I was about 15 when I started working in my local Arcade back in the UK, we had machines from mechanical one arm bandits to space invaders and pinballs. I played those pinballs til my fingers were raw. Working there is what got me so interested in electrical and electronics ( well that and the number of shocks I got from poking fingers where fingers should not go ). I left there for an apprentiship as an autoelectrician and that continued into automotive electronics. I moved to Australia in 1989 and began a long career repairing vehicle ECU's and the usual autoelectrical work. Now, electronics is my hobby and believe me, I have a long queue of folks with various items which don't work but they don't want to replace ( including Kettles !! Why would anyone put an MPU into a kettle !!!) BUT, I will never forget the joy of helping one of the techs fixing pinball machines or that I once held the top score on an ALIEN pinball machine, for 8 months !! ... Keep the vids coming, These machines deserve to be played and my kids and grandkids just have to experience the thrill of saving a ball heading for the chute !!! You guys are saving memories for everyone...
Wow! Flippers? The least of the issues...super job Ron! The customer will freak out after seeing your handiwork. I wish half of the mechanics, repair folks, etc. were half as talented and thorough as you. EXCELLENT!
The shade tree mechanic in me loves seeing the EMs y'all get to work on, but the professional computer guy in me loves seeing these modern machines being brought back to life! Great work!
It’s pretty funny that there is a completely separate board for the rope lights. Thanks for the reply on the last video. I forget that you make the videos in advance and are very detail oriented. I watch them all!
No problem Aaron yes they made these things where it was pretty easy to add modules to them, so back then each machine had 1 little thing that they added on for that machine that was different than the rest... they even did that back with the E.M.'s they seemed to try to invent some new gadget or toy or whatever every few machines, then they'd try to use it on other machines. I wouldn't be surprised if they used that rope light board on some other game too later...
Thanks for the comment about the DE hummm…. Was going to try and sort that on the LAH I just fixed up but will leave it now. Another really informative video.
Hi Ron! Point of interest (Well, it was interesting to me, at least...); You mentioned the 'intense' music, and that made me realize that the music pallet, and cadence reminded me of the music from one of my favorite pinball machines - Star Trek 25th Anniversary (also produced by Data East, so no surprise there...). As always, your dedication and relentless pursuit of troubleshooting is appreciated, certainly by your customers, as well as by those of us who are in a position to only watch... 😃
Absolutely great, watched you troubleshoot while I was troubleshooting at work, lol. The machine sounds great. Hard to believe that there is a whole chip for just that tiny rom file, makes me feel old. Keep up the good work!
When you were messing with the sound, I was screaming "change the RAM!". Lol. I had a DE Rocky and Bullwinkle that did the same darn thing! It was indeed bad RAM
Great repair Ron! People hate on this game, & a lot of DE games. I am a Williams fan myself, but Hook & several DE games are high on my favorites list. Hello from Phoenix Arizona!🔥
I learned a long time ago people try to find reasons to not like something.... why in the hell anybody does that I will never understand, I have yet to find the pinball machine I don't like... Most people even read reviews, so another person can tell them what to hate about something, lol the Data East ones are some of my favorites!
@@LyonsArcade- We think a lot alike Ron! The only game that strikes me as odd, but I still play it is Xenon. I think Sega got away from the unique charm that DE had, example = Baywatch. I always preferred the uniqueness of Williams original games. I still played them but was a little turned off by other manufacturers only making I.P. based games. Checkpoint, Simpsons, Jurassic Park, Hook, & Star Wars was part of my top 5 DE games in no certain order. Imagine how cool a DE pinball of Knight Rider would have been. It might have Turbo Boosted to my top favorite of all time. OH WELL!😁
The "Data East speaker hum" is so hard to get rid of, even with making sure all the screws are properly secured, or floating the board with nylon screws. Ultimately the best thing to do is just install a Pinsound board so you get better sounds/music anyway and the hum is removed automatically. I can totally appreciate the amount of work it took to get the stock sound board working though. I'm just lazy and would rather upgrade the part.
@@LyonsArcade Yep. Apparently the “definitive” fix is to power the sound board by a completely separate/dedicated power supply using modern components. You can even do it using a computer PSU. Again, I’d rather just have the best of both worlds and use Pinsound and an external sub. It sounds so good with my Royal Rumble machine.
Very informative video. My first thought was the ram chip because the game got stuck when playing longer sounds but that was mostly just a lucky guess. It's nice to see your troubleshooting and learn from your familiarity with components.
