TAF repair

Recently repaired a TAF. I actually even had to return as my first repair didn't solve the problem completely. :-(

Issue reported was that sometimes the game gave errors about the bookcase, .. Weird thing is that it didn't happen all the time, only when the game had been played for a while.

Well the problem didn't show up when I was there :( the machine played flawless.
Inspected the boards, another tech had already replaced the connector on the right hand side of the powerboard (J102 if my memory is correct). Maybe to try to resolve the same problem, maybe the game had reset problems in the past. I don't know.
Judging from the condition of the boards, several repairs had already been done to this game.

Measured voltages on the board, everything was ok. Testpoints ok, all leds were on, .. Anyway my guess was that the bookcase error messages were related to the 12v power used for the optos, and for some reason 12v sometimes dropped. Could be on the board or in the wiring.

While checking voltages on the pins going to the playfield, I noticed the connectors at the bottom left of the powerboard were not tight anymore.
There you have J116, J117 and J118. These all provide ground, +5V and +12V to various boards in the game.
One connector especially was very loose. Probably the game had issues with them in the past and that connector must have been unplugged a lot. The metal clips just had lost all their tension and it felt like they did not make a good connection to the header pins.
Checked a few other connectors on the board and they all were in better condition, but not exceptionally good.

Replaced one connector that provided power to the playfield, that's where the optos get their 12v from. Tested the game, still everything worked.. as it was already getting late, and I couldn't reproduce the error, I called it a day.
Instructed the owner of the game that if the issue came back he had to open the backbox and see if all leds were still on (to see if 12v was missing or not on the pcb) and possibly switch J116, J117 and J118 around and see if that solved the problem (the three are interchangeable).

If the problem would come back I could check the rest of the connectors or check out the header pins too. They weren't burnt so I didn't replace them now (usually only GI pins need replacing, not 5v or 12v pins), and I didn't want to remove the powerboard when it was not required as it would further limit the life of the connectors.

A few days later I got an email from the owner, suddenly the dmd display would show garbage.. instructed the owner to reset the grey flatcable. This solved the problem.

A while later I was contacted again. No opto or display problems this time but sometimes the game would just act weird and play completely wrong sounds.

There could be two sources of this problem - either the grey flatcable that connects the cpu to the sound board (the same flatcable also connects the cpu with the fliptronics and dmd driver board). Through the grey flatcable the cpu instructs the soundboard to play specific sound samples. If the data lines have a problem (ie one is blocked) it's possible the game plays the wrong sounds. It was suspect because the garbage on the dmd.
It could also be a problem with the +12 and +5v connectors as some of the boards in the backbox also get their power from these pins, and these definitely were suspect.

Again the problem didn't show itself when I arrived. Swapped connectors on J116, J117 and J118 around and suddenly it did show up. The wrong sample was played, when you would go into the menu you didn't get the typical 'bong' sound but another music. In the selftest the soundboard would play incorrect samples.
With these symptoms you would suspect a grey flatcable, but I got them while playing with the power connectors ? Weird.

Anyway, as these connectors were already suspect I was going to do the repair good.
Didn't have a replacement flatcable with me (later that evening I told the owner where he could order one if the problem would come back). I would start on the powerboard as that was suspect too. Replaced the two other connectors. Removed the powerboard out of the game to replace all the header pins for these three connectors.

With the board out of the game I inspected the backside and I made an interesting discovery. All pins of all connectors had been reflowed ! And I mean ALL of them, even the thin pins for the small flatcable. I have no idea what repair person did this or how long ago it was. It could've been done by the person that replaced the J102 connector, it may have been someone else. I got the impression this Addams Family pinball machine already had a troublesome history.

Finding this made me more suspect about the powerboard and previous repairs. I live by the 'don't fix it if it ain't broken' rule.
Reflowing all pins just shows that someone tried to shotgun a problem, without trying to understand the logic behind it. Else only specific pins related to the issue would've been reflowed. If the game would reset, you only replace or reflow the parts involved. Sound issue ? Same thing. Reflowing everything ? Either the repair person wasn't very skilled, or the issues he was trying to resolve were random and he couldn't reproduce them at all.
It's possible more problems had been introduced by reflowing everything.

