Kuroto's Cavern|Sprites & Balls of Steel

We had a little Christmas get-together today, so it was a perfect occasion to turn on the machines again.
Little sis was here too, still trying to get that BK2K high-score and get the dreaded FRK guy off the high score list.

She didn’t succeed, however i did on the WWF Royal Rumble.
First i got the nice score of 1,106,308,290 points. This put me on #2 on the high score list, which made me “World Champ”.

After Christmas dinner, we went to play another few rounds, which resulted in yet another new highscore.

Though i did manage to screw up by wanting to be fast and typing a “U” instead of a “T”, i am now King o’ Ring on my own WWF Royal Rumble machine.
And it was about time

I will correct my error one of these days, but for now i’m pretty happy

Got an E-mail from a WMS The Getaway owner who got directed to me by Aeneas (flippers.be).

He had some issues with his machine. Lots of broken lightbulbs, and the coindoor buttons wouldn’t work anymore.
The machine was put in storage for a long time, resulting in leaked batteries and battery corrosion on the MPU.

First i checked if the coin door buttons weren’t defective, and if the cabling was OK.
That seemed to work, so i knew there was an issue with the MPU.

So i went back home and took the MPU with me.
Removed the old battery holder, and all the affected components.
After that, i’ve used a 50/50 solution of vinegar and water (thanks to Peter “Arcadia” Smets for the tip!) to neutralize the battery acid. Then i cleaned off the PCB (with water!) and let it dry for the whole night on the stove.

I had to replace 2 LM339 IC’s,  2 SN74LS240 IC’s, and a few resistors. I’ve also installed a remote battery holder, to prevent other battery corrosion accidents.

Then i went back to install the MPU.
Note that this is the first time i repaired an acidized MPU, so i didn’t know what to expect.

After i’ve installed the MPU, i tried to enter the settings menu of the machine.
Still had the same problem.
At this point, i didn’t know how to continue the repair. I was contemplating just ordering a new MPU, but that would cost over 200 euro’s (including shipping and handling) so that would be a “worst case scenario”. I’ve asked around wether i could test the MPU in another WPC machine (i don’t currently own a WPC machine so i couldn’t test it myself) on Flipperforum, and Kristof Vandermeeren, who lives close to me (about a 20 minute drive) told me he’d be happy to have me test the MPU in his Judge Dredd machine.

He already did an awesome job repairing a Twilight Zone from someone he knows, with a lot more battery corrosion than this MPU. So with his previous experiences of battery corrosion on WPC cpu’s, he was able to help me, and jumper the traces that were broken. And he did an awesome job doing so.

With the traces now being repaired, and the MPU being properly tested, i went back to the owner to reinstall the MPU for the second time.
The buttons worked as they should, and i’ve replaced around 30 lightbulbs in the machine.
The left flipper button needed some work too, i had to resolder one of the wires that appearantly broke off.

All in all, the machine was in a pretty good state, and played perfectly when i left the now extremely happy owner’s house.
For me, this is a good experience, and again, i’ve learned some things about repairing pinball machines:

- Always use schematics when repairing battery acid. Even when you think it’s repaired, there might be some broken traces.
- Measure, remeasure, and remeasure again! You can’t be sure enough.

This morning i got an email from a Gottlieb Time Line owner who had a problem with a few solenoids that wouldn’t work anymore.
He got referred to me by Aeneas (flippers.be, go check his website out, loads of interesting pinball-related information!), and as i live close by (2 streets away to be exact), i went to take a look.

Took a while to find out what the problem was. Checked the connections on the solenoids, measured the coil resistance, and checked the driverboard. All seemed fine at first sight. After searching for a while, and even trying a different MPU, i found the culprit.
One of the fuses on the bottom of the playfield was blown, so after replacing it, the game was working fine.

It was also the first time i encountered this game, so offcourse, with the owner’s permission i tried to play it a few times.
Pretty nice game, especially for an 1980 System80 game.

Lessons learned today? Always check the fuses first. They’re the first to go when there’s a problem.

Got my playfield back from my grandma.
Yeah, she’s awesome. And no, she doesn’t take commission

Started some work on the ROCK machine.
Had the coindoor sandblasted,  because it was in a REALLY sorry state.
Here’s a before pic:

Coindoor in a sorry state

And an after pic:

After sandblasting. Pic is clickable.

Add 6 layers of satin black paint, some credit buttons, and voila:

Coindoor after restoration. Pic is clickable.

 You might ask yourself why i installed buttons instead of coin chutes.
Well, the coin chutes were so badly damaged, i couldn’t re-use them. And because you can’t setup a System80B machine for freeplay, i’ve installed these buttons to add credits. That way i don’t have to buy new coin chutes, and the freeplay problem is solved in an elegant manner. Now i just need to find a solution for the coin return holes. The parts that should go there weren’t included with the machine either.

I’ve also installed the Rock Encore roms in the machine because i really like the sound of them.
I will however keep the original roms in the cupboard in my gameroom just in case.
Many thanks to Peter Smets from Arcadia Amusements for burning those EPROMs for me.

Here’s a video of them in action, along with a quick view of the coindoor buttons:

I’ve been playing around with my DSLR’s shutter speed.
Pictures were nice enough, so i made wallpapers out of them.

Licensed under a creative commons BY-NC-ND 2.5 license.
However, if you’d like to use them commercially, feel free to contact me, i won’t bite unless you ask

Black Knight 2000 – Ramp View

Download: 1024*768 - 1600*1200 - 3008*1820 - 1920*1080 - 1280*720

WWF Royal Rumble – Left Ramp

Download: 1024*768 - 1600*1200 - 3008*2000 - 1920*1080 - 1280*720

WWF Royal Rumble – Loop Entrance

Download: 1024*768 - 1600*1200 - 3008*2000 - 1920*1080 - 1280*720

GI issues on the upper playfield began to resurface.
The GI would go out at times when the machine was being nudged, so it seemed to me that there was a cold joint/bad contact somewhere in the GI circuit.
I’ve checked all connections, but they seemed fine. Then i checked the breakout board under the playfield after checking the wiring scheme in the manual.

Nudged the connector a bit, and sure enough, the GI would flicker.

After that i’ve pulled out the connector, and i could easily pull out the white/violet wire.
As i don’t have the right tools, i used a flathead screwdriver to reinsert the wire into the connector.
I wonder if some kind of pliers exist for these type of connectors.

Oh well, it works now, just have to keep an eye on it for now.

Appearantly, my sister is now addicted to pinball.
So addicted in fact, she couldn’t resist putting a highscore on my BK2K.

There is one problem however. That dreaded “FRK” guy.
Yep. FRaNKy’s got a new highscore arch-enemy.

“One of these days, FRK. One of these days… POW! Right in the kisser!”

Just played a couple of WWFRR rounds in honor of “Macho Man” Randy Savage (who died this weekend), and i set a new highscore.

Had some GI-lighting problems on Ye Olde Black Knight 2000.
At one point the upper playfield GI-lighting stopped working, as did the upper backbox GI-lighting.

Checked the schematics, and one of the connectors of the backbox interconnect board wasn’t seated properly. Reseated, powered the machine on, and the upper playfield GI was working again.

The backbox still had lighting issues though. Rechecked the schematics, traced the wires of the GI-portion that wasn’t working, but they were OK.

Then i noticed the so-called elephant in the room:

Yep. Mister J6 decided to commit suicide by instant combustion.

The PCB connector seems to look OK, albeit a bit black. I’ll just replace the connector and clean the PCB connector a bit.