The Aussie Pinball Arcade
Aussie Pinball Forums => General Discussion => Your Collection => Topic started by: Gorgonzola on February 17, 2014, 07:28:07 PM
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After signing up here a few months back, I've now got my hands on my first pin. I picked up a Getaway from Oscar (Pinball Memories) a few weeks back and am very happy with it. Both my partner and I have both played it heaps over the last few weeks (she enjoys it far more than I thought she would!).
This machine was a good choice for me as I wanted something that was fully working but could do with a tidy up. This way I can enjoy playing it while having a go at tidying up and improving individual bits as I learn how it works.
One thing I've learnt already after one weekend of getting my hands dirty is just how creative operators can get with dodgy repairs. My favourite one so far is the use of bulk amounts of solder to create the locking ring/nut that holds the power switch onto the metal enclosure it is attached to.
I decided my first job would be to replace the power cord as the original was starting to wear through in numerous places and had been squashed. While doing this I discovered that the main slow blow fuse holder has also had some dodgy repairs done in the past to keep it in place. As a result I can't get it back together again properly (the fuse is OK but I have no continuity across the fuse holder with the fuse present).
I've had a look online and can't find anywhere in AUS that stocks one the same as it. Before I take the chance on a similar looking product that may not fit, does anyone know where I might be able to find one? Mine looks exactly like the first one shown in the second picture on this spec sheet: http://www.jameco.com/Jameco/Products/ProdDS/1711824.pdf (Pretty sure its part number '3453LF3').
Also I should mention that Oscar (Pinball Memories) was great to deal with and very helpful.
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Nice first game, enjoy
TIP; take a lot of pictures of your game, after you take it apart the pictures will help you put it back together
you cannot take too many pictures
;)
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Nice first game, enjoy
TIP; take a lot of pictures of your game, after you take it apart the pictures will help you put it back together
you cannot take too many pictures
;)
Great piece of advice from Pete no such thing as too many pics
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Great 1st Pin, you'll learn something new everyday when working on pins *%* all the best ^^^
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Congratulations on the pin.
Have you tried Jaycar for the fuse holder?
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Hey have fun with the pin. Nice to see in not the only newb !
If the fuse holder is crappy from previous repairs just replace it. Design has changed and if the retaining spring on the holder is worn out it could be dangerous.
Z
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Thanks for the advice everyone. So far I've been quite disciplined with taking photos before I pull something apart. I'm sure I'll get over-eager at some point though :)
I'm going to check out Jaycar for the fuse holder tomorrow. They don't have one like it on their website, but I'm hoping they may have something suitable instore.
Zedman, yeh that's why I'm looking for a replacement. It looks like a previous operator had stuffed some string into the thumb screw top to effectively make the whole thing longer (probably to compensate for the spring no longer working very well). I'll fix it up properly.
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Congrats on your new pin, nice game:)
Give www.element14.com a go
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It's surprising how many people have bought a Getaway as their first.
I actually met a guy last night who bought one for his first pin and it was my first pin too.
Good fun game for novices I suppose.
Good on you for pulling it apart and having a go. ^^^
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Amazing how this title is often the first pinball to the collection (but never the last !). Oscar is definitely one of the "good guys" in the hobby / industry.
With regard to the power cable, you can simply buy an extension cord from bunnings and then snip the female end off. You may also need a 275V Varistor, depending on the circuit diagram. Make sure you know exactly what you are doing with the wiring. Active must be fused. I would suggest a "tag and Test" be done on the game after your work and the correct line fuse used.
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Getaway is a great pin in terms of being pretty easy to understand, but still challenging enough to keep you coming back for more.
I used to have one. Ended up using it to pay a guy to build 4 (smallish) bedrooms in our upstairs area. Still miss it every now and then!
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Interesting! I am trying to figure out which pin to buy as my first and Getaway is near the top of my list. How easy is it in terms of teaching you how to repair pins? Are there other pins which are also good starting points for learning repair?
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I just remembered that I should report back here to let everyone know how my search went.
Jaycar didn't have the exact same fuse holder. It's the right rating however it doesn't physically fit through the hole in the line filter box so I've had to mount it temporarily until I can track down something more suitable as a permanent fix. I replaced the power cord at the same time and as well as being safer it looks a lot less ratty on the living room floor too.
