Luckydogg's Bally Mystic

[Luckydogg420]

I recently traded a Mame arcade for this game. The guy that I got it from said it was sitting in a warehouse for 10 years before he convinced the previous owner to sell it. He had it is basment for the last 12 years and it didn't look like he played it often. At least it didn't look like he repaired it often.

I love a good project pin so the deal was made sight unseen. He said it was mostly working, only needing a little work to be perfect. Unfazed by a challenge; I was ready to pick it up and get to work on it.

The Good-
The displays were bright and crisp, fully working.
The playfield was in good shape, mostly mylared.
The inserts looked good, none were lifting, none were cupped.
The plastics were all there, no chips or cracks.
The backglass was complete (with minor flaking)
The boards look clean, no hack jobs to be seen.
Under the playfield is clean, the machine hasn't had a hard life.




The Bad-
One drop target was broken.
No GI lights worked.
Most controlled lights were out.
Half the sounds were missing.
The flippers needed a rebuild. (I think one coil was replaced with the wrong one)
Needs a full rubber kit. (The shooter tip was crumbling, left sling has a blue elastic band)



The Ugly-
The cabinet exterior is pretty beat up. It had a couple stickers slapped on it. Just cosmetic, it's structurally sound.
There's a couple small section with paint missing on the playfield. (Should be an easy touch up)

Left of the star insert

End of the shooter lane

Under the captive balls resting spot

Middle of the drain.

Most of these were quick fixes. More to come.

 

[spiroagnew]

Pretty straightforward gameplay-wise, but one of those Bally games with art that ties the whole game together. Congrats.

 

[Luckydogg420]

Thanks, spiroagnew. It's been a year (already) since I sold off all my other games and I'm happy with this project to keep me busy.

I started working over the machine, checking out the problems and fixing things as I go.

The first thing I did was repair the drop target. *this was just a hack until I can order parts*. The top half to the drop target was broken off, the bottom half was still in its location inside the game. All that I did for this was take out the half of the target that was in the game and epoxy the two pieces back together. I added a piece of a toothpick on the backside to add support and put it back together. Now the game is playable, all switches work and the drop target is holding for now.

Almost all of the control light bulbs that were out just needed a little wiggle to get working. I think 2 sockets need to be replaced, the rest just need a cleaning. I replaced about ten bulbs that were burnt out.

The missing sound was just the background music. All of the sound effects played well. So I got out the manuals and checked the game settings. On the MPU board I had to toggle a dip switch that controlled the music and it now works perfectly.


All of the general illumination lights were out. I figured this was a quick fix. I doubted that all bulbs would be blown, so off to the schematics. The GI light circuit was extremely simple, basically just a plug on the transformer board connecting everything. I grabbed my multimeter to check the fuse holder, it was good. So I shut off the power and reseated the j1 plug a couple times. Turned it back on and they worked... For a couple seconds. So I shut it off again to clean the pins that j1 plugged into. I used my contact cleaners to scratch off some oxidization that looked to be the issue. Sure enough, plugged the connector back it, turned it on and all GI lights worked. Yes.



Everything works. Yay. Now I can play the machine while I wait for parts to arrive.

 

[eh97ac]

I replaced all my drop targets, I can send you some for free.

 

[flyer666]

cut that battery out or I will.....

I know were you live :FP: :FP:

 

[Menace]

You will also eventually need to replace the GI header, along with the socket & pins. Even though you 'wiped' the tarnish off those pins, they have already been damaged enough that it will fail again, and it could melt the current connector in the process. The issue is the resistance caused by the tarnished pins will continue to rise, generating lots of heat...

Glad you got all the other issues resolved.

D

 

[Luckydogg420]

Ya I'm slowly putting together a list of parts that I need and a new GI header is on there. I'll post my list later tonight, but I think I have it all figured out.

 

[Luckydogg420]

Here's my shopping list to get this machine playing well and looking good again.

1) flipper rebuild kit, Bally 5/80-11/88
2) 2 x flipper coil, AQ-25-500/34-4500
3) 2 x flipper and shaft
4) Mystic rubber kit
5) 2 x lane guide 2 1/8" double. (I only see williams red ones, can't find white bally doubles)
6) 9 x bally drop target ( I can't find ones for Mystic, probably just use blank white ones)
7) bally AS-2518-18 power supply connector kit

I think that's all that I need, do you guys have any suggestion other then marco for these parts. I'm thinking sayal should have connectors for the power supply header.

