I finally got a pin...RESTORED AND LOVING IT.

[shardian]

EDIT: See the last page or so for finished playfield results.


unfortunately, it is a Charlie's Angels. Hey, you gotta start somewhere, right? Especially on my budget.
I won it by accident. I just put a token $1 extra bid in to bump up the highest bidders price. Except that was his high point, and noone else ever bid over the last 2 hours! Judging by the despcription, the pin is most likely suffering from the slam tilt error that Gottelieb Sys. 1's are prone to. As soon as I get it I will be disabling the slam tilts to see what happens. I'll be picking it up either tommorrow or friday.
Anyways, onto the pics.

[shardian]

Anyone have an idea of what this pins value is in fully working condition?

[menace]

Congrats!  For what its worth (i.e. take with grain of salt) mr. pinball guide for '06 says 525$

Depends on playfield wear, backglass condition, cab condition, right buyer in your area etc etc. 

[shardian]

The seller rates the backglass as a 7 and the playfield as a solid 8. The pictures look pretty good, so I'd say those ratings are at least fairly accurate.
I figured the value would be around $500 in Mr. Pinball... pretty much every older SS is around $500. I paid $277, os hopefully I can get it fully functional with out to much investment. It would be nice to know that I could trade up in the future.

[ChadTower]

That looks in pretty strong shape.  Nice job.  It's not a money pin but it is definitely a great first one - not nearly as complex as later ones but still SS.

[shardian]

I was over at IPDB and apparently the guy who owns the gottilieb name is handing out C&D letters now. Since when did this start happening?

BTW, anyone have a scan of the manual for this one, or at least a sys. 1 manual?

[ChadTower]

That's not new.  Gottlieb manuals have been out of the loop for a long time.

I may have a scan of it someplace.  I'll see what I can find.  If I don't have one, I do have a Sinbad and very likely the manual.  I could make photocopies.

[shardian]

I just talked to the guy and he is going to bring it up to my house tonight! He also has the original schematics and manual, so I am good on that front. Damn I can't wait to get home now, I don't care if it is Charlies Angels, it a PIN and its MINE!! 

[ChadTower]

He is going to deliver it?  Bonus.

[shardian]

He is going to deliver it?  Bonus.

Yeah, that was a definite bonus. The wife would probably have been more pissed about me taking up a whole evening going to get it than buying the pin itself.

[SavannahLion]

SS?

[Q*Bert_OP]

SS?

Solid State (contains CPU/Sound/Other PCBs)

[SavannahLion]

SS?

Solid State (contains CPU/Sound/Other PCBs)

As opposed to mechanical/relay type circuits? OK, that makes sense.

[ChadTower]

Yeah, prior to about 1978, they were all electromechanical.  Lots of relays and stepper units for logic processing.

[JeepMonkey]

Congrats!

I bought my first pin a year ago.  A 1979 Solar Ride for $350.  It was a nice starter pin, but now I find myself wanting to upgrade.  Right now I am on a South Park pin kick.

Arcade, pinball, it doesn't matter.  Must upgrade and add on.

[ChadTower]

Erm, yeah, go from $350 to $2800.   

[ChadTower]

Found a PDF of your manual, plus a bunch of other stuff.  Where I can email it?

[shardian]

Well I have the pin and I must say, for the price I paid I think I did very well for a first pin. It obviously needs a very good cleaning, new rubbers, new ball. I have the marvin3m sys1 guide and plan on going thru it and doing all of the preliminary stuff immediately. The underside of the playfield is in VERY good shape from a quick isual inspection. No dirt, rust, or bad looking things. All boards are intact and look good. No acid damage at all, which is amazing. The guy I bought it off of removed the battery as soon as he got it.There is a capacitor that is hanging off of the power supply in a strange way, so I will be rebuilding the whole PS just to be safe. The cabinet is dirty, but in very good shape otherwise. The backglass has very minimal flaking on the girls face areas around where the lights are. You don't even see it when the machine is off. There are only two very small wear areas on the playfield near two of the bonus lights. VERY easy to touch up.
I'll take some detailed pictures in the next few days when I get time.

[ChadTower]

Sweet.  It inspired me to start a bit more work on my Sinbad.  I had already TripleThicked the backglass yesterday.  Today I took the CPU board out and removed the battery.  Not a drop of corrosion on it.  A miracle.

I see another obvious problem, though... one of the solenoid buffer chips has a chunk missing.  That ain't good.

[vintagegamer]

Soooooo........................... you mentioned a few months back that you didn't need any more projects, so you let a wonderful Ms Pac rot away on someone's front porch.  And now I hear that you're sitting up at 2AM in your boxers, bidding on Charlies Angels pins on eBay....    Did I miss anything?  Anyone else see something weird going on here?   

And uh, oh yeah- congrats BOSLEY..


VG

[shardian]

Soooooo........................... you mentioned a few months back that you didn't need any more projects, so you let a wonderful Ms Pac rot away on someone's front porch.  And now I hear that you're sitting up at 2AM in your boxers, bidding on Charlies Angels pins on eBay....    Did I miss anything?  Anyone else see something weird going on here?   

