Triumphs and Failures

“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. ”
-Theodore Roosevelt

I think one sign of intellect is knowing when to throw in the towel.  I don’t do it often, I generally like the feeling of satisfaction when I get to the end of a long arduous task.  Sometimes though, when you’re beating your head against a wall and things are backing up in the queue, you need to call in “The Wolf”.  Long story short: Comet board has been sent out.

I’m back on Whirlwind and Monopoly now.  Monopoly has a bit of an accelerated timeline so I spent the better part of today on it.  I put Whirlwind back together a few days ago though. 

It still needs some minor items (coil sleeves, flipper rebuild, etc).  Mostly under-playfield stuff, but the aesthetics are done at this point.  Probably back at Game Galaxy Arcade by the end of the month at the latest.

Side Note:  If you’ve never been to Game Galaxy Arcade in Nashville, you’re missing out.  I think it’s approaching or has passed the 30 pinball machine count.  In addition there are multiple classic arcades if that’s your bag.  Stop, go drive there now.  You can read the rest of this later.  You can also find them on Facebook here.  For you Alabama folks they have a location down in Huntsville, AL as well.

Now that you’re back from the Arcade… Monopoly teardown went well.

Some missing hardware here and there but nothing major.  It’s amazing the difference between working on a game made in 1984 and one made in 2001, but also the similarities are pretty interesting.  Some things just work well I suppose so why change them.

So I ordered a bunch of parts for Monopoly and Getaway.

I think I’ve got the Getaway playfield lift bracket issue worked out now but I need some springs. Here’s some pictures for a nice visual aid of what the hell I’m talking about.  The left slide is bent outward, causing the cabinet scrapping.  Springs on both sides are missing which cause the mechanism to lock.. so, the playfield won’t stay up without them.  Springs on order.. moving on.

Not much to report other than my epic failure, but lots of initial recon and teardown pictures of Monopoly are now posted.  Enjoy.

Sockets, ramps and garages packed like meat lockers

So I have the Comet all sorted except for this Column 4 issue.  The special solenoids all work fine now that I’ve replaced U6 and U7.  Yeah for small victories.  I have a logic probe and a few more possibly bad ICs on order so again, on hold.  Few pics where I replaced U45, U6, & U7.  There’s a capacitor missing below U6 in one of the pictures which has since been replaced.  Got damaged in the removal process.  Here’s a tip:  if you remove a chip, socket it.  That way when it fries next time, you don’t need to desolder and solder again and put undue stress on your board.  These things weren’t meant to be exposed to chip removal 10 times.

Check out those sweet new laminated instruction cards.. now the old Comet is ballin.  Back under the tarp she goes until another electronics delivery is made.  What else can I work on?  The Whirlwind..

Installed some Cliffy hole protectors for both of the scoops (the metal things that go around the big holes in the playfield)  LOTS of wear usually occurs here and these protect the playfield from getting chewed up around the edges of the hole.

Replaced the two yellow standup targets.  One of them appears to have been fabricated out of some piece of yellow plastic (see the square one).. very strange, but not horribly offensive unless you really were to look at it.  The other target had just been bashed too many times and you can see the metal rivet in the center starting to spread out.

On to the moving ramp.  The one on the game now has cracked plastic and rusted metal.  Must replace with shiny bits.  So we flip over this main ramp and woah.. somebody has repaired this ramp at the spot where the two pieces meet.  They’ve riveted the one ramp to the other and then sealed over all of it with epoxy.  Awesomeness.  Dremel.  Removed.  Now I gotta re-epoxy this thing, let it set, drill out some screw holes for the new ramp, and attach.

In the meantime I opened up the backbox again to look at the connectors.  All look good except the GI connector is a little bit toasty so put that and the header pins on the “to-do” list.  So at this point we’re pretty close to wrapping it up once I get that moving ramp attached.  What else do I need to do?

Clean the inserts

Rebuild the flippers

Replace all coil sleeves

Replace drop target decals

Clean up the cabinet a bit

One more mod I’m looking at doing as well but we’ll talk about that later.

So I opened up the Getaway last night thinking I might find any easy solution to why the ramp in the back isn’t functioning properly only to open a can of worms.  The damn hinges that the playfield pivots on are both jacked up.  You’ll have to forgive me if I didn’t take any pictures as I’d have to hold the playfield with one hand, grab my camera with the other and shoot.

Long story short, both springs are missing and I may have to yank out the whole playfield to fix it.  Needless to say I didn’t look at the ramp assembly very much as I leaned over into the cabinet with one hand and held up the playfield with the other.  Now picture me falling into the cabinet with my feet dangling towards the sky and some lamp sockets pressed into my back.  That didn’t happen but I can picture it so I’m moving on until I get the hinges fixed.

Ah crap.. garage is getting full.  I gotta move something out.  Whirlwind and Comet are both pretty close at this point.  Monopoly has arrived.

Not much wrong with Monopoly.  One of the kickout holes has trouble firing occasionally, the bank door has trouble opening sometimes, and I noticed it throwing up a tilt warning once or twice when it shouldn’t but for the most part it’s functioning just fine.  Needs LEDs and a good cleaning.