Mitch's next project.. Zaccaria Universe

[ddstoys]

Do what i did and shoot it lol     Let me know if you want to see the video lol

[Mr Pinbologist]

Nah it wont be necessary to shoot it.. not now 

I ended up sorting out the problems i was having with it

The problem i was having was that several of the scoring relays on the bottom board wouldn't latch on when tripped by the PF switches.. there is a set of contacts on each relay to do this, and a switch on one of the score motor switch stacks that breaks the circuit when a particular score sequence is completed. It was the switch on the score motor that was causing all the grief!! (needed adjusting/cleaning).

I ended up finding it using my multimeter on the continuity test function. it was this switch that was stopping a total of six relays from latching that i found by tracing the latch wire from. Each relay has a wire from one side of the coil that goes to one set of switch contacts on the relay.. this is the relay latch contacts that latch the relay on after it is tripped, and the circuit is broken by the switch on the score motor that i traced the wire on the other relay contact to. (hope this makes sense.. i'll include a pic to hopefully help explain what i mean). i just included this little bit of info in case anyone else encounters this kind of problem, and that it might help!!

[Mr Pinbologist]

A couple of pics to show what i mean.. the first is one of the score relays, showing the wire(s) for the latch circuit for the relay(s) and the white wire from the coil to the contacts, and the 2nd pic showing the set of contacts on the score motor switch stacks that caused all the problems i was having!

It was last night i worked on this and managed to find out what was wrong. the game could actually be played after i did this work!! though still with a few problems with a couple of the stepper units, and sticking score reels, that i'll work on next.

[goodolddays]

Great work ! 
 Been down that tracing wires path on EM's a few times myself now .. can be tricky , espcecially with no manual or schematic .
Glad to hear you've overcome over that hurdle

[SPURR]

Great work ! 
 Been down that tracing wires path on EM's a few times myself now .. can be tricky , espcecially with no manual or schematic .
Glad to hear you've overcome over that hurdle

Especially when the colours on the (fabric) cables are faded and you cant tell which wires which
Or the fabric pulls back exposing naked wires and there touching each other.

[ddstoys]

Great work glad to hear you got it sorted as now we get another restore thread  (We will wont we?)

[Strangeways]

Great start Mitch - and it is all the more satisfying when you find an issue without a schematic - just as hard as doing them over the 'net !

Even if you had the schematic, I THINK Zaccaria often ran out of the colored wires and they were not always what was indicated in the schematics.

[Mr Pinbologist]

Great work glad to hear you got it sorted as now we get another restore thread  (We will wont we?)

Yes you'll definitely get another restore thread

It might not happen for a while though.. Armidale is a COLD bastard of a place in winter and it'll be too cold in the garage to do anything. I'll get it going then i'll most likely put it into storage for a few months while i do a few other things.. in the meantime i'll do a few more resto threads on some of my other games.

Plus im being asked to work on a few other peoples pins so i'll get them outta the way first

[ddstoys]

Cool Mitch looking forward to more of your threads.   Ans i know what its like others machines seem to take priority

[Mr Pinbologist]

G’day all..

just thought I’d add a few more pics of the cabinet and backbox. As can be seen there are quite a few chunks of plywood missing that will need to be filled.

Don’t ya just LOVE the coin door lock??? 

[Mr Pinbologist]

I’ve been concentrating on getting the game up and running before doing anything else to the game. So far I’ve managed to get the game about 75% working… and WITHOUT the aid of a manual!! Speaking of which I managed to track one down, should have it some time next week. 

Last weekend I spent some time removing everything from the bottom board (one section at a time) and cleaning the 30 odd years of crap off the bottom board, using Nifti, and old toothbrush and rags. This is a step i've NEVER done in the past.. seems i've been looking too many of Nino's resto threads  I didn’t get a pic of what it looked like before, believe me it was filthy. Notice the screened on markings for each relay/switch etc… these markings could hardly be seen. 

And today while taking a break from repairing other peoples stuff, I removed one of the stepper unit discs from the bottom board so I could scan it to duplicate it. The second pic shows the stepper unit in question, after I took a pic of the wiring to the disc pcb, I unsoldered and removed the disc. Next I took it into my PC and scanned the disc at 300dpi, and spent a couple of hours editing and cleaning up the image, the 3rd pic shows a test printout on plain paper.

This will be printed onto “Press n Peel” film (a special type of transfer paper for making PCBs, available from Jaycar) on a laser printer, and ironed onto the copper board, (using an ordinary clothes iron) and then etched. I’ll describe the process in more detail (and post pics) when I get around to making the boards.. for those of you who are not familiar with making PCBs.

[Mr Pinbologist]

aahh f**k i did it again, forgot to resize one of the pics!!  no wonder this lot took so long to upload

[Mr Pinbologist]

Well its been a LONG time coming, but I finally decided to do some more with that damn old Zac Universe, after some six months of dormancy with the project. TO be totally honest ,  I’ve not been motivated to do anything at all with it, deciding whether to pull my finger out and restore it or just to sell it off to someone else!! Well I decided yesterday to have a go at making the replacement stepper discs, that I did the artwork for six months ago. I may still end up selling the machine yet.. if I do it’ll be offered for sale here on AP first.

Ok here are the results from making the stepper discs. First I printed the art onto the “Pres n peel” film as per the instructions provided with the film (1st pic). First its necessary to save a ‘mirrored” copy of the art before printing it. Next I cut and prepped the blank pcb for the film by scrubbing with steel wool, and then scrubbing with water, Ajax and cloth, making sure to get all of the soap residue off. 2nd pic shows the press n peel film placed on to the pcb ready to be ironed on.

For anyone not familiar with this stuff, it is ironed on to the copper clad board with a clothes iron. In the past I’ve stuffed up a few attempts at doing this by (I think) not getting the board hot enough. Its important to get a LOT of heat into the film / board, usually about 4 to 5 minutes. (this is stated in the instructions for the Press n peel film). Also I use a piece of plain white A4 paper between the iron and the film. Once the film is ironed on and the board is nice n hot, I then held the board under running water to cool it and peeled the film off carefully. Sometimes there will be a few small bare patches where the film doesn’t iron on , these can be touched up with a pcb etch resist pen.

Last pic shows the board ready to be etched.

[Mr Pinbologist]

Ok, heres the board being etched in Ferric Chloride pcb etchant, in the etching tank I bought years ago from Dick Smith (1st pic). This usually takes anywhere between 5 – 30 minutes depending on the strength/age of the etchant, temperature, etc, as anyone reading this who has made PCBs before will know. I actually diluted the etchant with hot water, 50/50, to get enough to cover the board. I actually made four boards while I was at it.. three stepper boards and another pcb I was making for another project. It took me about 30 minutes to etch four boards, one after the other!

Remaining pics show the end results, 2nd pic is before cleaning the resist off (I used thinners for this), last two pics are the boards cut and cleaned. I tinned the edges where the wires will be attached with solder, and just smeared the sections where the stepper unit fingers will rub with 3 in 1 oil to keep them from tarnishing before I fit them into the game.

The board in the bottom right of the last pic was made for my home made Vortex pin, it will be an upgraded solenoid driver board for the game. You can expect to see a thread soon about the work/upgrades Ive been doing on Vortex..

[ajlaird]

Now, when you go to those lengths to restore a machine we know you are serious!!

I have often thought about buying some PCB making gear but never had anything motivating enough to justify the cost, but I can see you have made it worthwhile.