I desoldered and removed the header pins for J116, J117 and J118. Installed new pins. Noticed that there was one specific issue with them, one set has one pin connected on the front of the board, while all other traces run along the backside of the board (I believe 5v on J116 to J117, but going from memory here, don't have schematics with me now). Noticed that I had to use enough solder there. When finished I measured continuity between the back of the board and each pin at the front.
On the powerboard there are some pins that have traces on both sides of the board, you have to doublecheck there that you have continuity.
Also measured continuity between the two connectors that are underneath eachother (J117 and J118). But didn't check the trace on the front between J116 and J117.. (only on the backside if the trace had continuity with the pin).

Installed everything again.. now things suddenly got interesting ? :(
The dmd suddenly didn't work at all ? Oops..
Hope I didn't blow up something by accident. No.. just a voltage was missing. (don't remember if it's the 5 or 12v).

Anyway I remembered this one trace on the front. Measured continuity and indeed - it seems one of both pins was not making contact with this trace. Power arrived from the back of the board to one pin, but didn't continue on this pin through the front of the board onto the other two connectors.

Took the powerboard out of the game again, soldered the pins at the frontside of the board to the pcb, measured everything..
Put the board back into the game. Now everything worked correct !
Dmd worked fine, the correct sounds played..
Problem solved and it hasn't come back..

My guess as what the original problem with this board was (before I replaced pins) is that it also had an intermittent contact on one of these connectors. Probably even with the same trace on the front side of the board, as all pins had been reflowed on the backside and that looked good. When the game was off (board was cold) all pins had continuity, but as the machine was played for a while the board and connectors heated up a bit, a pin or the board expanded a bit and broke continuity.

Things I've learned from this repair:
- having a problem with only 5v or 12v on J116/J117/J118 can still make the soundboard work but play incorrect sounds ?!
- always double check and measure continuity in all directions when you've soldered pins.. especially with traces that continue on the front of the pcb!

Cyclone sound repair

We moved some games around in the gameroom the last days. The room now looks a bit bigger (all games with wide heads are on one side, and some WPC games and Safecracker are on the other side next to the diner booth).
The diner booth and table are now in the middle of the room instead of in a corner where it alway was. It definitely is an improvement.

Finally I was able to set up a Cyclone. I have it since 2 months already, got it especially for my daughter as I think she will like the theme very well, but it was all this time in the living room of our house as I didn't have space to set it up on its legs.

Cyclone starts a game and plays, needs to be shopped. Only technical problem is that game had speech but no music.
Yesterday I finally had a look at it. Pinrepair.com guides don't have a lot to say about repairing system11 sound/speech boards :-(

Don't have schematics so I couldn't investigate it deeply (and start measuring signals at specific components). Unplugged the socketed ICs, put them back in. No change.
Finally I reseated the ribbon cables. Bingo ! Cyclone suddenly does have sound !
I'm happy :) The game is so much more fun to play now.

Cleaning this game will be another big task. It has a mylar on the playfield but it's bubbling, and removing mylar from non-diamondplayed games is always dangerous to do..

I'm not in a hurry though to shop it.. although I had bought this game especially for my daughter, since then we have bought a Cactus Canyon (and that was set up immediately in the gameroom). She just loooooves CC ! She has played it every day since we bought it, knows all the sounds, just loves it when she is able to start gold mine multibal (the neighbours hear her yell along with the game).
I'm afraid she won't like Cyclone much when I finish 'her' game and still prefer CC.. but how would you be, if you could chose between Cactus Canyon or Cyclone ? :-)

Back from vacation, AFM sound upgrade

Back from vacation.. loved it !
Haven't seen a pinball machine on location.. although in the north of Italy there should be a few at campings, but we were in a fancy hotel in a large town that mostly had an older population.. still had a good time, we had very good weather (the belgian summer has been rainy and cold :(

Haven't worked more on the pinball machines except that I upgraded the speakers in Attack from Mars too.



