What did you do today in the Business?

[Mike@PinballMedics]

Today has been a productive Sunday. I was planning on working on my pool and mowing the lawn today, but Heat & Sun are two things I avoid, and apparently this is forecast to be the hottest day of the year to date. So after doing my books for the last quarter and figuring out how many pounds of flesh the Receiver General is due, I got a chance to advance with the Cue Ball Wizard, in my cold air conditioned windowless shop.

The parts had been in the Tumbler for almost 70 hours, so they were smooth and shiny when I pulled them out this morning.

I went ahead and installed all 4 Slingshot Assemblies, and changed all the bulbs in the areas where they and the Pop Bumpers go, and reassembled the Pop Bumper Assemblies on the bench.

I am not a fan of Gottlieb Pop Bumpers. I find them ugly, like most plain white parts on Classic Pinball Machines, they just make me want to puke. Aside from that, like most Gottlieb parts, their Pop Bumper Assemblies and associated parts are very solid and last a really long time, but I find they are slow and clunky, and I favour the fast and snappy sort.

I have only begun converting Gottlieb Pop Bumpers to my Black Label standard in the last year. I started with Diamond Lady, and not only does it look amazing, it plays lightning fast, and combined with the Fliptronic style flippers, it plays more like a WPC than anything else. A really fast one. I got a few reviews from players at the Hawkesbury tournament who were not prepared for the brutal over the top speed of the thing. Waaaay harder than it looks.

In this case, I went with Red Translucent Bodies, and Green DE/Stern style Caps over Green Comet LED discs, which is the perfect compliment to the Red Finned Posts, the Red Translucent Main Ramp itself, and the Red Translucent Flipper Bats I will be using, with Green Superbands on the Flipper Bats, and all Posts. We also changed the two Flashers Domes on the top Right & Left sides of the main ramp from Clear to Purple, with Colour Matched Purple LED Flashers of course.
https://pinballmedics.ca/product/wms-ba ... mper-body/
https://pinballmedics.ca/product/bally- ... ucent-red/
https://pinballmedics.ca/product/plasti ... -screw-on/
https://pinballmedics.ca/product/bally- ... ent-green/
https://pinballmedics.ca/product/comet- ... per-discs/
https://pinballmedics.ca/product/transl ... lue-clear/
https://pinballmedics.ca/product/1-12-s ... er-rubber/
https://pinballmedics.ca/product/1-1-16 ... t-sleeves/
https://pinballmedics.ca/product/3-8-od ... mini-post/

We should have pictures of the finished product tomorrow, and it's off to the Killing Floor with this one!

[Sparky]

I love Cue Ball Wizard. I remember playing Mindstorm's and loved it instantly. Targets, weird shots and funny callouts.

[Rob@PinballMedics]

I've been working all weekend to get these three 8 ball deluxe done. One is sold. One belongs to a customer with problems no one could fix for years now. One is my personal one until I find an original.

[Mike@PinballMedics]

Gilligan is now full colour!

[Mike@PinballMedics]

Today we saw something new at the shop. Ten somethings in fact;









Mike

[semicolin]

oh wow!

[Mike@PinballMedics]

The Exorcist has been in Ottawa all day, and while we did a few quick house calls, Ben has been shopping and LEDing a Hulk for a Client that is in for the full Black Label process;

Once we got back we polished off a few quick repairs, and finalized the Cue Ball Wizard, which is now on the Killing Floor! Taxi went to Montreal to make room, where it will get it's speech back, as well as a couple of other small details ironed out, before it comes back to the Arcade.

More soon!





Mike

[cap]

Do you update the ROMs when there are newer ones available from the old days?

[Mike@PinballMedics]

Do you update the ROMs when there are newer ones available from the old days?

We use the most up to date or best Roms for the given application, depending on the game and it's purpose.

[Rob@PinballMedics]

Taxi came to me with a problem Mike could not solve at the Arcade. The speech was not working and he was complaining about it every week but that kind of problem needs to come to Montreal and I need the whole game. Sound problems are the worst, and this system has sections on the main mpu-driver board and a dedicated sound board.

The sound section on the main cpu board was dead. First the 6802 was dead. Then it took out the 2016 RAM and the U21 sound ROM. One new socket on the RAM and changed the chips. Mission accomplished. Now the Taxi voices will bury Mike's voice and I won't hear him complaining.

While it's here I'm fixing a couple of other small issues that came after 3 years on the road and it will be back in Ottawa at 100% next week for free play night wednesday.

