Getting started with TZ

[Durzel]

Hi,

Have this weekend picked up a lovely fully refurbished & modded TZ. I've reset it to factory settings and the only thing I've changed is disabling the extra ball buy-in.

I'm new to playing it in the flesh and this is my first pin as well, so have a few questions.

• After the Powerball is released into play it ends up living in the ball trough - cycled into play like a normal ball - until it gets shot back in the Gumball machine by a player. is this right? Shouldn't the machine automatically put it back in the Gumball machine at the end of each game? A friend of mine is adamant that when he played TZ back in the day that the only time he ever got the Powerball was by earning it during play.
  
  The machine does correctly recognise that it is a Powerball every time it sees it, announcing it regularly, etc.
  
  
• On the odd occasion after a skill shot the ball will just miss falling into the Rocket, and will drop down to the flippers instead. I would say that this happens maybe once every 20 or so times, maybe more. Is that "just the way pins are" or an alignment issue?
  
  
• My TZ has a Colour DMD - the seller told me that the letters, etc could be set up to be "dotted" (as it is currently) or solid. I would guess there are also brightness and contrast settings somewhere. Where would I change this stuff? I guess it's not on the regular machine settings toggles?

Thanks in advance

 

[RudeDogg1]

Yeah the power all will be like that until you manage to load it back in the gumball machine.

There are buttons in the board on the back of the LCD screen to scroll through the menus and change settings

 

[kevlar]

The ball not going in the rocket is a good thing, it puts the ball in the pops which is a very dangerous place to be on TZ.

Every TZ I've played has left the power ball in the trough.

 

[windoesnot]

Point 1 is fine as it is, the powerball will cycle through play just like any other.
Point 2 is fine too, it can happen on any TZ and it can be more beneficial for the ball to fall to the flipper than going into the pop bumpers of death. Top players will try and bump it out of the rocket shot and onto the flipper
Not sure on point 3

Enjoy it, TZ is a great machine

 

[Durzel]

Thanks all, that's put my mind at ease.

And 100% agree on the pops - I thought I was just bad but they're a scary place to be on TZ.

Out of interest - the factory settings don't allow any reshoot except on the buy-in ball (which I've disabled). What's the thoughts about that? Would you allow it? Not having any reshoot seems pretty brutal - I've had a few balls that have gone out the rocket, into the pops and straight down the left, never touching a flipper.

 

[kevlar]

The display settings for the colour dmd are changed with buttons on the little circuit board on the back of the colour dmd, you should be able to feel 4 buttons there.

 

[Durzel]

Ok thanks. Probably a stupid question that one really, don't know why I thought it might be on the normal settings buttons when the machine wouldn't know anything about the DMD!

 

[RudeDogg1]

Thanks all, that's put my mind at ease.

And 100% agree on the pops - I thought I was just bad but they're a scary place to be on TZ.

Out of interest - the factory settings don't allow any reshoot except on the buy-in ball (which I've disabled). What's the thoughts about that? Would you allow it? Not having any reshoot seems pretty brutal - I've had a few balls that have gone out the rocket, into the pops and straight down the left, never touching a flipper.

You need an updated rom with the home rom installed to get the ball save. It also allows you to pause a game and you can cheat and get the game complete sequence

 

[Durzel]

I think I might have that, will check later on. Pretty sure I saw "Mute & Pause" and "LITZ Cheat" or something in the settings, which from doing some research this morning, suggests I have a certain type of home ROM. Will report back later to confirm.

Mine also says "Free Play Only", if that matters.

 

[Monkeyboypaul]

I think I might have that, will check later on. Pretty sure I saw "Mute & Pause" and "LITZ Cheat" or something in the settings, which from doing some research this morning, suggests I have a certain type of home ROM. Will report back later to confirm.

Mine also says "Free Play Only", if that matters.

Probably 9.4H then.

There was a bootleg 9.4CH which re-enabled the paid credits function removed in 9.4H.

I yearn for 9.5... but that’s a deep rabbit warren!

 

[Durzel]

Just to confirm - I do have 9.4H, it says as much when it boots etc. And have worked out the DMD controls.

 

[Garry Sp8]

I would turn the ball save on - can be really annoying when the ball drains immediately! There's so much to do TZ that you need plenty of ball time to get through it!

 

[Paul]

9.4CH wasn’t bootleg. It was ‘updated’ by I think Ted Estes in his spare time, however because it wasn’t released under the Williams banner he made it no-coins only so operators couldn’t use it (hence the H - Home).
However, someone DID hack that to take coins. And 9.4CH was born (Coins Home)...

 

[Durzel]

Did a bit of reading on this after Monkeyboypaul's comment intrigued me, which led to this post by Ted Estes from way back when:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.games.pinball/5exaK_Q8-Pc/70Tl7ojZvBAJ

It seems like he wrote 9.4H, using the TZ source code, whilst working for Williams. The whole "Free Play Only" thing was to avoid people using this ROM in commercial environments, as it was an unofficial, unsupported and unauthorised (but not specifically outlawed by Williams) release. Then someone hacked that ROM to re-enable coin-based play, undermining Ted's work.