Great work Ron! GREAT! I know many would say "come on man, man come on now, come on man", and say to hook up 8 scopes, 15 frequency counters, 10 or 15 data recorders, but that's not realistic in the real world. Good job on a "field" repair!
Also bringing this machine in saying "The flippers aren't working, can you fix them?" is the equivalent of bringing a car in a work shop saying "My check engine light is burned out, can you replace that?"
Wow, they made it so complicated with the solid state flippers. On the EM I used to have the filpper coils had a center tap and an end of stroke switch that reduced the amperage for holding the flipper in the on position.
"Fun for you? I'm working my arse off...." LOL! I started off working as an Arcade attendant and quickly made it up the ranks to arcade manager/store tech about 30 years ago. My personal favorite Pinball to play? "Twilight Zone". (close 2nd? Bride of Pinbot) My all time favorite one to repair? "Fun House". I rebuilt "Rudy's Head" as my first official repair. To this day? I still miss working on pinball games. These things will force you to use critical thinking and logic. It's the best feeling when you nail it and the entire game screams back to life! Cryin' shame that most pinball companies went "Blech" years ago. Only a handful of companies left.
Man, I'm going to have to re-watch Hook again now, for like the 50th time. Even better is that I have it in 4K too :D Hook + Bicentennial Man + Dead Poets Society are my 3 favourite Robin Williams movies.
That's very nice of you to say Bill, there are a lot of techs who are much better than me at fixing these though, I just have a lot of fun doing it :) Thanks for watching!!!
Nice fix! This machine was a real basket case, seems like someone who has no business with a soldering iron in their hand was fuckin around with it. At least they didn't do more damage. Also, the music in this game is awesome as heck! Some seriously great chiptunes. For the buzzing/humming, it's going to be bad/shitty grounds guaranteed. It's always bad grounds. It's definitely an exciting, fast table with a ton of cool bits. Even if Hook wasn't the greatest movie, I always loved it as a kid just for Robin Williams hamming it up. I'd never seen this table before though, can't wait to see you play it more!
Itemized bill line items: wire-wiggling, part-swapping, trace-patching, connector-fixing, boy-hooking, leg-lifting, cable-flipping, logic-probing, Pan-hating, chip-socketing... what did I forget?
@@LyonsArcade Hopefully turning the screw on other people's thumbs... That hum is driving me bonkers. That must be the game itself. Usually wrapping the low DC output around a filter toroid would reduce or eliminate the hum to where it's tolerable. Personally, I think it got hit by lightning and it suffered some damage from it.
@@Nighthawke70- Each game manufacturer has their little quirks with their systems. I own Williams High Speed & Pinbot, those have William's humming while in the attract mode. It is unique to each game but I have gotten use to the hum after 31 years of owning my High Speed machine. My Pinbot I have only owned for almost 3 years, but it was saved from going to be scrapped. Pin-Bot cost me $700, & 2 years worth of work but the time spent was worth it to make sure Pin-Bot's circuits are activated. Hello from Phoenix Arizona!🔥
Man I poured a LOT of money into Gyruss back in the day. Just to hear that audio! Down under most of the games were bootlegs or kits so it wasn’t always easy to find a decent cab to play.
Did the game come with the bumper pin in between the paddles originally? That seems like something I would install to prevent ball loss. What an awesome video. That was a lot of problem solving and detective work. Sounds like the customer didn't know all that stuff wasn't working.
Yeah usually they don't realize it's more broken than they think because they may not even be the one playing it, maybe their kids are playing it, or their grandma or whatever. Or maybe they're drunk the last time the flippers worked, haha I'm not sure if it had a mini post in it or not, you can look at the flyers on www.IPDB.org to see how each machine looked originally though... thanks for watching Scott!!!
Wow I think that's the longest ball play I have ever seen Ron have and it timed out before it drained so will never know? Fun game with a gazillion lights and of course Ron figured it out.
See, this is why YOU repair pinball machines, and I don't. My first two guesses about the problem with the sound board would've been wrong. All that, and it was just a bad RAM chip. You're right about the power supply, though; my understanding is that the original power supply was unregulated, and the replacement is regulated (I could have that bass-ackward). For some reason, that can cause problems with the sound; either static/buzzing, or not quite enough power on the +5V input, which IIRC is C63 on the sound board. I've been talking to a friend of mine, who owns a TMNT pinball (another Data East pinball machine that also came out in 1992, so it uses the same sound board and power supply). His machine had a problem with the sound cutting out when certain lights were on. He eventually traced the problem back to the power supply, which had been replaced by the previous owner. When those particular lights were on, the +5V going to the sound board was dropping to +2V.
