Pioneer CJ-V50 and PD-MV55

I have been working a bit with the cabinet of the Star trip but also started a new project, not really pinball related but interesting anyway.

I have been helping a friend to repair some Pioneer PD-MV55 CD changers used in the jukebox CJ-V50 and some other models. The problem is that the most common fault in these is worn out laser and the laser is no longer available as spare part. So I would instead try to replace the CD player with an MP3 player. There are already such kits to buy, but to build it my selves is more fun.

The jukebox consists of three main units: amplifier, control unit and CD changer. The control unit can handle up to three changers. The communication between the control unit and the CD changers is done by a serial bus. So the first step was to analyze the data sent through this bus and see if it is possible to understand it.

Analyzing serial data can be quite complicated, the first thing to find out is the baud rate used. I used an oscilloscope and measured the timing of the start bit of a data package and got it to 4800 baud.

To be able to see the data transmitted I tapped the Rx and Tx of the PD-MV55 to the Rx of serial1 and Rx of serial2 of an Arduino Mega and wrote a short program that eco the data received to the USB port of the PC and in to the Arduino serial monitor and, all I got was crap. I rewrote the program to also eco out the data received at Rx to the Tx of the same port to be able to measure the timing with the oscilloscope and verify that I had chosen the proper baud rate. When I started looking at the Rx and Tx from the Arduino I immediately saw the problem. The serial data in the jukebox are inverted, inactive state of the line are 0 v instead of the usual 5v in a TTL serial communication. Consulting the service manual of the jukebox I found that the data was inverted by an IC in the control unit and then inverted once again by a transistor in the CD player. I added a 74HC14 inverter in serial with the data to the Rx of the Arduino and suddenly I had ASCII characters streaming in to the serial monitor.

I have now made some tests and I am quite sure that I understand most of the messages passed between the two units. There are still some question marks, but I don’t think they are important for the functionality of what I want to do.

Next step in this project is to write an Arduino program to emulate the PD-MV55. It does not have to actually play any music yet, just communicate with the control unit, receive disc and track selections and give the proper feedback to the controller. But that’s for another day.

Gameplan Star trip

Today I restarted an old project that has been resting for a while and this machine is missing some bits and pieces.

 

Someone has ripped the flipper coils and coil stops out of the playfield and also the line filter is gone. These are standard parts and can be replaced but the saddest thing is that both the CPU and solenoid driver board is missing.

  I have a CPU and a solenoid driver board in my Coney Island and I have been thinking about to use these two in this machine, since it is in much better shape than the Coney.
For the Coney then I’d like to build my own solenoid driver and a new CPU using an Arduino Mega board. It’s just thoughts this far, nothing decided yet. Another thought is to replace the original sound board with a Rogue Robotics rMP3 shield and play MP3 sound effects instead of the sn76477n generated sounds.

Finished

Today I finished the overhaul of the Baywatch. The playfield was dropped back in the cabinet and connected to the cabinet and the circuitboards in the top box. A last polish of the playfield, just in case there was some dust at it before dropping back the balls in the game. I printed out new instruction and score cards from the IPDB at the color laser and laminated them in a plastic pouch before cutting them out. I fired the game up and went through the switch, lamp, flasher and coil tests. Everything passed without problems except for two lamps that didn’t light. Fortunately they were easy to access, it was the start button and the red light at the top of the ‘Search and rescue’ sign. When playing a few balls I noticed that the innermost of the two in lanes at the right side had some problems with the switch, if the ball came rolling with low speed it didn’t manage to push down the wire arch and instead got stuck against it. When inspecting the switch it looked like the wire arch was a bit higher than other switches. I made a 2.5 mm spacer by a piece of Lexan and put it between the switch bracket and the playfield. This lowered the wire arch enough to allow the ball to push it down and close the switch even when rolling really slowly. This game plays very well and is certainly a keeper, but unfortunately it’s not mine and the owner has already sold it to a buyer who is waiting to get the game delivered. I haven’t counted the time I spent together with this machine, I would estimate it to something between 25-30 hours. It was absolutely worth all the work to get it in to the best possible shape. Now I’m looking forward to the next project. The Coney Island machine will have to wait for a while, instead I’ll have a look at a Gameplan Star trip that has been standing here for quite some time.

The quality control team is checking the quality of the job done.

