Black Hole repair part 5

Finally worked a bit further on the Black Hole..
Last time I worked on it was about a month ago, the cpu didn't boot anymore after replacing a lot of corroded parts.

I can solder pretty good (not perfect), was sure I had put all the correct parts in the correct places, so thought it probably were 2 components shorting against each others..
Turns out my idea was correct. Investigated the cpu, measured continuity between every two solder points that were close together, and compared with a spare cpu board I have laying around.
Found two solder points that made continuity, that didn't on the other board. Visibly there wasn't anything wrong so it must have been a very thin trace.. Scratched between the solder points with the tip of the probe of the dmm and continuity was gone. Inspected the rest of the board, didn't find any other problems.

Put the cpu back in the game.. always an exciting moment.. and yes, after about 5 seconds the score displays illuminated !

At least one problem solved, we're making progress again.

The game still doesn't work completely. Popbumpers don't work. At least the fuses don't immeadiately blow anymore, they just don't work at all. Will trace the +5v again on the boards..
Flippers also don't work :-( I'll have to check the Q-replay underneath the playfield.
Some coils do work, like the outhole and drop target reset coils.

For some reason I have problems with this Q-relay. One set of contact points on the game just burns ?!! as if there's too much voltage going over it ?? Last month when troubleshooting it I had already replaced the blade contacts with those from the Q-relay of a game I parted.. they were good..
Now the cpu is fixed, I had started a game, heard a fuzzing noise from the back of the machine.. inspected the Q relay and one set of contactpoints is again a bit burnt ?? :-(

History of pinball in the USA

Just put a new article online - the history of american pinball manufacturers.
The large, known brands of pinball machines were in control of only a handful of people.
Holding companies or subdivisions went bankrupt, were taken over, ..

Spent two evenings desoldering corroded parts on the Black Hole Sys80 cpu.

Used sandpaper to get rid of the corrosion (forgot to take a before picture).
Finally used vinegar (it's an acid you need to neutralize the base fluid that has leaked out of the battery), scrubbed everything well, rinsed the pcb, ..

Now it's ready to solder in new parts and check all traces. The thick trace at the bottom left corner is broken where it connects to the bottom left pin of the ic above it (of the 2 the most right IC).

Update: soldered all the new parts in place. Found two broken traces, fixed with jumper wires.

Now tested the cpu. It's dead :-( Will have to review all connections and parts to check they're soldered well and there are no shorts anywhere..

Black Hole repair part 4

Found the problem with the locked on popbumpers - like I posted at the end of the previous post, the +5v is indeed missing at the boards.

Traced continuity back to the cpu board (A1J6 iirc) so the wiring or connectors are not the problem.
Investigated the trace on the board and found the problem, battery acid ate a small trace right at the bottom corner of ic Z3 (or Z2, don't remember, the right one of the two).

Soldered a small jumper cable over the trace but only got about 2,5 volts.. so decided not to hack the cpu further but first repair all the damage completely. I still have a battery damage repair kit from GPE that I bought years ago.
Double checked all components are present, marked them on the paper sheet, so I know what parts I have to desolder.
Then I'll clean up and check continuity on all traces.

Also found a new problem - the voltages on the power board are much too high :-(
5v was 8, 64v was almost 100, 40v was 68, 8v was 18, ..
Soldered the input on both transformers from the 220v to 240v tap, but that did not change anything.
So I will also rebuild the powerboard.

Black Hole repair part 3

Worked for a few hours more on my Black Hole. My deadline to get it working by the end of August has passed :-(

Spent yesterday evening soldering on the driver board, did the optional ground modifications (about 10 jumper wires) like described on Clays repair guides (these are not online anymore).

Also played a bit with connectors, measures continuity, ..

The flippers suddenly work. Don't know exactly what did the trick.
Probably the ground modifications.. let's hope it keeps on working the next days :)
I did learn that you need to have 3 pinballs installed in the ballthrough for the flippers to work and Q to stay activated. Testing with the playfield in the up position (so you can see the relay) and then not having pinballs in the through, will make the relay not stay on. Doh.. so maybe this issue was solved before and I lost 2 days troubleshooting a non-issue..

Popbumpers still lock on immediately :(
Traced continuity in the ground and that's ok, from the green wire on each popbumper driver board, through the driver board, up to the large ground strip in the bottom of the cabinet.
There must be another short somewhere.. but I have no idea what to look for :(
Update: maybe missing +5 volts..

black hole repair

Continued working on the Black Hole tonight.
Found a problem with relay Q - this activated when you start a game and provides power to the flippers and popbumpers (which didn't work on my game).
The relay just doesn't activate.

