Diagnosis: Pinball!

Still no DIA today... the auctions go off tomorrow. The mpf is up to $77, and the others are still at their opening bid. Honestly, I don't expect them to go any higher, but I wouldn't be adverse to being pleasantly surprised.

As I've mentioned before Pinball Wizards is approaching fast, so since this is the last weekend before the show, it was time to get off'n my bottom and figger out what's wrong with my games. Last night was a particularly good night to do it, since my wife took a break from the TV, so I wasn't in danger of being distracted by a particularly good episode of the Fairly Odd Parents or something (that sounds snide, but I am very easy to distract, and the Fairly Odd Parents is actually pretty good).

First stop, Doctor Who. Most of my tests used my latest diagnostic technique, the continuity check on my multimeter. First I checked the wires for the mpf opto switches, hoping there would be an obvious break, but there wasn't. In addition to my own game, I wanted to show that the optos on the mpf I'm selling were working so it would hopefully attract more bidders.

But the biggest problem is that switch column, so I tackled that next. I looked around for loose wires &tc. No luck. I beeped through the wires and found no problems between one of the outlane switches and the pin where the column enters the CPU. Then I used the diagnostic in the switch section of the repair guide to test the columns. That demonstrated pretty clearly that the problem is on the CPU, which it says means I should probably replace the chip at U20.

Then I got the bright idea to try my other CPU board in the game. That's the one I got from eBay from England a year ago that turned out to mostly work until you plug it and the display board in to the multistop ribbon cable. I was hoping to determine if the column worked entirely by sound... possibly the way Tommy would fix pinball machines (though I know, he's deaf too, so the analogy doesn't entirely work). I was able to get the game to boot, but not start... maybe it knows the display isn't there? And the switch levels test -- it cycles through all the closed switches, beeping as it goes -- beeps with the same tone, so you can't tell if there's been a change. So that was disappointing. I did, however, glance as the dreaded J202 connector and noticed that the solder seemed to run between the pins. Looking at the picture, the two pins in the top left are fairly discrete blobs of solder, whereas the ones after that seem to have some cohabitation action going on. Some quick continuity testing indicated that most of the pins in the upper row are pretty much in bed with each other, which is not good for precision electronic devices. Most likely, the English Guys I bought it from tried to resolder the connector and botched it, so they gave up and put it on eBay. Another interesting thing I learned from this board was the underside around the U20 chip has scorch marks, which makes me think the U20 fails a lot. If/when I get around to fixing mine, I should definitely put it in a socket for easy replacement.

That was pretty much it for Doctor Who... I put it all back together and played a game, which is not as much fun without that column of switches. You can't transmat without the bumpers, you can't get all the Daleks in multiball, and you can't get an Extra Ball or as many Hang Ons. And sick as I was of it, I was surprised at home much I missed "Quick, Ace, it's a Second Chance!", which the outlanes trigger in many cases.

Next up was the feature lamps on Eight Ball Deluxe. I used the lamp diode test described in the repair doc -- I just love those things, don't you? -- and after initially finding nothing I ended up with a handful of diodes that didn't respond. I can try replacing those as soon as I level up my soldering skills to boards... and 1980 Bally boards are much easier to start with than 1990 Williams boards by a long shot.

When I was done with the testing, I played a few games... they were a lot more satisfying than DW, but was off my game... I didn't exactly come close to beating the high score.

This morning I decided to make another assault on the optos in the mpf up for auction. After a couple of failed attempts, I detached the opto boards from the unit, plugged them in to the game, and powered it on. Then I used the digital camera, because they can see the infrared -- thanks to the repair guides again, man they're awesome.

Back in the Saddle Agin

No DIA updates today, but there should be some soon. I posted the Mini-playfield, the wire ramp, and the Skateball plastics on Sunday, and everything has at least one bid. After the Doctor Who Plastic Debacle (as it is now known), selling everything will do a lot to bring back my eBay confidence, which was shaken severely. I'm extra happy about the Skateball plastics selling, since some of them are in terrible condition. It also helps that some stuff my wife is selling is doing pretty well, too.

