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    🦅 Repair log: Judge Dredd (Bally, 1993)

    1993 Bally Judge Dredd Repair log

    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!


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    This Dredd had a rough time after moving house. The removalists destroyed the topper, breaking off its wings! It looks more like a sphynx than an eagle now. Thankfully, Planetary Pinball still have reproduction toppers in stock so a new one is on the way! While we wait for that to arrive, let’s deal with the other issues…

     

    First up are the test buttons on the coin door. Two of the buttons were very sticky and wouldn’t register consistent switch closures. These switches cop a lot of abuse, and they were cheap switches to begin with. Normally I shy away from contact cleaner in pinball machines but it works quite well at dissolving the muck and improving the action on these switches in particular. One spray on each switch and both were working nicely again!

     

    Upper left flipper was being weird. It was very weak when it worked, but pressing the flipper button rarely got it to move at all. Let’s look at the flipper switch in the cabinet. Dredd needs a unique opto interrupter and bracket due to where the opto board sits in the cabinet. These were missing, and they aren’t readily available. A regular opto board had been put in its place, with a long metal blade taped to the interrupter to make it work. Not a bad solution actually, but the tape had perished and the blade was loose. Reinstalled a new interrupter plastic and secured the blade to it properly.

     

    Some general illumination lamps were out in the backbox. Specifically the bottom half. These are all on the same GI circuit. Following the wire back to the power driver board, the J120/121 connectors were fine. So were the fuses. The problem was all the way back on the input side, at J115 where lamp power comes in from the transformer. The connector had been messed with and somebody had tried to solder some of the wires back into it, causing a couple to get loose. Installed a new connector with new terminal pins which made a solid connection and the lamps started working again. 

     

    What else? Battery was flat, so that was also replaced. Some vertical lines appeared on the display which were caused by a loose ribbon cable on the display driver board. One playfield switch needed adjustment. The playfield also got a clean. All working well now! 


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    ⚽ Repair log: World Cup Soccer (Bally, 1994)

    1994 Bally Repair log World Cup Soccer

    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!


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    I sold this game to a customer about ten years ago. He still has it! Last week he asked me to give it a service as it wasn't working properly. When I got there I could see that its memory had been lost as the message on the display indicated that factory settings were restored. Unfortunately the batteries had not been changed in some time and were now toast. Luckily, WPC-S games had the batteries mounted to a small PCB above the CPU board. In this case the small PCB was toast but the CPU was fine. I removed the small PCB and installed a lithium cell instead. No more leak risks in future!


    Another issue presented itself once the game was booting up into attract mode. No sound or music. Sound board looked OK, so I tried reseating the ribbon cable. Next time I powered up, sound was back. A pretty good indication that the ribbon cable was on the way out. New one installed and sounds were back to normal.


    The only other issue I could see was a set of lamps not working. This was due to cracked solder on the lamp PCB. Once I fixed that, I played a few test games, and couldn't fault the game anywhere else. Just needed to replace the balls as they were getting a little pitted. A pretty good run for ten years! Maybe I'll see it in another ten. 😁 


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    🩺 Restoration log: Doctor Who (Bally, 1992)

    1992 Bally Doctor Who Restoration

    Restoration logs are detailed reports on the repairs and restoration activities undertaken to bring a machine back to life! Restoration logs are longer and more in-depth than our standard repair logs. Whether your machine needs minor repairs or a full-blown restoration, 📬 Contact Us to discuss how we can help!


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    Finally! I've been working on this one for a while. A full restoration including new cabinet decals, new playfield, new plastics, new ramps, colour display, circuit board work, and all of the associated madness that goes with those things! Let's dive in.


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    👨‍⚕️ Repair log: Doctor Who (Bally, 1992)

    1992 Bally Doctor Who Repair log

    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!


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    Plenty of fun repairs to get this Doctor Who running at full speed. First problem was an easy one. No action from the right flipper at all. Cabinet switch worked fine, but the coil would not fire. Took a look under the playfield and saw that the BLU/YEL wire had broken off the coil, as well as the power and hold coil windings. This wire is the 50 volt supply from the flipper board, and without it you'll never get any flipper action. This coil had a hard life as the lugs had all broken off at some point, but you can use the eyelets as a convenient solder point as well. Once the wire and windings were reattached, the flipper came back to life.


