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In Progress Earth Wind and Fire Pinball - Not the POP Group silly

Mozcom

Mozcom

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Joined
Jan 22, 2015
Messages
595
Location
Crewe, Cheshire
So I had just returned home after a long weekend with SWMBO and was just looking at the threads and there it was - Steve Brum offering it up @ £85 - snapped his hand off. Later on I saw that Luke and JMP wanted it, being a gent I apologised to Luke and said if it was going to be too much for me then he would have first dibs at the same price - only fair.

He / She (not sure yet) came with legs (forgot to ask about the bolts missing) but as you can see, the cab is FUBAR. Every time I tried to move it more dust and flakes would fall off. I decided that the safest and easiest way would be to strip all the plastics off the playfield, remove all the boards etc and set it up on the makeshift bench around all the other usual crap, sorry things in progress in the garage.

If I can get the thing to work then I've already got a quote of £180 for a new cab from a local joiner which I thought wasn't bad at all. If I'm going to do it, I might as well do it right - that's that Nedreud's fault ;-)

Checked all the FUSES - not that the seller (Steve), well, seller's seller (thanks Paul) said it needed a new one and it would be right as reign,

Plugged it in - stood back and powered up......

Illumination !! That's it !!

Downloaded from http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=3611 the manuals etc.. alright but not Carling.

OK - so as a noob I need to do a lot of reading, asking, patience and time - the latter I've been very short of but the racing season is coming to an end.

Removed corroded battery from MPU and temporarily inserted a AA - powered back up and had a slight short whirring from the speaker, but again that's it.

Here's some other photo's though and will keep you up to date of my progress.

If anyone is able to test my boards etc or wants to give me any pointers then please do. As I say, I am a Beginner and really don't want to be defeated with this as I want to give it a new life and new home. It may be a keeper - I don't know until I've tried.

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The corroded MPU battery may well have caused acid damage to the board , preventing it booting :( Not uncommon, but if so will obviously need attention. Unfortunately working Zacc boards are very hard to come by.

If it turns out the repair is beyond you , you could try someone like Keith Withnall - bit of a Zacc expert. I sold him a dead Hot Wheels some time ago which he resurrected with some board repair magic. I might have a contact email for him somewhere.
 
Unfortunately I don't presently have the ability to repair Zac stuff. I do hope to get hold of a complete Zac machine sometime, as once I have a complete setup I should be able to repair test everything Zac (I believe there are 2 main systems that I need to get hold of ultimately)

Good luck with your project Mozcom, it looks like you should be able to make it at least into a decent players machine, importantly the playfield looks good!
 
Mozcom said:
If I'm going to do it, I might as well do it right - that's that Nedreud's fault ;-)
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My pleasure ;)

Can you post up a couple of nice close-up hi-res photos of the MPU, please?

Have to say although the cab has a little more ventilation at the rear than originally intended, the playfield is looking SWEET both top and bottom! Nice catch!

First port of call would be this website: http://www.zaccaria-pinball.com/. Pretty awesome Zaccaria fansite, I'd start by reading it top to bottom. EARTH WIND FIRE is a "1st Generation" game. Superb notes, technical details, and diagnostics and repair guides here: http://www.zaccaria-pinball.com/gen1/index.html.
 
Looks like you may not need them but I have a full playfield with all upper parts, plastics set plus under playfield plungers, coils etc. Give us a shout if missing anything.
 
Might be a stupid question but what is a stupid question? Don't suppose there's a door interlock safeguard switch to turn off play field etc when open. Can't see anything on the schem's?
 
Mozcom said:
Might be a stupid question but what is a stupid question? Don't suppose there's a door interlock safeguard switch to turn off play field etc when open. Can't see anything on the schem's?
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Nope.

Oh and although it's hard to tell on the photos provided, it does look like you'll be needing a battery acid clean up/repair... :(
 
I also recommend new capacitors on the voltage regulator board as those old ones are only good for about 10 years.
 
I'd say 'scope over probe but you're going to pay more. It's a more versatile tool but depends on youR level of skill. Logic probe great for testing for expected signals but sometimes you need to drill deeper into a problem. I've got a 'scope that plugs into a PC via USB and it's pretty impressive for the price.

It's one of these: http://www.hantek.com/en/ProductDetail_31.html
 
I'm just a bit worried that I might be flogging a dead horse here. My skill level is 0000.1 but I can't resist the challenge. I hate to see things go to waste!!
 
Keep at it. Bit each day, you'll get there. Plenty of folks to help here and loads of info on the 'net. My first pin was a dead project and still enjoying it!
 
Mozcom said:
I'm just a bit worried that I might be flogging a dead horse here. My skill level is 0000.1 but I can't resist the challenge. I hate to see things go to waste!!
Click to expand...

Keep at it. worst case, do the bits you can do and then pass it on to someone else to do the bits they can do....
 
Mozcom said:
Thanks guy's but can a mpu be dead, I mean really dead beyond repair?
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It depends on what is on there and if you can replicate it or not. Eg Gottlieb system 1 spider chip. For years no one could replace them so many machines got binned or burned. Now there is the Pascal Janin MPU which replicates the functions and removes the dependency.
 
It then moves on to cost effectiveness of repair. If you needed to replace every chip for example then that's an awful lot of work... :tut:
 
Depends how much effort you want to put it, because the question is really "dead beyond economic repair". Unless completely destroyed by fire, anything is repairable. Your boards look great! Mostly just very dusty and dirty, but that all washes off. Literally. You can shower boards clean! Check out @PeteB's guide: http://www.pinballinfo.com/community/threads/petes-guide-cleaning-circuit-boards-like-a-boss.18644/

I can't make out whether the back of your MPU is just dirty or has dried corrosion from a leaky battery. Still, I've repaired considerably worse corrosion. Most of the chips on these boards are obsolete but it's easy enough to find NOS spares. The Signetics 2650A CPU is available for around $10-12 which is about what you'd pay for a Motorola 6800 on a Bally from the same era. Common problems are "dry joints" where the soldered legs have worked lose and are no longer making an electrical connection - very common on the connector pins. Also, it's a good idea to replace all the electrolytic capacitors because they only have about a 10 year lifespan and these are probably 30+ years old.
 
PeteB idea looks the way to try first. Might use San Pellegrino to wash of to give it a bit of Italian love back [emoji38]
 
Well those boards look a lot cleaner. Good job. Just make sure to let them dry fully before putting any chips back in.
 
Well it's only been 5 months since the last insertion, but here we go.

Was concentrating too much on the boards as to if it was worth it or not but due to Kev's (@newdos) current resto, it's spurned me on.

Local carpenter will be visited this weekend to assess damage and cost of resto on the cab.
I've no electronics experience, but I've found a man that can and he said it would be easier if he had the whole thing to work on. So. Do what I can and get others to do what I can't.
Concentrate on cleaning and polishing and ship to shop out the boards I can't do.
I believe and know its worth saving and it will.
Wish me luck?
I certainly don't have Kev's experience along with others, but I'll be damned if this is going for scrap.
I've asked my stepdaughter if she would be happy to trace the good side as its a mirror image on the other and she's happy , with a bit of currency persuasion, so I can keep authenticity and originality..... Let's see what the carpenter says!
 
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