While waiting for the boards to return I have begun cleaning up Firepower. A package with bulbs rubbers etc. arrived yesterday from Marco's, their prices are nice except the shipping is highway robbery!

The playfield of this machine is not too badly worn. But there is some mylar to remove, lots of dirt to clean, loose inserts to fix, and some other things to arrest its deterioration. The worst part might be the shooter lane. In the picture you can see the hollow is a gray colour, very rough texture here. And a big chunk is like a crater where maybe a knot was originally in the wood? Not sure the best approach to repairing this area.

Also on each side of the shooter lane there is a strip of wood with a stick-on fake woodgrain veneer. Is this how the machines shipped from the factory? The veneer is peeling at the ends and looks crappy.

The backwards-assembled slingshot switches can be seen in this photo too... but I'm not going to pull them apart!

Just below the end of each flipper you can see a small metal piece sticking up out of the playfield. What is this for? The second picture shows the left one, from the underside of the playfield. The bulb on the right is "Fire Again" between flippers. Seems like a risk of nicking a ball that passes over these at speed.

Quoted from tinyrodent

Just below the end of each flipper you can see a small metal piece sticking up out of the playfield. What is this for?

It's used in the manufacturing process.  It serves as an alignment tool for the flippers.  It stickes out on the PLAYFIELD side when being assembled.  Once the assembly is complete and flippers aligned, it gets pushed in completely.  You can still use for alignment by sticking a toothpick in the hole.

The correct alignment is that the flipper (with the rubber) should rest on that pin (or toothpick).

Mike

Thanks Mike! I will try to push/pull them below the playfield surface. And also align the flippers properly.

Be careful...  It's hard to move these things without causing damage.

Mike

Marvin has a bit of write-up on this in the Sys 11 section:
http://www.pinrepair.com/sys11/index3.htm#flip

Step 11: Aligning the Flipper Bat.
On the top of the playfield, note the roll pin inserted through the playfield,
just behind the flippers. This pin is used for alignment purposes at the
factory when the playfield was first assembled. Put a toothpick into the roll
pin, and move the flipper against it (with the rubber installed or not installed,
it varies from game to game). This will give you a general idea of where the
bat should be aligned. I wouldn't suggest trying to push the roll pins back
through the playfield for flipper alignment; just use toothpicks. No need to
possibly damage the playfield.

Thanks Tuborg I started reading the sys11 section "just in case" I happen to buy one but hadn't got to that part yet. Now I'll report on my project condition like you. 27 year old machine rated by a noob.

• boards - 8, cpu & driver all fixed and on their way back soon. boards are dirty and use old style connectors but otherwise look mostly ok
  
• backglass - 8, a bit dirty, will clean carefully and that's it. head bulbs all replaced with #47 to reduce heat stress
  
• playfield - 8, loose inserts with some resulting erosion, a couple of other worn areas. no plans to clearcoat. however i want to fill in the dips and ruts with something... many of the inserts are concave.
  
• cabinet - 7, looks ok from a distance but some of the paint is not original, mice have been inside, it's very dirty, and one of the triangle pieces of wood for supporting the legs is rotten. the metal strips which receive the leg bolts are badly rusted.
  
• plastics - 8, clear and bright, look like NOS replacements installed sometime in the last couple of years. unfortunately it was a sloppy job, one of them is cracked, and some of the others are warped.
  
• cabinet door- 5, filthy like the rest of the machine, especially inside, coin slots don't work, no coin box, broken high score reset switch
  

In short, plenty to keep me busy for a while.

installation of new leg levelers went smoothly at first. here's shiny feet on the front. rubbers don't stay on though, bit of a nuisance. i removed the leg, then removed the old leveler, then dug out all the crud and grime accumulated at the bottom of the leg, and cleaned the back of the leg a bit. not like new but enough so i won't get dirty if brush up against it.

oops that's the picture of the old dirty rusty bent mangled feet.

here's shiny feet on the front with rubbers that fall off

with the rear legs i had some trouble removing the old levelers. one of the legs has a nut soldered to the bottom, presumably the threads in the leg are stripped. anyway i got them cleaned up and the new feet installed, but then putting the legs back on... the top bolt receiver on the left side stripped. you can see from the pictures these are in bad condition, i'll have to fabricate some new ones. and on the right side also replace the triangle piece of wood, which is a real mess. a job for another day...

