Hi all ,
Having repaired/refurbished a fair few Flash Gordon pinball machines for clients, one observation is that not one machine had a working strobe light.(centre top backglass). So here is how we have been fixing them. Thought it might prove helpful as the strobe pcb and most parts are now becoming either impossible to replace or at the very best rare to find.
All strobe lamps are burnt out by now......a simple continuity test between the red wire and black wire connected to the lamp will confirm this. (Continuity should be present.). It will look something like this.........the case will be melted to!.....
First thing to do is to find yourself a new / replacement strobe lamp.....no point wasting time looking at all the pinball parts suppliers, none of them, and I mean none have a single one!..the secret here is to purchase the newest, old Polaroid 600 series camera you can find on eBay. This will cost you between £2.50 and £9.00 plus postage. Here is what I bought for this tutorial.....(costs £5.70 inc. post).
Here it is unboxed..no problem if it's broken as long as the flash works...that's the bit we want!..............
Now the incredible thing is that the flash / strobe lamp from these particular cameras is an exact fit with the Bally original strobe.
So next step is to carefully remove the flash lamp from the camera. There are no screws on this model just plastic clips and covers...
First remove the plastic panel that fits around the strobe......
Then remove the complete pcb assembly from the camera......like this.......
Next job is to de-solder the flash unit from the pcb...leaving you this.......
Then finally remove the strobe lamp from its plastic lens cover as it's a different shape to the Bally lens, on this model Polaroid, on some it's the same so you can use the Polaroid lens in place of the Bally one as it is almost always in a better condition. For this job we will be re-using the Bally lens. The lens is glued on with contact adhesive via two tabs either side of the lens....like this....
Now we have our new strobe lamp!.....fantastico!............to be continued......
Having repaired/refurbished a fair few Flash Gordon pinball machines for clients, one observation is that not one machine had a working strobe light.(centre top backglass). So here is how we have been fixing them. Thought it might prove helpful as the strobe pcb and most parts are now becoming either impossible to replace or at the very best rare to find.
All strobe lamps are burnt out by now......a simple continuity test between the red wire and black wire connected to the lamp will confirm this. (Continuity should be present.). It will look something like this.........the case will be melted to!.....
First thing to do is to find yourself a new / replacement strobe lamp.....no point wasting time looking at all the pinball parts suppliers, none of them, and I mean none have a single one!..the secret here is to purchase the newest, old Polaroid 600 series camera you can find on eBay. This will cost you between £2.50 and £9.00 plus postage. Here is what I bought for this tutorial.....(costs £5.70 inc. post).
Here it is unboxed..no problem if it's broken as long as the flash works...that's the bit we want!..............
Now the incredible thing is that the flash / strobe lamp from these particular cameras is an exact fit with the Bally original strobe.
So next step is to carefully remove the flash lamp from the camera. There are no screws on this model just plastic clips and covers...
First remove the plastic panel that fits around the strobe......
Then remove the complete pcb assembly from the camera......like this.......
Next job is to de-solder the flash unit from the pcb...leaving you this.......
Then finally remove the strobe lamp from its plastic lens cover as it's a different shape to the Bally lens, on this model Polaroid, on some it's the same so you can use the Polaroid lens in place of the Bally one as it is almost always in a better condition. For this job we will be re-using the Bally lens. The lens is glued on with contact adhesive via two tabs either side of the lens....like this....
Now we have our new strobe lamp!.....fantastico!............to be continued......
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a bit like 
The switch illumination bus comes directly from j3 on the power supply so we followed it back and found this! 
......
..... anyway here it is......
...... the lamp has to be the three wire type. Just match the colours of the original. Worthy of note is some original lamps have a green wire instead of a white.
) hesitantly reconnected both, still 0v
