In Progress Calling Earth from Moon base 1 - A Bally COSMOS resurrection

[myPinballs]

so as mentioned earlier i had a 10 hour round trip today to pick up another Bally EM!! This time Cosmos from 1969. Nice people who previously owned it. They mentioned they'd had it in the home since 1979 and was played on a lot when the kids were younger etc then kind of got forgotten and left to sit.



So,I'll be bringing the old girl back to full working order And documenting progress here. Won't be all at once as I have many things on the go, but this will make an interesting restoration. Proper inspection and setup tomorrow, but I had a quick look after I brought it in tonight and it looks in real nice shape. Backglass has some minor damage in places but not too bad. The playfield looks almost unworn which is a result. Just alittle near the slingshot rebounds that is to be expected. Cabinet tidy



Moon base 1 out!!!

 

[Dex-Jay]

Looks good! Now I've seen the pics I wished I'd chased it now! DERP!
Good luck with the repair, let's hope all it needs is something minor to get it up and running again.

 

[astyy]

Looks great and similarities with my '67 Rocket III picked up last week so glad you're logging this. Mine was sold 'for parts', but once I reset the score reels it starts a game and works 'kind of' so I'm away.

 

[myPinballs]

Some setup pics. Giving the cabinet a light clean as I go



Plenty of dust in here that I'll need to clean out

 

[stoptap]

How are you going to get that dust/fluff out Jim ? Can you blow it out with an airline ?

 

[myPinballs]

Will make a better update on progress today tomorrow. Lots to report, but got to this today

 

[ronsplooter]

Lots to report, but got to this today

Sweet zipper flipper game

 

[myPinballs]

Ok then, some update detail. First thing after setting up the game was to inspect the mains power cabling. OH DEAR....





25 years+ fixing games and i'm still shocked what i find. This wiring had been connector blocked to the original power cable using what looks like low power lighting cable (sub 3 A). No earth connection and just dangling about inside.

So that got cut out as job 1. Then i wired up a nice new high current power cable and plug soldered to a new shiny line filter with mains varistor.



Next I solder the transformer power cabling to the output of the line filter. Checked the tap out from the transformer and replaced the internal line fuse from 8A to 4A. Fuse in plug is 5A for now. I also replaced the other power fuses for the 50V and 6V with lower values to begin with. 8A for 10A and 10A for 15A. This may not be necessary but i'm happier for a fuse to go instead of something melting!

Also the line filter addition creates a handy place for the mains earth to be anchored to and then you can start the ground braid cabinet additions easily if you want to upgrade that stuff to. These early games did not come with grounded cabinets! From what i've read up on the subject it was assumed everything was well isolated inside. Not sure i agree but anyway, adding a full cabinet ground braid may be a job for later. For now i;ve got a nice secure and properly rated main power lead and filtered input to transformer.

If you want to add line filters and varistors to your em games then i have them in stock

Moon base 1 out!

 

[myPinballs]

Ok so some more updates. At first power up after the mains power upgrades i had a few lamps on the playfield and zero lamps on the backbox. This was found to be a broken wire on the second 6v circuit just after the fuse. Lamps restored. Testing a game start resulted in the credit counter (replays) being reduced by one and then the score motor running continuously with no ball ejected from the shooter lane. No ball in play lamps lit.

Kind of good that the score motor was working but not great on the rest.

Now i really needed a schematic but ipdb doesn't have one. I recognised most of the mech units from sorting out the wizard em recently, so my plan was to start in the same way as with the wizard and clean up and check operation of all the 'wipe' mechanisms. This last time really helped with the game process logic as the having the backbox lamps working helps to identify what point int he game you are.

I also had an idea on the schematic front. As most of the mechanism from a particular era are the same on 4 player ballys i found a schematic diagram for ballys rock makers. I hoped that this would be close enough for me to work out what was going on.

Cleaning up the 'player up unit'



By using the schematic i was able to work out that the game was starting but the ball was not being kicked out of the out hole and also that the player up unit was not advancing correctly, or that the ball in play unit was not displaying correctly.

At this point i decided to clean the ball in play unit and that brought the backbox lamps back. I also decided to clean up the player 1 score unit. Some pics of cleaning a unit and the finished item back in place.

 

[myPinballs]

Next i worked out that ejecting the ball manually from the out hole would stop the score motor and the playfield features would operate. No scores though. This was a good step though as it meant all the the playfield features could be tested. Amazingly these all seemed to work out, except the zipper flippers but this was a mechanical issue. The blast off ball around the earth was also working which was good as this is another motor driven mech.

When the ball drained again though the score motor would kick in again and not stop. More investigation on the schematics was needed.

Many hours of studying the schematic ensued and i got nowhere and started to think maybe the schematics weren't close enough, but then i found a common element with the player up step up solenoid, the ball in play step up solenoid and the outhole solenoid (ball return). Further back in the schematic the flow for these 3 solenoids is controlled by a normally closed switch on the match relay.