When I closed it manually, I got a spark/blue flame at one contact point and fuse F4 blew. Oops..
After trying some things I noticed it was a problem with the popbumpers, the coils just locked on.
Disconnected all the popbumper driver boards. Connected them one by one.. results aren't good :(
Four popbumpers lock on immediately.. Two others don't work at all.

I found 2 popbumper driver boards (untested), put these in but the coil locked on immediately. So either I now have 6 broken popbumper driver boards or something else is wrong..

Tomorrow I'll test the boards in my Haunted House.
Once I know these are ok, I'll investigate further what the problem is with relay Q..

Black Hole cpu is working

After a few days of not doing anything pinball-related, I continued working on my Black Hole this week. Learning a lot about Gottlieb Sys80 games now, as I have almost no repair experience with it. I only have experience repairing more recent games, there I know immediately what each connector is for, how to troubleshoot problems, .. with this game I have to search the schematics each time, find my way under the playfield and in the cabinet trying to locate the part, ..

Tested the cpu board in my Haunted House. It had been fixed by Leon (of www.pinballeon.com) many years ago.. but as there still was battery damage visible on the board which never had been correctly repaired, I expected the board not to work anymore by now. I do have a kit to replace most of these boards, bought once from GPE.

Much to my surprise the board still worked and booted ?!
I had put it in my Haunted House (not connecting the cable going to the driverboard) and all displays show 0000000 so it boots. Nice !
I still intend to neutralize the battery damage and install the parts of the kit - but for now I can continue testing to get the machine working.

Next step was to replace the connector going to A1J6. This is the connector at the bottom left of the cpu board, right under the battery. This had been replaced by a universal jamma connector. Put a correct type of connector housing on it, made sure al wires were in the correct position, ..
In the past this jamma connector may have been installed incorrect (reversed, or maybe a position shifted), so this may have damaged some of the ics that deal with the switch inputs.. not sure yet but it's an option I have to take into account when troubleshooting things.

Connected everything, turned on the game. Machine boots correct. Displays work. Put a credit on the game, this works, the machine even makes sounds.
Press the start button.. yes, a ball gets kicked into the shooter lane. Excellent ! For a moment I had hope this machine could be played real soon..

Then the good news ended. Flippers don't work, popbumpers don't work.
Simulated a game by closing targets and switches, most of them worked.
Drop target banks reset when all targets are down.
Then went into the switch test. Some switches don't seem to work :(
Still have to investigate if it's located on the cpu or on the playfield.

Then started a game again. Weird thing was suddenly almost nothing worked :(
Score stayed at 0 points, closing a switch didn't do anything, droptarget banks didn't reset when all targets were down ? :-(

Went into the selftest. All 6 controlled coils work.
Tested the switch matrix again. Most register.
One weird thing is that switch 34 doesn't work always, which is seen by the cpu as one switch but are physically more switches on the playfield.
It works behind the center triangle plastic at the bottom left and at the bottom right. But in the middle of the playfield it's also located behind a rubber, and also at the top behind the droptarget banks, and there it doesn't register ? So I hope it's an easy problem like a broken wire on the playfield (well easy - may not be easy to trace and detect where it is broken.. we'll see..)

Have to work on this switch problem later and double check each switch if it works..

Noticed something else weird in the selftest and audits - going through the audits (nr 1 to 15) it shows junk on the display. No real numbers, just random segments lit. But at bootup it correctly shows 000000, so probably this is because there's no battery installed in the game, and the cpu has random data for audits ?

Also have to find out why flippers and popbumpers don't work. Had inspected all fuses and they seem fine, so will now trace from the bridge rectifier to check for power and continue further..

My goal is to have this game working by the end of the months, only one week left.. so I expect some late nights coming up.

Gottlieb Sys80 ground modifications

Started to work on my Black Hole pinball machine. Bought it many many years ago, untested.
Never tested or repaired it. Shopped it, cleaned the playfields, new rubbers, ..
then put everything together (I did test voltages on the powerboard)
Put everything together, started a game, it worked, and then a coil in the back fired and the game just died. Aaargh. Should've known better; but I was young and ancious to get it going.

Put it aside for many years, never worked on it as other games came in and got priority.
Now I'll finally start working on the game and try to get it going.

