Now that the Hot Tip is working again, I have started work on re-assembling the Harlem Globetrotters pinball table back box.
After getting it all painted up, the next step was to get the shell pieces back installed.
Its amazing, how I am able to miss important pieces when photographing the old set up. I took over 40 pictures of the old shell as I took out the boards, mounting brackets and metal sheets, and I never got one picture that showed if two pieces were supposed to connect or not.
oh well, I am doing my best on this and should soon be able to turn it back on and see if it works!!!
Saturday, October 14, 2017
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Hot Tip Finally Working
After my soldering woes, I was getting close to throwing in the towel on the Hot Tip and start looking for a replacement board.
I pulled the board again, scraped some more, plugged the board back in, turned it on. And again - no solenoid action except one that was on continuously until the fuse blew.
I lifted the playfield and thought I might unsolder the solenoid that was having trouble to see if that helped, but when I looked underneath it looked to be in great shape and worked manually just fine. Besides, the only thing that changed was my soldering in the new DIP-Switch.
sigh...
Time to pull the board out and scrape some more, I must still have a short where I accidentally over-soldered the connections.
This time I noticed one of the chips was halfway out of the chip holder, one side was up high and the other down low. I pushed it in, scrapped some more and put it all back together.
Low and behold it worked!
Now that I think about it, it may have been the chip all along and I may not have needed to do the scraping at all.
But, now everything seems to work. In test mode, all of the lights, bumpers, switches, etc. all fire just fine. The game plays, scores count, everything is good except...
Now the flippers won't work.
...sigh...
I checked the fuses again, and traced the wires I could see, but whey would any of that have been messed with. All I did was unplug the circuit board a bunch of times. I was really getting nervous that I had somehow totally broke the table and was getting ready to post a "help me" message to the pinball forum when I had a thought tug at me. I seem to recall something similar happening on the table. I could not pin it down and I spent all evening trying to remember. Then just as I was heading to bed, I remembered!
There was an extra wire on the connection between the head and the body. Although I never touched it, it was worth checking.
Low and behold (again) it was disconnected!
I reconnected the wire and the flippers started working. It appears the table is back to functioning again. But it was past bedtime so I didn't have much time to try out the DIP-switch and see if it worked correctly.
Today I dug back through my posts and found the relevant one. It details exactly the same problem I had. I don't know why the wire was disconnected, it doesn't plug into the boards I was removing, I must have just hooked it somehow during one of the processes. But hey, at least it is up and running!
I pulled the board again, scraped some more, plugged the board back in, turned it on. And again - no solenoid action except one that was on continuously until the fuse blew.
I lifted the playfield and thought I might unsolder the solenoid that was having trouble to see if that helped, but when I looked underneath it looked to be in great shape and worked manually just fine. Besides, the only thing that changed was my soldering in the new DIP-Switch.
sigh...
Time to pull the board out and scrape some more, I must still have a short where I accidentally over-soldered the connections.
This time I noticed one of the chips was halfway out of the chip holder, one side was up high and the other down low. I pushed it in, scrapped some more and put it all back together.
Low and behold it worked!
Now that I think about it, it may have been the chip all along and I may not have needed to do the scraping at all.
But, now everything seems to work. In test mode, all of the lights, bumpers, switches, etc. all fire just fine. The game plays, scores count, everything is good except...
Now the flippers won't work.
...sigh...
I checked the fuses again, and traced the wires I could see, but whey would any of that have been messed with. All I did was unplug the circuit board a bunch of times. I was really getting nervous that I had somehow totally broke the table and was getting ready to post a "help me" message to the pinball forum when I had a thought tug at me. I seem to recall something similar happening on the table. I could not pin it down and I spent all evening trying to remember. Then just as I was heading to bed, I remembered!
There was an extra wire on the connection between the head and the body. Although I never touched it, it was worth checking.
Low and behold (again) it was disconnected!
I reconnected the wire and the flippers started working. It appears the table is back to functioning again. But it was past bedtime so I didn't have much time to try out the DIP-switch and see if it worked correctly.
Today I dug back through my posts and found the relevant one. It details exactly the same problem I had. I don't know why the wire was disconnected, it doesn't plug into the boards I was removing, I must have just hooked it somehow during one of the processes. But hey, at least it is up and running!
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Another New Table - Meet the Williams Argosy ElectroMechanical Pinball
After playing with the United Brazil Bingo Pin ( link ) I decided that I wanted to try an EM pin.
EM = ElectroMechanical,meaning the pinball machine was made before electronics became available and so it was all done with pure mechanics. Wheels and gears to keep track of targets, scores, balls, money, etc.
Its an interesting mechanical problem and toying with one seemed like it would be a lot of fun. So I kept a lookout for one. This last weekend one popped up. It was an estate sale and there wasn't a lot of info but it was definitely a EM pin so we thought we would go down and take a look.