Here's a picture of the subwoofer in my Twilight Zone..

I did start on a new article about pinball machine photography but as it'll be a very big article, that may still take a while until it gets published on the site.

Medieval Madness sound upgrade finished

Had time to work on my Medieval Madness sound upgrade yesterday evening.

First tested with the new tweeter that had some distortion.. put in the 6.8mfd and 4.7mfd capacitors instead of the default 10mfd, but it didn't make any noticeable difference, the speaker still distorted :(
Even tried adding some resistors. But only when I added 3 resistors of 5ohm it didn't distort anymore, but you hardly heard anything from the tweeter..
So I soldered back in the original tweeter.

Then I tested with a pot on R17, to bring out the bass and get more sound out of the cabinet subwoofer. That really made a nice difference, and I noticed the backbox speakers also lost some of the high notes.
So I put in back the improved tweeter and this time it didn't distort anymore.
Excellent ! Tested a bit and around 8k7 ohm it gives the best setting for my MM with new car speakers..

The cabinet subwoofer still isn't very loud, it doesn't give out a real hard beat you would expect from a car subwoofer.. but it's ok for me. To get a good bass I probably need to add an amplifier, cut out the hole, and remove my spare parts boxes from underneath the game..
but now you hear the game has some added bass compared to the default setup, and you definitely feel it, the cabinet vibrates slightly from the bass.. it's nice :)

WPC sound upgrade parts

Went to an electronic parts shop this afternoon..
(another shop I went to earlier this week was closed because of summer holidays.. how am I supposed to get any work done when I can't get the parts I need ?)
Bought new capacitors to try on the MM tweeter, will check if a 4.7 or 6.8 mfd one will block enough low sounds so the tweeter doesn't distort anymore.

Didn't buy l-pads but did get pots to check if I could plug it on R17/R39 like the ones pinball pro sells. Check the CV sound page at iobium.com btw for more information about this.

I hope to test everything it this weekend, before I leave on holiday.. Italy here we come !

Didn't have time this evening to already test the capacitors as I was home quite late.. went with a friend to an operator. I didn't buy anything (I don't buy or sell games, don't have the room to store them, and even if I wanted to buy a game I couldn't as I crashed my car earlier this week so couldn't transport it back home.. but I went along as I was curious to see what games were left.. I never say no to a warehouse visit). My friend also didn't buy any pinball machines as most of what available was only good for parts (and even then) and he didn't want to fill up his truck with 12 games to part them all out..

He did buy a NOS Bally Monte Carlo backglass for 50 euros. Not a bad score !
Not that he really needed it, but Monte Carlo has nice artwork so it's nice to hang in a gameroom against the wall as decoration.. and a NOS pinball backglass is a rare find..



Don't remember exactly what other backglasses were available;. about 5 other pinball backlasses, mostly of electro-mechanical games (stuff like Capersville, Super Circus,.. ), and a lot (50 or so) bingo backglasses (mostly Bally) and backglasses from other vintage amusement games like bowlers..



Bingo machine backglasses are something I'm really not interested in myself so we left them there in the basement.. there was also another room with a lot of bingo backglasses from parted games.



Just checked ipdb.org and the super circus backglass is already 50 years old.. and has quite nice artwork too.. maybe I should've bought it ? maybe next time..

There were a lot of neogeos (with 4 games) and some mortal combats (ultimate mk and mk2/3 if I'm not mistaken) also available.. not in mint condition, all faded, came off location.. but still interesting for some people as it's a popular game.

Today I also searched a bit on rgp and other sites about the door flasher mod on Twilight Zone that's also I intended to do for a looooong time now.
Last year I parted out a Funhouse, and kept the flashers that are underneath the clock so I could them for this mod.. only have to test on how to connect them exactly..
Did anyone buy the pingizmos door flasher mod (they don't exist anymore ?) and want to tell me how the wiring is exactly ?

