Repair logs are quick summaries of workshop and on-site repairs. If your machine needs a service, 📬 Contact Us to discuss how we can help!

Scared Stiff was in for a general service after a few years of storage. After an initial check-over and first boot, the game came to life with a factory settings restored message. Lovely! This means memory is no longer being kept by the CPU board. Sure enough, the batteries had leaked. 🔋 Last replaced in 2011! Thankfully, only minor damage to the battery holder, which was replaced with a button cell.

Now we could start a game and give things a bit more of a test. Gameplay was a bit wonky. Sometimes a switch would register in gameplay that shouldn't have. Sometimes the game would display errors about switch ground shorts. Didn't seem to be much of a pattern, until I realised that all of the affected switches were optos. Jiggling connectors on the MPU board didn't have any effect. So next port of call was the opto board under the playfield. Scared Stiff uses a lot of optos, so this is a 16 opto board. This board was RAGGED ☢️ The 470 uf capacitor had spilled it guts everywhere. First time I've actually seen electrolyte bubbling out of the capacitor when it is under load. Cool! 😎 These boards are available to buy but I was impatient and wanted it done today, so I just rebuilt it. About half of the board components removed, chemical treatment, sanding, and new components installed. All optos working as intended now!

There were some odd display artefacts and sound effects that played when they shouldn't. Sometimes lines would appear on the display. Sometimes the display fonts would change. Totally whacky behaviour. 🤪 Since there were issues with the sound and the display, first suspect was the audio/visual board. Things checked out OK here visually, and the ROMs were good. Fiddling around with the ribbon cables revealed the problem was at the I/O connector between the CPU and the audio/visual board. Jiggling around got the display to do all kinds of weird stuff. New ribbon cable and reflowed solder on the header pins. All displaying and sounding normal now.

Finished off with the basics. Playfield cleaned. New rubber rings. Globes replaced. Switches adjusted. Coil assemblies checked. Ready to scare again! 😱

Repair logs are quick summaries of workshop and on-site repairs. If your machine needs a service, 📬 Contact Us to discuss how we can help!

💪 This Franky was an amputee! One of his arms had broken off. A shame, because his ball throw is the best part of the game, and he certainly can't do that without his arms! The shaft that his arm bolts to has a thread for a nut to secure the arm. The threaded section was sheared off. With some creative welding of a spare bolt to the shaft, the threaded section was back!

With the arm back on, there was still a lot of adjustment to be done. First, the rest position of the arms needs to be adjusted so the hands sit just below the ramp exit points, otherwise the ball will get hung up, or it will fall off the hands. There is a "stop bracket" next to the arm shaft which you can use to fine-tune this. You can raise or lower the ramp slightly if you need more room.

With the arms fixed, I moved onto the various lamp issues. None of the general illumination lamps on the playfield were working except for ONE! Some of them were blown, but most were still intact. However they weren't lighting up due to a lack of power. A dodgy lamp connector on the power supply was the problem. Some of the crimp terminals were making poor contact, and the solder on the rear side of the board had dried up and cracked. New connector, new crimps, reflowed solder, and the lamps were back.

Then I moved onto the insert lamps. Most of these were not working, too, but this was just because most of them had blown. About 40 lamps later, they were all shining bright again. One lamp was troublesome, which was the red lamp above the shooter lane. This one has a connector adjacent to the ball trough which gets pulled quite tight. One of the wires had come loose from the connector, and needed to be reinserted to get this lamp working again.

Another issue was the ball launch switch. It wasn't working. The launcher on Franky is a giant lever, which actuates a microswitch in the cabinet. The actuator on this switch was a little bent, so the switch wasn't being triggered when the lever was pulled. Bent it back with a switch adjuster and it was working fine again.

The coin mechanism wasn't always accepting coins, either. The small solenoid that pulls inwards to direct coins to the "accept" path was puling in too slowly. This was a power issue; there was a poor connection in the screw terminal that supplied the credit board with power. This game had a weird credit board, too. Not an original Data East one. Never seen one of these before!

A couple more switch adjustments and a good playfield clean and this machine was "alive" again! 🧟

Repair logs are quick summaries of workshop and on-site repairs. If your machine needs a service, 📬 Contact Us to discuss how we can help!



🔋 Had a few service calls relating to power issues on Jersey Jack games recently. The newest patient is Guns N' Roses (Jersey Jack). Primary symptom was no activity on power up. No lights, no sounds, nothing except for a very slight hum. Few things checked first including the main line fuse, power switch, and power cord. These were all good. Into the backbox we go! Here there was no activity whatsoever from the main computer. No fan spin. This is a pretty typical indicator of battery failure. Indeed, the battery was completely flat at 0.5 volts.