[Mike@PinballMedics]

Stargazer and Seawitch are now out of stock, all of them are headed to the US. Sorry, I did not expect them to go that fast, but once stuff gets on the internet, it spreads fast.

Meanwhile, the Pinball Fairy delivered a few sets of Fliptronic Flipper mechs. They have started selling really well over the last couple of weeks, and we've been going through them here like crazy on Customer games as well as our own. I had to piece assemblies together from the various new parts involved for the Cue Ball Wizard!

We always put them on a Hulk Pinball Machine for at least 24 hours to allow the Gamma Radiation to be absorbed by the mechs, which is what allows our machines to play the way they do.

Talismanic Electric Magic; What can it not do?

[Rob@PinballMedics]

We can not always be adding games to the arcade so today it's the customers turn.

We met in Alfred yesterday and Mike took the Taxi and I took the Hulk. His work is done the playfield is ready to go and now all the original system 1 boards get redone and then the connectors.

So far, this game is in amazing condition, most of the connectors are very good even the interconnect. But we'll still be changing all the connectors between the power supply and all other boards, recapping the power supply, adding a battery cell, plus the original was just starting to corrode and then the ground mods and retouch all the boards. Once that's done I will boot it up.

Indy Jones is here for inspection and reconditioning, It has been in a home for 30 years and never serviced. It will be a big job and they will want us to do the black label treatment like the Hulk so it will need to go to Ottawa before it's done.

[Mike@PinballMedics]

I didn't get a chance to light up the Hulk after finishing because I sent the Head to Rob in advance so I'd only have the Cab to deal with.

Hulk is one of my favourite Gottlieb system one games, I played it all the time at the Mister Arcade at Bank & Alta Vista as a kid, and could always get free games by Special or points, and loved the crazy "Angry Hulk" sounds, and the Magenta-Purple/Lime Green artwork.

I did this one the way I will do the next one we own, and after seeing it I miss my old ones even more...

Of course it got the full High Voltage Fliptronic Flipper Assemblies, and the Pop Bumpers parts were Tumbled and rebuilt with new Translucent Green Stern/DE Pop Bumper Caps, Translucent Purple WMS/Bally bodies, Black Skirts, Green Comet LED Discs, new coil sleeves, the Slingshot Kickouts were Tumbled with new sleeves added, new green tent lane guides, Green translucent Bally Flipper Bats, and Purple Superbands on the Flippers, Posts, and the 1" Rubbers on the upper mini-flipper shell lane guides. I wish it was going into the Arcade!

I'll let Rob explain the rest of the electrical fun and surprises!

[Playr_Juan]

We can not always be adding games to the arcade so today it's the customers turn.

We met in Alfred yesterday and Mike took the Taxi and I took the Hulk. His work is done the playfield is ready to go and now all the original system 1 boards get redone and then the connectors.

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So far, this game is in amazing condition, most of the connectors are very good even the interconnect. But we'll still be changing all the connectors between the power supply and all other boards, recapping the power supply, adding a battery cell, plus the original was just starting to corrode and then the ground mods and retouch all the boards. Once that's done I will boot it up.

Indy Jones is here for inspection and reconditioning, It has been in a home for 30 years and never serviced. It will be a big job and they will want us to do the black label treatment like the Hulk so it will need to go to Ottawa before it's done.

I have an OEM never used original Williams bridge motor and the anti-airball (silkscreened by a pin-sider in Germany) plastics that I will be putting up for sale in the IJ thread on pinside if you by any chance happen to be needing either for the IJ resto. These are parts left over from my IJ after I sold it a few months ago.

[Mike@PinballMedics]

It's been a crazy week of deliveries and Customer game repairs, but today Gilligan got a bit of TLC for the first time since it hit the Floor at the Arcade!

It was turned off when I got in today for a quick checkup, and I heard it was not awarding credits when a coin was dropped. Upon closer inspection, it was evident one of the wires had come off the coin switch and needed to be re-soldered. Gilligan is now back in action!

Orders placed this weekend are now packed up and will be dropped at the Post Office this afternoon, ready to hit the road first thing tomorrow morning via Xpresspost when the Postman does his early pickup round.

Now to dig out a project for next week...

[Mike@PinballMedics]

The Exorcist is on Tour today, as we prepare for an early evening delivery.

Sadly, our nicest example of the Classic Bally Playboy is going to it's forever home, where we know it will be appreciated as the Black Label Beauty she is;

Meanwhile, a beautifully refurbished Client Skateball is having it's final adjustments completed and prepped for delivery as well. It is not Black Labelled, but it has a new CPR playfield, is freshly painted by the owner, with a minty original backglass, far too many parts to list, and other than LED's and new boards, is pretty much stock in appearance. Shiny as Hell.

