram already a few weeks ago but I only found time today to install it on the CPU.
I removed both the Pinballsolutions single NVRAM and the old original one on IC5, soldered a empty socket on IC5 and plugged in the dual NVRAM, both provided by Gianfri.
I went trough all 37 programming steps with no trouble and it works fine now, played for the last hour or so without any glitches, even played the top field a few times and watched the motorcycle spin, what a great game ! Thanks Gianfri, Neo and everyone else for helping me out, appreciate it !

Played the Devil Riders again today and still works perfectly, starts right up, just add some credits in the coin door and play away, the only thing I need to do is figure out the two ramps, when I hit the drop targets full on, the ball tends to shoot under the ramp and disappears somewhere waaay back underneath, it’s a pain to fiddle it back out again. Maybe bend the ramps down a bit ?
The other thing is the contacts on the knockers need some adjustment, a ‘soft’ ball won’t engage them leaving the ball stuck behind it, remove apron, glassplate etc to get it back in the game again.
But these things have nothing to do with the NVRAM offcourse, next is to replace the missing neon tube, I tried a piece of led-neon but first it’s way to short and second I think it’s way to bright also...

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luvthatapex2 Yes I meant the pop bumpers (it’s been a long week already). I’ll try to adjust the spoons, I remember doing that before on the Hot Fire Birds.

Ah, then I’m missing those ramp bars, there’s nothing behind my droptargets, see if can track down how they look like, because this is a real pain and it happens all the time.

I asked a local neon company for pricing, they quoted me $150,- to bend up a replacement neon tube, then again I have the original transformer but don’t know if it works.

I ordered 2 meters of led neon this time for $5,00 to see how that looks, thanks for the help guys

CaptainNeo It’s a 1985 German NSM, I’d like to tell you more on this particular one, it’s quite a story, but that would be off-topic. Maybe there’s a NSM thread here or where should I post this one ?

Okay CaptainNeo asked for it, way off topic but here it is; my 1985 NSM Löwen Hot Fire Birds. The NSM Company from Germany made and still make, jukeboxes, vending machines and in the 80’s also a few pinballs (5 different ones I think). I believe 850 of these were made.
They have an all steel body with faux wood vinyl all around.
Most of the underside playfield components are Gottlieb but the boards, software and design were all their own.
I stumbled upon this particular one some 6 years ago, my first pinball machine, something I always dreamed of. It didn’t start up but I took it home anyway as decoration in my living room as happy as I could be.

Some lights worked but no sound no displays and no startup. It tried to fix it, checked the fuses, traced all the wires, tapped on the boards here and there but I had no clue whatsoever where to start.

I called around and send emails to various local pinball repair shops and people in ‘the scene’ and they all started laughing without exception and told me NSM machines are pieces of crap. One shop advised me to put it in the garden and plant flowers in it cause that’s all they were good for (I kid you not).

As it turned out later this machine had been travelling trough the pinball circuit for well over a decade, went from owner to owner and no one could fix it. That’s why I got it for exactly $100,-

It sat in my room for a year like that turning it on every evening and watch the few lights come on until a colleague of mine visited me and suggested to bring over his oscilloscope to just check some components, he soon recognized a RAM as such, (I didn’t have a clue) and a few minutes later he thought he found the problem in the shape of the RAM being dead/empty/broken. We checked the ram’s no. and found one online for $1,79 and replaced it, a manual in pdf was also found online.

The manual stated the need of a ‘service-box’ wich you connect to the machine to program it’s memory / settings, these ‘service-tastaturs’ are also used to program the companies vending machines so I found one on Ebay for $50,-, we hooked it up, followed the guidelines from the manual and after a few hiccups it started right up !

It sure needed some tweaking here and there, the battery had leaked but didn’t do any damage. I cleaned and waxed the playfield and installed about 100 new lamps and a set of rubbers and I played on it on a weekly basis for the last 5 years, it still looks great with little to no wear on the playfield, some old school German reliability there.

I still love the Sci-Fi ‘Owl’ theme, has great sounds, a drop kick, and a dual ball option on certain high scores, and still is challenging enough for me.

I received some emails from those people I first contacted over the years mocking me if I ever got lucky in getting the NSM working .... well, yes (my colleague) did !

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Here you go, not mine but exact same one;

Thanks for pointing out.
I didn’t even notice that, I’m very far from being an expert on pinball machines, there are no rubber sets available for these machines either, I had to order some here and some there, I’m not supposed to say this but I even played it with standard rubber bands here and there for a while haha

I adjusted the contacts on the 4 pop-bumper spoons today, one of ‘m works (top left) the other 3 do give points when activated but the solenoids don’t engage, they are not stuck, everything moves freely.
Is this ‘normal’ ? I think not, it reduces playtime in the upper field, I find it strange it does add points when activated.
Another thing I noticed already before (but totally ignored it ) is 4 loose wires on CN17 see pic. Since everything else seems the work on the machine could they be related to the pop bumpers maybe....I will have to check schematics !
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Thanks Gianfri, I bought the machine as is, I knew it had problems, the previous owner lost interest and gave up on fixing it.

I got it cheap, the previous owner did all the hard work already, it’s up to me now to finish what he started, that’s where your new NVRAM came in for instance. I did ran several self tests but didn’t pay attention to the pop bumpers, I’m a bit of a cowboy amongst you pinball wizards haha I’m sorry :-/

Thanks for the fair warning, I’ll keep my hand on the on/off switch !

Friday evening project; I replaced the too bright and too short led-neon for a warm white and longer one, I’m happy the way it looks now; way better than the first attempt.

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Yeah I bought without the neon, last owner broke it a local neon shop estimated $175,- for just the tube with no transformer, I still have the original transformer but don’t know if it works, this led-neon was $15,00

gianfri yes indeed, 7 darlingtons in total were defect and replaced them for new ones. We hooked up the loose wires and all 4 pop bumpers work now (one needs a little tweaking on the contact) the two ramps drop targets work as well and the two ‘gates’ behind them, all coils seem to be in good working condition, no buzzes overheating or such.

I also installed English eproms because this Italian really didn’t make sense to me, now I know I’m an ‘amateur rider’ and I need to go ‘Faster, Faster’ haha

Question; sometimes one or two drop targets under the left or right ramp drop without being hit, is this a bug or a feauture in the game as a bonus ? (I did notice they have an extra coil).

Next challenge is to fix the 1st display which is slowly dying...
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