I'm very happy with the way the mini-playfield cleaned up. I pulled the mylar off, which was really grimy, but decided against putting on new mylar. I tried cutting a new steel piece, did a really crappy job (because I don't have good tools for cutting steel), so I just cleaned and re-blued the old one and it looks fine. And I cut a washer and glued it to the plastic, and it looks better than a missing piece. The gray targets don't look great, but they sure look better than they used to. I'm really proud of the Dalek targets and ramp... I am looking forward to putting my own filthy targets into the washer. Overall, it's much cleaner than it was before, and the market has agreed to the tune of $66 so far. Plus, I got a lot of valuable experience that I'll be able to apply to my game.

Cleaning (plus decent weather and the requisite accompanying yard work) left me no actual time for game work last weekend... I do need to get on that, so I can go to Pinball Wizards in two weeks with a proper shopping list. Very excited about the show... I've been training with a squeeze ball for the last month while commuting to build my wrist strength. I'm hoping to partially allay post-pinshow soreness. I'm up to my goal of 15 minutes per hand per commute -- 1 hour total of squeezing per day. I plan to keep that up after the show so if the opportunity to play 8-10 hours of pinball should occur more than twice a year, I'll be ready for it.

One small step forward for a man, one giant leap backward for Mankind

Yeah, here's some of that action I mentioned in the last post: The DIA went up .01. That's because none of the plastics I posted sold, and the ramp I thought would carry everything else went for the asking price, $7.50. If I hadn't miscalculated the ramp's shipping weight in my favor, I wouldn't have broken even by 8 cents. Not a great week on eBay.

I also didn't post any of the other stuff I had. I decided to try to flatten out the Skateball plastics, and spiff up the mini-playfield slightly. To that end, I bought a sheet of new blue spring steel to replace the rusty piece and a sheet of mylar to replace the grody stuff that's on there. I also picked up some clear washers to see if I can de-emphasize the broken plastic and some post rubber to replace the ones that had rotted out. I ordered this stuff from Bay Area and PBR, and this time I spoke to Mrs. Pinball Resource instead of Steve Young. I also got a new launch button to replace my cracked one... Bay Area's been out of stock for a while, and Marco charges too much for them, so PBR was the right combination of price and availability.

Good and bad news on Doctor Who... the mini-playfield has decided to continue working. I ran it through the self test after reassembling everything and replacing the fuse and it still works correctly. Of course, during my first game I found that an entire column of switches is not working. I don't know if I did this while manhandling the game to try to get the mpf out or if something happened when I blew the fuse. So if I have time that my end up being my project for the weekend. Quelle fun. But before that, I'm going to try to debug Black Knight, which has sat dormant for several years now. Yes! I will crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and hear the lamentation of the women on their backglasses!

Rough Night

The Tardis shipped yesterday, and hence the movement in DW on the DIA. Hopefully we'll get some action from my auctions going off today, but so far no bids on 14 lots with 9 hours to go. You know, I love being a lurker, but I hate dealing with them... hypocritical, I know. I'm not confident that the plastics are going to do too well... not too many people are watching them (2 currently). I wanted to list them separately to give people who needed individual plastics a chance to pick them up -- that worked really well with my Black Knight plastics, but isn't playing out with Doctor Who, probably because only certain plastics are prone to breakage. The Great White Hope here is the ramp, which has 14 watchers... a decent showing from it could push the DIA close to 50, even if it has to carry the unsold plastics.

Last night was a march across Eastern Europe to Russia. The goals of my two pronged attack was to 1) pull out my mini-playfield for testing and repairs, and 2) test the new mpf and reassemble it for auction today.

First the good news: Before disassembling, I tested the mpf to try a technique for diagnosing an under-powered motor: running the test with the playfield up, so the motor doesn't have to lift the mpf. But I was foiled when the test ran without problems. I hope that bodes well for when I put it back together.