Last parts arrived

Today I got the shipment of the fuse holders. I had already removed the old ones and soldering in the new ones was a quick job. But unfortunately it was all I had time for today.

Electronics

Today I went through the electronics of the game and it wasn’t just good news. I first looked at the soldering of the connectors and there were a few cracked solder joints and a few more not looking good, but as a rule, re solder all of them. The not so good news is that almost all of the fuse clips are bad and needs to be replaced. There are 28 of them and I just had 12 in stock so I had to order some more…  The fuse clips of these games are known to be really bad and they can cause a lot of different problems and symptoms.  If you have a DataEast/Sega pinball that acts strange, first check the fuse clips. Use a small screwdriver and gently press against the clip. If it is OK you should feel the clip fighting back but most likely it just folds away.

Playfield complete

The playfield are now complete and ready to be put back in to the cabinet. I have also cleaned the cabinet and the coin door, which also had a chewing gum in the coin slot. There are still a few things to take care of, but soon it's ready for a first test play.

Cleaning and reassembling II

When playing the game before disassembling it I noticed that the ball launch plunger sometimes didn’t manage to get the ball all the way up to the top of the playfield.
I found the reason when disassembling the ball launch assembly for cleaning, the coil sleeve flange was broken and the sleeve had moved out of the coil and the plunger scratched against the coil bracket. A new coil sleeve is mounted and I expect the ball being launched right through the back of the cabinet.

All the ramps and playfield plastics are now cleaned and polished and the upper part of the playfield is reassembled but there is still some work to do at the front.

Cleaning and reassembling

Today I have cleaned and polished the playfield, it was very dirty but it came of god with the help of Novus and a lot of work. After polishing it with wax it shines as it is almost brand new.

Also all rubbers and lamps are changed and I have started to reassembling the playfield again. There are still a lot of cleaning to do to the ramps and plastics for the playfield, but one step at a time…

Under the playfield II

I’m now finished at the underside. Everything is put back together again, the faulty micro switch in the return lane is changed and nuts and bolts are checked. There was also a toasted connector in the top box end of the wire loom, I changed it while having the wires at the workbench.

Under the playfield

I have been working at the underside for a while, but I am still waiting for some spare parts so it’s not yet completed. All controlled lamps have been replaced, the inserts cleaned and the circuit boards inspected for bad or cracked soldering. I have also disassembled the drop target assembly and cleaned the targets. The return lane from the beach house is now clean. I had to use the bath tub and soak it in water to get rid of all dirt, and then I also had to clean the bath tub…

When removing the return lane from the playfield I found that the top screw bracket was broken. It’s not so surprising since it is a quite high drop for the ball from the ramp in the house down to the return lane. To make sure not also the next pair of brackets should crack I used a metal strip lined with shrink tubing to lock it in place.

Playfield overhaul

The damaged cables are now repaired. It wasn’t as bad as I first thought, there were just six cables to fix.
I have now also started to disassemble the playfield for cleaning and changing rubbers and lamps.
And while the ramps and other parts are removed from the playfield it’s possible to turn it upside down without damaging any playfield parts.
This gives great access to clean out the inserts and checking nuts and bolts to make sure everything is as it should. When turning the playfield upside down two metal posts fell right of. I found one stray nut when cleaning out the cabinet but since two posts fell off there must be at least one more nut somewhere, I’ll try to find it to make sure it doesn’t cause any problems. I also checked the shark flipper that didn’t work, the coil measures OK and the cabling is OK to the connector that attach to cable loom in the cabinet. Most likely the problem is at the flipper board located in the cabinet. Hopefully just a bad soldering or faulty fuse holder, I’ll have a look at this later on. Almost all controlled lamps at the playfield needs to be replaced. It looks like they are chrome plated at the inside and they doesn’t burn as bright as they should. This chrome plating effect is something that happens if a lamp isn’t supplied with the rated voltage and since the lamps in a pinball is run in a matrix, switched with a higher voltage, this is expected to happen.

There are still some parts left at the playfield that needs to be removed before cleaning, but this is enough to be able to turn it upside down. I do also wait for some spare parts for the playfield and there isn't much I can do there until I got those. So I'll focus at the underside for the moment. At the picture of the parts you can see how dirty the ramps are. The micro switch at the top of the ramp in the midle of the picture is broken and must be replaced.

I need to get the red return lane from the beach house out of the playfield to clean it at the inside. It’s full of dirt and if not cleaned the dirt will soon be brought back up to the playfield by the balls.