WPC speaker upgrade

Started this week on another project that I planned to do for many years now but just never did: upgrading speakers in all of my pinball machines.

I've read Tony's guide a lot and will follow it.. especially the schematics at the end of his instructions are interesting.

I don't have everything I need yet - I do have one pyramid crossover, and last week I went crazy and bought about a dozen speakers in all sizes.
I don't have l-pads or rheostats yet so I'm waiting for them to complete the upgrade and do all rewiring necessary.



What I already did was replacing the original speakers in my Medieval Madness pinball machine with better ones. According to some posts on rgp, just installing new speakers without rewiring anything may also make a big difference on some games, but the final result depends on the game and speakers used.. one just has to experiment, you don't know in advance how successful you'll be..

In the backbox I replaced the left speaker with a much better quality car speaker of the same size, and the tweeter on the right with an improved one.
Best results you get if you put 2 of the same type of speakers in the backbox, but I just did not want to drill/cut the plastic speakerpanel of my MM.
I did buy speakers with built-in tweeters too that can fit in the backbox, but will use those for another game with wooden speaker panel.



I put a large subwoofer in the cabinet (the biggest size that I could fit in there, the troll assemblies just don't touch it).



Results (without installing an lpad to change the balance):

The cabinet speaker can't be heard at all.. the volume of the backbox speakers is too high in contrast.. so an lpad is really necessary for a new subwoofer to make any noticeable difference.

The tweeter on the right distorts sometimes. It's annoying. Don't know how it comes as it doesn't do it all the time.. I'll have to experiment to lower its output.
It shouldn't do it in theory as it has more than double the watts of the original.
I'll install the tweeter into another pinball machine too and see what it does..
Maybe they're of less quality than I think they are, or maybe it just doesn't go well into the default configuration on Medieval Madness.
I hope it's the second as I intended to buy more of these tweeters as they have a good size.. I want to install them in my Attack from Mars, Cirqus Voltaire and Safecracker pinball machines.

I first replaced the left backbox speaker and tested this setup.
That actually sounded the best ! The speaker was clear enough to let me hears sounds I never heard before (what - there's actually water flowing ?! glass breaking ?!) The result really has to be heard to believe, only now you realize how crappy the default pinball machine speakers sound !
It also had enough power to give out a good bass you could feel and hear, but would not overpower the other sounds.

So I'll install an l-pad and see if I can fine-tune it so the pinball machine will really sound very good. If I can't get it right then maybe I'll just return to the default wiring and only keep the left backbox speaker.
But I'm pretty sure I'll get it working with an l-pad. Last year I heard a friends Medieval Madness with only a new subwoofer in the cabinet and a pinballpro l-pad alligator clip thingy in the backbox and the improved bass also made a huge difference to the feel of the game..

Orbitor 1 speaks

My Orbitor 1 speaks !

Sterns Orbitor One pinball machine was designed to have a speech board, but not every game had this one installed.. like my machine. It only had a soundboard.

Last year I had already bought a speech board from a Flight 2000 but I had only the board itself, and not the flatcables to connect it to the lamp driver board. And I had once read on rec.games.pinball from someone who also wanted to upgrade his machine, that there was an additional connector needed in the wiring loom which wasn't present.
So it wasn't a matter of just plugging it in, therefor I never put any time in it.

Last week however I acquired a Stern Freefall. This game also had the sound and speech board installed and had the complete wiring in the backbox. Its condition is too bad to repair (very worn playfield, ..) so I was going to use it for spare parts.
Now I had a full set of board and the complete wiring.. so this week I worked every evening on retrofitting the speech board in my Orbitor One.

I'll make detailed pictures and write an article for my website in a few days..
but the good news is that it was much easier to connect the soundboard than I thought it would be, as the missing connector actually was present in the wiring !!
It was just very well hidden :)

Update: here is the article on about adding a speech board into a Stern pinball machine.