Things went bad fast after that when I found that, even at this late stage, I'm finding missing parts: This time it's the thing that lowers the Dalek targets as the mpf moves up and down. And there isn't one on the new game either. Luckily, it's nothing more than a metal bar, so I can probably fashion one if necessary. Then when I tried unscrewing the mpf mounting screws from the playfield, the screws just spun in place because the thing they screw into that's supposed to lock into the playfield wasn't locked in. My wife gamely tried to help me as we tried various and sundry techniques to get them out, all to no avail... a task made more difficult by the fact that the more frustrated I am, the more snippy I get. After about an hour, I finally gave up and tried to unscrew the Dalek target assembly for easier access, only to have the same thing happen with those screws and their locking things. ugh.

I did, however, find out why the gray targets are not positioned correctly: None of the screws that hold it to the mpf base were there. Luckily, I had trawled the new cabinet for detritus the night before, so I had a ready supply of magic nuts and screws, and I was able to find two of the four using the screws from the new mpf as a guide.

So I gave up the disassembling fiasco and focused on testing the new mpf. I plugged the wiring harness in and started playing. Just about everything worked, though one of the 5 target optos never lit and one was flakey. Then when I was testing the feature lamps, everything stopped working, because (I think) I blew the lamp fuse on the power driver board. That was the perfect end to a perfect night, so I gave up.

So today I'm reassembling the new mpf, fixing problems I caused in my game, and generally praying that nothing else goes wrong. Yes, that which does not kill me makes me stronger, but I'm plenty strong right now thank you very much.

The Seven Deadly Playfields 2: Skateball

A little movement on the DIA, since both the Solenoid Expander and DW ramp sold. I should point out that I'm not doing this the way I said I would... I said I would factor in the value of the parts I'm keeping to lessen the dumbassedness of the index. But we'll see how things go... plus, if I can hit 100 on both indices, that means I got the stuff effectively for free and will be even better!

I posted the DW playfield plastics and a few misc parts. It doesn't look like there's a huge amount of interest... I think some of those plastics just don't show up broken or missing as I might like. There does seem to be interest in the Tardis and the right ramp, so I'm looking for a little action there. I had the pictures taken of the Skateball plastics, but decided not to post them. I don't expect much from them... most of the plastics aren't in that great shape.

One thing about post DW parts is you find out what people really need, because they send you emails asking if you have such-and-such a part. An English Guy asked me if I had the plastic that goes on top of the mini-playfield. I do, but I was going to sell it along with the rest of the mpf. Since I currently have the mpf disassembled for cleaning, I did offer to send him some reference pictures so he could try to make his own. Good for him, I say.

I've been cleaning the mpf in the evenings... last night I cleaned the grime off the gray buttons and put the plastic through the dishwasher. If I have time, today I'll try to clean the frame and the wood portion with the Doctor & Ace holes and maybe start reassembling it. Then I need to pull mine out of the game and start testing the parts... for example, see why two gray buttons on mine aren't working. Seeing how the wood on the new game's mpf has been chewed up, I proactively bought a Cliffy Protector for mine from Bay Area Amusements, who seem to be the only ones who stock them (Cliffy doesn't even list them on his site).

Oh, I became the Loop Champion on my game today! \/ ^_^ \/

And now, on with the show. Skateball is a game that I think is OK... hate its ugly 70s style (I like the art better on the Taito Brazil version, Rally), but the gameplay is fine... kind of reminiscent of Flash. The playfield is just under OK shape -- unlike Fathom, it has a quorum of its parts -- but has some wear and at least one gnarley scratch. At first I thought it was totally complete, but as I took the plastics off I found that a couple of them aren't from the game... the weird blue thing by the outlane, the thing just below the center bumper, and I don't know what's going on next to the left flipper. I glanced at some games in vain trying to identify what the plastics were, but no luck. They're probably extremely worthless, whatever they are. The bumper caps are not original either, and two of them are broken. Most of the plastics are warped and cracked, so I don't think they're worth much. I'm not expecting much from the hardware, either. So overall, kind of a disappointment. I can probably scrounge for parts and use some of it for experimental porpoises.

