The Pinball Diaries (what did you do today?)

thewebexpert said:

Found out my High Speed is starting to behave poorly! The left ball kicker is sticking and it is not a standard coil, some sealed black box. -sigh-. And there must be a loose wire in a wiring harness, the left two flashers do not flash, if I shake the wires at the back it starts working. -sigh-. troubleshooting time I guess!

Click to expand...

Sealed black box? Care to shoot a picture and post it?

Last month I got careless and tried changing a bulb while the JD was still on. I touched something and later noticed that a switch isn't working. After some more games I noticed a whole column of switches wasn't working! Googling around, it turns out I zapped the U20 chip. Found the chip at Sayal and sat on it for a while because I was scared to replace it. I practiced removing chips on some old ethernet and sound cards and finally decided to go for it. Things worked out great! Added a socket and now if that ever happens again it will be easy to replace (although I've learned my lesson about 'real quick' bulb changes).

What's with all the pinbot hate?

Well... I've finally gotten my energy back after being ill for a good 3 weeks.
I took al this new-found energy to get back on the horse and do some good the last couple of days.
LOTS and LOTS of projects on the go now...

-Finally finished installing the last couple of mods on my T2 (pinbits plastic protector set and their LED hunter ship mod). It's finally done and looks & plays great!
-Got back to working on a couple of long overdue playfield projects. Pinbot for one (not the one pictured by Eric aboove :twisted: ) and Jacks Open... Also finished stripping a spare Special Force playfield. Looks like an unlikely restoration is in my future.
-Also finally got around to putting a few test superbands on my games. I got these back in October from Expo. Just a little behind in my tasks
-Set up my Shadow and started doing a little triage on the cabinet and will be stripping the playfield (top only) for a little restoration work and clearcoat.
-Working on making about 10-11 repro Donkey Kong cabinets. should start assembly next week
-And lastly, I got my first vid. Super Sprint. Just waiting to get it from Warlock's to my place so I can give it a little cleanup and apply some new graphcis I purchased for it. Can't wait!

Phew! It sounds pretty scary when I write it all out like that :shock:
Onward and upward!

Today I dragged home the lower cabinet from my second High Speed. My original plan was to shop the pf from the second (parts) machine because it was nicer than my first one and throw it in my first cab to play until I had time to do the resto and put my CPR playfield in. Now I've decided I'm just going to plunge in and do the resto instead of wasting time making the game playable first. I really need to repaint and re-stencil the better of the two cabinets, but until I have somewhere to do that kind of work (I live in an apartment lol) that will just have to wait. So I think next week I will finally break down and build a playfield rotisserie, order the flap wheels I want for re-graining my stainless parts and get ready to do this. I'm nervous, this is a little daunting.

But first I have to finish shopping my RFM and put it back together.

DRANO said:

-And lastly, I got my first vid. Super Sprint. Just waiting to get it from Warlock's to my place so I can give it a little cleanup and apply some new graphcis I purchased for it. Can't wait!

Click to expand...

Easily in my top 3 arcade games ever!!

tim.sanderson said:

DRANO said:

-And lastly, I got my first vid. Super Sprint. Just waiting to get it from Warlock's to my place so I can give it a little cleanup and apply some new graphcis I purchased for it. Can't wait!

Click to expand...

Easily in my top 3 arcade games ever!!

Click to expand...

Haven't touched one since I was maybe 13yrs old. Not gonna lie.... getting a little giddy

I was thinking the other day I needed a Super Sprint....now I am jealous....today spent a day driving....good news is truck came home with a Champion Pub, bad news is now I have to move some things around and set it up. Said for the 3rd time this year I am done buying machines for the year.

Can you get super sprints very easily? Same thinking session, air hockey sounded like a good idea too. Best part is these do not count in the done machines promise (cause they are not machines, one is vid game other is actually a table).

Future post: Got my pinballs set up in my home office.

Must do's: Sort out the office, remove furniture and get machines in.


What a mess.

Changed the batteries in all my pins, and noticed that the ones in LOTR had never been changed (still zip tied down). Also managed to do it without losing any settings this time-I know last year I had a problem with the crummy battery holders on WPC boards and managed to lose all my TZ high scores to a bad connection.

Also installed the custom TSPP sideboard decals that I ordered, and they look pretty awesome. Pain in the ass to get on there by myself (would have been easier if I'd just taken the playfield out), but I managed. Also put in the I&S hole protector that I've had for three months now.

So last weekend a friend and I picked up the roadshow, t2, and sttng a member here was selling. This weekend I spent a good chunk of time going through them.

Roadshow is working well, I'll need to replace the shooter spring but that's about it. Replaced a couple light bulbs and I'll need to take a look at the bulldozer down. It'll go up and down in the test menu but doesn't appear to go all the way down during game. I've read some info online and I'll try to repair it once I get some free time. Oh yes and changed the batteries... The ones in there expired in 2001.

Terminator 2 had a bit more to do. The coil from the trough to the launcher was very weak and when I pulled it apart noticed it had no coil sleeve for some reason. Once I stuck one in it worked fine. There were a few switches not working because the solder on the wires had broken loose. All but one stand of the GI was out. J115 at the driver board was toast so once that was fixed they all worked. I installed a remote battery pack on the mpu and gave the mpu a vinegar bath to clear up a bit of alkaline damage. Still need to sort out why the flipper works but the switch doesn't register, I'll have to save that for another day.

Star trek had the most wrong. The game was ball cycling trying to get balls loaded under the cannons. Both bottom diverters weren't working but I was able to get them going by replacing the tip102 transistor at q16 on the aux 8 driver board. The game is also missing the drop target reset coil and plunger. The top diverter coil worked but the diverter was physically seized to the point it wouldn't budge. I had to take a hammer to it just to separate it. Cleaned it all up and got that working again. The playfield GI wasn't on but it was caused by bad a bad connector at j120 on the driver board. I removed and cleaned every opto (stopped counting after a million). I was having an issue with the cannons not finding home position but I believe I sorted that out at a connector going up to the backbox. I think I'm going to make up some new wiring harnesses for the cannons anyways just to be safe. Also still need to install a remote battery pack but again there isn't enough hours in a day.

I'm sure more will pop up as I play the games a bit but that's where I'm at now.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

Of course more is going to come up on that game-it's a STTNG Has it had the tieback voltage mod done on it?