Two new projects

A couple of days after Christmas I got two new projects in to the workshop. A Williams Flash and a Bally The Shadow. They are both working but in need of service.

 

I started with The Shadow and it has several issues.
Left flipper does sometime not drop back when releasing the flipper button.
Right flipper sometimes fold back when catching a high velocity ball.
The sanctum magnet does not catch the ball.
Upper right diverter does sometime not flip over when pressing the button.
Some switches seem not to work, there are several switches to check in the error report.

 

The left picture is the left flipper assembly and it have probably had problems before, check the way the return spring have been tensioned by winding it round the tab of the flipper base. The right picture is the right flipper assembly and it is currently locked against the EOS switch, just a light tap at the switch release the crank. Here you also can see the reason why the flipper folds back when catching a ball, one cable of the EOS switch is loose. I'll order a flipper rebuild kit to sort out the flipper issues.   

 

The sanctum magnet works as it should in test mode but the problem seems instead to be related to the brick wall drop target located behind the magnet. There is a spring in the lower right corner that should retract the target when released by the solenoid, but the spring is broken. Also the pivot arm that raises the drop target are very sluggish and does not allow the target to go all the way down and close the switch. it feels like the plunger does not move free in the coil sleeve. I have to take this assembly out of the game and inspect it to find out the cause of the problem. I do also need a new spring to get it to work properly.

 

 

The left picture is the left ramp diverter, which works properly. I just added the picture it to show that there has been quite a lot of fiddling with the springs in this machine. The right picture is the right diverter which sometimes faile to switch over. As you can see we have a spring issue also here, it has been mounted upside down causing the spring to slide against the armature. This might be the cause of the diverter not moving, but I'm not sure. I'll order a couple of new springs for these two assemblies and make sure they are properly installed and see if it solves the problem.

 

 



Pioneer CJ-V50 and PD-MV55

I have been doing some work with the CJ-V50 MP3 player project during the summer vacation.

First part of the project was to emulate the CD changers using an Arduino. I choose the Mega version since it have four serial ports and I need three to emulate the three original CD changers. After some fiddling with the software I got this part working, but for now only emulating one CD changer.

The next step was to get a MP3 player shield up and running.  Originally I planned to use the Rough robotics rMP3 shield. But it’s quite hard to find it, there is no reseller in Sweden, closest one I have found is in Denmark. Instead I went for the Sparkfun MP3 player shield. I started experimenting with the MP3 shield using an Arduino Uno and got it up and running quite quick thanks to all code and examples available at the Internet, then I transferred the code and shield over to the Mega and got some problems until I realized that the Mega doesn’t have the SPI bus at the same pins as the Uno. When knowing that it was easy to get the MP3 shield to work also at the Mega.

Next step was to combine the CD changer emulator software with the MP3 player software, and now I run in to problems. The software needed to feed the MP3 player with data from the SD card through the Arduino doesn’t leave much processor power for other processes. So when playing a track there wasn’t enough free processor time to also keep up the communication to the jukebox controller. I think the rMP3 shield would have been a better option since, as far as I know,  it has an onboard processor for streaming the data from the SD card to the MP3 player chip and thus release the Arduino from that task. But I would like to stick to the Sparkfun shield since it is easier to find. The solution for my problem was to use two Arduinos, one Uno for the MP3 player shield and a Mega for the CD changer emulation. These two communicate through the I2C bus.

The litle green module to the left, on top of the MP3 player shield, is a DC filter removing the DC component of the output signal before feeding it to the amplifier.

I have made a short video of my first tests where the player are playing some short MP3 R2D2 bleeps, to verify that the tracks was changed according to the commands sent by the jukebox controller: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRsjSJzB6qw

 

These are the connectors needed, power, three 4-pin mini DIN for the serial busses and three pair of audio connectors.