I was thinking about using Skateball for one of my secret projects, but I don't think it's messed up enough for me to want to sand off everything and hand it over to my wife for re-painting. Who knows?

I'll probably post the plastics on eBay this weekend. I think I'm going to see how/if the DW plastics sell, and based on that combine the SB plastics into lots. I can also hope that SB parts are rare and owners are desperate.

So you, young Skateball; we shall watch your career with great interest. I'm guessing that I'll be burning it for warmth in a few years, so anything better than that will be a pleasant surprise.

The Seven Deadly Playfields: Episode 1: The Fathom Menace

You have no idea how long I've been waiting to use that title.

I've updated the DIA, since the translite has been sold and shipped. The guy who bought it turned out to be the guy who paid $171 for the new one a few days ago, who doesn't own the game but is a big Doctor Who fan. It turns out that the clown who sold it to him did not ship it flat (probably rolled) and it arrived damaged. I packed mine like a small tank, and it ended up being a pound heavier than what I listed in the auction, but luckily my handling charge covered the difference. The net after fees was $69, which is what's reflected in the DIA. I decided to weight average the DIA to make it fairer since I paid $100 more for the playfields. This week's auctions are pretty light, so don't expect much movement... however, in a small-world twist, the current high bidder on the Solenoid Expander is the guy I bought my original Doctor Who and the Black Knight playfield from. Payback time!

And speaking of the playfields, let's look start looking at the reason I now have "Poor Impulse Control" tattooed on my forehead. Our first playfield, Fathom, is the least populated of the games and arguably in the worst shape. There are a bunch of gnarly wear spots and the mylar that surrounded the left pop bumper has lifted, taking some of the paint with it. A Fathom playfield in largely unknown condition went for over $250 a week before I bought the playfields. However, unlike that person, I'm kind of unwilling to put a crappy picture up and say I can't take any more, because Baby Jesus would hate me and Baby Buddha would give me a hot karma injection that I would have me walking bow-legged for a month. I'm not sure what I'll do with the playfield itself... I could try some secret restoration techniques. I'm not sure.

The underside contains more amazing stories. I think it's hard to see in the picture, but the parts are kind of rusty. When I started breaking it down -- originally I was going to sell that stuff first -- the amount of cleaning necessary to bring the parts up to salable quality was pretty high. Also, I think it would increase the sales price marginally if I could demonstrate that the coils work. Imo, the target banks are probably the most auctionable... other than the rust, they're in reasonable condition (well, the most auctionable aside from the Solenoid Expander, which I'm currently selling, duh).

While I was taking it apart, I found a fishhook hidden in the wiring... I may have almost impaled my finger on it. That was weird. Then I found a second one. When I found the third one (which had an actual colored bit of lure on it), my wife suggested that the game was originally in a bait and tackle store, which made sense to me (they probably got rid of it when Fish Tales came out).

It doesn't take CSI: Gaithersburg to see what brought this game down was a catastrophic failure of the under playfield fuse. I'm guessing somebody decided the fuse was blowing too much, so they shorted it... and then the magic happened! That entire section of the playfield has scorched, and the wiring around it is crisped. At first I thought that it toasted the Solenoid Expander Board, but now I'm thinking that it probably didn't, or there would have been a path of destruction from the fuse to the board, and I just don't see that. But it looks like this playfield came to a pretty exciting conclusion.

In other news, I've been playing DW pretty consistently, and everything seems to be running fine. That's lured me into a false sense of security, so I'm thinking about taking a crack at fixing the mini-playfield...