Strangeways, thanks for the tip. I needed up doing as you suggested with regards to buying an extension lead and cutting the female end off. I made sure I fully understood (and took photos of) the existing wiring before I started the replacement. I think I re-checked the photos and the wiring diagram about a hundred times :) The test and tag idea is probably a good idea for peace of mind though!
baoyar, I think it's a great game as like the others have said the rules are quite straight forward and easy to learn but still fun to come back to. All of my friends and family members who have visited recently are aways eager to have a go and often get hooked. As far as repairs go, like with troubleshooting most things, if you can work out how something works by doing some research online and in the manual first you can usually narrow the problem to a small area. Once you've narrowed the problem down to a small area is far less daunting to troubleshoot.
As an example, I turned the machine on recently and noticed a number of the lamps that make up the tachometer on the playfield were no longer working. Below was the process I used to troubleshoot and fix the problem. Note that I've hardly touched a multimeter or soldering iron prior to this and as a result it was very rewarding for me when I put it all back together and it was all working again.
- First up, I checked the manual to see what info I could find about these lamps. I noticed that the 5 lamps that I had noticed not working were all part of the same column in the lamp matrix.
- I then did some quick Googling to learn how the lamp matrix works. I then ran the lamp tests in the service menu to test the other 3 lamps that belong to that same column in the matrix and noticed that they too were not working.
- At this point, the problem was now narrowed down to a relatively small area. I then used the continuity test feature on my multimeter to work out which pins, wiring, lamp sockets, etc were OK and which one may be causing a problem. Some of the non-working lamps are mounted on a 10-lamp PCB and from testing each part of the circuit I could tell that there was a problem with the PCB but I couldn't put my finger on the actual problem.
- I then disconnected the wiring from the PCB pins and pulled the PCB out of the machine. I gave it a quick clean to remove years of dust and had a close look at it. Initially everything looked OK to my untrained eye so I started testing continuity from each pin to the furtherest point on the PCB and everything was still OK. I then looked closer at the solder on the pins themselves and realised that pin 8 looked a bit dodgy (the solder was cracked and there seemed to be a small amount of movement in the pin). I then realised that each time I touched the multimeter probe to the pin, it was shifting the pin the tinniest amount which allowed it to make contact and complete the circuit. I found that if I touched the multimeter probe to the pin really really gently and tested continuity from the pin to the through-hold on the PCB there was no continuity.
- I (nervously) desoldered the dodgy solder surrounding the pin and then applied fresh solder.
- Finally, I did one last continuity test across the pin and confirmed that it was all OK prior to re-installing the PCB in the machine, plugging it in and having a game with working lights.
Photos below:
Lamp PCB removed from the machine and cleaned:
(http://i1290.photobucket.com/albums/b526/slm84/lamp_pcb_zps11c4cc69.jpg) (http://s1290.photobucket.com/user/slm84/media/lamp_pcb_zps11c4cc69.jpg.html)
Pin 8 on the far left has broken solder:
(http://i1290.photobucket.com/albums/b526/slm84/lamp_pcb_before_zpsa3a997b2.jpg) (http://s1290.photobucket.com/user/slm84/media/lamp_pcb_before_zpsa3a997b2.jpg.html)
Pin 8 de-soldered and then re-soldered. I probably used a tiny bit too much solder and maybe a little bit too much heat but not bad for a newbie I reckon:
(http://i1290.photobucket.com/albums/b526/slm84/lamp_pcb_after_zps75c733e5.jpg) (http://s1290.photobucket.com/user/slm84/media/lamp_pcb_after_zps75c733e5.jpg.html)
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Common problem and an easy fix !
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Great write up and methodical approach to problem solving.
I clearly remember my first repair and how satisfying it was to nail it.
Fun times!
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Good work! Agreed Getaway is a fun game and I miss mine.
Now - I take it you know the 'cheat' for this game? From memory when you see on the DMD animation 3 Police cars at the doughnut shop, up / down / up on the shifter (ball launch).....
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Thanks guys. Marty, I didn't know about that, but I do now! :)
I might as well keep going with detailing my repairs in this thread. Hopefully it helps others that are inexperienced like myself and gives them the confidence to have a go themselves.
One other issue I've had but ignored up until now was that the lower right flipper was a bit sloppy if you were holding it up and the ball hit it at high speed. The impact would cause the flipper to sag down (often causing you to lose the ball) and then it would swing back up again.
I spent some time reading up on the Fliptronics 2 board and how it works but ultimately the problem was very simple once I actually got into troubleshooting it. Lucky for me it was just another simple broken connection as opposed to a faulty component.
- First I went into the single switches test mode from the test menu and tested the End of Stroke (EoS) switches. The lower right flipper EoS was not registering as closed when the flipper button was pressed. I did a quick continuity test on the EoS switch itself just to make sure that it was making a good connection when activated, which it was.
