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Lightning flippers FT

M4carp

M4carp

Site Supporter
5Years
Joined
Jan 12, 2019
Messages
5,693
Location
Narberth, Pembrokeshire.
I’ve had my FT for about 8 years and pretty much had the shots down to a t but that was without lightning flippers, today I fitted them and it’s totally different.
Finding it harder to make the shots, although I did notice the flippers have moved up a bit so will have to readjust them and tighten up a bit more😬
Is it that much different with the smaller flippers?
They were slightly above the pins but as you can see in the pic quite a bit above now but was still harder at first.

Also fitted a new playfield protector so the ball is skidding about quite a bit, hopefully with use it will stop. My BSD is ok with one but that was on it already when I got it so had quite a few plays on it.

704C5D39-FD8D-4F32-A352-3BCB8C3E707A.jpeg
 
Toxteth O'Grady said:
The blue fish is really blue on that playfield, mine is a much lighter blue.
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Mine was too, think it looks better in darker blue. It had a small bit of wear which I started to touch up but thought as I was putting the protector on and had some fish overlays that came with the machine when I bought it I would put some on. I stuck 4 fish on expecting to to rip them off but they actually look ok and you need to look very close to see them.
The ramp sticker is also darker blue that I just fitted which I also think looks better than the original light blue one.
 
Your flippers look a tiny bit higher compared to mine.

I think the shots are tricky. Very little room for error.

Really nice looking playfield that. Interested to hear how you get on with the protector.
 
With some Fish Tales you can backhand the spinner, that might be a way of determining flipper angle.

Playfield angle, flipper angle, and the size of the EOS switch gap can affect stuff like this.
 
are you sure? I thought FT was designed for Lightning flippers.
 
Taken from Wikipedia:

"Fish Tales introduced flippers with lightning bolts on them that were believed to be 1⁄8 inch (3.2 mm) shorter than other Williams flippers of the time. While seemingly minor, an extra 1⁄4-inch (6.4 mm) gap creates a far greater ball control challenge for the player. As such, this enhancement was only added to a few pinball titles before being abandoned."
 
So if you were to submit a high score, would you need to declare whether you used regular flippers or lightning bolt flippers?
 
I read before that they were designed with normal flippers in mind and plays much better with them as they were on mine for the last 8 years!
Adjusted the flippers down again and done them up like a b******d but still managed to move a up a tiny bit, think the new lightning flipper shafts might be a bit smaller as the adjustment is virtually closed.

Had quite a few games today and definitely not as much fun, will see how it goes. I’m a bad loser😭

Playfield protector needs some time to bed in as the ball has some serious spinning going on but is not as bad as the first few games so should sort itself out in time.
Must admit it does look really nice now.
 
M4carp said:
I read before that they were designed with normal flippers in mind and plays much better with them as they were on mine for the last 8 years!
Adjusted the flippers down again and done them up like a b******d but still managed to move a up a tiny bit, think the new lightning flipper shafts might be a bit smaller as the adjustment is virtually closed.

Had quite a few games today and definitely not as much fun, will see how it goes. I’m a bad loser😭

Playfield protector needs some time to bed in as the ball has some serious spinning going on but is not as bad as the first few games so should sort itself out in time.
Must admit it does look really nice now.
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Is it due to center drains or just not getting the angle for shots?
 
Vimtoman said:
Is it due to center drains or just not getting the angle for shots?
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Mainly the angle of the shots I think, not really noticing much more drains than normal.
Really having to hit some shots right on the end of the flipper which I don’t like, will be dropping the flippers down a bit more to see how that does.
 
I can see the targets on left being a hard one to hit.
I guess we all use the speed of the ball rolling down the flipper to time it.
Maybe a slap on the button to speed up the shot.
Give it some time .
Youll probably ease into the timing of it all in a week or two .
 
Well well well, just beat my high score and got 445mil
View attachment trim.E8487875-90EE-4465-8BE1-32BF8251E3E6.MOV
with lightning flippers and missed the super jackpot because it popped out😫

Snapped one of the bolts like I thought I would, seems shaft is smaller as hole is virtually closed up but anyway had a rebuild kit so nicked the bolt and sorted it.
Found the sweet flipper spot to be just in front of pins.

Had a few more games and changed my mind, more centre drains.

Anyway really happy with it now😂

F0A3283D-1DB0-453B-A520-3A14D14B2344.jpegC653C4CE-DC88-483F-9CE8-0C89A56674F3.jpegE62FCD19-4270-4A79-8BE0-1E69A7A8F5B1.jpeg
 
The story I was told at Expo was that FT was not designed to have lightning flippers, the main French distributor requested that they had shorter flippers for the French market, and then somehow due to some manufacturing cockup they all came from the factory (or a large proportion came from the factory) with lightning flippers fitted - even the ones destined for the US and other non French markets. Is it true? (gallic shrug). Who knows
 
Slimetime said:
So if you were to submit a high score, would you need to declare whether you used regular flippers or lightning bolt flippers?
Click to expand...

and if you had it on hard settings or not, what the pitch of the game is, what rubbers on outlines, how many extra balls. Kinda put me off the high score thread a bit as my games at home are set up pretty tough but most folks aren't.
 
Neil McRae said:
and if you had it on hard settings or not, what the pitch of the game is, what rubbers on outlines, how many extra balls. Kinda put me off the high score thread a bit as my games at home are set up pretty tough but most folks aren't.
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Interesting. I didn't know there were so many variants.
 
Thats great just tweaking it closer to the pins worked out ok.
It's going to give you a fresh game now.
Well done
 
Seems there are so many stories about the flippers that no one is sure what's the real one.

I heard the game was designed and shipped with lightning globally but the US market (which was the main market of the machine) didn't respond well to them and people avoided the machine so operators used regular flippers to make the game more familiar in feel.

Europe didn't really care and just got on with it.

Just reviewed the promo video and although you can't make out the texture on the flippers the gap looks the same as the lightning above.
 
It's overall a good reason that I really don't care for 'general' high score threads - condition and setup of a machine is critical.

I originally planned to install modified ROMs on my F14 that would divide the scores by 10, so that scores above 9.9million would fit on the displays - but I haven't done that in the end because as anyone that dared to play the game the last time it was seen in public will attest, just attempting to get above 4 million is a herculean effort. Game times resemble the infamous PAPA 14 finals round where all four players were over and done in less than 10 minutes!

Far cry from some setups of the game where rolling the score is easily done.
 
M4carp said:
Had quite a few games today and definitely not as much fun, will see how it goes. I’m a bad loser😭
Click to expand...

With all games you need to "balance" them - centre drain v outlane drains. My fish tales has lightning flippers, both outlane posts are set in the middle position. This makes the boat shots risky, so I usually go for the captive ball during ball save or the start of the multiball.
 
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