spiroagnew's Six Million Dollar Project
- Thread starter spiroagnew
- Start date
Better. Stronger. Faster.
He's alive!
I put all the pieces together and lo and behold, the Six Million Dollar Man fired up and nearly everything worked.
Here are a few of the hiccups I encountered:
- I was missing a ton of insert lamps, and it wasn't due to burnt out bulbs. Manually grounding the MCR106s and 2N5060s on the lamp driver board lit some of the lights, but others remained dark. It looked like I may have had a healthy mix of bad sockets and blown board components (both very common on this era of game). I had already re-pinned all the connectors (yes, ALL the connectors in the entire game) and thought I re-flowed solder on all the pins...however, it looks like the one I forgot to re-flow turned out to be important. Wiggling the top-left connector lit up some of the non-working lamps intermittently. Thus, the pins on the lamp driver board that handle receiving data from the MPU were the ones I must have missed...I saw obvious concentric circles around the solder where the pin meets the board when examined up-close. I re-flowed the solder, and voila, I got the loin's share of inserts lit up. I had three insert sockets that were intermittent at best, and instead of fussing with them, I just replaced them altogether with new sockets.
(First test upon power-up, note the lack of insert lights...)
- I also wasn't getting sound. This was attributed to the volume pot on the sound board. Its common for these to crap out. I spun the volume control left and right twenty or so times with some pressure and it seemed to fix the issue...removing some of the corrosion/tarnish on the contacts. Glorious Bally blips and bloops resulted. Replacing these volume pots is something I'll put on the to-do list.
- The last issue I had was a single non-working coil. It's the mini-coil that magnetizes a core and opens/closes the gate that returns the ball to the shooter lane. Grounding the coil via the lug didn't make it fire. Grounding the coil via the tab of the TIP102 on the driver board didn't make it fire. Power to the coil was, flaky, and then became non-existent. In consultation with Clay's repair guide and Menace, it looks as if the coil is bad...more than likely a broken winding. Pinball Resource stocks the coil, but wouldn't you know it, I got a shipping notification that morning that my bi-monthly PBR order had already shipped. You win some, you lose some. I called PBR this morning and they are shipping one out for me.
(The Offending Coil, a GA-34-4000)
Flippers are nice and strong, score displays (all seven of them!) are extremely bright, pop bumpers are powerful, and the spinners move at such an incredible speed that the scoring can't keep up. The clearcoat makes the ball glide pretty fast. I feel I was extremely lucky that the game worked as well as it did upon first power-up...seeing as it had been sitting unused for many, many years and the thing had been completely torn down for clearcoat and deep cleaning of all major components. The game is currently sitting in the middle of my gameroom, as I don't have a space for it at the moment. Something is gonna have to get folded or, gulp, sold to make room.
(An almost completely working game!)
This is the first classic Bally I've ever owned, and I was a complete noob to the Bally/Stern operating system. Clay's guides helped a ton, and are indispensable. Also helpful was having resident PBRev experts like Menace and Grauwulf at my disposal for questions and queries. If I had advice for other folks new to bringing a classic Bally/Stern back to life, it's as follows. I'd suggest just going ahead and buying an Alltek MPU if you have the money. My old board showed signs of corrosion, so instead of chasing my tail with corrosion issues right off the bat, and down the line, I grabbed an Alltek from a PBRev member who was selling one he didn't need for less than retail (and in CAD as well). The board is extremely well made, easy to install and use and you get a free play option to boot! It's also worth looking into a Rottendog or Great Plains power supply board. My original was totally hacked up, with a couple of melted areas, wires soldered directly to the pins and an interesting bridge rectifier modification. The new Rottendog board gave me a solid 5.23v right out of the box, and piece of mind that power issues wouldn't be a worry. They are a bitch to install (perhaps over and above novice level installation) but worth it. $75CAD well spent. I'd also suggest re-pinning all connectors and re-flowing solder on all pins before trying to troubleshoot issues in the game. A high percentage of issues with these games can be attributed to connectors. Might as well take care of a problematic area before chasing your tail looking for problems....because its gonna be a connector the majority of the time!
I'll update again when the coil issue gets sorted out, or when more issues arise!
He's alive!
I put all the pieces together and lo and behold, the Six Million Dollar Man fired up and nearly everything worked.