I don't like to be negative about any of the replacement stuff or the companies making parts because in general, they're all very helpful if you have problems and the replacement boards have fixed countless machines... but as you can see I much prefer all the original boards with a few exceptions. They didn't make that regulated mistake on purpose or to be cheap, they just didn't catch it. Just an interesting little quirk in the design.... thanks for watching SpearM!
@@LyonsArcade Oh, no argument there. I prefer the original boards, but if that's not possible, I'd happily use a replacement part to get it working, even if the sound occasionally drops out, or has a little buzzing (which I probably wouldn't hear anyway because of tinnitus).
Ron, that was a good video. I been working on that same sound board so I was wondering where you was going with it, I would add that 'Rom Check' for corruption before I got too serious with the repair, I did fix mine but replacing the whole board and then fixing the input on the one I bought, maybe my other has RAM error as it was dead silent. I will be doing a video on that soon myself. Great work... some good videos recently.
Admit it Joe/Ron: You LIKED working on this one because it was Peter Pan. Everybody wants to be the kid who doesn't grow up and can fly! I've never been into pinball machines, myself. Oh, I had a portable dinky pinball machine (all-plastic!) when I was a little kid but it broke quickly. Those toys in the 1970s weren't built well sometimes! Also had a radio-controlled R2-D2 (original Kenner) but it broke quickly, too. I miss that Artoo unit sometimes! Maybe I should just get a full-size or quarter-scale R2 sometime? Anyway, I do have a few pinball games but they're all virtual. Probably 6-8 different playing fields at least on Sega Saturn (CD-ROM) and PS3 downloads. Some of this stuff isn't bad when they get the physics right but it's not a real pinball machine, either. I don't kid myself there! I can't say what my favorite pinball machine is. I've seen 20-40 different models over the years in arcades. A lot of them I just glanced at them and never played. I was more into videogames... From what you've fixed, I would say the Star Trek and Black Knight pinball games stick out the most. I think they had a nice Star Wars pinball machine released in the early 1990s(?) but I don't remember much about it. Again, the stuff that interested me would like the 1983 Star Wars arcade game, Star Wars Trilogy (Sega Model 3, 1997/1998), and Capcom's fighting games (CPS-2).
This is a somewhat vague comment, but from my good old days playing pinball, I think this flipper arrangement is annoying. It's essentially changing an analog function to a digital one. By putting a timer on the voltage change rather than using relays, when you press the flipper button you are committing to a full swing. On the older relay type, you have the option of releasing the button before it reaches full movement, giving you a weaker swing - so the ball is not at maximum velocity constantly. The temperature in the flipper coils as it warms up also create some variation in the game play. As a kid, a lot of it was instinct. Now I can understand the reasons why different machines were different. The patent issue is definitely obnoxious. In the 1920s, the battle between AT&T, RCA, and General Electric almost killed radio until the government intervened.
10:00 The transformer output coil in the schematic is a 9-C-9 which is just a 18vac coil with a center tap and the diodes in the circuit create a half-bridge and not a full-bridge rectifier. Across the two ends of the coil you'll get total AC voltage but the two half-bridge rectifiers are only converting the positive side of the AC on just half the transformer. And the center tap is used as a ground so that only half the transformer is being used at a time. Since only half of the AC wave is being rectified on just half the transformer coil you only see about 9V DC on the output of the diodes instead of 25V DC you'd get on the full coil with a full-bridge...
Gr8 video! I have a lethal weapon 3 with no sound at all. The three audio amps section works and I can hear the hum. Voltages are a little bit off: -14v , +11v, +4,9v. What can it be?
Great content as always. With the 9/8/18/…VDC supply for the flipper hold problem, what did you actually do to make them hold again? Probably me missing something but (amongst all the other amazing things you tracked down and resolved) you just seemed to check the voltage rail.
The fuses were blown which is why that rail was missing.... must have had something traumatic happen at some point that blew all the fuses.... Thanks for watching Ed!
Awesome video detailing your work. Question on one part, you mention checking the Hook sound ROM at 34:00 and it checked fine, how did you go about that?
@@LyonsArcade Gotcha, but I mean how are you checking the ROM, against another of the exact same chip? Or are you able to find a dump online to check it against?