Holes drilled

 

And the connectors mounted. This will be the rear side of the housing. The front will have ony one button for canceling the track currently playing. This is something i missed when repairing the CD changers. Sometimes it played songs that I didn't like and there was no way to cancel the song and skip to next. The front plate has also to be opened to access the memory card at the MP3 shield, so keeping it clear with as few things as possible makes it easier to reach in and access the card.

This is the first autonomous boot of the MP3 player. Until now I have powered the Arduinos through the USB port connected to a PC. Now the power comes from a power supply connected to the AC outlet of the jukebox amplifier, where the changers used to be connected. The cable turning to the left at the picture are for the serial data connectors. It will connect to an Arduino Mega proto board, but that's still at my todo list.

Stern Sharkey’s shootout

This machine isn’t ready yet. I have cleaned the CPU board from the battery residues. To be able to get it clean I had to remove U202 and U216 and I put new IC’s back in sockets. Also the socket for the U213 PAL IC was damaged and exchanged, even the pins of the PAL was green. But the main cause for the board no to boot was probably the reset button. Now the CPU boots and it is possible to play the game, except for some solenoids that does not work. But the display is completely black. The Display driver board had got some dripping from the battery as well, but just in the corner round U20. I removed the U20, cleaned and put back a new IC in a socket, but it didn’t change anything.

 

I talked to the owner and the cause for the game to be put in storage a couple of years ago (with the batteries still in the holder) was that it smelt burnt and solenoids stopped working. At that time the display worked as it should and because of that I’m quite sure the display and driver are OK and the problem are still at the CPU board. Both the PAL and U202 are involved in driving the display, so the problem is most likely at the CPU board. Yesterday I found a broken trace between U213 pin 11 and U202 pin 13 but repairing it did not solve the problem. One thing that’s makes the fault finding a bit troublesome is that there are no documentation available about the PAL, it’s just a black box and I do not know anything about the logic inside. 

The burnt smell and non-working solenoids was caused by a transistor at the solenoid expander board. It was once an easy fix to get the game going again but now… Do always remove the batteries when storing a game, and do always move the batteries to an external battery holder when working with a game. It’s the single most important thing to do to keep a game alive for the future.

Sega Baywatch

The Baywatch was ready and delivered quite a long time ago, I just haven’t had time to update the blog. The switch I ordered for the ball through solved the two problems of ejecting two balls and not detecting a drained ball. Besides that it was more or less just to tightening some loose nuts, adjusting the left in lane switch and cleaning and a polish of the playfield. I played the game for a long time and all worked fine, until I noticed that the upper right ball gate sometime didn’t open as it should. The cause turned out to be loose screws at the actuator arm. The only problem is that almost the whole playfield have to be disassembled to reach in to the gate, it took almost three hours disassembling, tightening the screws and assemble the lot again.

Two new projects

I have two new projects to work with, a Stern Sharkey’s shootout with battery corrosion at the CPU board and a Sega Baywatch with a few faults. The trickiest one is that it sometimes ejects two balls in to the shooter lane. I think that I am on the track of the cause of the fault and the problem seems to be the switch for the fifth ball in the ball trough assembly. If I keep the switch closed with while the CPU are ejecting a ball to the shooter lane then it also ejects a second ball. So it seems like this switch sometimes does not open up as it should when the ball rolls off. There is also another problem with the same switch, sometimes when the ball drains it’s not detected by the switch and after a while the CPU starts a ball search and the vibrations from the solenoids make the switch to close and the ball is detected. A new switch has been ordered and are on its way by post.   

Fish tales

Finally ready for delivery. The last problem I found was the microswitch in the start button. Sometimes it didn’t make contact, even if it sounded and felt like it worked as I should.

Fish tales

The last parts arrived during the week and I have continued the assembly. I saw a picture on the net where they had used light blue rubbers at the entrance of the boat, and I thought it looked good, so I tested it at this game. I’m not sure of what the owner thinks about it… I also saw a picture of a Fish tales with green flipper rubbers. This looked really good together with the yellow flipper bats and the yellow/green plastics to the left and right of the flippers. Unfortunately I haven’t found anywhere to buy green flipper rubbers, except on Ebay, but they got extremely expensive with the freight from the states.

