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Complete Zaccaria Robot

Managed to make some decent progress on this recently. The cab is now fully back together and waiting for the playfield to go back in.....

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I had the boards out for inspection and they all look like good originals with no hacks which is a huge bonus on a game of this age :D I replaced the battery on the MPU board with a memory capacitor following a recommendation from Zaccaria Keith, gave every connector pin a going over with the fibre glass pencil and replaced the ribbon cables between the MPU, Driver and Sound boards with the new ones I got from David Gersic in the States.

It's time to start putting the playfield back together and one of the first jobs is the robot target mechs so I needed to have a think about how to replace the original bulb holders (most of which were missing or broken) with someone a bit better. Here's what I came up with :)

First, I started out with some basic frosted white LEDs.....

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I chopped off the plastic tab with a small saw so they'd sit lower in the robot head and then took some wire and got the 3rd hand involved ;)

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Bit of soldering later and I ended up with......

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Did this for both leads and then tidied things up with some heat shrink.....

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And here's the final thing fitted to the robot head target. I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out, just need to make another 4 of them :D

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No new pics to show at the moment but progress being made. The robot head mechs have been re-fitted to the playfield along with the pop bumpers (which took a bit of fettling). I've also done the final clean on the playfield and 4 coats of Carnuba wax have gone on :)

Normally I'd do this after re-populating the underside of the pf but this game has a lot of stuff the protrudes through so wanted to get the waxing done without all that being in the way (and limit the chance of cutting my hands open). LEDs for the inserts have been fitted (went with the non ghosting premium ones) and next job is to fit the rest of the under playfield stuff. After some thought I 'm going with LEDs for the inserts (and I've picked some different colours than standard) and incandescent in the GI (the backbox is all LED to protect the glass).....hopefully that will be a good looking match up :D

I'll take some new pics later this week when the underside is done and the pf is back in the game :thumbs:
 
More progress made over the last week or so. The bottom of the playfield is now completely re-populated, new wiring done and everything tidied up as much as it can be.....

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The playfield is back in the game and I've started work on the top side this evening. This is going to go slower than usual as I've got a couple of things that need sorting on the robot bridge ramp which I've saved until now. I've decided to go with incandescent lamps for the GI and premium LEDs for the inserts including some different colours and a couple of colour changers which I'm hoping compliment the theme of the game. Really pleased with the shine on the playfield :D

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The game is nearly done :D The top side of the playfield is complete and I did the first power up test which has given me the list of things that need adjusting, tweaking and fixing. The biggest issue looks to be a load of the coils not working and initial digging around seems to be pointing to the fuse holders that live under the playfield as being dodgy and corroded. There are also a number of switches that need adjusting and some lamps sockets that need a bit of work. Here's some pics of the partially re-populated playfield.....

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I had to do some work on the Robot bridge as the area where it attaches to the u shaped metal ramp had some damage and some crappy op hacks. The damaged area was covered in tape which I've replaced with a piece of black plastic cut from an old backbox trim and plastic welded in place. The hack was a large piece of metal riveted to the top of the u turn ramp to stop the ball flying off. I've removed this and replaced it with the metal rod threaded through the holes and initial tests seem to show this works really well to take enough momentum off the ball so it comes down the robot bridge nicely.....

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Finally heres some pics of the rather interesting raised ball launch which is pretty common on Zaccs of this age but you don't see on many other games.....

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Final pics of the game in all it's glory (it does look pretty sweet :D) will be done once I've got all the minor adjustments finished and I'll also be doing a new video as well :thumbs:
 
I'm calling this one complete :D There are a couple of lamp sockets that need sorting out, and I'm toying with swapping out the flipper coils for ones a bit less powerful along with changing the colour of the LEDs in the robot heads. Other than that the game is done and playing......and it is awesome :thumbs: I'll be doing a video of the game quite soon but until then here's some pics.....

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Looks great chris

Can you weaken the flippers with the eos ? That is what i have done on vector, tz
 
Can you weaken the flippers with the eos ?
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Already done that and fitted stronger springs but it's still crazy powerful. Coils is the next thing to try.

do those bright LEDs seem to wash out some of the lovely bright colours on the playfield?
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The camera on my iphone really struggles to capture the look when the game is powered up :( Trust me, it looks awesome in real life :D
 
Might the trouble be that the game was set up as a 220v, yet it is getting finest British 250v power from the Trent Valley coal fired power stations ?
 
DRD said:
Might the trouble be that the game was set up as a 220v, yet it is getting finest British 250v power from the Trent Valley coal fired power stations ?
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/off at a tangent...

Quote....


What’s the significance of ‘TwoThirtyVolts’?

In the UK, mains electricity is currently required by law to be delivered at 230 Volts, within a tolerance of +10% / –6%, that is, within the range 253 Volts to 216.2 Volts. The value of 230 Volts is said to be the ‘nominal voltage’ In an electrical system, ‘voltage’ is the equivalent of ‘pressure’ in a water system, (current being the equivalent of water flow rate).

History of the nominal voltage in the UK

In 1994, to remove a perceived barrier to trade between European countries, the European Commission (EC) decided to ‘harmonise’ the standard UK mains voltage of 240 V and the European standard of 220 V at 230 V. However, the cost of replacing or adjusting all the electricity supply equipment across Europe to actually deliver 230 V was prohibitive, there being no technical advantage whatever in changing, other than ‘harmonisation’. So, to avoid accusations of failure to harmonise, the European Commission simply altered the legal voltage limits - nothing actually changed!

The law in the UK currently states that the mains supply voltage must be 230 V +10% / -6%, thereby allowing the European 220 V system to stay at 220 V and the UK to stay at 240 V, yet both appear to be harmonised!

In 2010, the voltage tolerance band may be increased to +10% but again, in reality, nothing will really change!

Effective date Nominal voltage Permitted tolerance Permitted voltage range
Pre-1995 240 V +6 % / -6 % 225.6 - 254.4 V
1 January 1995 230 V +10 % / -6 % 216.2 - 253.0 V
April 2010 230 V +10 % / -10 % 207.0 - 253.0 V

Old info, however pretty much how it went!
 
Interesting @DRD and @Paul :thumbs: I hadn't considered it being due to voltage. I wonder if the transformer has low/high tap on it and maybe the game is high. I'll have a look this afternoon :)
 
My meter tells me that I get 251 volts here at the mains socket, and I live about 5 miles away from 2 power stations
 
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