Love all these videos you do, and just got my hands on my first pinball machine, and yes, it's the Hook. Has issues though, lol, don't we all. On switch-on the machine starts up, shouts out Hook, Hook, Hook, lights flash and a few of the solenoids fire. The display then shows the Rom version "DISPLAY: HOOK A4.01", but doesn't show anything else. Anyone any ideas how to get past this and onto the test screen?
Yes, you have to reverse both ends. If any of the wires is carrying voltage (e.g. +5VDC), and you only reverse one end, you are risking providing power to a pin that does not normally receive power, and burning something out.
To eliminate speaker hum, simply put resistors in series with each speaker. This lowers the max volume slight but removes all the annoying hum. Try resistors around 10-50 ohm.
hi Ron sorry i did not like yesterdays video this i do like i enloy watching these old pinball tables being saved thanks Ron and i like when you say comeon people that makes me laugh hope to see you friday
Those 6264s are eol if original, i didnt know the sound board had those!! But, common failure when u look at those 6264 rams on wpc dmd boards. Man that hooky glory sounded great at the end!! And yup, when you think of bad ram, that jumpy music earlier in the video was it!!
Thank you Andrew yeah I wonder how much longer some of these chips that actively handle a lot of action are going to last, even though it's just digital surely the more it handles the easier it is to 'wear out' at least that's my thinking :) I'm sure eventually (or maybe even now) there is a better way to handle these ram that are becoming obsolete.... thanks for watching, we appreciate it!!!
@@LyonsArcade i think as long as u socket it, u can pull it again and should be smooth sailing but that game looks solid now - just catching up on your gsme play one. Now check this out : ruclips.net/user/shortsijLxzkXZURU?feature=share
One question, one request - Did you at any point really believe it was going to be 'just the flippers'? Request - would love to see/hear about customer's reaction to seeing their treasures restored!
No I never thought it would be just the flippers. I've never seen it be just the flippers, lol but I understand that's just the symptom that the customers see first so I don't mind it or anything. We'll have to see if we can film anybody's reaction, they usually love it, sometimes they reply on the videos..... thanks for watching Richard!
Hey, i'm not an expert... but the music and sound is probably read from the 3 sound chips then converted using the mousetrap chip (it probably is some sort of codec converter. i have not looked this up) and then saved into the RAM. Just so the CPU does not have to convert the audio all of the time (saves CPU processing and time). But if the RAM is bad it can't write the music to the RAM or only parts of it with some parts screwed up. Then the machine (CPU/audio just gives up or hangs). The voice chips audio was probably written in a part of the ram that still worked but the music (that's longer and needs more space on the RAM chip) not. Or maybe it does do the converting all of the time but the music was just too much to save on the chip (after it's converted it needs some space to save the outcome and by continuously converting sound and music it will use more CPU but you can do with less memory but it can still loop fragments of it without reconverting the same bit every 10 seconds) Think of it as it were a DVD player setup. The data is on de DVD and is read fine (Voice and music chips). The DVD player (Mousetrap) converts the data from the chips into the memory of the DVD player then the DVD player wants to output this to the screen and audio but it does not know what to do with some parts of the data or maybe it's even missing the data it got from memory... but still tries to play it... now i think pinball machines are not as advanced as the computers we use nowadays as nowadays computers would just skip the parts it cannot read and continue from where it can or skip it entirely.
I think I know who you're talking about with a guy who designed the Xbox. I remember watching a documentary and they were talking to the person who designed the electronics. And also John from John's basement arcade did an interview with him I think it's the same guy.
Hey, while I'm thinking about it: point out a video you did that shows you soldering or repairing a trace. I want to see someone who has done it a lot. Every time I've tried, the results look like someone handed a two-year-old a bowl of mash-potatoes. Thanks.
I don't ever film it, the sad reality is anytime I show anything specific, I get a whole bunch of people just complaining that I didn't do it good and I don't know what I'm talking about, I shouldn't film it, etc. I had a guy email me the other day to let me know he's started a private facebook page where he and his fellow assholes can post about how horrible I am at repairing things, lol This is the level of hatred you get when you do social media stuff, so I make sure not to do anything like soldering on the video because you only get negative comments about things like that. I try to keep it about the little bit of theory that I know, and how fun and cool the game and designs are and people seem to enjoy that. Anything too technical like how to solder is best left to the assholes who think they know it all, I know I don't know it all. Thank you for watching JustJoe Oleson!!!!
