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!
Helped a customer purchase and transport this machine back home, where he asked for help giving it a tune up. Game was mostly working except for some switches. Namely the two raccoon switches, and the standup targets on the left and right sides of the playfield. Hmm. All of those switches are on the same switch column drive. So follow the GRN-YEL wire down the playfield and see where it leads.
The raccoon targets were the problem here. Not only were the switch housings absolutely smashed, but the wiring had broken off both switches, causing the switches to fall out of the circuit. Now, you can buy exact replacement switches, but the original Sega switches are garbage. Replace them with regular Williams or older Data East standup targets. Yes, the style is different, but they can cop the abuse much better.
Minor issue with the diverter under the mountain. Some balls were not making it past the diverter, and were falling back down the ramp. Slow mo was useful to capture what was happening here. The diverter armature was not sending balls to the left ramp cleanly, and they were rattling around and losing momentum. Bent the armature to better direct the balls. Much better now.
This game had no rubbers on any of the metal posts. Not good when you're using Glo-balls, as these can get destroyed more easily than regular pinballs. So, we decided to replace all of the rubbers with new ones. We went with "radiant rings" which fluoresce under UV light. Not many games can utilise this type of rubber effectively but it's perfect for Viper as there are UV lights mounted to the playfield.
So everything got stripped off the topside of the playfield, playfield and parts were cleaned, new rubber rings installed, and a playfield protector was installed as well. The rings look really flash in multiball and the protector makes this game play ultra fast. Still some more upgrades and repairs to do on this machine in the future, but for now it's playing really well.