I'm pretty sure that I have parts for a remote battery holder, so I'm good there.

I also think I can get a board to prevent the LEDs from strobing. I've changed the GI lights for LEDs, they look good to me but the controlled lamps flicker horribly.

 

[Luckydogg420]

I've been reading this online repair guide to help with the fix.

http://techniek.flipperwinkel.nl/ballyss/rep/index1.htm

Do you guys prefer a capacitor or remote battery holder for memory? I think both look like good option and have parts for a remote holder, but if a cap is a better option, then I'll get the parts for that.

 

[eh97ac]

4) Mystic rubber kit
Paterlock has the kit and he also sells the pop bumper caps. Discounted if you buy directly instead of his ebay store + he's in Canada

6) 9 x bally drop target ( I can't find ones for Mystic, probably just use blank white ones)
PBR has the red explosion and is available in tombstone and regular

 

[Menace]

Go for the cap over the battery. Cleaner and never leaks.

D

 

[brad808]

4) Mystic rubber kit
Paterlock has the kit and he also sells the pop bumper caps. Discounted if you buy directly instead of his ebay store + he's in Canada

6) 9 x bally drop target ( I can't find ones for Mystic, probably just use blank white ones)
PBR has the red explosion and is available in tombstone and regular

How do you buy direct instead of his eBay store?

 

[eh97ac]

http://www.maaca.org/memberlist.php?mod ... file&u=201

 

[Luckydogg420]

I went to Sayal in Cambridge today in hopes of finding pieces to rebuild the power supply board. Originally I was just going to get the J1 header pins and connector but decided to rebuild the board while I'm at it. I figured they would also have a capacitor for the battery replacement.

I asked the sales clerk about the capacitor. Well the guy looked at me cross eyed at me when I said I needed a 100000 uf 5.5V cap. He checked their online inventory, none of their stores have that. (Maybe it's an unusual part?)

So I crabbed a basket and started down the parts isle with parts list in hand. .....that was 1/2 an hour I wish I could get back. They had only about a 1/3 of the parts I needed. They did have the bigger bridge rectifiers and some of the resistors, but not everything I needed. I ended up leaving with only the 8pin header and connector that I need for the GI light issue. In fact they didn't even have the other headers I needed.

I'm probably just going to order this kit online, it looks complete. http://www.bigdaddy-enterprises.com/rep ... tm#b-ps18a.

 

[spiroagnew]

Mystic backglass on eBay now...just FYI.

 

[Menace]

Instead of going the route of buying a kit and working the board over (because trust me, it is a MAJOR pain with the huge ground plane in that PCB), take the money you'd spend on a kit and just buy a replacement power supply from Playdium (they stock the Rottendogs). Well worth the money and the headache you save yourself. (then all you have to do is repin the connector)

D

 

[Luckydogg420]

Thats a great idea Menace. For the price it's well worth the labour involved.

http://www.theplaydiumstore.com/Bally_S ... bps018.htm

 

[Luckydogg420]

I ordered the memory cap and it came in the other day, just in time for the epoxied trop target to break again. I guess it's time to order up some other stuff and fix this game all at once.


The backglass repair went ok...it's not 100%, but much better then it was before. The large sections of detached paint are back in place, although now there's some bubbles. I'm wondering if trying a second coat will improve the results further or if this is the best it will get. I was by myself when I sprayed the triple thick and covered it with cling wrap, I'd suggest a second set hands to apply the cling wrap. The less wrinkles the better. For the score windows I just scraped off the triple thick with a sharp razor. It worked great, I'm glad that I didn't go to the trouble of making tape covers.

 

[Luckydogg420]

My best friend came home from China for a visit before I was able to get parts to fix this up, so I decided to re-epoxy the broken drop target, just to make the game playable again. The previous "fix" didn't hold for long and the epoxy came clean off of one side of the target. This time when I glued it back together I drilled small holes on either side of the break, so the epoxy had something to bite into. I also added toothpick braces again. This isn't perfect, but for a 10min fix it's great to get a game playable for a couple days.

 

[Luckydogg420]

The other day I had a chance to run to the Playdium store to get parts. I couldn't get everything, but a grabbed what they had in stock.

That's a new transformer rectifier board, some drop targets with springs, a flipper rebuild fit, and a bunch of rubbers.