Thunderbirds Fuji 2009 pachinko / Rookie question

[BadaBing]

Hi,
first of all (as this is my very first post) I'd like to say that I have been browsing PachiTalk site for a while in order to be prepared before personally entering the world of these interesting gatdgets... and I have been really impressed by the content and the commmunity itself!

So I recently purchased and received my first pachinkos and as expected it took only little time before some questions arouse:

What should the IR gate in Thunderbirds International Rescue Corps do? I thought it would open the claws around the start pocket... But I have not seen that happend even though I have got number of balls go through that gate.
My second guestion conserns about the small led (?) display in top right corner of the cel. What does it present? The pattern seems to alter according to some rule that is total mystery to me.

Please check the attached picture (in case I did manage to get it right into this post...) to see what points Iam refering to.
Thunderbirds1.jpg

And ofcource any information about this particular machine or its (Ovalone?)frame would be appreciated

[MrGneiss]

WELCOME!!!

Here is my old explanation on the pass through gate and the sub roulette.. This is probably what that pass through does..

Sub Roulette

Each time a ball goes through the pass through pocket, then one of the 4 leds will light..those are stocked chances of getting the flippers around the main start pocket to open for less than a second, theoretically giving you a better chance to get a ball in the start pocket for a spin..there is usually also 2 symbols somewhere on the play field or on the screen that are usually an X and an O that will flash back and forth and then stop on one of them..if it stops on the right symbol then the flippers will open..if it stops on the other symbol then they won't open..Then if you have anymore stocked it will start again!!

On some pachinkos it will always stop on the winning symbol and on others it rarely does..like on Star Wars!!

It is often referred to as the 'sub roulette' on these forums!!

I hope I explained that ok...Its a feature on most modern pachinkos!!

I'm not familar with that frame, but recent moderns have leds that light up in different patterns to indicate things about bonus' or what mode its in or something (I'm def no expert ) Some Japanese pachinko sites show all the patterns for each pachinko..so thats probably what those lights are..but I could definitely be wrong!!