    Error reports indicated failures of some of the opto switches on the mini playfield opto bank. First step is to raise the mini playfield so you can activate the switches in test mode. And this was the first roadblock. The mini playfield would not move up or down at all! We will deal with that a bit later... but to get around this, you can unbolt the gearbox and cam assembly from underneath the mini playfield. Remove them, and you can now move the mini playfield by hand. Just don't drop it on your fingers!


    With the switches accessible, I found three out of five were unresponsive. Taking the target bank assembly off the mini playfield gives you access to the opto boards for inspection. The problem with one switch was obvious right away. Broken ORG/GRN wire on the receiver board. Soldered it back on and that switch started working again. Two more to go. These turned out to be dead transmitter optos. You can check these with your phone camera; a glow indicates they are working, no glow indicates they are not. These two were replaced, and all five switches were back in action.


    Back to the mini playfield movement issues. The gearbox was rooted. I could move the cam freely by hand, which is a bad sign. I cracked the gearbox open to get a better look. The problem was the gear attached to the main arbour. It was freewheeling on the shaft. A pretty common failure, particularly on Doctor Who. Off to my mate Darren who is a great welder. He silver soldered the gear and spline back onto the shaft. Greased the gears and rebuilt the gearbox. Back in the game, the mini playfield moves up and down really well now.


    Last issue (for now!). No sound effects or music at all. Game booted up and made two "bong" sounds. The sound board has its own processor, so the tones tell you its status. Two bongs means the 6264 RAM at U9 has failed. I've seen plenty of cases where a failed RAM will not trigger any unusual messages and will appear to boot normally. However U9 is usually the problem. I removed the chip, installed a socket, and plugged in a new one. Replaced the electrolytic caps at the same time for good measure. Sounds are all playing again!


    That's enough excitement for now! Hopefully that keeps this machine going for a very long... time!


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    ✈️ Repair log: Supersonic (Bally, 1979)

    1979 Bally Repair log Supersonic
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    ✈️ Always loved the backglass on this machine. Perfectly captures "the magic of flight" at a time when the Concorde had just entered service and the world still seemed like a big place...


    Anyway. Where were we? Few things to fix on this Supersonic. Game booted up and played OK... except for the total lack of playfield solenoids. Sure enough, playfield fuse was blown. Replaced it and powered up again. Fuse held until the very end of the boot sequence and blew again. I could tell that it was blowing the instant the drop target reset coil was firing. The coil was very crispy, and measured only 2 ohms. It should be about 10. Clearly this one was fried. Hard to find a replacement for these big drop target reset coils (24-1400). However, most of the large size coils will work. I found a 26-1900 which fit, and worked a treat. 


    A few displays were wonky. Two were missing some digits, one was flickering. Reflowing the header pins on these and replacing the six 100k ohm resistors solved these issues. But still couldn't get the last display to light a hundreds digit. No problem... here's a sneaky trick. The ball in play and credit display don't need a hundreds unit, so whack the display into that slot and nobody will ever know! 🤫


    During testing I realised some of the switches weren't registering nicely. Cleaned their contacts which certainly helped, but some were still hard to register. Took a closer look and realised that someone had cut the capacitor off every single switch on the playfield. Sigh. These are needed for the CPU to read switch closures properly, so don't cut them. Soldered them all back on and switches were all good. Someone had also cut the playfield tilt switch out of circuit too. Savages!


    Lots of lamps needed replacement/adjustment. Playfield got a good clean. Checked the backbox and noted a bit of corrosion on the CPU board, but we will deal with that another time. Sound board also needs a rebuild as some of the sounds are a bit scratchy and out of tune, so we'll do that at some point, too. But for now it plays nice and fast like it should!


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    Repair log: Scared Stiff (Bally, 1996)

    1996 Bally Repair log Scared Stiff

    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!


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    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! 😱