Well I wasn't quite sure how to proceed yesterday so did nothing. But today inspiration returned. I need to repair inside the cabinet, and don't want the playfield to fall on my head. But this playfield is not designed to just lay on the floor or lean against a wall. Very easy to damage that way. So I slapped together some scrap pieces of wood and presto! Playfield operating table:

After disconnecting the wires, it's easy to remove the playfield and set it on the operating table. The legs are tall enough to provide clearance for the components on the underside of the playfield.

The side rails are 2x4 and provide enough clearance for the components on the top side of the playfield - Firepower playfield is only about 3" deep. By securing the playfield to the operating table, it can be flipped over and provide easy access to the underside. I haven't done that yet. But in the meantime, it rests at a useful angle on the legs:

Now the cabinet is ready for repairs with no playfield in the way. Must get to Chinese Tire soon for tools and parts...

Quoted from tinyrodent

cleaned the back of the leg a bit. not like new but enough so i won't get dirty if brush up against it.

You can use some steel wool and some of that Orange cleaner ... it should take a good amount of the crud off the legs if still present.

BTW nice improvised playfield work bench.

I like the playfield bench, not quite as functional as a rotisserie but good for those height challeneged amongst us who hate working a playfield in cabinet.

As far as the shooter lane channel goes, are they all roughed up (apart from the knot), in that manner?  It has to do with the way it was routed and whether there was even finish on those grooves in the first place.  I've never been able to determine this yet, I've never seen a NOS playfield to compare, but all my 20 / 30 year old machiens have this roughed grey wood shooter lane wear (although the "V" itself is obviously purposeful).

PBResource has those pinball leg brackets if you don't want to fashion new ones and they ship by postal mail.

Thanks Guys! The bench is proving very useful. I secured the playfield and flipped it over for the first operation - replace one of the caps on a slingshot switch. They are on the tray in the foreground. Left - 22mf 25V original and on the right - 22mf 50V the closest match I could find at Marco's. It's about twice the size but from what I have read, is an acceptable replacement. Anyone disagree?

Quoted Text

all my 20 / 30 year old machiens have this roughed grey wood shooter lane wear

Ok I won't stress about it. A bit of cleanup and some wax will smooth it enough to play. However the knot area is a problem. I am going to try some wood filler, and cross my fingers that it doesn't just fall apart and make a mess after the ball travels over it a few times.

Quoted Text

PBResource has those pinball leg brackets if you don't want to fashion new ones and they ship by postal mail.

Thanks maybe I'll get some of those. I tried to find a "mending plate" at Chinese Tire but no match, the holes are in the wrong place just enough to make it useless. In the meantime I got some nuts & washers for a temporary solution. Along with some more head bolts, only 2 of 4 were included. Someone who previously worked on this machine seems to have a philosophy of "why use x number of fasteners when x/2 will do?" So there are a lot of missing screws, bolts, etc.

There is epoxy wood filler that might be better, but all fills need to be anchored somehow, either in a wedged hole or perhaps an acrylic finish will help keep it seated.

I have seen oversized washers used in a pinch.  All operators cut corners, it's how they make a living.

Using a capacitor rated for a higher voltage is fine, it's just a more expensively built component (and usually bigger), as far as I know (others here are electrical engineers and they'll chime in if I got it wrong).  

I see you use the same Solder Pullit (sp?) that I do, I now have a collection of them since tips are hard to find.  I was wondeirn gif anyone here uses anything more advanced?  I am getting tired of the Solder Sucker's fallibility (though it is a nice size compared to those ginourmous spring loaded pump action suckers!)

It's a NexxTech Desoldering Pump from The Source. Very cheaply manufactured, I expect it will be trash soon. Also it's not very convenient for working in cramped or crowded areas, difficult to get the tip flush with the surface where the suction will be most useful.