Playfield

The playfield are now out of the cabinet. There is quite a lot of cables and connectors in a game like this.

  

Two pictures of damaged cables. Note the switch in the corner of the playfield, there are no cables at all left at it. I think the game has been standing at its back and the rats have got inside the game through the holes for the cables to the top. I talked to a friend and he told me that this wasn’t an uncommon problem if a game has been stored for a while.

Sega Baywatch

I received a new project a couple of days ago, a Sega Baywatch.
This machine is in good shape except for a lot of dirt at the playfield, worn out rubbers and some missing parts. There are also quite a lot of lights and switches that does not work at the playfield and the shark fin flipper is dead. I think I found the reason for most of these problems when looking under the playfield, quite a lot of the cables in the wire loom to the top has been chewed off by rats. They have left their business cards at the bottom of the cabinet, a lot of rat droppings. First thing to do is to get the playfield out of the cabinet to get the wire loom up on to the work bench to find and repair all the damaged wires.

 

Spinner and drop targets

I don’t have any before pictures of the spinner, except for what can be seen at the before picture of the playfield at my first post. I sanded it down to the bare metal, primed it and sprayed it white. Then I made stickers for the spinner and also for the drop targets. I made the design in paint.net and printed it at a color laser. I then laminated the printout in a self-adhesive laminating pouch and cut out the stickers. I’m not sure how these stickers will last, the glue seems to be quite strong but maybe the paper between the front and back plastic from the laminating pouch will give up. To try to seal it in I sprayed the spinner with clear coat, but I didn’t do that to the drop targets to see if it made any change. The drop target stickers got a thin white line from the paper round the edges, I pained the edges red using a cotton swab.

 There were just three drop targets left in the game when I got it, two of them was original. I tried to find new replacements but quite quick I found out that they are no longer available. Instead I ordered the DataEast targets. They are a bit longer and the target is a bit wider. Since they are longer I need to put some spacers between the playfield and drop target mech when assembling the playfield. I didn’t find any red Data East targets, so I sprayed them red before attaching the stickers.

Cabinet

Some Internet p*rn for true pinheads...
The cabinet is in quite bad shape but I can't decide if it is bad enough to be repainted.

 

I don't think that I have the original legs for the game, there are marks from legs that seems to have been wider.





Gameplan Old Coney Island

The first picture shows the state of the playfield when I first got it. The game was in quite bad shape, allmost ready for the scrap heap. Except from the worn playfield the CPU was badly dammaged by battery acid and the cabinet is also in bad shape. But I have read a lot of renovation stories at the internet and I wanted to see what I could do with this machine. It turned out to be much more work than I first thought...

 

The first thing I did was fixing the CPU, without a working CPU there are no idea to spend money and time fixing the rest of the machine. I'll get back to the CPU repair later.
I removed all parts from both sides off the playfield before cleaning, it was very dirty also at the underside. I first repainted the large blob by the kick out hole. At the picture you can see that I didn't got a perfect colour match, but it looks much better IRL. Maybe the photo flash made it look more off than it is. Also, I didn't manage to repaint the missing stars in the new blue area, I tried both using a template and also made a rubber stamp, but It just didn't look OK so I decided to leave them out. The missing stars might make the new painted area to stand out a bit extra. There was also a lot of other areas of the playfield that needed attention. Among them, the girl is completely repainted. There was a lot of ball whirls in the original coating and this made the girl to look hairy. And since I don't like girls with a hairy chest I decided to repaint her. After spending a couple of months working with the paint (and some other projects) I started with the clear coating. I used spraycans for this, five of them, Each can lasted for four layers. 24 hours curing between each layer and a week between each can. Before starting a new can I carefully sanded the cured layer to get it smooth. This procedure took over two months. What I have learnt by this is that clear coating by spraycans does not fill up as well as professionaly applyed clear coating. Even though that I now has 20 layers of clear I can still feel the differences in thicknes between my new paint and the original. I think that next time I will get professional help for the clear coating, 5 cans of spray is quite expensive and I don't think it will be much more expensive to have it done by an expert. Another thing I'm not happy with is the 25 000 text in the blue rhomb. This is painted by hand, and I didn't manage the text When lit. This should instead have been printed at a piece of clear acrylic and glued on, with a decent thicknes of the clearcoating it should have been completely covered.