Author Topic: The Shadow (Read 13378 times)

ChadTower · « **on:** September 02, 2006, 05:03:18 pm »

Don't have any pics yet but will soon. This is The Shadow, Williams, 1994.

So far, a little poking through it shows it to be in excellent shape, mostly working, needs a good shop job to be up to strong standard.

The DMD is out. The DMD driver has some toasty looking diodes on it and both fuses are bad. So I'm looking up the fuses in the manual to be sure they are the right ones. I have a DMD rebuild kit on hand and will try that this weekend.

ChadTower · « **Reply #1 on:** September 03, 2006, 10:04:49 am »

The fuses are 3/8A which seems to be a total PITA to find. I have tons of spares of various sizes but not 3/8A. Radio Shack doesn't list them. Grr.

ChadTower · « **Reply #2 on:** September 04, 2006, 10:57:55 am »

Man was clearing all those components from the HV circuit a pain in the ass. So much oxidized solder that wouldn't come out... even after being renewed multiple times. I did get through it lifting only one pad and one trace, though. Considering how badly burned this surface is that's pretty good. Still have to get it all back together but I need some wrap wire for jumping the lifted trace and some heat sink compound to put the heavy hitter transistors back onto their heat sinks.

Timoe · « **Reply #3 on:** September 04, 2006, 11:25:10 am »

Chad,

Get a digital camera.

ChadTower · « **Reply #4 on:** September 04, 2006, 12:11:18 pm »

I have one. What I don't have is a ton of time right now... I'll see what I can do. Been taking pics all along.

ChadTower · « **Reply #5 on:** September 04, 2006, 12:31:09 pm »

Pics. I highlighted the relevent area because I couldn't get the lighting right. The burns are worse than it appears in the photo because the color is off due to the lighting.

If you zoom in on the pcb front with components out photo, the trace I lifted is just to the left of the fuse holder, above the rightmost orange circle cap.

ChadTower · « **Reply #6 on:** September 04, 2006, 06:17:43 pm »

Okay, have about half of the components back in... spent a good amount of time running buzz checks to make sure the traces are intact. All looks as good as I can tell so far. I am going to stop here for now because I need to get some 24g wire or wire wrap to jump that lifted trace. I'm not sure how much room I'll need to do it well so I'm not putting the surrounding pieces back in yet. Don't have 24g wire on hand unless I want to snag some from the cat6 on the shelf and I'm not sure if that is stranded or solid. Radio Shack isn't open right now.

And someone from rec.games.pinball offered to send me a batch of 3.8A fuses free. Sweet.

ChadTower · « **Reply #7 on:** September 05, 2006, 08:02:24 pm »

Almost done rebuilding...

NOTE: Solder heat sinked components into the board BEFORE reattaching the heat sink to it. It's awfully hard to heat up a heat sinked component.

ChadTower · « **Reply #8 on:** September 06, 2006, 09:49:28 am »

Rebuild complete... waiting on fuses to arrive in mail so I can test.

gamecreature · « **Reply #9 on:** September 06, 2006, 05:34:56 pm »

Anyone for Peking Duck?

ChadTower · « **Reply #10 on:** September 06, 2006, 05:51:16 pm »

If it fries, it fries... there will be much profanity if it happens, though.

gamecreature · « **Reply #11 on:** September 06, 2006, 07:01:27 pm »

Actually, that's one of the few lines I remember from that game. I think it has something to do with an Easter Egg, but I don't remember much more than that. Good luck!

ChadTower · « **Reply #12 on:** September 06, 2006, 08:10:58 pm »

Ah, heh... you can see how much play I've put in so far. That is to say, almost none.

gamecreature · « **Reply #13 on:** September 07, 2006, 10:23:33 am »

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that you do. As an incentive, I offer this bit of info (from the Cows and Easter Eggs page):

Quote

Get the quote "Anyone for Peking duck?" by doing one of the following:
Pull the trigger at the beginning of each mode (does not work on Duel of Wills and Hotel).
Pull the trigger at the end of Duel of Wills.
The quote is also heard during the Extra Ball animation, during the quote "I know" in Who Knows award, when you get a Scene Bonus of 2M, when the ball is in the Battle Field popper.
The quote is only heard once per playfield location.
The quote is said by three different people and when you

ChadTower · « **Reply #14 on:** September 07, 2006, 07:02:36 pm »

Ech... put the board back in with new fuses, having rebuilt the HV circuit. Nothing from the DMD... did get red LED on the DMD driver board... didn't let any magic smoke out... so more investigation must happen.