How about something less advanced? I got some desoldering braid as well, going to try that next time.

Sometimes I find that flushing the tip isn't as effective as an angled approach (but then again sometime the flush approach works well to get the solder up and out of the whole.  It all depends, but the more the tip is damaged by touching hot leads and pads, the sooner it seems to stop working effectively.

Desoldering braid sucks (no pun intended).  I've found it just about as useful as getting a kick in the head.  For the longest time I used (and still do sometimes) the Radio Crap desoldering iron (about 15$) - can't find the part number right now.  They've now changed the brand name to Nextel but it's the same deal.  I wait until it goes on sale at half price and buy 2-3.  That lasts me a year or so.  I looked into replaceing the tips but it takes forever to get the parts (not in store) and they cost as much as the whole iron when on sale.  The tips are fragile when hot so DON'T bang it around (found out the hard way).

WARNING WARNING WARNING.
This cheap iron gets VERY hot..  Too hot for some older boards in fact so use it with that in mind.  Don't leave it on the solder pad too long or you'll lift it.

Now I use this one now: http://tinyurl.com/2vvute
The drawback is that it needs an external air supply...

Mike

Wow industrial strength! What do you use to provide the suction?

Hey is MrMikeMan back?   Yippee!

Quoted from tinyrodent

Wow industrial strength! What do you use to provide the suction?

Air pressure..  Works on venturi..  I already had a compressor/airtank.  The desolering station needs 60 PSI of pressure to function adequately.

Might as well do a public thanks to Mike from CPR.  I remembered he had this desoldering station but couldn't remember the model #.  I called him up and instead of giving me the model number he me gave the whole thing! He sent his spare one for only the cost of shipping..  Great guy..

Mike

Quoted from Tuborg

Hey is MrMikeMan back?   Yippee!

.........must.....not.......read.........or......post..........arggggghhhhh..

I guess I never left   Gee now there's a surprise

I'll stay away from sharing my opinion on pricing  

That should alleviate some of the tension.

Mike

Quoted from MrMikeman

WARNING WARNING WARNING.
This cheap iron gets VERY hot..  

It sure does. It'll blister skin in about .03 seconds. It's not the kind of thing you want to leave plugged in on your work surface when you're fumbling around for small parts.

It does work great, though. It's fantastic when replacing header pins. But, as Mike said, it should only touch the board in very brief increments.

Well some good news and some bad news today. The boards arrived in the mail, thanks mindstorm for the great service!!

But all is not entirely well. I tested very carefully before putting in a solenoid fuse, and all seems to check out ok. First time on, I noticed the coin lockout solenoid flutter so I shut it off right away and disconnected that useless item. Again tested everything with no balls in the machine, all tests pass including switch and solenoids. But when I put balls in the machine and try to play, it blows a solenoid fuse before launching a ball. Most other things look normal, it's scoring ok, though it said Power too many times when I touched the 3 targets.

Also noticed that the power supply buzzes louder when lights are on. Is this normal?

Replaced the fuse and tried again the tests one by one, and all pass. Some of the coils are firing weakly or maybe it's my imagination? But definitely did notice that the ball launcher solenoid did not fire hard enough to eject a ball to the shooter lane. Tried to start a game, and it blew another solenoid fuse.

Suggestions?

Check your solenoid voltage , usually the bridge rectifier is screwed in the head under the power supply , verify the ac level on that dc  !!!!

Unloaded voltage on 3J3 pins 6-8 is just over 40V. pinrepair says it should be ok if between 28V and 47V. Is there another test I can perform in the backbox?

I'll test individual solenoid voltages & operation after repairing the cabinet. At the moment the playfield is on the bench...

btw the flippers seem strong, and it looks like they use the same bridge rectifier as the other solenoids.

What about cehcking and replacing the solenoid sleeves around the launched and ball laoder area.  Ther eis usually a neglected solenoid under the playfield apron that moves balls along in the (I forget what it's called) ball loading area.  If, at the start of a game, it was trying to push a ball upstream, but couldn't move the plunger, it might keep applying and sucking power through that coil until it burned out the fuse.  Be thankful that your newly redone boards aren't blowing instead of a fuse.

