White Water project

[andtan]

Aavid Thermalloy's P/N 552507B00000G looks real close to original. I don't know where you'll find this in your neck of the woods, but perhaps have your favorite electronics supplier see if they can acquire some.

I got a lot of 5 of them off eBay US just now for about 13 bucks. I'll post back once they arrive, and I can ship you one if needed.

Thanks for the pointers with the heat sinks John,

I already have the one from Futurelec - it doesn't quite fit as every second 'finger' is offset causing it to touch the surrounding components. I am going to try and heat it up and see if I can straighten and re-bend the fingers to make its footprint a little smaller - but I have a sneaking suspicion they will just break. The one from Aavid looks a little more promising - I'll grab one if the other option doesn't work.

Looks like that driver board requires a MAJOR rebuild - this isn't a bad thing as they cause a lot of resetting problems in this era of machine anyway.

Yes Mike I think I definitely got the 'Project' I was after Oh well, I wanted a challenge, so I'll chip away at it and see how I go. At least I know if I get totally stumped, there's plenty of help available here

[johnwartjr]

They arrived today, and are exact. Send me your mailing address and I'll send one out Tuesday. Monday is a holiday here in the states. The other 4 should last me a LONG time, I won't miss one

[andtan]

PM Sent

Thanks John

[elchiminero]

Hi Andy. . . as mentioned before I'm doing a resto on a WH2O as well.  Can you recommend a store / supplier for Williams screws and nuts and bolts.  Or am I best just trying to find replacements from Bunnings?  All advice appreciated.

[pinnies4me]

Best parts place is www.rtbb.com.au

All your stuff at Bunnings will mostly be metric which won't be any good for the US spec stuff on your game.

[andtan]

Best parts place is www.rtbb.com.au

All your stuff at Bunnings will mostly be metric which won't be any good for the US spec stuff on your game.

Yep, as pinnies4me stated - RTBB have lots of that stuff, however for the items that RTBB don't have, I have been Googling the part numbers. You'll find that they will come up at some of the other places that specialise in pin parts.

If you don't have a copy of a White Water Manual to get part numbers from - try here http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?gid=2768

Andy

[andtan]

They arrived today, and are exact. Send me your mailing address and I'll send one out Tuesday. Monday is a holiday here in the states. The other 4 should last me a LONG time, I won't miss one

Hey John,

The heatsink arrived today and yep it's a perfect fit Thanks again for sending it out - hopefully I can repay the favour sometime

[johnwartjr]

Good deal! Just pay it forward when you have the opportunity, and the universe will remain balanced :)

[andtan]

Just a bit of an update.

I've finally stripped the playfield - top and bottom - phew It has taken me about 2 weeks to get it to this stage, and now I'm there I'm not sure if I should feel happy or not. I've got a plastic tub with 75 zip lock bags full of parts, about 150 photos, a wiring harness with more tags than I can poke a stick at, and what seems like a million things to do. Oh well, I'm in no hurry (too bad if I was  ) so I'll just keep plugging away.

The PF doesn't look too bad...... it will need a bit of touching up around most of the inserts which appear to have sunk a smidge and you can see a gap between the PF and inserts. The lost mine wear has been coloured in with what looks like black texta and had mylar stuck over it. I also have a few screw holes in the PF to plug where someone decided that a stripped hole could be easily fixed by using an oversize, overlength screw..... who cares if it sticks up through the PF

The cabinet needs a bit of work, mostly re-gluing the joints as some of them have become loose. The rear of the backbox - the chipboard part - may have to be replaced as the part where the latch bolts on has been torn off - looks like someone tried to close it with the latch done up. I'm in two minds with the cabinet repairs at the moment as I have only been able to source the side art for the cabinet (thanks Mark C ), but the back box, and coin door decals remain elusive. I don't really want to sand it all back as it could stay bare for a looong time. Crappy art probably looks better than none at all.

I've got a few repairs to do on the boards, as previously mentioned, they have had a few parts harvested. I've sourced a large number of components, and two spare driver boards, so I should be able to make a start on those soon.

I have had a lot on fun stripping it down, and so have the kids, who have been eager to help wherever they can. I'll throw a few more photos up later, but to start with here is one of a really grubby PF.

Cheers,

Andy C

[Crashramp]

Very Cool andtan. Your making some great progress there.  I reckon it must feel a little intimidating looking at the bare playfield and a bucket full of parts! Good luck with the rest of the restoration, I look forward to seeing more on your future up dates.

[goodolddays]

Great progress .  .
You will be amazed at how good that PF looks after a clean and polish and no doubt that will help with keeping the motivation going .
Yep, it is somewhat intimidating having a pin in pieces but the satisfaction when its all back together and playable is priceless.

Just don't do what I've done and burn yourself out doing too many restos in too short a time . (in my case more than 1 a year for several years) as you will lose your mojo .

[Bolty]

Lots of detailed photos of restored pinball machines at treasure-cove.net.
Here's the link to a restored Whitewater :-
http://www.treasure-cove.net/ww1.htm
Good luck with the restoration - you certainly have your work cut-out for you with your one!

[andtan]

Thanks for the link Bolty, I hadn't seen that one.

I have removed all the mylars (wasn't that fun ) and hit the playfields with a heap of Nifti, Orange Power Sticky Sport & Goo remover, and Novus 2. They look a lot better, but I still have a way to go to polish out the ball trails around the top loop and No Way Out entrance. There was a lot of really ground in muck, but it is slowy coming out.

I have sanded the underside of the mini playfield, and will do the same to the main playfield as they are covered in black dust / grime which seems to go everywhere. I haven't removed the pop bumper screws as I am worried that they will damage the artwork, so I will leave them in and just work around them.

Every little step I take forward is rewarding, the hardest bit is actually finding the time to sit down and do it!

[ktm450]

Dont forget to sand the front edge of the upper PF and the cut out ledge the ramp sits in.  Finishes the game off nicely 

[andtan]

Update

I've been doing some working on my boards - and yesterday I finished the CPU board

Repairs / mods that I have done include:

• Replaced U11, U12, U13, U14, and U15 - and socketed all the chips
• Fixed some dodgey traces, and removed the wire jumpers that had been in place on the rear of the board
• Replaced the U9 - 84 pin socket, as the original one had a crack in one corner
• Replaced U6 with a new LH6 ROM - from 'That Pinball Place' - thanks johnwartjr
• Replaced the 0 ohm diode at W18 - because I'm too lazy to learn German
• Made up a remote battery holder

After all that I hooked up an old PC power supply to J210 - and............ nothing All three LED's stayed on, no flashes, no nothing - Bugger!!!
I pushed IC's, pulled out the ROM, ASIC, and checked all my soldering - but it didn't want to play.

Today I sent Beaky a message for some assistance, and as the good bloke that he is, he came back with a few tips to follow. Before I ventured down the path of more IC replacements, I though I'd have another go at booting the board, but this time with a different power supply as the first one I had tried was only putting out 4.95 volts instead of 5.00 volts.

Not feeling too confident, I hooked up the next power supply which was putting out 5.35 volts, and voila! - the board booted, and now the LED's were all doing their thing.

I would like to thank Beaky for taking the time to answer my questions, and hope that as I go on he'll be happy to answer more

Here are a couple of before and after photos of the CPU - now to finish off the rest!