Put a new one in, but still no joy when turning the game on. At this point you need to "jump start" the motherboard by connecting two terminal pins on the motherboard. This is a fiddly procedure but there are videos that guide you through the process on JJP's website in the support section. Once that was done, the game booted back up. It had lost its BIOS settings due to the battery going flat, so a keyboard was needed to set the time and confirm the BIOS settings before it could fully boot into the operating system and a game could actually start.

Gave the playfield a clean and checked all of the coils and switches. Found a funny switch issue on the left ramp. The switch actuator wire was back-to-front, meaning it was never actually triggering the switch when a ball went up the ramp. It had been this way from the factory. Must have been a Friday afternoon job! A couple of other switches needed adjusting, too. The action button had come loose from its mount, too. 

One complaint from the owner was that the flipper buttons kept falling out of the cabinet. This is a common problem when the plastic rim that keeps them in place wears down a little. A simple fix is to add a circlip (or similar device) to the end of the button so it can't be pushed through the hole. 

Levelled the game, gave it a play test, and it was good to go. 👍

This callout was initially to fix a non-booting issue. Simple enough; no 5 volts getting to the CPU. A connector on the power supply was dodgy. However in assessing this I noticed that the CPU board batteries had been moved to a remote battery holder. The batteries had leaked, so the holder had to go. But the CPU board was also covered in battery corrosion. It was still working, for now, but needed repair before it got much worse.

Took the CPU board, stripped the components off (⚰️ RIP to another CPU), treated the alkali, recoated the board, and repopulated with new components and a button cell battery. Working well now.

With the game now booting and working properly I could focus on the issues on the playfield. Switch in the upkicker was not responding. The actuator wire had broken off. These early Data East VUKs use very thin actuators on the switches which break all the time. Replaced with a thicker wire one.

Right flipper switch was also being weird. High resistance even when closed. Internal switch contacts had given up the ghost. New switch installed.

Replaced a few lamps, checked all switches and coils, and cleaned the playfield down to finish off. A fast, fun game to play. Love the speed check ramp feature! 🏎️

👏 Thank you Adelaide! We are finally back from the Australian Pinball Expo, where we were looking after 200+ games over the course of the weekend! While it was full on, we got to do some pretty special stuff.

🏗️ Worked on an Atari Hercules. Largest pinball machine ever made. Only a handful of people on the planet have ever worked on one.

🕺 Set up and fixed some rare 1960s electromechanical games. These games are almost as old as my parents and are in way better condition! Fantastic pieces of pinball history.

🕹️ Played some cool games I've not seen much of before. Gold Wings: awesome soundtrack and a fun layout. Al's Garage Band: not many of these Alvin G games around. Whoa Nellie: love the retro-style playfield. Funny, too!

👨‍🔧 But of course, we spent most of the weekend repairing games as they broke down. Do you know what's involved in looking after this many games over the course of a weekend? Now you do, because below is my repair log (not counting the 50 or so stuck balls we had to attend to)!

Swords of Fury. Lost settings. Text in German and not in free play. Verified battery voltages and changed settings as required.

Strikes and Spares. Mid pop bumper not activating. Switch adjusted.

Sinbad. No free play. Test button not responding. Wires from coin door to MPU board were hacked up. Dodgy connection identified and fixed. Set back to free play.

Supersonic. Slingshot kicker not returning. Loose assembly under playfield. Right sling not registering either. Diode broke off. Soldered back on.

Harry Potter. I/O board issue. Reconnected USB at PC and driver board.

Central Park. Flipper movement was hesitant going both up and down. Retensioned spring. Still a bit lame. Gunk built up in flipper bushing. Needs clean out.

Elton John. Lamp board comm issue. Replugged I/O board.

Fire. Slingshots not working. Coil fuse blown. Upper ones locked on. Disconnected them. Attempt transistor repair but did not stop them locking on. Likely CPU issue related to battery corrosion (extensive).

Star Trek TNG. Left launcher coil not working. Broken wire. New wire run and repinned connector.

Devil Riders. No sound. Sounds board not plugged in and volume pot set too low.

Duotron. Ball stuck in centre hole and would not eject. Game not sensing ball due to dirty switch contact.

Hurricane. Ball stuck on Ferris wheel. Belt had lost tension and was slipping. Retensioned.

