Hi everyone,
Thought it was about time for an update!
Picked up my first pin on 16th December. Bought it as a project pin from Steve as electriccircusarcade
It’s a Playboy 35th Anniversary not my ideal choice but I was desperate to get hold of a project pin before the Christmas holidays so I would have some time to work on it.
I wanted a pin for 2 main reasons firstly to see if I still liked pinball been over 20 years since I played regularly and secondly to see if I liked working on them. I am an electronics engineer by trade but also do a lot of mechanical work.
Anyway the answer is yes to them both!
The machine was complete but not functioning and missing its display.
Here is a brief description of what I have done to date:
The machine had been stored somewhere damp at some point in its life it was very mouldy and all kickers and sling shots where seized solid.
Removed playfield and cleaned cabinet and top cabinet inside and out. Renewed and reworked earths and mains wiring.
Stripped down kickers slingshots pop bumpers and cleaned lubricated and reassembled them
Cleaned all contacts on switches, replaced most of micro-switches. Replaced bulbs.
Replaced burnt coil and measured then tested all other coils.
Checked all wiring and cleaned and tested all connectors.
Now I stripped most of the playfield and went about it cleaning it up. This is where it went wrong for me. The mylar on the bottom of the playing field had bubbled and lifted around the inserts so I decided to remove. Did some research and tried all different method, freezer spray, heat, solvents but it still lifted a lot of the artwork from the inserts.
Live and learn I guess in hindsight I may well have left the mylar in place if I had known but then again it was really raised in places. Any way fitted some decals and touched it up best I can.
Now I moved onto the top cabinet.
Replaced capacitors in PSU and sound board and fitted new Rottendog main MPU.
Original MPU was dead not even a clock signal from CPU so I removed it to tackle at a later date.
Fitted new X-Pin LED display.
A lot of the bulbs in the backlight did not work due to rotten wiring and corroded bulb holders. Replaced bulb holders and tidied wiring up.
After putting it all together most things worked apart from it always thought that one ball was missing even when they were all in place. This was an interesting fault as all the switches checked OK with a meter but the signal did not make it back to the MPU. After much checking it turned out to be a broken wire deep inside the main wiring loom. Interesting this as there were many marks all over the ball switch wiring where it had been back probed before. Renewed wire and tidied wiring.
Stripped and painted speaker section satin black.
Then it was just a matter of adjusting the switches and coils to get it to play nice.
Now that main control board.
There was some obvious battery damage on it which was my starting point replaced the main CPU socket and Eprom and Ram sockets. I now have clock signal but no blanking and on further investigation the data lines are being pulled. Lots more messing around and in the end it turned out to be 3 of the PIA’s that were dead. Bit unusual I think for 3 to be gone I this board must have a some kind of problem fed back from its original display. There were a few more parts drive transistors and a couple of logic IC’s but I know have another fully working MPU.
It plays really well now and to be honest that is as far as I want to go with it.
I am now looking to trade it in maybe with cash against another project machine something that will be a keeper now if possible.
Looking for something with a DMD and some toys.
Would really like a LAH but not sure how often they come up.
High resolution version of photo’s here.
https://postimg.org/gallery/25b4cv9rq/
Thought it was about time for an update!
Picked up my first pin on 16th December. Bought it as a project pin from Steve as electriccircusarcade
It’s a Playboy 35th Anniversary not my ideal choice but I was desperate to get hold of a project pin before the Christmas holidays so I would have some time to work on it.
I wanted a pin for 2 main reasons firstly to see if I still liked pinball been over 20 years since I played regularly and secondly to see if I liked working on them. I am an electronics engineer by trade but also do a lot of mechanical work.
Anyway the answer is yes to them both!
The machine was complete but not functioning and missing its display.
Here is a brief description of what I have done to date:
The machine had been stored somewhere damp at some point in its life it was very mouldy and all kickers and sling shots where seized solid.
Removed playfield and cleaned cabinet and top cabinet inside and out. Renewed and reworked earths and mains wiring.
Stripped down kickers slingshots pop bumpers and cleaned lubricated and reassembled them
Cleaned all contacts on switches, replaced most of micro-switches. Replaced bulbs.
Replaced burnt coil and measured then tested all other coils.
Checked all wiring and cleaned and tested all connectors.
Now I stripped most of the playfield and went about it cleaning it up. This is where it went wrong for me. The mylar on the bottom of the playing field had bubbled and lifted around the inserts so I decided to remove. Did some research and tried all different method, freezer spray, heat, solvents but it still lifted a lot of the artwork from the inserts.
Live and learn I guess in hindsight I may well have left the mylar in place if I had known but then again it was really raised in places. Any way fitted some decals and touched it up best I can.
Now I moved onto the top cabinet.
Replaced capacitors in PSU and sound board and fitted new Rottendog main MPU.
Original MPU was dead not even a clock signal from CPU so I removed it to tackle at a later date.
Fitted new X-Pin LED display.
A lot of the bulbs in the backlight did not work due to rotten wiring and corroded bulb holders. Replaced bulb holders and tidied wiring up.
After putting it all together most things worked apart from it always thought that one ball was missing even when they were all in place. This was an interesting fault as all the switches checked OK with a meter but the signal did not make it back to the MPU. After much checking it turned out to be a broken wire deep inside the main wiring loom. Interesting this as there were many marks all over the ball switch wiring where it had been back probed before. Renewed wire and tidied wiring.
Stripped and painted speaker section satin black.
Then it was just a matter of adjusting the switches and coils to get it to play nice.
Now that main control board.
There was some obvious battery damage on it which was my starting point replaced the main CPU socket and Eprom and Ram sockets. I now have clock signal but no blanking and on further investigation the data lines are being pulled. Lots more messing around and in the end it turned out to be 3 of the PIA’s that were dead. Bit unusual I think for 3 to be gone I this board must have a some kind of problem fed back from its original display. There were a few more parts drive transistors and a couple of logic IC’s but I know have another fully working MPU.
It plays really well now and to be honest that is as far as I want to go with it.
I am now looking to trade it in maybe with cash against another project machine something that will be a keeper now if possible.
Looking for something with a DMD and some toys.
Would really like a LAH but not sure how often they come up.
High resolution version of photo’s here.
https://postimg.org/gallery/25b4cv9rq/