I noticed when I put the heat sinks back on the HV transistors that the sinks were only a fraction of an inch apart and had a little play. I don't want them to short into each other so I slapped a bit of hot glue on the heat sink tabs that are close to each other. Insulative and fixes them in place.

ChadTower · « **Reply #15 on:** September 08, 2006, 11:26:17 am »

Spending some time reading up on the DMD HV circuit here. A schematic of the circuit is here.

ChadTower · « **Reply #16 on:** September 08, 2006, 05:20:25 pm »

AHA. Checking the voltages at the DMD's power connector, I find the following:

Pin 1: Should be between -110v and -130v, is -113.8v ON THE LOW END
Pin 2: Should be between -98v and -118v, is -86.8v TOO LOW
Pin 3: key
Pin 4: ground
Pin 5: ground
Pin 6: Should be between +4.9v and +5.2v, is +5.04v
Pin 7: Should be between +10v and +14v, is +11.63v
Pin 8: Should be between +58v and +68v, is +1.6v ABSENT!

Later on tonight I'll look into where the +68v is supposed to come from.

ChadTower · « **Reply #17 on:** September 09, 2006, 02:31:36 pm »

Hrm... it's blowing F601. Need to figure that out first... will probably clear this up.

EDIT: Confirmed, F601 is the +62v circuit.

ChadTower · « **Reply #18 on:** September 09, 2006, 06:16:52 pm »

Good thread on bridge rectifier testing.

ChadTower · « **Reply #19 on:** September 09, 2006, 06:59:40 pm »

Both bridges test acceptably without load... looking for a local source for extras now just in case.

ChadTower · « **Reply #20 on:** September 12, 2006, 08:17:16 pm »

Took my DMD and the driver board over to the repair shop I do a little work with... popped the driver board into a Roadshow and it brought the Roadshow's DMD up bright and strong. So my driver rebuild was good, that was good to see.

Of course it meant that my DMD is toast. We found a shorted zender diode on the 62v line on the DMD itself... a tiny surface mounted zener. Since the rest of the display is probably damaged too I shelved it for parts and grabbed a gassing DMD for the Shadow. I won't have the spare cash for a $125 replacement DMD until Spring, probably, but the gassing DMD is good enough to play with until then. Pics will be forthcoming this weekend.

ChadTower · « **Reply #21 on:** September 13, 2006, 09:58:21 pm »

Put the temp DMD in... looks good enough until later. Played 15 or so games. It could use a shop job but really isn't that bad as is... still better than most pins on location. Left diverter doesn't respond to the button, I'll get that fixed. Some GI lights are out, probably a broken GI line someplace. I'll get that fixed too... still undecided on if I want to shop this sucker out now or just leave it as is for a while and move on to fixing another machine.

ChadTower · « **Reply #22 on:** September 20, 2006, 09:35:28 am »

DMD is taking a bit of time to fully warm up but is about 85% functional when warm. That's not too bad for now. The game is playable that way.

25-30 games reveal that the upper ramp is nearly impossible to shoot. I've hit it squarely and it always goes 90% up and then comes back down the middle and drains.

Needs a flipper rebuild, probably clean off the flipper optos as well... will have to wait for the spare cash for that.

ChadTower · « **Reply #23 on:** September 21, 2006, 09:13:27 am »

Pulled up the playfield for the first time last night... pretty clean underneath. I will have to take a look at the coin counter on this one... there is a small chance this sucker was never on commercial location, which would be really cool for me. It is certainly in excellent, excellent shape.

Looked at the coils that work the left diverter (which isn't working). All wires still soldered properly, no signs at all of coil failure. A close inspection shows one of the coils has a wrap lead broken from the lug. That would do it.

Tried to unwrap a length of wrap wire and resolder it to the lug... no dice, too much stuff in the way and can't do it without scraping the enamel off the end of the wire. So I cut the coil out, scraped the enamel off the end of the newly unwrapped length of wrap wire, resoldered that to the coil lug.