It turned out to be an Williams Argosy and it was in great looking shape! the backglass was perfect
and the playfield showed almost no signs of wear. It turned on, lights came on, made noise, the wheels clanked but it would not play.
Since it didn't work. We negotiated a price and I think both parties came out happy.
They got some money and I got a pin that looks to be in good shape, hopefully it is something easily fixable!
EM = ElectroMechanical,meaning the pinball machine was made before electronics became available and so it was all done with pure mechanics. Wheels and gears to keep track of targets, scores, balls, money, etc.
Its an interesting mechanical problem and toying with one seemed like it would be a lot of fun. So I kept a lookout for one. This last weekend one popped up. It was an estate sale and there wasn't a lot of info but it was definitely a EM pin so we thought we would go down and take a look.
It turned out to be an Williams Argosy and it was in great looking shape! the backglass was perfect
 | |
| Argosy Pinball Backglass |
Since it didn't work. We negotiated a price and I think both parties came out happy.
They got some money and I got a pin that looks to be in good shape, hopefully it is something easily fixable!
Harlem Globetrotters Soldering
Now that the box for the Harlem Globetrotters pinball table is painted and looks good, I am starting to put everything back together.
As you may recall I pulled everything out of the header ( link ) and painted it.
Time to put it all back in. As I re-assembled the light-panel (The wood with the lights on it) I noticed one of the LED displays had what appears to be burned out resistors on its little board:
Another soldering disaster!
While I was able to get the resistors out of the board, I managed to deconnect the tiny traces and ring that the solder is supposed to connect to - why is my soldering so bad???
I spent all evening soldering them back in, using a meter to verify I have connectivity but I have no way to test them until I get it all put back together.
Looking at my soldering iron, I am going to try and lower the temperature on it. I have it set all the way up, under the theory that hotter means faster but it could be its just too hot and is screwing things up. We will see if that helps.
In the meantime the Harlem Globetrotter table awaits reassembly as somehow I managed to lose one of the back pieces of sheet metal. Not a big deal but it means a wait until I can go back to the store for more.
As you may recall I pulled everything out of the header ( link ) and painted it.
Time to put it all back in. As I re-assembled the light-panel (The wood with the lights on it) I noticed one of the LED displays had what appears to be burned out resistors on its little board:
 | |
| Burned out resistors |
While I was able to get the resistors out of the board, I managed to deconnect the tiny traces and ring that the solder is supposed to connect to - why is my soldering so bad???
I spent all evening soldering them back in, using a meter to verify I have connectivity but I have no way to test them until I get it all put back together.
Looking at my soldering iron, I am going to try and lower the temperature on it. I have it set all the way up, under the theory that hotter means faster but it could be its just too hot and is screwing things up. We will see if that helps.
In the meantime the Harlem Globetrotter table awaits reassembly as somehow I managed to lose one of the back pieces of sheet metal. Not a big deal but it means a wait until I can go back to the store for more.
Hot Tip Wounds
When my son arrived for vacation, the only pin I had in working condition was the Hot Tip, and it had a problem. The DIP-Switches on the motherboard had broken and I was trying to manually set things by sliding the tiny sliders with a pair of needle nosed pliers.
Once he was gone I decided it was time to replace the switches. It seemed easy enough, unsolder the old switch, solder on the new switch.
The old one came off easily enough, and I soldered the new one on:
However when I turned the system on, it groaned (hummed) and made weird sounds and woudl not work.
....sigh....
so I reflowed the solder intro each socket. No change...
so I reflowed and added more solder. this time (or perhaps the first time) I noticed that it looked like I had melted the green stuff and there might be a connection under it:
Arrgghh.. another self-inflicted wound!
I ended up scraping it away with a knife. But I have been unable to test it as all the fuses are blown.
I replaced them but the one that runs the solenoids keeps blowing, but I noticed one of the solenoids was stuck in the on position and it finally went back, but that was my last fuse... so back to the store to buy another batch of fuses and see if that was the problem or not....
Once he was gone I decided it was time to replace the switches. It seemed easy enough, unsolder the old switch, solder on the new switch.
The old one came off easily enough, and I soldered the new one on:
 | |
| The new dip-switch |
However when I turned the system on, it groaned (hummed) and made weird sounds and woudl not work.
....sigh....
so I reflowed the solder intro each socket. No change...
so I reflowed and added more solder. this time (or perhaps the first time) I noticed that it looked like I had melted the green stuff and there might be a connection under it:
Arrgghh.. another self-inflicted wound!
I ended up scraping it away with a knife. But I have been unable to test it as all the fuses are blown.
I replaced them but the one that runs the solenoids keeps blowing, but I noticed one of the solenoids was stuck in the on position and it finally went back, but that was my last fuse... so back to the store to buy another batch of fuses and see if that was the problem or not....
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