Played a couple of games pinball today

A couple of months ago I shorted a switch to a coil on Medieval Madness killing multiple components. I spent several weeks following the troubleshooting guide (“Check Fuse F106/F101“) and replacing almost every recommended part without fixing the problem. Every time I have thought about playing pinball since then, I’d look over at Medieval Madness and feel too guilty to play another machine.

This week I handed my game boards over to Pat at Endless Pinball for some professional troubleshooting. Now that the guilt has lifted I played a couple of games on Pirates of the Caribbean at home this morning. :)

Medieval Madness: Pinball Repair Log

My wife and I are now the proud owner of one of the grail games of pinball collectors: Medieval Madness. We bought it from a game room store on September 3rd, and it ended up having some issues when we got it home. I have been gaining a lot of confidence repairing this machine as all of the issues have been pinpointed withing a couple of hours. So, I am enjoying my time repairing this machine. On the plus side, the machines warranty includes all the parts I need for 90 days.

ISSUES

  1. Left Flipper Malfunctions:
    • Flipper stays up for about a second after release.
    • In Switch Edge test mode there is a hum/buzz that occurs as the lights on the switch matrix display are finally turning off. (This sound emanates from playfield, not the speakers.)
    • Lane Change: At one point I saw the “R” and “E” alternate back and forth after the left flipper button is released. (I assume all four of the letters to spell “FIRE” do this, but I haven’t watched closely enough to verify.)
  2. End of Ball / Multiball.
  3. Flash Lamp Shorts.
  4. Catapult Kicker Power.
  5. Right Troll Inconsistency.
  6. Castle Gate Inconsistency

Read the latest updates on my progress on CoinOpSpace.com »

Comet: Pinball Repair Log

Comet is one of two non functional pinball machines I picked up for at a Garage Sale about two months ago. The other is Space Station (whose repair log is here).

ISSUES

  1. Battery corrosion — but no leaks.
  2. All displays are dead.
  3. Display Power Supply voltage problem.
  4. All ramps are damaged to some degree. The middle ramp needs repair.

Read the latest updates on my progress on CoinOpSpace.com »

Hack my Pac: 4-in-1 Pac-Man Menu

When I bought my above average Pac-Man cabinet, I wondered if there was a way to choose between playing Pac-Man or Ms. Pac-Man. My wife said she wanted to play Ms. Pac-Man with the fast mode enabled.

Of course I first ran across the 96-in-1 Multipac. But why in the world would you want to have 500 variations on Pac-Man (plus Pengo)??? Ok, Pengo would be cool, but I don’t want to play “Pac Electric Cowboy”, or “Pac Mr. Roboto”!

Thankfully I found Jason Souza’s 4-in-1 Pac Hack. WOW! This is exactly what I wanted. No more, no less.

Before I could install the 4-in-1 Pac-Man multigame, I had to get the Pac-Man operational. (Note to self: make sure daughter boards are not upside down on day 1!) Since I was already ordering parts from Bob Roberts, I asked him to include the supplies to install this hack. Not including shipping, it cost me $26.50 for the two ROMs, ROM programming, ROM sockets, and wire. So, after flipping the Z80 Buss Sync Controller, replacing 2 RAM chips, and replacing the sound transistor, we were ready for the hack.

Two months pass… while I am waiting on parts for my Space Station Pinball repair I decide it is time to hack my pac. :-)

It was very tedious, and at times difficult to solder the tiny wires to the chip legs. And then there was the worry that I would connect things up wrong, so I quadruple checked every wire. I even used a continuity checker to ensure none of the legs I soldered were accidentally shorted to the leg next to it (there were a couple of those that needed to be corrected).

I am almost embarrassed to share this with you… it looks like my pac board got attacked by a spaghetti monster. But the end result was worth it. :-)

Space Station: Pinball Repair Log

Space Station is one of two non functional pinball machines I picked up for at a Garage Sale about two months ago (the other is Comet). I decided to start with this one because it is at least partially playable. :-)

Read the latest updates on my progress on CoinOpSpace.com »