And uh, oh yeah- congrats BOSLEY..


VG

I bid on work time, thank you! I can't get ahold of the Ms. Pac people. There ain't much I can do about that. I have been able to get the misses to accept the pin begrudgingly, but she has officially put the hammer down on projects - NO MORE. 

[shardian]

Did some initial testing. First off, here is what the game does when powered on: all of the playfield and backglass lights are on, and the gameover light is flashing. The displays do not show any signs of life. Other than that, nothing.

All the power block fuses are good. I started the initial testing and apparently my power supply is bad, or at least needs some work. The input voltages are present and listed below:

pin1 11.5VAC needed, ~12.6 present
pin2 11.5VAC needed, ~12.6 present
pin3 14VAC needed, ~15 present
pin5 14VAC needed, ~15 present

That is where things start to suck. There are no 5VDC, or -12VDC present at the top connector that supplies the MPU. The -12 pin goes straight to solid 0 on the DMM. The 5 volt pins flutter around .3 volts. I notice that the connector up there was kind of wobbly, so I at least need to take out the power supply and reflow some solder joints. The right side connector that supplies the displays has a 60VDC pin, a 42VDC pin, a 4VDC pin, and an 8VDC pin. All pins show nothing except the 8VDC pin - it shows 16VDC??

In the marvin3m manual, it says that if a -12VDC supply is missing, your MPU is ---fouled up beyond all recognition---. However, since nothing is getting thru I think I am safe there at least.
Oh, and it appears that the trouble large caps on the power supply have been changed at some point. Last thing, yes, the J1 PS connector is installed the right way.
So, is the peanut gallery in aggreement that I have a bad power supply?

Addition: I went ahead and took out the power supply before I even finished this post. Anyways, the problems are QUITE evident after getting to the back of the power supply. Fist off, I didn't have to desolder the Q1 transistor because the bad solder joints kind of just fell off.  I noticed some masking tape here and there adn found out it was a brilliant way of isolating a repaired lifted trace repair. The repaired trace was on one of the 14VAC input lines, so I'm a little worried about MPU damage. Oh and the J1 connector pin header - I think my 6 month old girl could have soldered that better. Cold solder and broken joints galore.

Needless to say, I don't think this power supply is going back in the machine. I'm liking this pin hobby already! There is so much more crap to mess with. I feel like I have already expanded my electrical knowledge by about 10 times.

[ChadTower]

If it's that bad, just replace it.  There are great new replacement boards for the System1 and System80 machines.   Redesigned and improved upon.

[shardian]

If it's that bad, just replace it.  There are great new replacement boards for the System1 and System80 machines.   Redesigned and improved upon.

There is a clean P/S on ebay I am watching right now for cheap. I'm not sold on getting a $70 new PS quite yet. I'd rather get the machine running and then go from there. I've already vowed to not buy a single cosmetic thing until the game works.

[ChadTower]

If it helps, you'll never get the machine running reliably without a proper power supply.  Pins, far more than vids, are sensitive to that.

Here's the usual order of things for this game:

• Check the fuses for ratings and continuity before you turn it on.
• Turn it on and get the power supply right.
• Replace battery or at least remove it.
• Repin the connectors, retin edge connectors, repin headers.
• Make all ground mods suggested on marvin3m.
• Playtest and fix issues as necessary.

90% of your issues will be gone by the time you get the ground mods done, and doing those things will ensure that you don't end up chasing 15 failures in the next year.  If you don't do them it will fail more than once and soon.

[shardian]

I got a quote for  a power supply from pbresource.com - $90 for NOS! Damn!

[ChadTower]

What do you mean by power supply?  Is this the power supply PCB or the transformer/rectifier circuit?

[shardian]

What do you mean by power supply?  Is this the power supply PCB or the transformer/rectifier circuit?

Power supply pcd up in the back box.

[shardian]

BTW, where can I get a cheap molex crimper tool? I can't find one on mouser.com
I am in the process of filling a cart with the stuff to repin all of the connectors.

[ChadTower]

Ah... I'd definitely not bother with NOS.  Not for a $500 pin.  Get a used working one from RGP.

Have you verified that the PCB is receiving what it needs?

I'd be really surprised if mouser doesn't have a crimper.

[ChadTower]

Some helpful stuff.

http://www.flippers.com/servicing_the_gottlieb_system_1_.html

$80 replacement board

[menace]

I recently refurbed a gottlieb sys80b--replaced the power supply in the backbox with one from an arcade machine (long live peter chou) got a solid +5 out of that as opposed to from gottliebs shaky pot (not sure if system 1's have the same setup)

When it came to edge connectors I said "screw you crimper"  and bought a bag of .56 molex pins and solder the wires into them--100% solid connection and without a decent crimper the connection is waaaaaayy better (i personally found it faster but I'm a soldering demon and a crimping newb) 

Another thing I had to do was replace half the fuses with the proper sized ones (might want to check that--lots of ops just up the fuse rating until it stops blowing). 