The first thing I noticed when it got back from Montreal, other than the Apron, was that the buttons were original, and while they were nice, with everything else brand new, they stood out, so be gone with them!

Meanwhile, back in the shop, we will endeavor to uncover what evil lurks in the heart of WPC's...

This is a Customer favourite that has not been overhauled for a very long time, and is here for the Exorcist to banish all the Demons that have likely plagued this Shadow since it came off route. Meaning it will start a game and you can more or less play it, but with some significantly annoying issues.

It is in nice shape cosmetically, and overall in good shape, with a few replacement components provided by the Client.

So far, we can see that it is in desperate need of Flipper Rebuilds, and has been partially LEDed with very poor quality LEDs that are dimmer than the original incandescent.

The game has been experiencing the standard WPC reset issues, and the Main Driver Board has not been properly serviced for a very long time.

The Shadow will receive the Pinball Medics Black Label Remedy that keeps all our WPC games reset free all day every day no matter how hard or how long you play. Stay tuned for this Custom Shop Upgrade, it will be worth taking notes!

It has also been experiencing ball trough issues, another common WPC opto related problem that can be tricky to diagnose and repair even for experienced techs, that will be Exorcised once it reaches Montreal.

This is one of the WPC games I really liked when it was new, and once it's working 100%, it's going to be amazing!

[Rob@PinballMedics]

Before Mike starts the playfield I wanted to start on the boards to get it working 100% electronically so I brought them back to Montreal. We thought it would just a rebuild on the main driver board because of age causing the resets. But it's not only the 5v that can resets, it can also be in the switch matrix. After examining it, it's probably both.

Somebody changed the battery pack after it had corroded badly on the mpu. But they never cleaned up the corrosion that got on the board that probably would have saved a lot grief like not being able to get your high score on your best game because it keeps resetting on you. Even the connector pins and the legs on the chips are green like the Hulk.

So now I've begun the cleanup process to try and save it. As you know, when corrosion gets involved it makes it hard to unweld and save traces. Even with all my corrosion unwelding experience and the proper tools it always presents a challenge every time. There's no walk in the park.

This board does not justify the game. You can't run a game of this condition with a ticking time bomb all the time. So far it looks like it will need a lot of jumpers once I clean it up and expose all the traces that are coming and leaving from the all of the components and also from the connector inputs. Also you have to expose the traces that are going in between the components because they usually get affected as well. From there I will determine whether I continue the rebuilding process or search a new board. Not because it can not be fixed, but because it becomes too time consuming and it's more than it's worth.

The next chapter will explain how I clean a damaged board like this.

[Rob@PinballMedics]

This thing was even uglier than I thought but I am not surprised. I've worked on a lot of collector games and it might look nice. The exterior and the playfield might look good but all the hard to reach parts are often not attended to and they get stuck with problems that are hard to see at first. This is why people can't really enjoy their nice looking games which they pay top dollar for. I'm talking from experience as a car guy showing up at a car show and you see the most beautiful car with the candy apple paint job and a brand spanking new interior, the latest wheels you can buy and the guy starts the car and it puffs the biggest smoke you've ever seen. You see the engine bay is full of chrome you could practically eat your lunch off the motor that's how clean it is. But the guy forgot to mention that he bought a $300 scrap yard motor, put it on a stand brushed all the rust off it applied 6 coats of top dollar primer and then began his painting procedure. I can swear that thing looks brand new but your motor has 300000 miles on it and it runs like crap.

I had to remove all the components. I never use a disordering station on these boards, just a hand pump, it does too much damage to the board. I use a soldering iron that is very powerful and I heat up the components and pull them out and where that doesn't work I just cut them off and remove the remaining piece. You don't want to apply too much heat for long to the traces because it's already corroded. Then I take the board to the sink and I use 400 grit sandpaper and I start slightly sanding so I can get a clear vision of what will be left. Once I've sanded it and exposed most of the traces then I go to the bench for my normal powered solder station and remove whatever is left on the board and clean all the through holes with a pick tool. Then I take an exacto blade and I scrape everything off very slow to get a clean surface so I can start repopulating and resoldering.

Then I had to add jumpers to fix the damaged traces. If you look carefully at the pictures on top you can see the damage to the traces I had to jump.

This is as pretty as you can make them look but it will be hassle free after. I will do my next update when I attack the driver board.