Fish tales

The disassembly and cleaning of the playfield are ready. It got a first coat of wax while disassembled, while it is easy to access all areas and it will have a second coat later on. I have also started the assembly but stopped at the point at the picture. I do still need the drive belt of the fishing reel and a lamp holder for the center bumper. I’ll wait with the installation of the boat until the lamp holder has been changed. It’s much easier to work with the bumper while having a hole in the playfield to stick the hand through.

All parts that have been taken out of the playfield have been cleaned and polished before putting them back.

 

 

The boat was disassembled and cleaned

 

The Stretch the truth meter has got five new lamp rubbers. The middle one was of another shade than the other four and to make sure they all look the same I changed all five. I also changed the flasher to a yellow one. I’m not sure what it will look like when playing, but it is easy to change it back to a clear one if it doesn’t look good.

 

The button at the fishing rod handle was lose so I took the handle apart to fasten it. At the same time I polished the handle.  The screws holding the two parts together were quite rusty so I repainted them satin black.

 

The plastic ramp is cleaned and polished. It is cracked by one of the screw holes, the right side of the upper left entrance. It was mounted using a pair of washers clamping the ramp in place. I will put it back I the same way since a new ramp is quite expensive.

 

 

 

Fish tales

I’m now almost ready with the disassembly of the playfield and there are a lot of parts to clean and polish at the workbench.

I found some new surprises today, the eject hole base are cracked and must be changed. Also the fish reel drive belt is a bit suspicious. The rubber material is quite thin at a little bit, to the left at the picture. I will change the belt to make sure not having to disassemble the reel unit once again in the near future.

 

Fish tales

I installed the external battery holder last week and to day I have started to disassemble the playfield for cleaning, it is very dirty… 

 

 

Before the disassembly I run through the solenoid test and found that the solenoid that should drop the target in front of the Casters club VUK didn’t do what it should. It was energized but didn’t drop the target. The reason turned out to a broken actuator, it should push the target when the solenoid is energized. I need to order a new one.   

 

 

Fish tales

There hasn’t been so much time to spend in the workshop the last days. But I have at least managed to disassemble the knocker unit, re solder the cable, glued back the loose wrapping paper, cleaning the coil sleeve and polished the plunger, it does now give a nice knock. While working with the knocker I added a cable clip to secure the two cables for the topper. Both to make sure they are not shorted in to something by accident and to relieve the strain at the knocker cables since they are tied in to the same cable loom. I have also prepared an external battery holder with a bracket to secure the batteries, getting it in to the game will be a job for another day.  

 

Fish tales

Yesterday I got a new project in to the workshop, a Fish tales with severe booting and rebooting problems. When powering it up it gave some intermittent noise and flashes for quite a while until it finally managed to boot. When then starting a game it rebooted almost immediately. Rectifier bridge BR2 and capacitor C5 has already been changed by another repairer. To my experience the most common cause for this kind of problem are the connector J101. When inspecting it I could see that it had been quite hot. I put the connector back at the board and now it booted properly but still rebooted during gameplay. I replaced the connector and now the game boots and plays as it should.

There is still some work to do at the machine. I will move the batteries from the CPU to an external battery holder, there is a lose cable at the knocker and I haven’t yet taken off the playfield glass to examine the playfields upper and underside. I also found two lose connectors that first worried me a bit, but they are for the animated fish topper, which is missing at this machine.

Beyond repair?

The Dr Who and the Star Race have now left the workshop and I have now opened up the Atlantis and there was not only good news inside, actually no good news at all…
There are much more damage than I thought, or hoped, and much more job than just some cleaning of the game and polishing of the balls. Also the game does not boot when powering it up, just a few of the GI lamps try to do their best shine through the soot. But on the other hand, when looking at the oxidation of the circuit boards I would have been quite surprised if it had started up.