My Haunted House machine is in good working condition, but never got any upgrades.
As they're next to each other, it's easy for me to do the same upgrade to both machines at the same time.

I've done all the mandatory ground modifications as was described in the past on the pinrepair website. Most of this info is also available on flippers.com and other gottlieb repair sites, in case you need it.

Now all grounds are tied together, should make these System80 games more reliable.
As my Black Hole is the European version (no infinity lights or double backglass), the backbox is smaller and pcbs are at the backside of the light insert panel. So it wasn't an identical installation on both games, some wires needed to be different in size, also have a few less boards than in my HH or USA version BH.

Also noticed the sound board in my BH is incorrect, BH is game number 668 and the board in my game has eprom 667 installed (Volcano).
Not a real problem as I bought a NOS Black Hole sound/speech board many years ago :)
But my game must be working before I try to add that..

I always double checked my work with the dmm to make sure there wasn't an error or short somewhere.. switching the Haunted House on to test it was a bit scary (you never know I made a mistake and blew something) but everything worked.
Great ! Now my Haunted House is more reliable and step 1 on getting my BH working is done..

365 16 Gottlieb Majorettes

Made some pictures of my Gottlieb Majorettes pinball machine.

Will put a gamereview of this machine later online, so I needed good pictures showing every part of the playfield.

This smiling majorette is the main attraction as she's in the middle of the playfield.. she's worth 50 points and likes it :-)

Majorettes is ready

Our Gottlieb Majorettes wedgehead pinball machine is restored and in our house !

Henk De Jager had completed it already a few weeks ago (just before the Rosmalen jukebox show), but we didn't have room in our house as we were renovating the living room.. then our car broke down just the day before Nikky had planned to pick up the game. :-( (luckily the car was fixed a day later, but our meeting with Henk was delayed for a week)

Last week Nikky was finally able to drive all the way to Amsterdam to meet Henk and pick up the game. Nothing was going to stop her, even not a snow storm !
A few days before it had started to snow in Belgium and the Netherlands, road were blocked, traffic jams everywhere,.. but Nikky was going to retrieve that game and not delay it for another week. She drove over 5 hours in total.

Was it worth it ? Definitely !
Henk did a beautiful job restoring the wiring on the game back to original condition. Everything now works like it should.
Majorettes got a nice place in our new living room, it's the center piece of attention and I often play it..

Henk put in a 5 cents coin mechanism (the game isn't on free play) so I'm saving up all my small change :-) This week at the bakery I deliberately paid with coins so I would get a 5 euro cent piece in return (which I used to play a game with).

A friend came over yesterday and also had to play a few games..
The first days when I set the game up, I had put black rubber cups underneath the leg levellers, so it wouldn't scratch our tile floor. However this makes the game really stick in position, it's difficult to nudge. And nudging is really necessary when you want to play an electro-mechanical pinball machine like this ! Most of the skill involved when playing these old games is less about aiming with flippers, but controlling the ball and nudging it.
So therefor I now put some sticky felt patches underneath the rubber cups. That way it's a bit easier to nudge and move the game around.

On Majorettes nudging the game is even more required than with other electro-mechanical pinball machines. To earn an extra ball (the game is add-a-ball: you start with 5 pinballs but can earn more) you need to hit each of the 5 yellow or red popbumpers in sequence. The 5th bumper on each side however is positioned below the flippers ! So either you lose the pinball when trying to light it, but the 'outlanes' (not really outlanes like on a modern pinball machine as there's no metal divider) are really big with a large rubber ring at the bottom, and there's a hole between the flippers which will kick the pinball back onto the playfield.
Part of the gameplay is to try and get the pinball below the flippers, have it hit the 5th popbumper, and shake it back into the game by either bouncing the pinball off the rubber bands above the flipper bats, or into the hole.

I love it.

Gameplay and rules are pretty simple. I'll describe the whole rules/layout:
at the top of the playfield there are 3 rollovers at each side. The outer lanes score 50 points, the two others put out a letter (ABCD) and only 10 points. But get all letters and you earn an extra ball. Decisions, decisions..

At the top of the playfield there's a target that scores 100 points, and may be lit for extra balls by each row of popbumpers. Great ! So if you're good you can light both rows of popbumpers, hit this target and not only score 100 points but add 2 extra balls at the same time !