Checked with a multimeter the operation of the switches and sure enough they were not making contact correctly. Also double checked the solenoids operation directly by connecting the transformer return line (the 'ground' side if you will when thinking in modern ss games) Removed and cleaned up the match relay switches in the cabinet and hey presto i working game

I was now able to start a game, score, activate features, drain he ball and move to the next ball and then to game over.

Next thing is to strip and clean up the playfield and rerubber it. Also need to solve a fault with the coin (players) unit as won't let me start a multiplayer game.



Moon base 1 out!

 

[Arv]

Standard on EMs those chock block connectors.

The Lucky Fruit the Mrs has, has one will replace as above at some point.

 

[myPinballs]

Coming up nice. 50 years of ground in dirt is coming out, but takes awhile thats for sure.

 

[myPinballs]

Playfield after full clean. Need to get new pop bumper parts but thats for another day.

Came up really nice. Only a small amount of wear near the flipper eos. Seems they caught the playfield at some point in time. All the ground in dirt came out using @ronsplooter 's method of alcohol and magic eraser. Then novus 2 and lot of elbow grease. Need to be careful though with the magic eraser

 

[myPinballs]

Fixed the multiple player start problem last night. The 4th player NC contact on the coin unit mech was dirty and not registering making the game think it was already in a 4 player game. Always worth checking NC contacts when features don't work.

Got some dead lamps under the rear metal arch to investigate (look to be red lenses) and some flipper serving to do.

 

[myPinballs]

Here's what i found under the rear playfield arch. You'll notice that i sorted this parts out after the rest of the playfield cleaning which is not normal. This was because i needed to remove the playfield to access the rear properly and space in the dining room was limited along with needing to appease the missus. Having a full playfield on your dining room table for long periods is not a good idea!!



After cleaning and fitting new coloured bulbs



Clean and reassemble of shooter lane playfield entry switch



Rear playfield lit up

 

[myPinballs]

Some more updates. The playfield is back together and playing nicely now. I have a list of cosmetic pop bumper parts still to get and some flipper parts but is all working now. There were a few more issues to sort out with the game logic and player scoring which i'll get to shortly, but first some pics. I've gone for a mixture of black and white rubbers for fun! Quite like the black rubber against the white posts. Kept with white for the flippers and white for the area around the ships.



Cleaned up player score reels 1 and 2 (3 & 4 still to do). Complete strip down on both of these, clean and reassembly



So after putting the second player reel back together it became apparent that something was wrong with the reset process for the full 2 player reel mech. They would be slow to progress around back to zero unlike the player 1 score reel which was super quick. Also the pod unit reels were not effected and still quick. At first i thought i had done something wrong with the clean and reassembly on them, but after looking at my rock makers schematic again i noticed a few switches in the reset progress logic that i needed to check and clean.



I noticed that by testing the 4th player reels to i could determine which switch was at fault. It turned out to be the score motor switch pictured above (hilighted). A clean and reassemble of switch stack 11 cured the problem and now all mechs are reseting nice and quickly.

Video here of player 1 and 2 at game start reseting.

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[myPinballs]

As space is an issue and you can't keep them all. This game will be coming up for sale soonish. Let me know if you are interested. Its nice to have saved another game. The joy for me is always about getting the things up and running. Figuring out these old games is something that i never thought i'd like doing but its very rewarding.

 

[Jay Walker]

re. the rear arch lamps; one of those plastic sleeves, pushed onto a suitable piece of wooden dowel, is handy for removing backbox feature bulbs placed in small recesses. Bally may even have supplied a ready-made item with new games.

 

[Dex-Jay]

Nice work, it looks great now. I prefer the period fluff in it though. I hope you stored it in a bag incase the new owner wants it reinstalled!

That red up that roolz! Nice job allround.

 

[myPinballs]

Nice work, it looks great now. I prefer the period fluff in it though. I hope you stored it in a bag incase the new owner wants it reinstalled!

That red up that roolz! Nice job allround.

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Cheers

There's a really cool skill shot on this game to which lights the centre rollover buttons for 200 points instead of 100. You have to plunge the ball to hit one of the rebound switches on the upper arc then bounce back down the centre! Really neat rule

 

[Arv]

As space is an issue and you can't keep them all. This game will be coming up for sale soonish. Let me know if you are interested. Its nice to have saved another game. The joy for me is always about getting the things up and running. Figuring out these old games is something that i never thought i'd like doing but its very rewarding.

How much are you thinking?

 

[myPinballs]

How much are you thinking?

Based on the the previous em i sold a few weeks back, condition now with it fully working and the theme, i'm thinking £600 - £650 mark. Inspection to see and play in person is probably the way to go.