In Progress Banzai Run

[FinalFight]

Hi guys finally got to set my banzai run project up today so thought i would start a little thread for a bit of help along the way. before i start thanks to @Mooseman for selling me the cab and @CHRIS B PINBALLS for letting me know who he originally sold it too
The plan was to get it up and running then eventually doing a playfield swap.
They playfield on it at the moment has most of its inserts worn right down


The top left display isnt working .
Any tips on sorting these? Or somewhere i could get a replacement?
Obviously with not having the display working its hard to workout the menus
The magnet works in some menus as it holds the ball but during gameplay it will say what i think is hill closed (im guessing that as i cant see the left display i just see the closed on the right)
Looking in the manual it could be a problem on the lift and the message just keeps the game playing?

One more quick question .. The game came with a spare used playfield it looks alot better than the one fitted but
Im wondering if it would look okay once clearcoated as that was the original plan
Thanks guys

(This has now gone to a new home to be finished)

 

[DRD]

You can swap over player 1 and player 2 ribbons to double check whether it is the plasma display at fault, or something else.

The display driver board was shared with 4 games (2x alpha numeric displays, 2x numeric) so is hard to source, but not impossible

The 7 digit alphanumeric displays on the other hand are very expensive and hard to find. The pinball world is wise to this so they aell out very quickly when they do appear. The 7 digit numerics are far cheaper and more abundant. There was an outfit selling NOS alphas in America. I also bought a complete, used Banzai panel and salvaged one off that.

Over the years I have replaced 2 of my alphanumerics. An early decision for you is whether you persevere with the original plasmas or bite the bullet and buy a complete LED light panel. I am afraid that these are also expensive as the item is game specific.

 

[FinalFight]

Thank you for the info on the displays hopefully i can pickup an original but worst case i will have to upgrade to a new  L ed.
Why didnt i think of just swopping over the cables to check its definitely the display thank you i will do that next time

 

[DRD]

Complete - Banzai Run

Always fancied one of these since first playing in France in August 1988, so was probably a very new game back then. I had vowed to avoid projects until my funhouse is done, but these games do not come up for sale that often - especially with cabs and playfields in good order This was a routed...

www.pinballinfo.com

If I can help, pls drop me a line. Banzai is a tricky one, but after you have sorted it out it is no more or less reliable than other System 11s.

Unfortunately you need the player 1 and player 2 displays working to easily move though the test menus. The manual will help you fill in the gaps if need be

 

[CrisUK]

I'll pick up this topic as this machine now lives with me.

I've spent the past few weeks going over the machine to see what is needed and making repairs to make everything work at least.

Today a new X-Pin Display arrived and finally all 4 displays work again and the menus make sense!

There were lots of niggly little things wrong all over the place, most of the GI was out and problems with the Special Solenoids. The upper playfield was also playing up and this is down to some incorrect switches being installed on the lifter. I've done a temp fix whilst the proper parts come in from Marco.

The games plays and runs fine for now, everything works 100%. But, it needs a new interconnect board, CPU board is fine for now but has had some bad work done to it in the past. Wrong transistor values fitted in places, which is what was causing the solenoid issues. I've ordered a new CPU blank PCB and will build this once everything else is complete, a bit over the top but I enjoyed building the last one I did and still have most of the parts to make another one.

I'll also build a new Aux Power board that will remove the flasher problem with the Williams design then fitting LEDs to these machines.

Cosmetically the machine is in very bad shape. The lower playfield 100% needs a swap. The upper playfield is touch and go, after making a start striping some bits of to see if a deep clean is all that is needed, I have decided that too needs a swap. So my options are limited at this point with only Mirco making the upper, and he doesn't sell it separately.

The backbox needs some wood work doing, and I've ordered in new decals to do that as touch up is not a skill I have. Wood repair and painting I am fine with. The main cabinet is fine for me.

I've got a local shop making me the stainless trim between the upper and lower glass, and they are making me some protectors for the plastic ramp that is on the back of the upper playfield at the same time.

As I plan to keep this machine I'll be making some customisations and upgrades as I go along. I don't have to worry about keeping this machine as an all original collectors piece as so much of it going to be repro anyway. I'm thinking about powdercoat to the external metals (saw it in red somewhere), maybe swapping the jet bumpers to green and adding some extra GI lighting.