Tested the coil's resistance and compared it to resistance of known good same coils on the other diverter. All matched up at roughly 7-8ohms. Cleaned up the lugs of old solder and the ends of the wires I cut off. It's ready to go back in now but I went to bed before doing that.

EDIT:

Pic of the broken coil wire... if you can make it out, the screwdriver is pointing right at the break point.

ChadTower · « **Reply #24 on:** September 22, 2006, 10:31:35 am »

Put the coil back in and the diverter works just fine now.

The leftmost ring isn't lighting up with the others. I pulled the bulb and it's this tiny little bulb I've never seen before. I swapped it into one of the other sockets, no light. Swapped one of the working bulbs into the socket that is out and it lights. That bulb must be bad.

I don't have any spares, this thing is tiny tiny, and I've only found once source that is $1 each. Ow.

theCoder · « **Reply #25 on:** September 22, 2006, 11:11:05 am »

I've been following your progress for some time. Good stuff. I wish I could contribute, but you're playing in a space I have no experience with. Keep up the documentation, it's good for the community.

ChadTower · « **Reply #26 on:** September 22, 2006, 11:15:19 am »

Quote from: gamecreature on September 06, 2006, 07:01:27 pm

Actually, that's one of the few lines I remember from that game. I think it has something to do with an Easter Egg, but I don't remember much more than that. Good luck!

Over probably 40 games so far, no sign of this quote.

There are a few modes we haven't been able to start yet because of the left diverter issue that was just fixed. And we still can't get into a couple more because it's so hard to shoot the upper ramp. After a flipper rebuild that should be taken care of.

theCoder, thanks for the words. It's good to know people read this stuff.

ChadTower · « **Reply #27 on:** September 22, 2006, 11:36:06 am »

Some RGP research on those tiny bulbs turns up this.

Quote

Original part was 7268 5V .125A .25(Candle Power) 5000(Hours of life)

I now use part 7715 5V .115A .15(Candle Power) 40000(Hours of life)
8 times longer life than 7268 bulb and the difference in brightness is
almost none. I have been using these for 2 years and have not had one
go out yet.

ChadTower · « **Reply #28 on:** September 22, 2006, 11:41:34 am »

This is the bulb, good price too, but shipping something this tiny always feels like getting kicked in the nads.

I wonder if I could use one of those tiny bulbs from a string of Xmas lights.

ChadTower · « **Reply #29 on:** September 22, 2006, 09:32:01 pm »

Went to Target to buy some refill Xmas string bulbs since they put up some Xmas stuff last week. They didn't have any but they did have displays up... hell if I'm buying a $10 string of lights for a 10 cent bulb. So I yoinked one off a display (the string went out, ha). Brought it home, stuck it in the tiny socket and it lit right up. Of course, it's too big to go into the hole in the ring and since its leads are much thinner than the real bulb the contact is loose.

So I took the ring off (which was a pain) and put a spacer so there is a bit more room under the lens. I put the Xmas bulb in, twisted it a bit so that it's in there with more tension, put masking tape around its base and the socket so that it will stay that way. With the extra third of an inch or so under the ring I was able to run the wire around the back of it and under the lens rather than through the hole.

Result: Solid working order, brighter than the others, even.

ChadTower · « **Reply #30 on:** September 22, 2006, 09:35:04 pm »

After that I took the left flipper apart to inspect it. I don't have to rebuild it, it seems, as there wasn't much wear on the parts. Not enough to rebuild, anyway. They were very dirty, though, and that would rob it of much power. Cleaned it all up, put in a new sleeve, put it back together.

There is a good amount of play from the top of the playfield, though. I think the bushings (the plastic piece that sits in the hole through which the flipper rod goes) are worn out, giving the flipper too much play horizontally, robbing it of power. Still, what I did should get a good amount back.

ChadTower · « **Reply #31 on:** September 25, 2006, 09:33:26 am »

Pulled apart the right lower flipper... mech looks good, bushing came out in two pieces. So I was right about that. Wish I'd looked at the bushing in the flipper I already cleaned up. Now I just have to locate some bushings. Don't want to put in an order for them.

theCoder · « **Reply #32 on:** September 25, 2006, 10:23:12 am »

On my first cab I used a $0.99 string of Christmas tree lights for my marquee. I just took it out of the box, then screwed the plastic holder to the back wall. Worked great. One of the things I love about this hobby is the opportunity (challenge) to re-use components from cheap stuff to address potentially expensive problems.

