Arcade Collecting > Pinball

My First Pin - Flight 2000 (Pics)

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Neverending Project:

--- Quote from: shardian on April 09, 2008, 04:53:59 pm ---Depends really. If the marvin3m guide is suggesting replacing connector pins, then acid damage is a possibility. If you inspect the connectors and see that the pins are flattened and corroded, then replacing them is your #1 priority.

--- End quote ---

--- Quote from: ChadTower on April 09, 2008, 06:31:09 pm ---I don't think you have to do marvin3m's longevity mods during the initial repair process.  You'll want to do them if the game is a keeper, or if you plan to sell it as restored, but just during your initial diagnostics don't worry about those.  Just make sure that there aren't any obviously blown coils and that all of the fuses are properly rated - sometimes stuff powers up just because the seller has way overfused the circuit to get it out the door.  If that happens and you keep the game on all that long it will do a lot more damage someplace.

--- End quote ---

Thanks. Good advice!

I hope to get some trouble-shooting time in tonight. I'll keep you updated.

CheffoJeffo:
Are you guys ever downers ! Dude just got his first pin!

NEP - congrats!

I am not as experienced in the pin world as the others, but I still remember the feeling of the first pin.

Make sure to get a copy of the manual -- then run the self-test and see what you are dealing with.

I thought I was in over my head originally (I may still be, but at least I am comfortable), but I took my time getting to know how things worked and what I could handle at the time (granted it was easy to do since my F2K is working ... except for one glitch). I have not yet done a playfield swap, but I no longer fear the process. There are some great resources, like Marvin's guides and the TOP videos. I also liked Bear Kamoroff's Pinball Machine Care and Maintenance and Rob Craig's Life After Death videos (not as detailed as they could be, but I like watching them).

I will agree with PBJ as to the resale value and replacing the playfield/backglass -- I am going to get the full package from CPR when available and am going to keep that machine forever. A friend of mine picked up the repro backglass and plastics for his F2K and was really happy with them.

Neverending Project:
I had a chance to take a look tonight, and I think things are looking pretty good. The backglass is in great shape, the playfield is pretty worn. The plastics are in need of replacing, and the rubber is just plain missing in several places. The boards in the back box look next to new, which is a great sign. The high score battery (which I will remove) looks like there is no leakage, although there may have been a slight mod to the ground area on the MPU board (shown in pic below).

Other than that, the game powers on and the MPU flashes correctly (which means it passes its self test). There is no sound (more on that in a moment) so it is difficult to tell exactly what is going on, but I believe a game will start. About half the coils don't work (including both flippers), so they will need rebuilding or replacing. And about half the lights are out as well.

One wire to the speaker was cut, hence no sound. I would have spliced it to check the sound, but the same wire was previously cut and re-soldered further up the line. It makes me suspect a problem that someone might have cut the wire as an easy fix, and then a later owner fixed it, only to re-cut it when they discovered the same problem. I'll check out the sound soon enough.

The rectifier board does need to be rebuilt. It is the only board to show signs of burning and wear. But the voltages on the test points seem good when there is a load on the board (i.e. the game is on and the connectors are hooked up). Interestingly, one of the test points read a high voltage when the connectors to the solenoid driver board and playfield were disconnected. I would expect a higher voltage when there is no load on the board, but at marvin3m he suggests that you disconnect the connecters that I disconnected and then check the voltages. Of the voltages he lists for the test points, this one is high. Once you reconnect the connectors, it reads fine. I imagine when I rebuild the board it will look better.

Anyway, I am excited, and I do have a lot of work to do. Is it better to just replace faulty coils with new ones? Here are some pics...

Edit: Oh, and it came with the original manual, some brand new (original) coin inserts for 50-cent play, and a quarter in the coin box!

ChadTower:
Dead coils isn't usually a coil problem - they don't go dead, they go short, and take other stuff with them.  That's usually a break in the circuit someplace or dead drivers.  Occasionally you'll see a single coil go dead because of a break in the thin wire going from the lug to the winding but that's fairly rare.  My experience is that when you see multiple coils dead the problem is almost always in the driver if it's not a connector problem.

My advice is that now that you've verified the fuses (right?) and powered it up, start examining every connector in the game.  Repin any that look suspect and replace the headers.  Odds are that will fix quite a few of the misc problems before you even find them -and it will definitely head off the type of problem you get from waking up an old pin that's been in storage for years.

shardian:
Explain what you mean by "dead coils". A shorted coil would be visibly burned up, and the driver transistor will also be fried. If the coil simply don't work, then there is probably a disconnected or broken wire somewhere.

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