It's a great game to play, had a lot of fun with it so far, I'm going to enjoy this as a long term project. I'll try to remember to take pictures at any interesting points.

Cheers

Cris

 

[CrisUK]

Spent the morning building up the new interconnect board and installing. GI is now 100% reliable...



In time I will make a start on this bad boy, but it's quite the challenge. I've done it once before and it is very rewarding. First there will be a new AUX Power Board to sort the flasher problem (flashing when flippers are activated)...



Once all the electrical gremlins have permanent fixes I will move onto the cosmetics. Starting with a swap of the upper playfield.

 

[CrisUK]

Aux Power Board build and installed. Look at all the pretty lights... Victor really does a nice job with these PCBs...



Taken off the upper playfield and started to strip and clean ready for the swap. Going to be a delay as the playfields are stuck in customs (Damn you Brexit!) I've been told the delay could be anything from a couple of days to a COUPLE OF MONTHS! They have already been there for the best part of a week. Sadly there were no shipping options available from Mirco, so it's ended up with ParcelFarce at this end. Just a nightmare. A word of warning to anyone attempting to import anything with a value of over £900, it gets kicked to a different customs queue which can take a very long time to clear!

Decided to do an LED insert swap on the lower playfield, just to see what it looks like. Was a bit jumpy, looks better with an LEDOCD fitted, so might have to find room for that.

Also found and fixed a fault on the lamp matrix, one of the transistors had given up the ghost. Simple swap and it's back working. I had assumed bad bulbs, but nope.

Found quite a few faults on the main board now, no battery damage at all, only a couple of poor repair attempts but I still think it's coming to the end of it's life. So I have started making a list of the components I'll need to complete the bare board I have. This is a mammoth task though, the last one took me many many hours of soldering.

Looking forward to doing the lower playfield swap so I can get the GI swapped to Sunlight LEDs. Really needs a bit of brightness adding.

Also stuck enroute are the decals. Sat in Australia for 3 weeks now without going anywhere. So I am slowly running out of jobs to do!

Lift switches came in from Marco, and they are the wrong bloody ones! Don't match what is on the website, or the packet. They have checked and all their stock for this item seems to be wrong. They are going to see what they can do, which is nice of them because they seem to be the only source.

 

[CrisUK]

Whilst they were available I decide to order a playfield and plastics set from Mirco Playfields. Heard quite a bit of bad reports when researching, but I thought I would post about my personal experience so far.

In total, prom the point of order to delivery (Germany to the UK) it took about 4 weeks. Most of that was due to the shipping method used, there was only one option given and it's not what I would choose myself for shipments into the UK. From the postage label it looks like the shipping cost about 20Euro. It took 2 weeks to get to the UK and then was held in customs for a further week. The package was not opened, they asked for no additional paperwork so I have no idea what the delay was. I decided to go collect from my local ParcelFarce depo as it was going to take a further week for them it issue me a letter then arrange delivery.

Communication with Mirco is ok, seems to ignore certain things (like anything to do with the shipping or invoice documents). When do get a reply it's just a few words. But there is nothing really to complain about there.

Packing is good. I was a bit surprised just how little packing there was inside. But the outside box is very thick and stiff. Inside everything was perfect.

Wrapped up in brown paper the printed side was protected.

The clear looks good to me, but I'm no expert. There is some banding in the digital printing, but the original printing doesn't look all that great on the original. The upper playfield is clearly a re-draw whilst the lower playfield seems pretty close to the original. Mine old one is so worn it's hard to tell really. Certainly it's going to be a massive improvement over the 35 year old original!

I've started the swap of the upper playfield. It's missing the screen print on the rear, which wasn't a surprise but would have been a lovely touch as it's an interesting feature on this machine. Has certainly made the swap much easier! There is one hole in the wrong place, but other than that the dimples have all been in the right place and it's going very well.

Was wondering if I should order a CPR playfield for the lower, but I don't think I will. The Mirco print looks good to me, and anything I get from CPR would also be a digital print as they have sold through the scree printed ones they did. There is no production date stamped on these playfields, but I did ask if I could use them straight away or if they needed more cure time, it's fine to use them right away so I assume they were made some time ago.

