Received this today from Chris B - may as well quote his post to show you the pics of how it looks currently.
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Complete Strange Science
- Thread starter AlanJ
- Start date
OP
OP
I put it together, checked all the wires and connectors here are a few more pics of it as it is:
Playfield is not bad - its got mylar on most of it, so should be ok. It needs a good clean, the rubbers arent bad but need replacing, then plastics are generally good too
Side rails are rusty and nasty - will look to replace those
Chunks out of the cab in various places, should be fixable
Inside looks reasonable - clean and no major hacks. Looks like it was last overhauled in 1991 !!
The topper neon is there but as reported by Chris B - it doesn't seem to be working - I will look at that soon, as it's quite a special unique feature to have a proper neon in a pinball. It did flash when I first powered on - but nothing after that.
I love the visible 5 balls
Backglass is excellent condition
Playfield is not bad - its got mylar on most of it, so should be ok. It needs a good clean, the rubbers arent bad but need replacing, then plastics are generally good too
Side rails are rusty and nasty - will look to replace those
Chunks out of the cab in various places, should be fixable
Inside looks reasonable - clean and no major hacks. Looks like it was last overhauled in 1991 !!
The topper neon is there but as reported by Chris B - it doesn't seem to be working - I will look at that soon, as it's quite a special unique feature to have a proper neon in a pinball. It did flash when I first powered on - but nothing after that.
I love the visible 5 balls
Backglass is excellent condition
OP
OP
After checking all the connections and boards etc. I powered on - it all sparked up perfectly, except for the Neon Topper, which I was told isnt working anyway - so not a problem at this stage.
I played a couple of games on it and then it threw a funny 1/2 way through the third game I powered off then on and it would no longer powerup.
Check fuses is the first job. Most are on the power board with a few on the underside of the playfield. Should be an easy fix..................
I played a couple of games on it and then it threw a funny 1/2 way through the third game I powered off then on and it would no longer powerup.
Check fuses is the first job. Most are on the power board with a few on the underside of the playfield. Should be an easy fix..................
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Fond memories of my brothers Strange Science ....loved the whole vibe of it ...the sounds ! 'Strange strange strange' 
Yeah the Atom Smasher is awesome - loading it up then releasing all 5 balls at once !
The side rails are always rough on these Ballys. The ramps were recently repro'd by Freeplay40 over on Pinside if you need them.
Yeah the Atom Smasher is awesome - loading it up then releasing all 5 balls at once !
The side rails are always rough on these Ballys. The ramps were recently repro'd by Freeplay40 over on Pinside if you need them.
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Be wary of that bulb in the backbox - don't replace with anything that is gonna pump out heat ....seen backglasses ruined as a result 
OP
OP
there is a led lamp in instead of a. 35w 110v indandescent. the leds strobe and its awful. might have to experiment a bit!
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I think (?)my bro hunted around and ended up replacing the bulb with a small circular fluorescent style lamp that had the correct fitting, and worked well.
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OP
OP
As I was testing the fuses I found the potential problem - as I pulled out a fuse to test it, it brought the fuse socket with it!
So I had to take the power supply board out and solder it back in:
I checked over the rest of the board whilst it was out - all looked good both sides, except the fust holder clips were very dirty, so cleaned those up to make a better contact with the fuses.
All the fuses checked out ok and after putting the board back in, the machine is back to working again. I tested out a lot of the features and all seem to be working ok.
So I had to take the power supply board out and solder it back in:
I checked over the rest of the board whilst it was out - all looked good both sides, except the fust holder clips were very dirty, so cleaned those up to make a better contact with the fuses.
All the fuses checked out ok and after putting the board back in, the machine is back to working again. I tested out a lot of the features and all seem to be working ok.
OP
OP
Now to look at the neon not working.........
Have you sust out that horrible key pad thing for the diagnostic
OP
OP
OP
OP
So the neon,
It flashes on startup briefly - this tells me it's probably ok,
I found the relay (electronic) that switches it
and temporarily short circuited that out of the loop:
the result was GOOD:
The neon and it's 3kV transformer are both in working condition.
So then I traced the circuit back - the first thing is this mains opto isolated relay board. It has two circuits one for the neon and the other for the 110v eddison screw light bulb that lights most of the backglass.