Below this target there's a hole that scores 50 points, and will kickout the ball against the 100 points target above it. Wow !! 150 points in one go - and if you're lucky the pinball will bounce back into the hole and this will repeat one or two times..
but if you're unlucky the pinball will miss the hole, come down roll down the playfield with a lot of speed, go between the flippers and jump right over the hole between the flippers and drain....

At the left and right are 5 bumpers in a straight line below each other, you have to light them in sequence. On the sides is a little lane which scores 30 points, and can be lit for an extra ball when you've lit all popbumpers of the opposite side.
As said, the 5th bumper is positioned below the flippers, and between the flippers there's another hole that will kick the pinball back onto the playfield.
That's it. No other mechanisms, no bonus to earn, ...
Just a plain add-a-ball pinball machine.

Playing this game does require some strategy - do you go for high points ? Then you're better off trying to get the ball through the outer lanes when it enters the playfield (getting 50 points instead of 10, but not getting a letter for an extra ball). And you try to get the pinball into the hole and hit the target for 100 points.
Or do you want to play for extra balls and play a long time ? Then you mainly try to get the popbumpers lit in sequence and earn letters, and concentrate less on the high scoring target..
This strategy can be dangerous however - it happened to me a few times that on my first pinball played I was able to light both yellow and red bumpers up to number 4.
But with the next pinball played you have to let it roll down quickly towards the bottom of the playfield trying to light popbumpers number 5.. with a high risk of draining - and either all of the next pinballs drained without lighting the 5th bumper, or I could light it but was not being able to earn the lit extra ball higher on the playfield.. so what looks like a simple and easy playfield layout is actually deceiving.

Gottlieb Majorettes gone for repair

2 weeks ago we brought our Gottlieb Majorettes (I have posted about this game before) to Henk de Jager in the Netherlands.
He's a very skilled pinball repairman who even creates his own custom e-m pinball machines !
Henk will repair the Majorettes, cut away all the added/hacked wiring and bring it back into original and working condition. I can't wait to see how it turns out and play this game !

We also had the opportunity to see his personal collection (he has some very nice and rare games), it was fun meeting and talking to him again (usually we only see him once a year at the rock-around-the-clock jukebox show).

With their company, Henk and Ramon can repair electro-mechanical games for a very reasonable fee, so if you are in Belgium or the Netherlands and have an e-m game you cannot restore or repair yourself, he may be a solution. Let me know if you want his contact information.

Sinbad repair

Will post some more info about repairs so other people can learn about them (as pinballninja.com advises).
Repaired a Sinbad. Gottlieb System 1, I had never worked on this type of game before.
Prepared myself by reading the pinrepair.com guide for this type of game, and checking my spare parts boxes to see what I had laying around for this type of games (coils, a driver board, ..).

The pinball machine was in quite good condition. It had only been on location for about 3 years and then always in home use. Needed a good cleaning, new rubbers, some lamps.

It played very slow, that was mainly because the playfield wasn't raised enough.
I raised the back legs, adjusted the gaps of the popbumper switches, and the game came alive.
One of the right flippers was too weak, eos needed to be cleaned and adjusted.

One problem was that the chimes did not work when you scored points. The game was very boring without this instant feedback when you're playing well. Most of the charm of playing these old games is the constant ringing of a bell or chimes when you score points.
Only at startup of a new game the chimes did make a little sound.. So the fuses and coils were good. It had to be something on the cpu, couldn't be anything else..
Took out the manual, sure, there's a dipswitch to select if you want chimes when you score points or not (dipswitch 20 if I remember correct). Weird enough it was already set to 'on'.
Set the dipswitch to the 'off' position. Still no chimes. Turned it back in the 'on' position. Bingo ! There it was, working chimes during gameplay.
Seems the dipswitch didn't make good contact anymore, moving it had solved the problem again..

Another problem was there were no playfield lights. Had measured all fuses, they seemed ok. Read the part about the playfield-relays (Q and R if I remember well). Operated them by hand, still the lamps didn't turn on. Measured voltages, didn't have any. No broken wires so it had to be something with the fuses.
After a while I removed the fuse from the fuseholder, measured it again.. and it was broken afterall !
Replaced it with a new fuse and the playfield lights came on nicely :-)
Now I know why you should always remove one end of a fuse out of the holder and not test them still in position.. there's 20 minutes of my life wasted :-(

did Stern become Gottlieb ?

I have to admit I don't often play new Stern pinball machine. Wait, make 'almost never'. Lost interest a few years ago in them, and even while I can visit the local Stern distributor when a new game has arrived, I almost never do. Last time I went there to write a review of a game was for the Stern Grand Prix pinball machine.. so that's many years ago..