ChadTower · « **Reply #33 on:** September 25, 2006, 10:39:19 am »

Heh. Don't know that I'd go THAT far for a machine that's worth close to $2000. If I had a local source for the real bulb I'd have gotten one... it's a $1 part, just didn't have a way to get it without shipping or waiting for my next supplies order.

ChadTower · « **Reply #34 on:** September 25, 2006, 02:41:59 pm »

Woo, local Betson location has them in stock. They're only open from 8-4:30 m-f, though, and are way out of the way relative to my commute to work. So I guess I leave early this morning.

On the bright side, they have tons of new games on freeplay as they are a coin op distributor. So I will probably be late to work after spending an hour in there.

ChadTower · « **Reply #35 on:** September 28, 2006, 10:45:51 am »

Okay, got the parts... picked up 6 bushings and 6 coil stops. Don't need 6 but I don't want to have to find time to get over there when I do Black Knight either.

The new bushings are in the main flippers. After cleaning and new bushing, the right flipper is kicking serious ass. Now it's pounding parts so hard I want a little less power in it.

The left flipper is vastly improved but still not hitting the upper ramp as nicely as I'd like it. I'm going to see if I can't coax a bit more amperage into it. I did notice I didn't align the flipper bat perfectly so fixing that will add a bit. I'll clean the button optos, check the driver transistor, one or two other things. Beyond those it's pretty much replace the plunger/linkage and there's nothing else I can do.

So the machine is 100% functional now. Needs a cleaning/waxing and the video screen has some gassing. Good stuff, good stuff.

ChadTower · « **Reply #36 on:** September 28, 2006, 09:16:12 pm »

Hrm. Just pulled the flipper button opto PCBs so I could clean the optos. Sometimes dirty optos are a bit intermittent, fluctuating power to the flippers, making them weaker. Sitting the two boards side by side I noticed the two resistors are different on one than on the other.

So I whip out the DMM and test them. Sure enough, the PCB from the right flipper has resistors that match the schematic... but the PCB from the left has resistors roughly 50% stronger.

BOINK.

Seeing as how these flipper opto boards are pretty much just a pair of infrared sensors, a molex header/connector, and two resistors, those 50% overrated resistors would have a substantial effect on the power of that flipper. It would lower the power, to be exact.

So, I should replace those resistors with resistors at spec... or should I?

I've noticed, now that the flippers are working better, that the right flipper tends to slam the ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- out of everything. It feeds the closer ramp and closer targets. I was thinking the other day that the optimal powering for these flippers would be full strength left (to hit the upper ramp) and lowered strength right.

What I have now is full strength right and lowered strength left. I think I will swap the two opto boards and see if that accomplishes the power mix...

ChadTower · « **Reply #37 on:** September 29, 2006, 10:43:19 am »

Swapped out the boards... no difference. My theory was mistaken. The experiment shows and my research bears out that changing those resistors has no effect at all on flipper power.

ChadTower · « **Reply #38 on:** October 16, 2006, 02:27:35 pm »

Won a DMD on Ebay.

It's local, and about a third of the price for a new one, supposedly unused.

ClubNinja · « **Reply #39 on:** October 17, 2006, 02:18:13 pm »

Nice!


Main	Restorations	Software	Audio/Jukebox/MP3	Everything Else	Buy/Sell/Trade
Project Announcements	Monitor/Video	GroovyMAME	Merit/JVL Touchscreen	Meet Up	Retail Vendors
Driving & Racing	Woodworking	Software Support Forums	Consoles	Project Arcade	Reviews
Automated Projects	Artwork	Frontend Support Forums	Pinball	Forum Discussion	Old Boards
Raspberry Pi & Dev Board	controls.dat	Linux	Miscellaneous Arcade	Wiki Discussion	Old Archives
Lightguns	Arcade1Up	Try the site in https mode		Site News


Unread posts \| New Replies \| Recent posts \| Rules \| Chatroom \| Wiki \| File Repository \| RSS \| Submit news