Very often I find that game start problems are related to the switches and solenoids in the ball loading and launching  area, it's one of the most used parts of the game.

Just a thought.

Quoted from tinyrodent

Well some good news and some bad news today. The boards arrived in the mail, thanks mindstorm for the great service!!

But all is not entirely well. I tested very carefully before putting in a solenoid fuse, and all seems to check out ok. First time on, I noticed the coin lockout solenoid flutter so I shut it off right away and disconnected that useless item. Again tested everything with no balls in the machine, all tests pass including switch and solenoids. But when I put balls in the machine and try to play, it blows a solenoid fuse before launching a ball. Most other things look normal, it's scoring ok, though it said Power too many times when I touched the 3 targets.

Also noticed that the power supply buzzes louder when lights are on. Is this normal?

Replaced the fuse and tried again the tests one by one, and all pass. Some of the coils are firing weakly or maybe it's my imagination? But definitely did notice that the ball launcher solenoid did not fire hard enough to eject a ball to the shooter lane. Tried to start a game, and it blew another solenoid fuse.

Suggestions?

Well I still haven't finished repairing the cabinet, so the playfield remains untested. But with all the chatter about grounding on various other threads it seemed like a good thing to check. And sure enough, there was no ground! Third wire in the power cord was severed about halfway. In fact on closer inspection the entire power cord was not in very good condition. So, off it went and a heavy duty replacement is ready for installation.

Maybe obvious in hindsight, but a really good first test for a new pin is to check for continuity from the ground pin of the power plug to the exposed metal parts of the frame (legs, side rails, lockdown bar, coin box). If there is no continuity, repair before plugging it in!  

Question: Where does the power cord normally enter a system 6 cabinet? On this one, there is a diagonal groove cut through the top edge of the cabinet where the head attaches. However it's right next to the corner of a metal clip which retains the back of the head, sure to be damaged there.

If I remember correctly it goes through the groove.  But on a lot of games the operators shoved it through the grill vent holes in the back or bottom.  Possibly to lengthen the cord, or maybe because they put the head on and forgot??

I cut another groove on the opposite side where the clip won't interfere. Tried to solder in the new power cord but my iron just isn't hot enough. It's only max 30W and probably not working perfectly anymore. Time to buy a proper soldering station...

Yesterday I purchased a used Metcal soldering station. All I can say is WOW forget about that radio shack garbage! It took only seconds to complete the power cord replacement. Hope to have the cabinet put back together soon.

I chose to leave the auxiliary AC outlet inside the cabinet disconnected. What would that ever be used for?

Plugging in a soldering iron for quick repairs (coils, switches, etc).  I would be pissed if someone disconnected the aux outlet!!!

Mike

Aux outlet is also nice for a trouble light when you work on pins in a dark basement.

Finally decided to give the playfield some attention tonight. First off, loosen two of the screws holding the ball release coil. The tips of these screws were sticking out of the shooter lane groove! Best solution is probably to move the entire assembly but for now I'll just see if two screws hold it well enough.

Next, out came the Novus 2 for the wood, plastics, metal ball guides, and targets. It works well on everything except metal with corrosion. Followed by carnauba wax on the wood, a good buffing, and application of the standup target decals. The results look fairly good.

You can see wear around the inserts. Many are a bit loose, and there are some with hollow areas around them. I need to secure the inserts and fill the hollows with something preferably clear. Suggestions?

Finally some real progress. I got a rotary tool and carved out the rotten piece from the corner of the cabinet, and replaced it with some hardwood. For temporary solution I'm using washers (grounding braid goes between two of them), but later will replace with standard leg bolt plates.

With the cabinet repaired, it was time to put the machine back together. At first everything seemed great - it passed all diagnostic tests, so I put 3 balls in the machine and tried to start a game. It weakly tried to eject a ball, and blew the solenoid fuse. Just on a hunch I looked with a magnifier and DAMN it was only a 0.25A fuse instead of 2.5A!! Marco's put the wrong fuse type in the package. One mystery solved. Luckily I bought some 2.5A from Active not long ago.