[shardian]

I recently refurbed a gottlieb sys80b--replaced the power supply in the backbox with one from an arcade machine (long live peter chou) got a solid +5 out of that as opposed to from gottliebs shaky pot (not sure if system 1's have the same setup)

Sys 1 needs all kinds of voltages. The CPU needs +5 and -12. The displays need 64 and 42 I believe. A pc power supply is recommended for a test bench setup. I don't think it is a viable long term use inside the pin though.

[shardian]

BTW, I am slowly building up an order with mouser. So far, I have the stuff to redo the connector pins, the stuff I need to rebuild the power supply (for $10 or so, it is worth a shot), about 20 1n4004 diodes for coils, 2 switch diodes (40 cents a pop, so just 2). I also need to order some matching fuses to keep on hand.

My question is, are there certain things I should go ahead and get "because I'll need them sooner than later" from mouser? Specific cheap transistors that are common, or anything else you may think of recommending.

[menace]

Maybe a look at the driver/main board and order a couple of whatever popular transistors are on there.  Mine were u45's and a13's.  I had to order 10 replacement u45's for the aux lamp board and at least 2 a13's were bad for a couple of playfield lights.   

Again there are big differences between sys 1 and 80b but you can check your transistors with power off and the board pulled in any case--you should be able to tell if you have some that are bad or questionable. 

Another part I had to scrounge were silicon germanium diodes (clear glass looking things) needed about 4 of those but they were for chasing lights so if your game doesn't have them its a moot point. 

If you are doing any chip replacement make sure to get a chip socket installed--makes any future repairs easier (not worth installing if things are fine though). 

I'm sure there's more but can't recall right now...

[ChadTower]

Yeah.  For every part you order, order 25% more than you need.  Some parts will be bad new.  Others will go bad because you didn't catch the cause, replaced a part, and the new one got fried too.  Some that are good now will die with use before long.  You rarely ever "only need exactly 3 diodes".  If you need 3 now, buy 6.  It SUCKS to have to make another order and pay shipping because you're one resistor short.

[shardian]

I was showing a buddy the pin this evening, and decided to pull the bottom connectors on the CPU board to check the pins (I hadn't got around to that yet). OH MY! I can see why the Marvin guide is adamant that you change pins. Most of them are broken, and there is the blue-green battery acid corrosion on most of them. I looked closer under light at the CPU, and there is definitely signs of blue-green corrosion on parts here and there such as the resistor leads, and a little here and there on the board. Still, the damage on the board is not significant, but I'll still be pulling it and doing the vinegar bath this weekend hopefully.
I also was at the mall tonight and stopped in Radioshack to see if there were any parts I could pick up now that I could put to immediate use... They don't have crap.
And of course, here are some pics.

Cosmetically, I couldn't have asked for a better pin for the price. Only two minor wear spots that will be easy to fix. The flaking on the skin of the girls on the backglass isn't all that bad and should be very easy to fix once I match the skin color. I don't know, I think I like the skin disease look.

As you can see, the business end of the playfield is very clean. They say the mechanical parts on gottlieb Sys1's are very durable. We'll see once I get the mess of the electrical figured out.

And check out all of that ORIGINAL documentation. I don't know WTF I was supposed to do with all of those scoring cards back in the day - hand them out or something?

[shardian]

Now that you have seen the body, lets take a look under the hood.

Notice the beautiful repair work on the power supply.  The dangling cap is my favorite. The more I think about it, the more I think I'll make a go at a thorough repair job of the PS.

There is much more battery crap on the CPU than I originally took stock of. It is definitely getting a good bath. Can I REALLY put this thing in the dishwasher as I have heard?? Most of the pins in the connectors are broken. If not, they have a good coating of blue crap. This has me kind of worried.

Lastly, the driver board. Isn't it nice how a picture with flash can make things like a burn mark really jump out at you? According to the documentation, that piece is for the kicker coil.

The last two pics are the power board and the sound board. Nothing interesting there.

[shardian]

That burn mark had me worried on the driver board, so I pulled the board and tested everything. On the other side, the burn mark was pretty substantial. However, the replacement transistor tested good, so whomever fixed it must have got it - even though their solder skills sucked. All in all, I did have one A13 transistor fail a test. They just drive cpu controlled lights, so I'll just replace that puppy.

A question for the pinheads though. The large transistor on the board is a 2n3055. It tested good at around .6, but occasionally it would test at around .9? I would retest and move around and it would test back at .6 after a bit. Could this be to me just not holding my DMM leads properly, or should I just go ahead and replace the part?

Well I think I've made enough progress tonight. Maybe I should hit the hay while I still have a chance to sleep.

Oh and FYI, I like working on the pin WAY more than working with arcade cabs. Pins are all electrical, and thus, quiet. I can work all night and the wife never hears anything.

[shardian]

Maybe a look at the driver/main board and order a couple of whatever popular transistors are on there.  Mine were u45's and a13's.  I had to order 10 replacement u45's for the aux lamp board and at least 2 a13's were bad for a couple of playfield lights.   

I had an a13 test bad, so I ordered some of those. My board also uses 7 U45's, but mouser.com does not carry them. All of mine tested just fine and are original, but the marvin3m guide says they are prone to failure. Where did you get yours?