 

[Paul]

Knew it was something like that [emoji38][emoji38]

 

[Durzel]

Bit of a curious one this.. I should probably preface this by saying that my electrical knowledge is novice at best. I know that red is positive and black is negative, but beyond that I'm out of my depth...

I've got a camera mod on my TZ, it doesn't work. I've lifted the playfield and traced the wires back and they end at a pair of red and black crocodile clips. The weird thing is, these clips are both attached at the same place to a metal bar which - as far as I can tell - is just an inert playfield support. I found an install guide that I believe relates to this specific mod and it talks about connecting these croc clips to the camera insert - which would make sense as it would then come on when this insert is illuminated or flashing. Based on the current wiring I can't see how it could ever have worked.

My camera insert (pictured) appears to have three wires attached, one of them to a diode and the other two to lugs. I don't know which of the three wires I should attach these crocodile clips to.



There are a couple of other red/black crocodile pairs that are just either connected to things that don't make sense (e.g. a black one clamping insulated wires, the red one just hanging) and another pair that is just hanging. The weird thing is, as far as I can tell the camera is the only mod not working at all - everything else (e.g. street lamp, Robby the Robot, slot machine, etc) seems to work (light up) in spite of these random croc clips being unconnected?

I've attached some photos to illustrate what I mean. The guy I bought the pin from didn't get these mods installed, so isn't able to offer much support. I don't want to start guessing where these things are supposed to connect.

 

[Durzel]

Quick update - have fixed the camera myself, just needed the croc clips attached to that post clamped to the camera insert, now working.

Have discovered that the hanging croc clips are for LEDs inside the slot machine hole...


No idea what these should attach to.

There are 3 pairs of wires coming off the slot machine mod (I think I've got this one - http://www.pinballdecals.com/TwilightZoneUltimateSlotMachinePage.html - $374.99!), via a RJ45 plug.

The blue pair are soldered to the Super Slot lamp.


The orange pair are inserted into nearby plugs (both go into the red wires? shouldn't they be positive and negative?)


The green pair is just hanging...


Any help gratefully received on where these should go!

 

[Durzel]

Spoke too soon about the camera.. it worked, but caused different lamps to come on when they shouldn't in test mode.

 

[Monkeyboypaul]

Spoke too soon about the camera.. it worked, but caused different lamps to come on when they shouldn't in test mode.

Possibly lacks a diode then.

 

[Durzel]

Possibly lacks a diode then.

The camera insert appears to have a diode on it, with two wires connecting to it and a third wire connecting to another part of it. That's what I connected the crocodile clips to, but I don't know where they should be clamped really.

 

[Monkeyboypaul]

I know I had a TZ ages ago with a lit slot machine mod on it, and as soon as I added LEDs to the game it started ghosting inserts, suggesting there was some crosstalk... so I removed the mod! The TZ I have incoming will be virtually mod-free, just because I can’t be ****d with alll the hassle...

 

[Durzel]

Hmmm.. perhaps that's why these crocodile clips were left unconnected then, because the previous owner couldn't resolve those problems either. It did seem strange to me that they were all installed but unconnected, and only in some cases, on an otherwise refurbished machine.

EDIT: In my instance it wasn't ghosting, rather multiple door panel lamps were switching on in the single lamp test - e.g. "Super Slot" lit both that and "The Spiral" too. Possibly other things on the playfield as well. As soon as I removed the croc clips from the camera playfield insert, the problem went away.

 

[Durzel]

When you have a lamp diode like this..



...I'm guessing the yellow/green wires are common (earth); Would I connect both the red and black crocodile clips to the same point (where the red/green wires are connected)? Just the red crocodile clip?

 

[Moonraker]

Controlled lighting so not earth as you're thinking.

The slot machine was put back incorrectly if it was causing other lights to activate.

 

[Durzel]

Ok. I guess the simple question then is, using that image above as a guide, where would I be attaching the red and black crocodile clips?

Previously I had the black one attached to the lug that the green/yellow cable is attached to, and the red one was attached to where those red/green wires are.

The camera LEDs worked in that config, but caused other lamps to come on when they weren't supposed to etc.

(I haven't touched the slot machine cabling at the moment, I'm talking about just the camera mod)

 

[Moonraker]

A bit hard to tell on the mobile. Look at the mod and find the banded side of the diode, I would guess that is suppose to connect to the red and green. The other side to the yellow and green. It does depend the mod circuit though.

 

[Durzel]

As far as I can see there is no diode on the mod itself, it is literally a red and black wire terminated with crocodile clips.

There is a diode on the camera playfield insert, where existing wires are connected (red/green and yellow/green as per above image)

 

[Moonraker]

In which case it might be the bulb in the mod is a led and needs connecting up the other way round.