Now the solenoids fire strongly and no fuses are blowing. Unfortunately the behaviour of the machine is somewhat random. I powered off and pressed on the CPU-driver board interconnect to make sure of proper seating, now things seem even worse. At first it was playing almost normal until it got to bonus countdown, which went on forever. Now it sometimes starts scoring as soon as I turn it on.

When I got the boards back from mindstorm, it was somewhat difficult to put them together. The female side had some bent edges inside the holes, and the male side has pins which don't all face exactly the same angle. Is this likely to be the problem area or should I look elsewhere? Clay mentions random resets and lockups which curiously I have not seen either of.

Not sure if it was done, but Firepower is notorious for interboard connect failure (and I'm sure I mentioned it before). it will drive you batty until you resolder all the other connectors, replace header pins where clay suggests and definitely replace all the header pins and sockets on the CPU nterboard connector.

The past couple of evenings I've been working on replacement of the 40-pin interboard connectors. Desoldering and removal of the old connectors was very tedious. I cut the plastic female housing using flush cutters instead of a knife as suggested by Clay, seemed like less risk of damage to the board.

Big problem with the old connectors was they weren't all in alignment. This made it very difficult to put the boards together. Here's my nice new male header, all straight and aligned.

I didn't want to rest the board on its components while working on the underside. Not sure what other people do, but I made some wooden legs for it to stand on.

There seems to be a component missing on the driver board! Looks like it might have broken off at some point. It was there in photos I took when setting up the machine. Not sure when it disappeared... haven't seen a loose part like that anywhere. Yet another delay in getting this machine playable.  

Quoted from tinyrodent

There seems to be a component missing on the driver board!

Not necessarily.  Not all solenoids (and associated transistors) are used...  Sometimes folks "borrow" the good parts from the unused sections.

In the case of Firepower, this is Q37, which controls Solenoid 12.  It's not used in Firepower.

Mike

Hmm... according to the driver board document I have, that area corresponds to solenoid 12 which is a sound, and it's supposed to have a TIP122. But I see you already modified your post to answer my question. Thanks Mike!

Quoted from tinyrodent

Hmm... according to the driver board document I have, that area corresponds to solenoid 12 which is a sound, and it's supposed to have a TIP122.

You're abosultely right!  I was looking at Firepowerr II schematics!  On yours, solenoids 2 and 3 aren't used (Q17 and Q19).

Mike

Thanks again Mike! I guess I'll be stealing one of those TIP122 from solenoid 2/3 and move it to solenoid 12...

Finally finished replacing the 40-pin connectors and they look great. I moved the coin lockout transistor to replace the missing sound one on the driver board (which I found in the bottom of the cabinet, but the legs were broken off). Put the machine back together, and....

It's behaving similar to the way it was before. So it seems I haven't broken anything but neither have I repaired what was causing the problem(s). To recap:

1. When I first turn on the machine with no batteries, it goes into audit/diagnostic mode and all tests pass except one of the slingshot score switches. Everything looks normal like it should play.

2. After adding batteries, when the machine is turned on it puts 550,000 on the player 1 score and starts counting up from there, complete with sound effects - as if bonus was being awarded. A bunch of playfield lights are locked on at this time.

3. I can interrupt this weird behaviour with the test button on the coin door, and it goes into audit/diagnostic mode and acts like everything is perfectly normal.

So it seems that all is well except it won't go into "game over" mode properly. Suggestions, anyone?

Update: On a hunch I tried pressing the slam tilt switch on the coin door during the "weird behaviour". And it starts over again at 550,000. So I'm guessing that either it jumps to the wrong address for game over mode, or the game ROM has a problem.

Some more test results:

• Removing all of the driver board connectors (except power) did not change the symptoms
  
• All of the game settings have the correct default values
  
• All of the audits are zero except for 6 and 8, which are both set to a value of 2
  

It's still exhibiting the strange behaviour of counting instead of game over/attract mode. It starts at 550,000 and goes up by 1,000 with sound effects like bonus award. After a while it runs out of sound effects and goes quiet. Then the sounds start over again. Meanwhile the player 1 score counter keeps on until it rolls over then starts counting up from 1,000. This continues until I press the coin door "Advance" button to enter diagnostic/audit mode.

