...the worst bodge i have seen

[Paul]

Sparked off by a thread this morning where the caps on a WPC Driver board had been glue-gun'ed onto the board... makes you wonder what other horrors lie inside....




This is the place to post the horrors that you have seen... Pinball... Arcade... in fact anything where you find yourself saying "WT actual F"

Pics a must so we can all share in your horror

(thanks to @Happypin for the idea of this thread!)

 

[M4carp]

Data East special solenoid circuit, solenoids were a bit intermittent

 

[strobey]

This isn't unusual practice actually!

Board designs are very often put on a vibratory flat bed and "swept" with a wide range of frequencies to see if any parts become resonant to the vibration.

To make it easier to see, they also use a strobe light which is flashing at a very slightly different frequency so that the a camera can better see any motion.

This is done so that you can be sure the boards aren't going to fall apart when natural vibrations occur during normal operation (rockets, washing machines or... pinball it seems) or during shipping.

Tall capacitors are a fkr for it, so hot glue is a pretty decent fix.

 

[s000m]

Still my favourite from my own discoveries at least.

Lets solder the fuse directly to the line filter! Who needs a fuse holder.

 

[Happypin]

Rather than replace the plug and socket on the power driver board which we know is a very common fault, a better idea was fitted.
Surly the time and effort to do this bodge it’s quicker to do it correctly.

 

[Ant-H]

Rather than replace the plug and socket on the power driver board which we know is a very common fault, a better idea was fitted.
Surly the time and effort to do this bodge it’s quicker to do it correctly.

I had a similar thing when I got my FT. Instead of 1 connector they decided to use 2 . It was an absolute nightmare trying to get it out the room it was in as I had to remove the back box. In the end I just cut the wires so I could get out.

 

[Ant-H]

This T2 I’m currently working also had a similar “fix”

 

[Happypin]

I had a similar thing when I got my FT. Instead of 1 connector they decided to use 2 . It was an absolute nightmare trying to get it out the room it was in as I had to remove the back box. In the end I just cut the wires so I could get out.

Definitely the same engineer, recognise his work anywhere lol

 

[RichS]

The best I have ever seen was on a Gottlieb Funland where some comedian put 8Bba bolts in place of the three 10,15,10 Amp fuses!
Anyone know what rating an 8ba bolt is??

 

[Ashbo]

Not too bad I suppose....I never did find out if that wire was 1 1/4 amp slo-blo.

 

[Pick Holder]

On @Paul 's post - to be honest hot gluing capacitors in place is very common and not something I would call a bodge if done with hot glue gun.

If you look in amplifiers that are used in the music industry a hell of a lot of those (at least 50%) have the caps glued down.

On Capcom machines I saw a video where Todd Tuckey TNT amusements said they cable tie the 4 caps together and I think he also used hot glue.

I have to say one of the worst bodges I saw was in a brand new Houdini. They used very thin mains cable from the IEC socket to the switch box (like flex stripped back). It must of been smaller than 0.5mm. It was jointed in 2 places using heat shrink. One of these cables blew apart. I rewired the game that was in tilt with proper 1.5mm 3core mains flex.

Oc circuit boards - I have seen a lot of bodges. The engineers did not care about doing the job right as the mentality was different - just get it fixed so it can take cash!

The ex-arcade engineers I have spoken too used to hate pinball machines.

I also go out to some horendous attempts by pinball owners.

Anyway - here is one found in my memories on Facebook.

 

[Ragnar1057]

On @Paul 's post - to be honest hot gluing capacitors in place is very common and not something I would call a bodge if done with hot glue gun.

Agreed - under certain circumstances.
There are some devices/assemblies that need extra mechanical support. AFAIK, capacitors on power driver boards aren't one of them though .

I guess the issue here is that the glue was stuck nicely to the board, but had no adhesion at all to the capacitor body - so it wasn't providing any support for the component.

The main problem was the quality of soldering (I didn't take pictures of that - sorry). It looked like someone had melted solder onto the bit and flicked it at the joint from a distance - it was literally splattered onto the joint and was providing very little mechanical (let alone electrical) support. They had also left a lot of flux around the joints and were using a solder that I've not worked on before - its melting properties were very strange.

Once I removed all the existing solder and flux and reworked the joints, it was all fine - apart from that GI connector of course. I think they used a blowtorch and crowbar to remove the original

 

[M4carp]

Glue guns are handy things for all sorts (I bloody chucked loads away before I did this) Yes I get bored.

Any old phones etc send them to me

 

[Doug]

The best I have ever seen was on a Gottlieb Funland where some comedian put 8Bba bolts in place of the three 10,15,10 Amp fuses!
Anyone know what rating an 8ba bolt is??

12.8 kw.

 

[Arv]

The best I have ever seen was on a Gottlieb Funland where some comedian put 8Bba bolts in place of the three 10,15,10 Amp fuses!
Anyone know what rating an 8ba bolt is??

Death.

 

[Paul]

Arent the old silver foil in the Kit Kat wrappers rated at 5A??

 

[M4carp]

Arent the old silver foil in the Kit Kat wrappers rated at 5A??

I don’t know but remember my dad using Benson and Hedges foil and he worked for D-E-R tv rentals fixing them