I got my logic probe on this and found that the neon circuit is not getting a low signal to trigger it.
This then took me to transistor Q10 on the driver board. It's probably duff - its type SE9302 - obsolete - but apparently a TIP102 will be a good replacement, so I've ordered a few of those as they are cheap.
I then traced further back to the transistor that drives Q10 - this is on U18 chip - this is a CA3081 chip that houses 7 transistors. At first look this transistor looks faulty - the input gate seems correct - only going low sometimes during the game and at a ball drain, but the output is permanently low - this could be a) cos its faulty or b) cos the Q10 transistor is faulty. I'll wait to see once I've removed that Q10 transistor
I traced back further too - the CA3081 transistor is driven by one of the pins on one of the large 40 pin, MC68B21 PIA chips - Peripheral Interface Adaptor. I located the correct pin and this also appeared to be working correctly, again only coming on at short bursts sometimes in a game and at the ball drain.
So, tomorrow I might just cut off the Q10 transistor and retest the output of the CA3081 - I'm hoping that is not faulty as it's a 16 pin chip that's directly soldered, not socketed. We will soon see..........
It flashes on startup briefly - this tells me it's probably ok,
I found the relay (electronic) that switches it
and temporarily short circuited that out of the loop:
the result was GOOD:
The neon and it's 3kV transformer are both in working condition.
So then I traced the circuit back - the first thing is this mains opto isolated relay board. It has two circuits one for the neon and the other for the 110v eddison screw light bulb that lights most of the backglass.
I got my logic probe on this and found that the neon circuit is not getting a low signal to trigger it.
This then took me to transistor Q10 on the driver board. It's probably duff - its type SE9302 - obsolete - but apparently a TIP102 will be a good replacement, so I've ordered a few of those as they are cheap.
I then traced further back to the transistor that drives Q10 - this is on U18 chip - this is a CA3081 chip that houses 7 transistors. At first look this transistor looks faulty - the input gate seems correct - only going low sometimes during the game and at a ball drain, but the output is permanently low - this could be a) cos its faulty or b) cos the Q10 transistor is faulty. I'll wait to see once I've removed that Q10 transistor
I traced back further too - the CA3081 transistor is driven by one of the pins on one of the large 40 pin, MC68B21 PIA chips - Peripheral Interface Adaptor. I located the correct pin and this also appeared to be working correctly, again only coming on at short bursts sometimes in a game and at the ball drain.
So, tomorrow I might just cut off the Q10 transistor and retest the output of the CA3081 - I'm hoping that is not faulty as it's a 16 pin chip that's directly soldered, not socketed. We will soon see..........
OP
OP
So, this morning, it's back to trying to figure out the Neon logic circuit:, the botom one of the three in this pic:
First to cut off the Q10 Transistor, it is a suspeect, even if its working I need it off to test the other parts of the circuit, so it needs to go either way!
this is not an original it is a replacement TIP102
I tested the 3 points for shorts - all ok:
Now I can trace back to the pin 7 on the U18 chip. It should not be going low, unless pin 8 is also low. Unfortunately during testing this was not the case, with pin 7 remaining low all the time, irrespective of what pin 8 is doing. Pin 8 is working correctly, only going low when it is supposed to - i.e. occasionally durring a game when certain features are hit and it also oscillates several times when a ball is lost and drains.
Even though I have removed the transistor, pin 7 is still wired to the diode, and this also may be at fault. So, I cut that off and still the same issue. This leads me to conclude that U18 needs replacing!!! - order in!
Looks like there was a bit of battery leakage at one point! Now the batteries are off-board !
First to cut off the Q10 Transistor, it is a suspeect, even if its working I need it off to test the other parts of the circuit, so it needs to go either way!
this is not an original it is a replacement TIP102
I tested the 3 points for shorts - all ok:
Now I can trace back to the pin 7 on the U18 chip. It should not be going low, unless pin 8 is also low. Unfortunately during testing this was not the case, with pin 7 remaining low all the time, irrespective of what pin 8 is doing. Pin 8 is working correctly, only going low when it is supposed to - i.e. occasionally durring a game when certain features are hit and it also oscillates several times when a ball is lost and drains.
Even though I have removed the transistor, pin 7 is still wired to the diode, and this also may be at fault. So, I cut that off and still the same issue. This leads me to conclude that U18 needs replacing!!! - order in!