Everything else checks out ok. The CPU does not freeze up and there is nothing random about this behaviour - it does the same thing every time.

If I had a burner I would test the IC14 game ROM. I guess I'll either buy a burner or a ROM. Any other suggestions?

Quoted from tinyrodent

If I had a burner I would test the IC14 game ROM. I guess I'll either buy a burner or a ROM. Any other suggestions?

What's your mailing address....



Steph
http://www.Hobbyroms.com

pm sent

This week Leon's test ROM arrived to help debug, thanks again Steph! There was an unused 5VDC power supply gathering dust in the closet, a couple of alligator clips later it's good for board testing. Plugging it into a power bar provides a convenient on/off switch. I also constructed a test LED though it hasn't been needed yet.

After jumpering to avoid the need for 12VDC input, the board boots successfully on the bench with the test ROM. However the memory test fails, it says IC13 is bad (LEDs lock on with no flash). Perhaps this accounts for the weird behavior of the machine...

Fortunately this chip is already socketed, so I just need to get a new chip and plug it in. But first I will do some more testing, make sure all the traces are intact, etc. Also must test the Flash MPU on the bench, it doesn't boot successfully with Leon's ROM (LEDs lock on). If new components are needed, best to order everything at once. I think I'll try Great Plains next time...

Success! Kind of.

After 3 months, hundreds of dollars in repairs, and countless hours of fiddling, I finally have a 100% working, playable pinball machine.

But now it's more obvious than ever that Firepower needs a complete overhaul, just as badly as Flash if not worse. Cupped inserts really spoil the game, for example try to catch a ball on a flipper and it rests on the 4x multiplier light instead.

Haven't posted progress on any of my projects for a while... mainly because I've been "testing" Firepower.

Some of the leaf switches were not working properly and they are a bear to adjust. I made some tools for the job out of Ikea hex wrenches. I must have two dozen of the darned things in various drawers and containers.

This is what I meant about the cupped inserts. Sometimes the ball just stays in there.

However I'm learning to play with the handicap, hope to acquire some skillz before the meet at MrHide's.

From what I remember Firepower was played fast.  Do you have enough of a slop setup on her?  Gravity may assist eheh.  That may prevent a ball from resting there but then again that cupped insert really appears to be deep. How the hell is that possible?.

It plays fast all right, not sure of the angle exactly but steeper doesn't seem to help keep the ball from getting stuck. I'm guessing that the inserts got too hot at some point and sagged.

I have to take back what I said before that "Cupped inserts really spoil the game", or at least tone it down.

Yes it's less than perfect but I have adapted, and the game is a lot of fun. I go downstairs to play a couple of games several times each day. It's quite challenging, I don't think it will ever be friendly to casual guests. Flash will hopefully be a better choice for them...

Firepower is now on the bench, getting a shop job prior to delivery for Loafer. I've gotten comfortable using Varathane, so figured might as well fill in some of the cupped inserts. We'll see how it goes... might need another coat after this one dries & shrinks down.

What can I say except "thanks!".

Well... I grossly underestimated the difficulty of "just" filling in a few cupped inserts. Varathane doesn't like to do that - at least, not all at once. After the first fill dried, the shrinkage left roughly star-shaped voids in the center. It took five coats (with 24 hour drying time between each) to bring it up to the level of the playfield.

In hindsight, I think it would have been better to fill the bottom first with a thinner coat, then build it up. It probably wouldn't have required quite as much sanding and fussing afterward.

At any rate, it looks pretty good now, not perfect but certainly a lot better than before. I didn't bother with photos since the clear can't really be seen. It will have two full weeks of cure time before delivery to Loafer. Meanwhile, I'll Novus & wax the playfield, change the rubbers, replace burnt bulbs, etc.

Wow, many thanks, I didn't think you would have to do that much work!  Obviously, it's pretty darn appreciated Brett, thanks!