Complete Special Force - Military Hospital 🚑🏥🪖🎖️

Ashbo · Sep 16, 2022

And yeah, no pinball till it's done!!

Calimori · Sep 16, 2022

My cabin ends up like that. Every pin gets to hold parts.

Ashbo · Sep 17, 2022

Jay Walker said:
Re. the two buttons on the l/h margin of the front - the white one is the proper start button. The other's probably been added by some fool who couldn't set Free Play.

I see a bit of re-cycled 'woodwork' inside the back box, top left corner. Similar to scraps of earlier cabinets seen in Williams/Bally Wpc era games.

In contrast to the side rails, the front moulding doesn't seem too bad. This era Bally games usually suffered severe wear on the ends, Nordman's other game of the time, Party Animal, springs to mind.

On the subject of poor cabinet materials, Bally made a point of including a picture/drawing and the remark "Rock Solid with mitre joints and 65% more ply" in the flyer for the slightly later Heavy Metal Meltdown.

I enjoyed Special Force at the time. An attendant at the Marina arcade, knowing I was the highest score holder, told me a young woman had got to enter initials for a high score but couldn't see it and her initials displayed. The l/h rocket button calls up the highest scores when in attract mode. The right hand one begins an instruction mode.

Thanks, I think the green arcade button has been set up as start, that will change. The wood at the front is a replacement, and the joints used are soft wood and aging, hence the caving. Getting some hardwood in there will help correct this.

Cool about the high score, I had no idea you could add initials, excited about that

. Best not bring this to a show I'll be locked out

Jay Walker · Sep 17, 2022

As far as I recall, the attract mode doesn't show the 4 highest scores of its own accord, it simply writes '(First) Replay At #,##0,000', 'Second Replay' (if there is one) 'At #,##0,000', and 'Beat #,###,##0 for # Replays'. Hence that other player complaining that her score couldn't be seen.

A Special Force that I played a lot had a problem caused by the percentaging for the replay levels. The first level was adjusting to meet its percentage, but the second was fixed*. I could often achieve the second level, which made the first increase wildly; it used to show the first replay as 9 million or more, and the second still as 4.5 million. Then it rolled over the first level, to the ridiculously low 500,000, making things even worse for the percentaging.

I see it has replacement displays - the original ones didn't have the 'starburst' layout of segments which the new ones do. Unless the display board(s) have some additional processing included, I'd expect the diagonal segments not to be used, only the normal seven segments (the '8' shape) and the central vertical (the upright of an upper case letter 'T').

In fact, looking at the manual, only the first level could adjust. Williams had their percentaging apply to all replay levels, if an op set two levels the second was twice the first. And Gottlieb hadn't got around to using it at the time.

Another thing shown in the manual is the provision of three coin switch inputs; in the u.k. we had the two-chute door, with the acceptors flat against the door, as I suppose the yankees did. But some markets may have had a three chute door. Germany, maybe.

Ashbo · Sep 19, 2022

All the Mylar off today. My first time and it wasn't that bad. Some bits needed hot air gun and some needed freeze spray.

Before:

After:

The top bits were heat gun as the freeze spray just caused it to splinter.
Just a small.amout of paint loss a a bit of insert missing between the flippers.

Ashbo · Sep 19, 2022

Lots of score marks on the playfield where Mylar was cut....savage treatment. I plan to touch this up with the airbrush.

Also spent hours on end with a wire brush removing the copious amounts of rust... Got fed up of photos and just got on with it. Here are a few....

Ashbo · Sep 20, 2022

Stressful day today soldier??? Then clean some rust (but no time to polish this evening)
Before...

After....

Ashbo · Sep 20, 2022

Man removing Goo takes some time!!!

Ashbo · Sep 21, 2022

On the day my pinball center order arrives, I find out I need more parts....bu66er!!!

At least I can get these bits from pinball heaven

Probably right, if a little old...

Definitely wrong!!!

It's starting to get darker earlier now..time to crack open the bright lights....check out the new flippers!!!

Ashbo · Sep 24, 2022

Light duties today as I seem to have the plague, who would visit a hospital, you come out worse than you went in

lol.

Anyway, thought I'd check the electrical side of things so started by changing the plug to something from this century and then checked continuity on the earth.

This was, enlightening, had to re-crimp several connectors, including the main line from the line filter to the backbox earth point. Following 10 minutes of headache induced swearing and banging around, I realised a swift tug on the old crimped connectors and they were broken. New ones work perfectly...

Next I connected the back box bulb....worked great...