Here are a few of the hiccups I encountered:
- I was missing a ton of insert lamps, and it wasn't due to burnt out bulbs. Manually grounding the MCR106s and 2N5060s on the lamp driver board lit some of the lights, but others remained dark. It looked like I may have had a healthy mix of bad sockets and blown board components (both very common on this era of game). I had already re-pinned all the connectors (yes, ALL the connectors in the entire game) and thought I re-flowed solder on all the pins...however, it looks like the one I forgot to re-flow turned out to be important. Wiggling the top-left connector lit up some of the non-working lamps intermittently. Thus, the pins on the lamp driver board that handle receiving data from the MPU were the ones I must have missed...I saw obvious concentric circles around the solder where the pin meets the board when examined up-close. I re-flowed the solder, and voila, I got the loin's share of inserts lit up. I had three insert sockets that were intermittent at best, and instead of fussing with them, I just replaced them altogether with new sockets.
(First test upon power-up, note the lack of insert lights...)
- I also wasn't getting sound. This was attributed to the volume pot on the sound board. Its common for these to crap out. I spun the volume control left and right twenty or so times with some pressure and it seemed to fix the issue...removing some of the corrosion/tarnish on the contacts. Glorious Bally blips and bloops resulted. Replacing these volume pots is something I'll put on the to-do list.
- The last issue I had was a single non-working coil. It's the mini-coil that magnetizes a core and opens/closes the gate that returns the ball to the shooter lane. Grounding the coil via the lug didn't make it fire. Grounding the coil via the tab of the TIP102 on the driver board didn't make it fire. Power to the coil was, flaky, and then became non-existent. In consultation with Clay's repair guide and Menace, it looks as if the coil is bad...more than likely a broken winding. Pinball Resource stocks the coil, but wouldn't you know it, I got a shipping notification that morning that my bi-monthly PBR order had already shipped. You win some, you lose some. I called PBR this morning and they are shipping one out for me.
(The Offending Coil, a GA-34-4000)
Flippers are nice and strong, score displays (all seven of them!) are extremely bright, pop bumpers are powerful, and the spinners move at such an incredible speed that the scoring can't keep up. The clearcoat makes the ball glide pretty fast. I feel I was extremely lucky that the game worked as well as it did upon first power-up...seeing as it had been sitting unused for many, many years and the thing had been completely torn down for clearcoat and deep cleaning of all major components. The game is currently sitting in the middle of my gameroom, as I don't have a space for it at the moment. Something is gonna have to get folded or, gulp, sold to make room.
(An almost completely working game!)
This is the first classic Bally I've ever owned, and I was a complete noob to the Bally/Stern operating system. Clay's guides helped a ton, and are indispensable. Also helpful was having resident PBRev experts like Menace and Grauwulf at my disposal for questions and queries. If I had advice for other folks new to bringing a classic Bally/Stern back to life, it's as follows. I'd suggest just going ahead and buying an Alltek MPU if you have the money. My old board showed signs of corrosion, so instead of chasing my tail with corrosion issues right off the bat, and down the line, I grabbed an Alltek from a PBRev member who was selling one he didn't need for less than retail (and in CAD as well). The board is extremely well made, easy to install and use and you get a free play option to boot! It's also worth looking into a Rottendog or Great Plains power supply board. My original was totally hacked up, with a couple of melted areas, wires soldered directly to the pins and an interesting bridge rectifier modification. The new Rottendog board gave me a solid 5.23v right out of the box, and piece of mind that power issues wouldn't be a worry. They are a bitch to install (perhaps over and above novice level installation) but worth it. $75CAD well spent. I'd also suggest re-pinning all connectors and re-flowing solder on all pins before trying to troubleshoot issues in the game. A high percentage of issues with these games can be attributed to connectors. Might as well take care of a problematic area before chasing your tail looking for problems....because its gonna be a connector the majority of the time!
I'll update again when the coil issue gets sorted out, or when more issues arise!
Last edited:
DRANO
Super Member
Love that cab!
I have to admit that I have a soft spot for classic Bally/Sterns now. I used to avoid them like the plague.
Beautiful work!
I have to admit that I have a soft spot for classic Bally/Sterns now. I used to avoid them like the plague.
Beautiful work!
Tore the wrapper off the offending GA-34-4000 coil. Two or three windings back I found the break in the line. Sanded off some the red coating on the winding to expose the metal and soldered it back to the lug. I now have a working coil...and a Bally Six Million Dollar Man that works and plays 100%.
In other news, I've confirmed I stink at playing classic Bally games. New challenges to conquer...first in restoration, and now in playing!
In other news, I've confirmed I stink at playing classic Bally games. New challenges to conquer...first in restoration, and now in playing!
Aunt Agnes
Member
Well done. Nice to see the progress and tips. Also as a side note, I just finished reading all of creditdotpinball.com, so thanks for all the great info there too!