DE Simpsons. Ball stuck. Broken plastic on left side was letting balls fly past it after hitting the drop targets. Repositioned plastic and cable tied to make secure.

Venom. Right VUK not working. Wire came off coil. Resoldered.

Elvira HOH. Cellar door malfunction reported. Opto board under playfield was intermittent. Dodgy solder joint somewhere. Wire connections and opto resoldered.

Queen. Autolaunch assembly broken at weld point. Repaired with bolt and nut. Will need replacement for long term reliability.

Flintstones. Leg bolts were loose. Leg bracket threads had been stripped. Installed nuts on inside of leg bolts.

Hercules. Loose left flipper bat. Added Loctite and reinstalled screw.

Stern Playboy. Rubber had broken off and was blocking VUK. Removed broken rubber; installed new one.

Sorcerer. Binding flipper bat. Flipper assy. cleaned, reassembled with proper gaps.

Rollercoaster Tycoon. Display showing garbled data. Likely poor tension on display board power connector. Replugged ribbon and power cables.

Queen. Drop target not dropping. Spring was broken. Installed new one. Also found a loose connector on lamp boards. Replugged. Also fixed a wire that had come out of one of the drop target connectors.

Godzilla. Flipper no worky. Broken flipper link. New link installed.

Portal. VUK 3 was not kicking out balls. Increased VUK strength in settings.

DE Simpsons. Displays showing segments locked on when they shouldn't be. Replugged ribbon cables to no effect. Likely a board issue at this point; but did not proceed further as it was perfectly playabe.

Alice in Wonderland. Saucer eject on mini playfield was too weak. Ball was stuck. Decreased coil pulse timing.

Top Score. Ball was lost. It was stuck on a pop bumper which had a misadjusted wafer. Adjusted switch for proper operation.

Pro Football. Flipper was machine gunning when held in. EOS switch was misadjusted. In additin, flipper hold winding was broken. Resoldered coil wires and terminals and winding was repaired.

Gold Wings. Display was blank. Likely due to failing edge connector pins on the display board. Pins were cleaned and connector checked.

Banzai Run. Sticking flipper button. Cleaned out and adjusted.

Shaq Attaq. Post came loose from above playfield left outlane. Reinstalled post.

Alligator. Non responsive to credit button. Relay ladder had fallen off one of the relays. The score motor was unable to reset. Adjusted relay switch leaves and reattached the relay ladder.

Jurassic Park Lost World. Balls stuck in egg kickout. Removed balls and adjusted assembly.

ACDC. Rubber was broken near pop bumpers, blocking balls. Replaced. Also found the N in TNT switch not registering. Bad connection at opto board. Replugged. Also found the right slingshot not registering. Diode broke off. Resoldered.

3 Musketeers. VUK at top of playfield not ejecting properly. Wireform needed adjustment. Up post was also trapping balls. Needed adjustment to sit level with playfield.

Joker Poker. Blowing coil fuse. Upper right flipper coil was burned up due to badly adjusted EOS switch. New coil installed and EOS adjusted properly.

El Dorado. Not completing reset. Start relay switch contact was bad. Adjusted.

Duotron. Pop bumper was not working. Poor switch contact. Adjusted.

Cross Town. Not resetting properly. 1 point relay was stuck on. Leaf blades had fallen out of the switch ladder, causing them to bind. Reinstalled.

Shadow. Sticking right flipper. Cleaned and realigned.

Howzat. Sticking flipper button. Cleaned and reinstalled.

Total Nuclear Annihilation. Pop bumper not working. Wire had come loose from coil. Upper right slingshot was also machine gunning and adding score when flipper was activated. Poorly adjusted switch.

Stern Star Trek. Kicking out too many balls into the trough. Trough switch 1 not working. Readjusted trough board and replugged.

Hercules. Lamp issues. Replaced some burned out bulbs. Some sockets will need replacing.

Queen. Ball shooter bracket loose again. Bolt had come loose. Reinstalled bolt and nut. Game was also not registering ball falling into outhole. Trough switches needed adjustment.

Space Invaders. Wire ball guide came loose. Reinstalled.

Hobbit. Opto boards caught fire. Short from coil power circuit to switch matrix due to loose shooter lane switch. Catastrophic failure; opto boards need replacement and driver board needs repair. Could not do on site.

Road Show. Ted's mouth not working. Fault on motor driver board. Inductor had broken off the board. Resoldered. Eddy switches also needed adjustment.

Champion Pub. Up post coil had melted. Loose ground braid had contacted coil lugs and locked the coil on. Dressed ground braid properly and replaced coil.