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Complete 8 Ball Deluxe LE

Next job, test / replace all the bulbs on the playfield inserts. I’m going to keep it incandescent to start with. but will change to leds in the future.

Hopefully get the playfield in the cab tomorrow.
 
all the insert playfield lights have been tested and blown ones replaced. so that’s another job off the list.

I’ve hooked up the power to the cab and tested the transformer and psu. all good

then joined in the solenoid board. good for +5v.

Plugged in mpu and sound boards. neither will boot - no surprises there.

Did some initial bench tests on both. replaced 5101 ram chip on mpu and resoldered headers. managed to get it booting. there is an intermittent problem somewhere. will need more investigation. i might just chuck in an alltek to keep me moving forwards.

s&t sound card not even a flicker. changed u11 pia as the old one rusted legs tgat came off as i moved it. now got a flicker. then changed U6 ram chip as that’s flash 1- but still not working.
Probably need to look at some of the caps and maybe u15, u17. lots of rusty legs on chips in this board.
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update:
got mpu to boot in the machine. displays doing odd stuff. but it’s progress
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I can click up credits, but then seems to lose them and also is clocking up p3 score along with credits. when i start a game p3 and p4 scores show a load of rubbish digits. so looks like some comms issue on the mpu board. so alltek next - tomorrow as i’ve had a long day on this already.
 
Long day yesterday
I managed to get original mpu board booting but it was hit and miss, and when it did boot it was doing strange things, like the data signals all getting interfered with. It’s probably fixable but i want to move on quickly, so in went an alltek. Problems solved machine boots and behaves properly.

Nothing from the sound card-will park that for now.

I installed the playfield and started to test the lamps many not working or perm on.
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The insert light sockets are faulty
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so replaced them. had to use 44’s until i can find some wedge ones
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Tgat solved a few issues, main issue is the lamp driver board. i plugged in my known working one and got all lamps working

tested the original board it’s got a lot nearly all, blown scrs
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so took em off, then on with new:

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I also figured one of the decider chips probably faulty, so that needs replacing. ran out of time yesterday so this am job.
 
Was there absolutely anything right with this thing?!
Seems like a learning exercise, or a full course on what could go wrong with a pin. Glad to see it documented too!
 
Flippers now working. I’m not sure why they weren’t working but they weren’t and now they are. i did unplug and reply a few connectors, so i guess that was it.

Both sling shots sticking. i discovered it was a slight overhang from the hard top, so carefully sanded the edge smooth with the slit hole for each of the slings

tightened all the flipper bats and tested. the upper left us sticking, so took apart and reinstalled. all good.

Bought new thumper number parts. all nice new and shiney
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Starting to repopulate bits and pieces on the playfield. can’t do too much as i’m out of bulbs, and need quite a few for the pf gi. hope they arrive tomorrow.

So i’ll have a switch to looking at the squawk and talk sound card, see if i can resurrect that, if not it’s another £200+ for a new one.
 
Flippers now working. I’m not sure why they weren’t working but they weren’t and now they are. i did unplug and reply a few connectors, so i guess that was it.

Both sling shots sticking. i discovered it was a slight overhang from the hard top, so carefully sanded the edge smooth with the slit hole for each of the slings

tightened all the flipper bats and tested. the upper left us sticking, so took apart and reinstalled. all good.

Bought new thumper number parts. all nice new and shiney
View attachment 140401

Starting to repopulate bits and pieces on the playfield. can’t do too much as i’m out of bulbs, and need quite a few for the pf gi. hope they arrive tomorrow.

So i’ll have a switch to looking at the squawk and talk sound card, see if i can resurrect that, if not it’s another £200+ for a new one.

Nice work Alan really impressed with what you have done do you remember the woolly jumper days


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
ha ha. I enjoyed that vid.

What I am not enjoying is my s&t sound card - hours of fun with this bugger on the bench. new pia and ram chip. it’s sometimes trying to boot. gets two flashes. other times locks led on from the getgo.
probed. lot of the signals. they seem ok but them sometimes are really odd

i’m gonna change more socketed ics.

I’m thinking it’s either the roms or the actual cpu chip. so easiest to swap in a good 6808 mpu chip first. (the time i’ve spent on this - would have been easier to buy a new board)
 
ha ha. I enjoyed that vid.