New! The Dumbass Industrial Average

Today we're starting the Dumbass Industrial Average, a measure of how much of a dumbass I am to have bought so much stuff lately. Basically, I'm going to take what I payed for the playfield lot ($332) and the new Doctor Who ($202+$25 for gas), subtract the theoretical value I've received ($25/playfield and $50 for the Dalek head, respectively) and created an index based on the money I get from selling the remaining parts on eBay. So basically, anything below 50 means I'm a loser and above 100 means I am a canny businessperson. We're starting at 0, but since the DW translite sold last night for $75, it should go up to about 17 soon. Just to keep up my momentum, I posted the under playfield ramp that cleaned up so nicely and the Solenoid Expander board from Fathom that has heat damage but works. I need to sell a bunch of stuff so I'll have some money to throw about recklessly at Pinball Wizards in May.

Over the weekend I ended up doing more with DW than I had planned. I poked around at the 10 switch Opto board on account of the three optos misbehaving (two of the mini-playfield gray targets and the Tardis popper switch. The board checked out OK, so I started playing with the Tardis popper. When I unhooked the optos and put them face to face, they worked fine, so I reinstalled them. I did bend the receiver slightly so it was straighter, and that appeared to have done the trick... the Tardis popper now correctly detects the ball and pops it up, complete with the Tardis sound! The two gray targets are going to have to wait, because all the wiring for them is hidden behind the mini-playfield. I'll probably be taking it out soon to seat the gray target bank properly, because it's loose and won't tighten (which is what causes it to fall back slightly, leaving the gap that the ball gets caught in). I also squirted some WD-40 on the post of the outhole kicker, which fixed its sticking problem very nicely.

My wife helped me put the new DW up on legs, which makes it easier to disassemble, which I did to a certain extent yesterday. Here we have a picture of the two games side by side. You can really see the red in the new game, plus some of the challenges in restoring the cabinet (remove the tape, repair/fill wear, etc.). You can also see more puzzling evidence, the plug on the power cord, which has three horizontal prongs... I guess it's foreign, but I've never seen one like it.

I was feeling a little frisky, so I wired the Dalek head in the new game to the old game, creating a bizarre freak of nature... Siamese twins joined at the Dalek wires, one twin alive and the other being harvested for parts to keep its sibling alive. While wiring, I found something weird... the connectors for the old game don't match the new games... the plug for the Dalek's GI is normal, but instead of a two pin plug driving the flashers in the Dalek head, the two wires end in a six pin plug. There is also a mysterious two pin plug that I can't figure out. I plugged the flashers into two of the pins of the six pin plug and it works fine, but I don't know what those extra wires do. Trying to trace them was a lost cause, so I'll just wait until the boards move into the new cabinet and hunt them down then. The only thing I can think of is that the old game's connectors are for the prototype game with the moving Dalek head... this would be cool, but what little doc I could find didn't jibe with what I was seeing in the game. Plus the motor and boards would cost another $250. feh.

On the left is a pic of the new game's playfield before I started disassembly. You can see that it's absolutely filthy... every time I go near it I attract fine particulate dust, like a Pin Pig Pen. It's missing the main ramp -- the expensive one -- and has two major wear spots, on the Master and by the upper left flipper. To the right is the under playfield, with the Dalek head visible at the top. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a big demand for light boards on eBay, and I think I've already got a full set... mostly, people want the sockets. There's also the 10 Switch Opto board, but I don't know what those go for or if they readily fail. Yesterday I removed the plastics, the right ramp, and the mini-playfield... they'll all need to be cleaned within an inch of their lives and sold. I also need to scan the Who-mobile sticker on the ramp, since my ramps don't have that.

Finally, I had to sneak in this link: The Beatles performing on Doctor Who in 1965! Apparently, the BBC tossed the original tape of the show, so this is pretty rare. They should have taken the fourth Doctor's advice and never thrown anything out.

And finally again, last weekend my wife and I struggled Quicksilver out of the basement and into the living room, where it is currently waiting to get properly leveled. Here is our cat Rosie enjoying it. It was a tough slog, because I found out after we got it onto the carport that our door isn't wide enough to get the head in. We ended up having to rotate it in.

I'm sure there's more but I can't think of anything else, but it's after midnight and I've got to work tomorrow. eep!