I did visit this dealer later when Wheel of Fortune and BDK where new, but didn't bother to write a review (as other sites like pinballnews are faster and write a more in-depth review that I could do after playing two or three games on a brand new machine). A while ago I also played a few games on a brand new Iron Man machine, but I was always more checking out things on the playfield (what to shoot for, how's the artwork, ..) than ie looking at the display.

Anyway, this weekend for the first time in many years I went to a local pinball competition. It was organised in a very impressive looking gameroom, with a sweet setup of games. I hadn't entered the competition so was playing for fun on a few of the latest Stern games (there was Iron Men, Batman Dark Knight and Spiderman next to eachother).
After playing IM and busy playing BDK, my brain finally started to work.
Wait.. all these games have a red display and not the regular orange dmd displays as we're used from Williams/Bally.. and those fuzzy animations, movie clips that have been captured and playback very badly on a red dmd.. I've seen this before !!

I've had a game like this many years ago, a Gottlieb World Challenge Soccer ! During gameplay it would show movie clips (of a soccer player passing a football, scoring a goal, ..) in a really crappy digitised format.. WCS isn't the only game, other Gottlieb games with dmd's had this too..

Stern has been doing this for a few years already, don't know how it comes I only really noticed last weekend how similar it is to what Gottlieb had been doing all time.

Pinball transport

We were recently contacted by an english pinball collector who was looking for a Gottlieb Shipmates. If we knew one for sale or were able to locate one for him.

Sure, no problem ! We put an ad on a dutch website, and a few days later we already had a response of someone who wanted to sell his.
We sent pictures, the buyer was interested.. so when we bought our Haunted House, we took a little detour and picked up this Shipmates pinball machine too.
It really was in good condition.. I haven't seen much games of this age that look so great.

Only problem, now the machine had moved from the Netherlands to Belgium.. but it had to arrive in the UK ?!

We don't really have time to take the ferry or eurotunnel to bring it to the UK (would quite expensive too just to bring one pinball machine across the pond) so we looked for other options..
Luckily a friend of us drives with large busses and he was going to the UK for a trip.

So.. transport problem solved: we put the pinball machine on the coach and the buyer was notified of the route the bus was going to take so he could go and pick it up.. (it arrived in great shape and the buyer is very pleased with it)

The pinball machine just fit the area (that's the area where a 2nd driver can sleep btw, it's not meant for suitcases).. as if it was made especially for it !

Haunted House

There's a new pinball machine in our gameroom since saturday: Gottliebs Haunted House !

I'm happy with it.. my wife wanted one, and I won't say no to a new game :-)

We couldn't test it when we bought it, so assembling it home and testing it was exciting.. would it work like the seller said or had we bought a bad machine ?
It was ok.. kind of :)
The cpu has no acid damage (great !) and the machine booted. I could start a game..
There are some issues with it however, one upper playfield flipper is very weak, and both bottom pf flippers don't work (one barely moves, the other it totally dead).
It also needs a good cleaning, new rubbers, ..

It's not the best looking game cosmetically. The backglas is perfect, plastics are good, but there are some heavy wear areas. If anyone has new playfields for sale (esp. upper and lower) then let me know..

I rearranged my gameroom, now Orbitor One, HH and Black Hole are next to eachother. Impressive to see such three huge widebodies together.

Black Hole

Haven't posted a lot the last weeks.

We've been busy redecorating the gameroom.
The walls and ceiling got a new color, even some flashy 70ies wavy wallpaper.

This weekend I finally started on my Black Hole.
About 1,5 year ago I had taken all parts off the playfield, but then put everything in a box.. Other games also had small problems so I worked first on those, and just didn't want to start on the Black Hole.. because this is a large project.
Even shopping the pin, cleaning all parts, assembling everything back together is not something you do very quickly. It takes a lot of time..
I always waited to start this until I would have a few days off so I could work on it without many interruptions, but this just doesn't happen.
So I'll work now every evening a bit on it.. After 3 hours of work the small playfield is about 80% assembled again.
Still need to put on some plastics, new lightbulbs, and check the bottom side.
Then I can reassemble all parts on the main playfield.



Biggest issue then will be the electronics.. but I now have spare boards out of a Gottlieb Spring Break pinball machine I parted out so I should be covered..
(does anyone need plastics or playfield parts from a Spring Break ?)