- The flipper circuit diagram shows that all three flipper EoS switches are dependent on the same ground connection. As the left flipper and the upper right flipper EoS switches were working correctly, I tested continuity from the ground tab of the lower right flipper EoS switch to a grounded part of the machine. This test failed.
- I then visually traced the ground connection for the lower right flipper and found that it attaches directly to the left flipper EoS switch ground tab and then shares the same wire back to the Fliptronics 2 board. Looking closely I could see that the wire wasn't making any connection at all and the only reason the wire was still sitting there is because the insulation was melted to the insulation of the lower left flipper ground wire.
- I desoldered both wires from the left flipper EoS switch ground tab, cut and stripped them, and then soldered them back onto the tab (after winding them together).
- I re-ran the single switch test for the upper right flipper EoS switch and it now showed the switch as closed when the flipper button was pressed. It now works as intended and I can no longer use it as an excuse when I lose a ball.
Apologies for another long post! :)
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with regards to my post above, this was the first time I have soldered anything on the bottom of the playfield. Do you guys have any tips on how to do this easily? Given that the flippers are right up the top (when the playfield is raised vertically), I ended up using the short stand on the right hand side of the cabinet to prop the playfield up at approximately a 45degree angle. This way I could comfortably reach the area required while standing in front of the machine. I recall reading elsewhere that using this stand isn't really recommended as it puts stress on the playfield (as it sags diagonally under its own weight when on the stand).
What are your thoughts and/or tips?
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with regards to my post above, this was the first time I have soldered anything on the bottom of the playfield. Do you guys have any tips on how to do this easily? Given that the flippers are right up the top (when the playfield is raised vertically), I ended up using the short stand on the right hand side of the cabinet to prop the playfield up at approximately a 45degree angle. This way I could comfortably reach the area required while standing in front of the machine. I recall reading elsewhere that using this stand isn't really recommended as it puts stress on the playfield (as it sags diagonally under its own weight when on the stand).
What are your thoughts and/or tips?
I've found the best way to work on the underside of the playfield is to take it out of the game and turn it upside down .
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I've found the best way to work on the underside of the playfield is to take it out of the game and turn it upside down .
goodolddays, do you do that for any repair on the underside of the playfield, or only for ones that prove difficult to reach?
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Jaycar didn't have the exact same fuse holder. It's the right rating however it doesn't physically fit through the hole in the line filter box so I've had to mount it temporarily until I can track down something more suitable as a permanent fix. I replaced the power cord at the same time and as well as being safer it looks a lot less ratty on the living room floor too.
Best thing to do is file the hole out to suit the new holder, it will be a standard size then, the old original fuse holders are really dodgy.
- I (nervously) desoldered the dodgy solder surrounding the pin and then applied fresh solder.
- Finally, I did one last continuity test across the pin and confirmed that it was all OK prior to re-installing the PCB in the machine, plugging it in and having a game with working lights.
You need to do all the pins, from the photo they all look dodgy
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Thanks for the tips Boots. After I've had it for a while longer I'm going to pull the whole thing apart for a proper clean up so I'll give all the pins a once over then.
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I've found the best way to work on the underside of the playfield is to take it out of the game and turn it upside down .
goodolddays, do you do that for any repair on the underside of the playfield, or only for ones that prove difficult to reach?
Whilst your still learning there is nothing wrong as long as:
(a) its safe and game is always off and unplugged when working on it.
(b) always remove balls as they smash plastics if you lift the playfield
Once you get into the swing of it more, you will find its 100 x quicker with the playfield out. You can give the cab a nice tidy up and clean, but the playfield is soooo much easier to work on (both sides).
Although at first its a little daunting to remove the whole playfield, its only around 10 or so plugs to remove from CPU board / driver board etc. Just take lots a photos and label them with a texta or masking tape. Also double check before you switch the machine back on as they may have been wrong when you got it..
Here's an idea I stole from Nino years ago that I still use to this very day.
http://aussiepinball.com/index.php?topic=67.0
Now the new and improved version (adapted from a fellow on Pinside)
(http://i1076.photobucket.com/albums/w444/martyjay/Aussie%20Pinball/2014-04-28204117_zpsfba53070.jpg) (http://s1076.photobucket.com/user/martyjay/media/Aussie%20Pinball/2014-04-28204117_zpsfba53070.jpg.html)
This bad boy is the Bugatti of playfield stands.