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    πŸƒ Repair log: Jokerz! (Williams, 1988)

    1988 Jokerz Repair log Williams

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


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    πŸƒ It's always humbling repairing a machine the same age as yourself. And some of them are in better condition than I am! How many other devices and appliances in your home are 38 years old? Not many, I'll bet!


    Anyway. A quick call out to get a Jokerz up and running again. There was nothing happening at boot up except for an "adjustment" message on the display. However, you couldn't read all of it as only the top display was working. The full message should actually read "adjustment failure" which means that the battery backup has failed. One look at the batteries showed why... they were toast! New battery holder and new batteries installed. Thankfully they had already been relocated from the CPU board at some point in the past. A great idea as it saves the CPU board from death if the batteries leak like this.


    Now onto the display. Voltages were all good and data signals all good. Took a closer look at the display to see what was going on. The display is actually made up of two separate glass panels. If you see white particulates and dark segments throughout the panel, it's a sure fire sign that it has outgassed, just like this bottom one had. New display on order.


    Gave the game a clean, changed some rubber rings, fixed a bunch of non-working lamps, and adjusted a couple of switches. Playing very well; it's a pleasure when older machines are taken care of!


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    🎣 Repair log: Fish Tales (Williams, 1992)

    1992 Fish Tales Repair log Williams

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

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    🎣 Who doesn't love Fish Tales? It's one of my favourite games to play, and one of my favourite to work on as well! This one started off as a service call to install new rubber rings, but turned into a bigger service to fix much more than that.


    First, a playfield teardown to get to all of the old rubbers and give everything a good clean. Plenty of broken lamps to replace while we're at it, too. This took a fair while due to the disassembly, but once it was back together it was looking much better!


    A cursory check of the backbox as the game was not retaining memory. The batteries expired in 2015, so that's no surprise! The original battery holder was still on the CPU board with a bit of corrosion on the lower terminals. Thankfully, no damage to the board itself, so a new lithium battery holder was installed.


    It was impossible to drop the volume down, or do much within the test menus, as one of the diagnostic switches wasn't working. No problem with the connectors or CPU board; the switch itself had died. Replaced it.


    Playtesting revealed a few more issues. The flap at the top of the playfield was taped in the up position. That's a weird mod! This gate is controlled by a coil which opens the gate on ball launch, and also when shooting the right orbit when long cast is lit. Otherwise it is meant to block balls so you can enter the pop bumpers from a right orbit shot. It appeared to be propped open because balls were not making it around the orbit on launch. But this was nothing to do with the gate. The balls were bouncing off the ball guide at the very top edge of the playfield, losing momentum, and falling into the LIE lanes. This was caused by the metal ball guide at the top right of the playfield. It needed bending to guide the ball properly towards the orbit lane. A very fiddly adjustment which needed multiple bends to get right.


    Next: the drop target was not working correctly. It has a secondary coil which pushes the target down to open the shot to the Caster's Club. This coil wasn't working. Taking a look at the assembly, I noticed the armature which pushes on the drop target to drop it was totally missing. Found it lying in the bottom of the cab. It needed a new extension spring and brass armature. Both were installed and the assembly was working as intended again.


    Lucky last. Balls landing in the eject hole at the top of the playfield were not coming back out. I could hear the coil trying to activate, but there was no movement at all in the assembly. I noticed the nylon link was broken. This is surely it! Nope, even with a new link it wouldn't move. I took it apart and realised the plunger was way too long; long enough that it was hitting the coil stop when at rest. Absolutely no space for movement of the plunger, and therefore no action from the mechanism. Replaced it with the correct size plunger and it came back to life.


    Back to catching fish and telling tales! πŸ€₯


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    Repair log: Funhouse (Williams, 1990)

    1990 Funhouse Repair log Williams

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


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    Another Rudy with various issues! First was the display. It wasn't working except for the faintest edge of a letter or number every so often. After some probing I found that the negative high voltage display rail was too low (~20v). No improvement after new caps and transistors. The fault was with R48 which was preventing this half of the regulator circuit turning on. With the circuit rebuilt the display was back in service.


    Lamps were next. Lots of controlled (insert) lamps were dead. Mixture of new wedge globes and new sockets needed here. The playfield general illumination was also not working, while the backbox lamps were fine. The lamps themselves were all good, so the problem was on the driver board. The power input connector at J115 had been hacked up a bit with a small Molex connector used to replace a burned section. The crimps in this connector had failed, which cut off all power to the playfield GI. New crimps and the playfield was bright again.


    Last, the lower left flipper was a bit weak, and sticking up sometimes. Two issues here. The first was a dirty and gummed up flipper mechanism. Once cleaned and resleeved, power was back. But the flipper would still stick up sometimes. The contact points on the high-current flipper switch contacts were sticking. New flipper switch went in and the sticking stopped.


    A quick clean to finish up and Rudy was back to his old tricks!


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    Repair log: Tri Zone (Williams, 1979)

    1979 Repair log Tri Zone Williams

    ο»ΏRepair logs are quick summaries of workshop and on-site repairs. If your machine needs a service, πŸ“¬ Contact Us to discuss how we can help!


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    I haven't had to do any System 6 game repairs in a while, so here goes! This game was having a couple of issues. The top pop bumper wasn't working. There was a bunch of hackery under the playfield from someone trying to solve this issue in the past. The old solenoid was shorted, so that was replaced. Switches were adjusted for correct operation. This is very important for the special solenoid circuit, or the coil will lock on! The driving transistor in the backbox was also fried, so it was replaced as well. Pop bumper was back in action after that.


    Next was a sound issue. No game sounds would play although the sound board would play its diagnostic tune when the button was pressed. A faulty sound select switch was the cause.


    Finally, a flipper issue. The left flipper wouldn't work. Flipper assembly was all OK as was the cabinet switch. The connector in the wiring harness between the playfield and backbox was not making proper contact. After it was properly seated the flipper came back to life.


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    Repair log: The Getaway: High Speed II (Williams, 1992)

    1992 Getaway Repair log Williams

    ο»ΏRepair logs are quick summaries of workshop and on-site repairs. If your machine needs a service, πŸ“¬ Contact Us to discuss how we can help!

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    This machine was having switch issues. Half of the switches weren't working. Severe corrosion on the CPU board due to battery leakage was to blame. Duraleaks strike again! A new CPU board and connectors were installed and things were back to normal. Great to have Coin-Up Pinball around; an Aussie supplier of these CPU boards. A few other minor repairs and adjustments were also done. The most interesting was a lost ball which had gotten stuck in the ball trough.... it took a little while to find!


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    Repair log: Johnny Mnemonic (Williams, 1995)

    1995 Johnny Mnemonic Repair log Williams

    ο»ΏRepair logs are quick summaries of workshop and on-site repairs. If your machine needs a service, πŸ“¬ Contact Us to discuss how we can help!

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    I've never met a Johnny that didn't have issues with the Cyberglove assembly. This one was no different. It's an awesome mechanism, but finnicky. This one was having issues with the motor that drives the hand forward and back. It would randomly lock on, sending the glove forwards or backwards until it crashed into the end of the worm drive, blowing a fuse.


    So, time for a full rebuild. Disassembled and cleaned. Gearboxes cleaned and lubed. Encoder boards serviced. Turns out, the issue was faulty optical switches on one of the encoder boards. They were oddball optos that were not the correct part, and there was some hackery on the board. Installed new optos, new connectors, new transistors, and we're good to go again!