Looks like there was a bit of battery leakage at one point! Now the batteries are off-board !
D
Deleted member 2463
excellent news Alan , be careful with the power on the neon though, it'll give you a perm that won't be able to blow dry out!
OP
OP
Oh! just realised I made some errors in my diagnosis above. I had the logic probe on CMOS setting, instead of TTL and it was not giving the correct results, secondly, I have misread the control circulit and how it works (I am no real electronics whizz to be honest).
The U18 Chip transistor acts as an invertor to the main Q10 TIP102 transistor. I.e when the input is unset or high the first transistor is on, pulling the base of the 2nd transistor low, switching it off, and vice versa, when the first transistor base is set low, that transistor switches off andt hat allows the base of Q10 transistor to get enough voltage (via a pullup resistor) to switch on.
I did a thorough retest with the correct logic probe settings and it looks like U18 is ok after all !! - Damn I just bought a replacement!
So, this then points me back to the Q10 TIP102 transistor I have just cut-off - It's a bit weird though as that transistor is not very stressed - it is only switching on a LED in an opto isolator, so it's odd that it has blown? However, this is what I have figured out, and, as soon as a replacement arrives, I will find out for sure!!!
Ha ha - all this just to get a topper going!!!
The U18 Chip transistor acts as an invertor to the main Q10 TIP102 transistor. I.e when the input is unset or high the first transistor is on, pulling the base of the 2nd transistor low, switching it off, and vice versa, when the first transistor base is set low, that transistor switches off andt hat allows the base of Q10 transistor to get enough voltage (via a pullup resistor) to switch on.
I did a thorough retest with the correct logic probe settings and it looks like U18 is ok after all !! - Damn I just bought a replacement!
So, this then points me back to the Q10 TIP102 transistor I have just cut-off - It's a bit weird though as that transistor is not very stressed - it is only switching on a LED in an opto isolator, so it's odd that it has blown? However, this is what I have figured out, and, as soon as a replacement arrives, I will find out for sure!!!
Ha ha - all this just to get a topper going!!!
OP
OP
Question folks - any way to get side rails off without knackering them? These buggers are nailed in and looks like the nails are barbed!
Quite a bit of info here - https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/removing-side-rails-vids-guide
OP
OP
Today I got the neon topper working. It was a bit of an odd one. I replaced the faulty power transistor on the main controller board and tested that - it all worked ok, with the new transistor switching output low when it should do. However the topper still didnt trigger. In between the transistor and the topper mains circuit is an opto isolater board. Eventually I figured out that this board was not properly connected to the proper +5v power supply from the main power board. What really threw me was the fact that it had what seemed to be the right coloured 2 wires going via a 2 way connector block into the right coloured 2wires onto a plug into the power board. I dug the schematics out for the power board and realised that the wires it was connected to were ground (correct) and then a feature lamp circuit (incorrect). It's probably maybe something to do with one of the boards being replaceed at some time in the past and maybe the wiring colours changed, or maybe the wiring itself has been changed and someone incorrectly just wired up by matching the colours?????? dunno. Anyhow I moved the wire onto the correct +5V and it worked perfectly.
quikc vid here of it working,
quikc vid here of it working,
You've a bit of work to do there to neutralise the battery corrosion...
You need to remove components left of TP4 to JW1 and below Q6 down to Q4 and what looks like a resistor to the right of Q4. Sand down the PCB tracks to remove all the corrosion and wash with neutralising solution, front AND rear of the board. Replace all removed components with new. Worth doing now before the corrosion spreads and takes out U4 then U3 and everything below Q4. Relay K1 might be ok, worth removing to check underneath.
OP
OP
what would you use as a neutralising solution in this case please?
A question from this earlier post and the pic. Did you reflow the pins on the back of this board other than the fuse holders as it looks like some classic dry joints on there (top left of pic ) specifically. I would sort those out asap if not as they will likely cause issues later on.
OP
OP
Unfortunately I didn't at the time, I only noticed them when I posted the pic up to the forum. Lesson learnt - have a good look at a board when it's out of the machine! It is on my list of jobs to do though!
Loved this game when I had one. Great work so far!
That’s some very dry looking solder on the psu board ?
That’s some very dry looking solder on the psu board ?