@@justjoe942 Just to back up Ron's point about not doing solder videos, there's a guy who has some advanced solder technique videos up on YT. He's an instructor for mil-spec soldering for NASA. In other words, he teaches people how to do soldering for the freaking space shuttle, etc. And guess what? There are people in the comments telling him he's not doing it right.
I got a Data East Star Wars isue with the drop targets 1 falls down randomly.And when there all knocked down they stay down until the ball drains.Also randomly the game ends on the 2nd ball in play it shows the 3rd ball and ends.Can you do a show about what to diagnose. Thanks love the show.
We're actually going to be doing videos on a Data East Star Wars but it'll still be a little while, but yes eventually we'll do exactly what you're talking about.... Basically what's going on with them not resetting is that it doesn't know they're all down, there must be a switch that connects when all of them are down and that's not working right. The one that falls randomly i'll have to look into that on ours when we work on it and I'll film it for you... thanks for watching starwars68!
Yeah the drop targets there's only three act up when you're playing for a little while and not a thing sometimes it ends on ball to the game but it does everything randomly and the game works fine for everything else it's not that big of a deal I was told by the person I got it from just clean it cuz it wasn't shopped but it is a really nice condition
Btw... those ribbon cables connectors are looking quite interesting but they use the same technique as the other connectors (insulation displacement connector) they just have a plastic part over it to try and stop the ribbon from coming loose..... but pulling them can also loosen them up... DO NOT try and fix them.... it's hard (or maybe impossible) to get them back on right :P
My experience is that if you try and take a ribbon cable connector apart the plastic clips break, they are really designed to be one-time things. Terminating new connectors on clean ribbon cable (if you are re-using a cable I would cut off the part that was damaged by the old connector, if you can't afford the length loss I would replace the whole cable) is pretty easy though. Just put the cable in place and the cap on loosely, then squeeze everything into place with a vise (you can get special tools, but a small vise works just fine)
I’ve been struggling with a LW3 sound board. Re-capped, new roms, and I saw this vid, so I socketed a new 6264 today. Nothing…we’ll not nothing, but the same “We’re ba- ba- we’re b..” then nothing. The only thing left is the bsmt2000 chip. Do you think that could be the problem? Or would it be all or nothing with that chip?
I was really hoping that Brian Schmidt would turn out to be a relation. Alas, no. Although according to his bio, we did both live in Chicago at the same time, so that's kind of fun.
Pretty much any channel I subscribe to that is about people fixing things or doing interesting work, the comment section attracts sh-t posts from people who think they can do it better. These people don't actually post videos of them doing anything. Let alone doing things better. Keep up the great work, and Let's go Brandon.
It's not rare for data on EEPROM to get corrupted because it relies on having or not having an electrical charge on hundreds of mosfet gates that can dissipate over time._
The sound board troubleshooting left me in awe. You Sir, are Amazing!!!
That’s very nice of you to say Moises!
Well if that ain't the darndest thing 😁
By far the best repair Pinball Channel on RUclips. By far people
Thanks Arcade Crusaders we appreciate you saying something so nice! See you on the next video...
I was about 15 when I started working in my local Arcade back in the UK, we had machines from mechanical one arm bandits to space invaders and pinballs. I played those pinballs til my fingers were raw. Working there is what got me so interested in electrical and electronics ( well that and the number of shocks I got from poking fingers where fingers should not go ). I left there for an apprentiship as an autoelectrician and that continued into automotive electronics. I moved to Australia in 1989 and began a long career repairing vehicle ECU's and the usual autoelectrical work. Now, electronics is my hobby and believe me, I have a long queue of folks with various items which don't work but they don't want to replace ( including Kettles !! Why would anyone put an MPU into a kettle !!!) BUT, I will never forget the joy of helping one of the techs fixing pinball machines or that I once held the top score on an ALIEN pinball machine, for 8 months !! ... Keep the vids coming, These machines deserve to be played and my kids and grandkids just have to experience the thrill of saving a ball heading for the chute !!! You guys are saving memories for everyone...
Wow! Flippers? The least of the issues...super job Ron! The customer will freak out after seeing your handiwork. I wish half of the mechanics, repair folks, etc. were half as talented and thorough as you. EXCELLENT!
The shade tree mechanic in me loves seeing the EMs y'all get to work on, but the professional computer guy in me loves seeing these modern machines being brought back to life! Great work!