Next replace all the fuses, why not, I bought a set from pinball center so may as well do it now.

So I then connected up the 6803 power module and began testing the test points.

Didn't fancy a shock today so used clip connectors to test one at a time between powering off. TP3 was double the voltage it should have been, as was TP2, so we have high voltage issues. I have started by ordering new transistors which will arrive later on next week when the man plague has cleared. By looking at the schematic, these look the most likely culprits and is also mentioned here http://www.pinrepair.com/6803/ in a slightly different context.

Back to bed now, I feel I have made progress so that's enough for me.

Ashbo · Sep 25, 2022

Busy day today, decided to strip down some of the playfield mechs. Didn't get photos of them all, but did single tank, hostage saucer and then the triple drop target bank.

Was rusty, oily and dirty, just what I like

Stripped her down, cleaned and de-rusted with the wire brush on the Dremel and also replaced the drop targets.

Ashbo · Sep 26, 2022

Final drop this evening, tomorrow...the slings, flipper plates, pops or the numerous switch brackets.....decisions decisions.....

Ashbo · Sep 27, 2022

Pops tonight....these were rusty....

Nothing a quick blast with the Dremel won't fix...

And a quick polish...repeat three times....

Reinstall alongside the new drops and the clear silicone rubbers, starting to look like a pin again

Ashbo · Sep 28, 2022

Transistors arrived and put them in this evening. Also replaced the 2uF capacitor as I had it to hand. Power board reads all voltages right. Well 14v a touch high and 11v a touch low. Everything else spot on.

Connected everything back up and it's alive. Poorly, but alive.

Need to check all playfield connections now and rebuild the flippers. Also work out what's messing with the second display.

Ashbo · Sep 29, 2022

Two steps forward,

Display fixed and one flipper rebuilt. Display was a loose pin in the connector.

Two steps back,

Outhole eject coil is dead - one on order now....pinball heaven to the rescue again ..
...lett flipper plate and brackets completely unusable, pinball center to the rescue again, but chose snail mail so will be forced to wait....need to make sure I don't pay more in postage than I did on the pin!

progress likely to be slower from here on in as we wait for deliveries.

Ashbo · Sep 29, 2022

Hmmmm....hadn't thought about custom art...

Special Force owners club | All clubs (...members only!) | Pinside.com

| Forum Topic by Nokoro

pinside.com

And it may not have to cost the earth....

Pinball

www.rockstarprint.co.uk

Ashbo · Oct 3, 2022

New outhole ejector coil turned up today. Lunch break time to eat....no way, get the soldering iron out. Hmmm, coil ok but no voltage across the coil.

Tracing back to the solenoid expander, relay works, replaced the diode and reflowed everything and still no voltage, but the knocker cables are always high. Only thing left to replace is the moc3011 octocoupler....£2.99 on ebay...3 days to wait....back to work in a few mins then...right...food.

Ashbo · Oct 6, 2022

Octocoupler worked in that it showed me another issue. Q40 is blown I think. The 330ohm resistor doesn't look pretty either. Ebay and £4 later...let's see what happens when they turn up.

Ashbo · Oct 8, 2022

Unexpected surprise from Pinball Center yesterday as flipper mounting bracket and parts arrived so have been able to have a little play this morning.....as you can hear, the dogs aren't impressed.

Ashbo · Oct 10, 2022

Ashbo said:
Octocoupler worked in that it showed me another issue. Q40 is blown I think. The 330ohm resistor doesn't look pretty either. Ebay and £4 later...let's see what happens when they turn up.

View attachment 183105

So Royal Mail dropped of the TIP120 transistors and the 330ohm resistors. A working lunch break later and we have this for the q40 position...

And we also now have the out hole ejector working. I literally jumped up and down for joy.

Back to work now, but really happy it's cabinet repair, cosmetics, lamp drivers and switches and she'll be done.....

....really enjoying the game. My second 6803, I really like these guys. Fun to fix, fun to play and not too expensive. Shhhh, don't tell anybody

Ashbo · Oct 11, 2022

Evening session again tonight, left sling wasn't working, found the issue, loose green wire on the multiplier switch that means the upstream connection to the sling switches didn't make it back to the switch matrix.

Anyway, that was a quick fix but the sling was really sluggish. How did I not notice this???

30v 3000 windings, needs much more juice than is supplied. Swapped out for the new 26-1200 that I had installed in the out hole ejector and we have super slings.

Off to Pinball heaven for another 26-1200.....

....slow and steady we will win this war !!!