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Complete Williams Hot Tip

Cab, playfield and head have all been re-united :thumbs:

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I've sorted out the dodgy wiring from the transformer and crimped a load of pins on, ready to go into the new connector housing.. The plan is to re-fit the bridges and filter cap then power up and test voltages at the new connector. I want to make sure I've got all the voltages in the right places before I plug it into the new power board :D

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The spinner decal was pretty worn so I stripped it, etch primer followed by white paint and applied a new decal. That meant I could finish the playfield so I dropped the plastics on to get an idea of how it'll be when finished......not too bad :thumbs:

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Inching ever closer to the finish line with this one :D The main job for this evening was to start testing the electrical side of things so I wired up the power connector from the transformer and re-fitted the bridges and filter cap. Powered up and no burning smells or fire so first test passed :rofl: Tested all the voltages on the connector and everything was in spec and in the right place in terms of the 12 pins so the next job was to fit the new power board:

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Plugged in and after saying the usual prayer to the pinball gods I powered it on and again, no bad smells, fire or popping fuses which was positive! Next I tested the voltages at the various headers that supply power to the rest of the game and once again, all as expected :thumbs: I fitted the new combined MPU/Driver board in preparation for more testing tomorrow after I re-fit the head wiring. You can see from the pics below that the replacement MPU/Driver is about half the size of the old double board and does away with the problematic 40 pin inter board connector :thumbs:

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The testing continues! The new MPU board has a built in test rom and instructions on how to run it before you start plugging everything else back in so I performed that check and everything looked as it should (basically some flashing LEDs on the board).

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Next it wants me to plug in a few more connectors to get power and data to the displays and.........the first signs of life :clap:

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I can now plug everything else back in but I need to repair one of the GI connectors first and cba to do that this evening so more to come tomorrow :thumbs:
 
It's almost done! I sorted out the dodgy GI connector and plugged everything back together and it pretty much worked first time with just a few things to sort out:
  • Pop bumper locked on - FIXED, this just needed the pop bumper switch stack adjusting properly :thumbs:
  • Right flipper dead - FIXED, dodgy contact in the big block connector for the cabinet (for the right flipper switch). Cleaned up and working great now.
  • Big time flipper hop when the ball comes down the right in lane - FIXED, the wire ball guide for the right in lane had risen up so the ball clipped the down part of the wire. Tapped it back into place with a nylon hammer and now smooth as silk.
  • EM score reel not working - Needs further investigation
  • Buzzer not working - Needs further investigation
Both the score reel and buzzer are next to each other in the cabinet and use the same block connector that caused the issue with the right flipper so it could be something in that. I know the ground wire is good as it's also used by both chime boxes and they're working fine but I'm not seeing any voltage at the reel coil or buzzer so I also need to check the connector on the MPU/Driver board.

I also need to go through the settings and adjust a few things like1st replay value (for fake freeplay) but this game has the most unintuitive settings adjustment ever using two banks of dip switches and charts in the manual. I guess in the very early days of SS games they hadn't really figured this part out yet :rofl:
 
Thankfully the score reel and buzzer not working were an easy fix. They daisy chain their power from the knocker and the wire had broken loose so re-soldered it and everything is now working :thumbs: Based on that I'm calling this one done as all that's left is to play it for a bit and see what minor fixes and tweaks need doing. Really pleased with how this one turned out :D

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Wow ! not been on for a while, then read through this.
Incredible work it looks brand new !
Awesome Chris 🦾
 
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