Plastics. I'm not so sure about these. They are unfinished in my opinion. Also I don't see how they would quality check these as they are all face down and attached to the surface they were cut out from. I might be ordering a CPR set as I've always had great results from theirs. Any opinions on these plastics?

So over all a pretty good experience from Mirco. The other experiences I'd seen really made me cautious, but they are the only solution for the upper playfield at the moment. Some pictures...

 

[CrisUK]

After many many months of nothing, I've spent some serious time over the past couple of weeks to (almost) finish off this project.

Not sure I've seen a machine as filthy as this one, and a couple of fantastic field bodges discovered as I went...



WTaF is that red switch! It does actually work! Held on with one screw, never seen anything like it, but I found out why when I went looking for the correct part.

 

[CrisUK]

I had a dig through my parts and found a donor switch that looked like it had just about the right length of wire form on. Hard to tell exactly from the pictures I found what the switch should look like, but I think this is pretty close to original...

 

[DRD]

From mine ....

 

[CrisUK]

There are still some small details to finish off, haven't decided what I am going to do with the green bumpers yet. The factory plastic doesn't look the best now I've made that modification i that area. So I am still deciding what to do.

I need to add in some of the additional tree plastics to the lower playfield. Didn't want to clutter it up too much, and I was toying with the idea of adding more realistic looking trees. Decided against that idea.

All LEDs are from Comet, GI is their Sunlight. Looks fantastic in real life.

Both playfields swapped, I used the German made ones and despite what I read about their quality I have to say I'm impressed. Only very minor modifications required in a couple of places. I've also installed a playfield protector (for now).

The only thing I haven't done is the cabinet, that is still as I found it basically. Unsure what to do as despite getting sent a 2nd set of decals from Australia I am still very disappointed with their look. The colours and detail are wayyyy off, they are actually the wrong shape slightly for the top. Almost nothing about the rest of the machine is original, so I don't think covering the original artwork will make any difference from that point of view. But if it doesn't make the thing look overall better, why bother?

Would I do this again? Yes, but I would fully cost it out before starting a project like this again. This one was so far gone I massively underestimated both cost and time in getting it to this point. No way I'm making my money back if I do decide to sell at some point. Unlikely to sell I think. It's a keeper!

 

[CrisUK]

From mine ....

Thanks, I'd say I got that pretty close

 

[CrisUK]

It's also had a new display PCB in the topbox as one of the VFDs was toast.

It has (hand build by me) new Victor Interconnect and PSU PCBs. I still have the CPU board to build up. It doesn't actually need at this stage, the original is working just fine. But Victor has done some cool work on fusing the special solenoid circuits on his latest version, so I want to give that a try. Plus I quite enjoy building the boards and seeing the work first time!

I had a local shop make the strip between the upper and lower playfields. It's ok but not as good as the original. I'll get another made by another shop at some point as it's super annoying to remove at the moment. Looks ok though.

I'd like to improve the sound at some point, I notice that pinsound have hinted they are looking at a solution for these machines, so I'll be following that closely.

This machine had a hard life I think. Certainly hadn't need cleaned in 30 years! There is very little of the original left. I saved everything I could as I went, many hours of cleaning and polishing what I could. Overall I am very happy, my first playfield swap! Whoop!

 

[DRD]

Have you got the black rubber dust strip that fixes to the rear of the playfield glass ?

I might have a spare one somewhere as I imported a length from the US a few years back

 

[CrisUK]

Have you got the black rubber dust strip that fixes to the rear of the playfield glass ?

I might have a spare one somewhere as I imported a length from the US a few years back

I don't have the correct rubber no, I'm just using something that kind of works and looks ok that I found on Amazon. It's slightly too large which pushes the glass just a little bit too low to make the lockdown bar difficult to get on and off.

So if you have a spare I'd be very interested in that thanks!

 

[CrisUK]

Looking back through the forum, I think the machine I now have is this one that @philpalmer found at some point? The playfield wear certainly matches but it's hard to be 100% from the facebook pictures...

Seems like it's passed through a few forum members hands since then, anyone know this machine's history?