F-14 questions

Sarconus

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So I picked up my second pinball F-14 yesterday. It is going to need a lot of work done but cabinet and playing field is in pretty good shape. The 3rd player display is not working and i have been searching the internet how what i should look for on trying to repair it.

Model is 554

There are so many different versions and prototypes of this game I need to be pointed in the correct direction. I thought about replacing it with LED board but i dont have another 200 to spend right now.

Also, inside the cabinet there is a speaker horn installed along with a speaker on the bottom. Anyone know what the purpose of that horn is?

Last but not least i was looking around for a schematic listing for LED kit.

Thanks!
 
Player 3 is a 7 digit numeric glass; if you're confident just the glass is bad, you can still purchase replacements for ~$55 through Pinball Resource:

http://www.pbresource.com/display.html

Big Daddy has them listed for ~$47:

http://www.bigdaddy-enterprises.com/

I saw some other source recently that had them for $39, but can't find it at the moment...

If your other displays all look good - nice and bright, not burned, then replacing just that glass makes sense.

Regarding the speaker horn - many op's put those in and wired them up to an alarm - you break into the game, it sets off that horn. Look around to see what it's wired up to; sometimes they had big backup batteries in there to power the whole mess. Not stock to the game, regardless.

I bought a PinScore replacement display as the glass was all bad on mine when I got it - very happy with the product.

If you have lamp sockets at the bottom, it's the early version. If you don't, it's the later version:

"This PINSCORE Model PS-11415-F Display System fits the early production Williams F-14 TOMCAT pinball machines.
Two different score display boards were used in F-14 TOMCAT. The EARLY production model has (4) lamp socket 1/2" holes in the circuit board. The original board is labeled with D-11415. The PS-11415-F is designed to replace this early system.

If your machine does not have sockets holes in the board, you will need the more common PS-12232-P77 PINSCORE Display System. "

Not sure what you mean by looking for a "schematic listing for LED kit" - do you mean a pre-packaged kit of LED's to replace all the bulbs? Not sure anybody has those available, but not too hard to order up what you need if you're convinced you want to go that route...

Good luck!

Brent
 
So I picked up my second pinball F-14 yesterday. It is going to need a lot of work done but cabinet and playing field is in pretty good shape. The 3rd player display is not working and i have been searching the internet how what i should look for on trying to repair it./QUOTE]

First, Download the manual from this page:
http://ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=804

unfortunately the displays are all soldered onto the same board. try and find another local person that has the game and plug your display board into their game, if it works the same, then you can replace the glass and it should work in your game. you could also borrow a good display and try it in your game. I believe that there are several system 11a pins that use the same display board, so don't limit yourself to F-14 pins.
 
Here is the strange thing. I have ROM that say Proto5 and the lights in the back of playing field are white. I don't see any lamp sockets at the bottom either.

As far as the score displays they are pretty good on the other three so gas does sound like it could be a possibility. The scoreboard does appear to have socket holes that look like quick connect where #55 bubbles would go into.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3189330/pinball/DSCF0189.JPG
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3189330/pinball/DSCF0187.JPG
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3189330/pinball/DSCF0188.JPG
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3189330/pinball/DSCF0186.JPG
 
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Looks early production to me; you have the clear lamps at the very back of the playfield, and it looks like all the upper playfield flashers are populated (hard to tell from that picture). If those flashers are not there, they may have been removed - Williams issued a service bulletin suggesting they be removed to avoid issues where they'd short and damage the switch matrix.

If you have the lamp sockets on the display board, that also is consistent. Note that that display board is only used in F-14, whereas the later version is used in a few different pins.

If the middle beacon up on the head is completely clear (as opposed to white), that's another sign of an early production machine..

Mine is the same, and also had ROM's with "proto" labels on them - not uncommon on early production games. If you can provide the serial number of the game, that'll give us a better idea of when it was made...
 
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