What I am not enjoying is my s&t sound card - hours of fun with this bugger on the bench. new pia and ram chip. it’s sometimes trying to boot. gets two flashes. other times locks led on from the getgo.
probed. lot of the signals. they seem ok but them sometimes are really odd

i’m gonna change more socketed ics.

I’m thinking it’s either the roms or the actual cpu chip. so easiest to swap in a good 6808 mpu chip first. (the time i’ve spent on this - would have been easier to buy a new board)
Stick with it. I brought a S&T back to life. Well worth the effort. Caps, sockets, chips and connectors. As long as the super rare chip works it is worth fixing.
If your bulbs don’t arrive and you want to crack on I can lend you some (I am in Leeds too). I’ve got plenty of 555, 44 and 47’s.
 
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Whilst testing yesterday I somehow managed to blow out a whole raft of controlled lights, all on the main lamp driver board. The aux lamp driver board is fine. This is really frustrating because I rebuilt the lamp driver as most of its scrs were faulty. It now looks like 2 or 3 of the MC14514B decoder chips have blown.

I had a spare untested board, so plugged that in and found a few duff scrs, replaced those and now got all the lights working once again.

Initial play testing revealed a number of issues mainly switches that need adjusting,1/2 the rollovers need adjusting, so do the slings and pops and a few of the drop target switches are not registering. nor is the outhole.

Had to break off for the footy, but resuming this am.

Sound card still out on the bench, as i haven’t had time to look at it again.
 
A couple of hours on the switch adjustments. It’s easiest to have the playfield vertical and start a game, then do all the switch adjustments. there are 6 lane rollovers, one star rollover on this. all needed adjusting and a few needed crud removing off the contacts (even though i’d cleaned them before). sling shot switches were firing too often, so i’ve made those a bit tame to start with. The outhole switch was corroded but i found a spare i had so fitted that and it works perfectly now.
Pops needed some work to get them firing properly.

Also had an intermittent left flipper. Really had me flummoxed as it was only the lower left, the upper left would fire if you pressed the left flipper button and then manually moved the lower left flipper up to make the switch that energises the upper left flipper.

I tested the lower left coils and the nc switch they were both fine. Eventually realised that the power feeds from a lug on the right flipper to the lower left and the wire on the right flipper was loose. resoldered and all good.

Play tested it and all good.
decided to fit the apron and the backglasses to see how it looks :
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I am waiting for apron decals to arrive in the next week or so.

Also waiting for some new black spray paint. got some cab repainting to do and some touch ups.

ordered a new fluorescent tube too for behind the main backglass.

Backglass needs a clean and the lift bar needs rust removing then polishing or spray painting up. Or maybe a brand new one? it’s smaller than the normal size.

Rest of the day dedicated to the sound card. these squawk and talk boards are as complex as the main mpu board. they have a processor, pia chips, ram, roms, then the sound generation chips and also the audio amplification section.

I’m gonna grab a cup of tea and have a good look at the schematics and get mi logic probe out 😂😂
 
The fix to get the s&t sound card to boot properly was an easy one, but it took me a while to diagnose the problem. It was a faulty 6808 mpu chip. Put in a brand new one, and the board boots just fine.

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I popped it back in the machine, and we now have full sound and speech. Result!
 
looks like that board was originally in a Flash Gordon according to the original bally sticker
 
looks like that board was originally in a Flash Gordon according to the original bally sticker
Oh yes, I didn't notice the label (well I did, but it didn't mean anything to me at the time). I tested out the sound board and seems to be fully working.
 
I have been keeping an accurate log of time spent and parts used, so far:

145.5 hours of work,

£2,310.67 spent.

It's incredible how the costs just rack up and up on these refurbs.
 
Having a rest day today. which means an opportunity to have a tidy up. So going to put all my tools and crap away, ready for the next refurb or maintenance job.

One handy refurb tip: collect as many of these as you can:
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old food containers, meat, mushrooms, grapes, tomatoes, takeaway meal containers with lids, etc. the larger shallower meat containers are useful for rust removal on longer or wider parts.

It’s amazing how many different sets of parts you end up with, and want to keep segregated. They’re also useful for bathing, washing, rust removal. The fruit ones have drainage holes, which are useful too.

I use the takeaway containers with lids to store spare parts as they stack up on each other nicely.
 
I have been keeping an accurate log of time spent and parts used, so far:

145.5 hours of work,

£2,310.67 spent.

It's incredible how the costs just rack up and up on these refurbs.
What were the top five most time consuming and expensive elements?
 
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