It’s pretty funny that there is a completely separate board for the rope lights. Thanks for the reply on the last video. I forget that you make the videos in advance and are very detail oriented. I watch them all!
No problem Aaron yes they made these things where it was pretty easy to add modules to them, so back then each machine had 1 little thing that they added on for that machine that was different than the rest... they even did that back with the E.M.'s they seemed to try to invent some new gadget or toy or whatever every few machines, then they'd try to use it on other machines. I wouldn't be surprised if they used that rope light board on some other game too later...
Thoroughly enjoyed watching you work through that old-school hardware. Great job and thank you for taking the time to share.
Ron you do a great job troubleshooting. That's why I keep watching every video you put out. There's always something to learn.
WOW! She's alive! Keep up your good work of reviving those games. 👍👍👍
An excellent find on the sound board and rope lights Ron. And once again, a great circuit analysis... WELL DONE!!! 10/10
Joe, I hope the ladies are watching, dude - you rock! What a hoot your skills are epic!
That's Ronnie talking
Thanks for the comment about the DE hummm…. Was going to try and sort that on the LAH I just fixed up but will leave it now. Another really informative video.
You'll chase it for months man better to just ignore it, haha
As far as I can see, all DE machines have similar problems. It was great repairs, thank you!
Very nice to see this coming back to life. Better stock up on those PI(T)A chips :-) Good job and solid troubleshooting
Thank you Erik we appreciate you watching with us!
Hi Ron!
Point of interest (Well, it was interesting to me, at least...); You mentioned the 'intense' music, and that made me realize that the music pallet, and cadence reminded me of the music from one of my favorite pinball machines - Star Trek 25th Anniversary (also produced by Data East, so no surprise there...). As always, your dedication and relentless pursuit of troubleshooting is appreciated, certainly by your customers, as well as by those of us who are in a position to only watch... 😃
Thank you Dave that's very nice of you to say, i'll bet that Star Trek has the same BSMT2000 chip in it handling the music!
Absolutely great, watched you troubleshoot while I was troubleshooting at work, lol. The machine sounds great. Hard to believe that there is a whole chip for just that tiny rom file, makes me feel old. Keep up the good work!
Nice digging in and whipping this thing into shape...
Great repair video...I very much enjoy you sharing your trouble shooting process. It makes me want to be more adventurous with my own repairs!
When you were messing with the sound, I was screaming "change the RAM!". Lol. I had a DE Rocky and Bullwinkle that did the same darn thing! It was indeed bad RAM
Great repair Ron!
People hate on this game, & a lot of DE games. I am a Williams fan myself, but Hook & several DE games are high on my favorites list.
Hello from Phoenix Arizona!🔥
I learned a long time ago people try to find reasons to not like something.... why in the hell anybody does that I will never understand, I have yet to find the pinball machine I don't like... Most people even read reviews, so another person can tell them what to hate about something, lol
the Data East ones are some of my favorites!
@@LyonsArcade- We think a lot alike Ron! The only game that strikes me as odd, but I still play it is Xenon. I think Sega got away from the unique charm that DE had, example = Baywatch. I always preferred the uniqueness of Williams original games. I still played them but was a little turned off by other manufacturers only making I.P. based games. Checkpoint, Simpsons, Jurassic Park, Hook, & Star Wars was part of my top 5 DE games in no certain order. Imagine how cool a DE pinball of Knight Rider would have been. It might have Turbo Boosted to my top favorite of all time. OH WELL!😁
For someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing, you are amazing!! Love the video’s.
The "Data East speaker hum" is so hard to get rid of, even with making sure all the screws are properly secured, or floating the board with nylon screws. Ultimately the best thing to do is just install a Pinsound board so you get better sounds/music anyway and the hum is removed automatically. I can totally appreciate the amount of work it took to get the stock sound board working though. I'm just lazy and would rather upgrade the part.
There's nothing wrong with that. The original design has some issues for it to be causing hum in som many games...
@@LyonsArcade Yep. Apparently the “definitive” fix is to power the sound board by a completely separate/dedicated power supply using modern components. You can even do it using a computer PSU. Again, I’d rather just have the best of both worlds and use Pinsound and an external sub. It sounds so good with my Royal Rumble machine.
Nice detective work on that sound board, Ron! I'm lovin that coaster on the playfield, with the light track working right, it's a dazzler.
You do see those remakes of that BS2000 chip on the one pinball place. 59 buckaroos. Cool vid reminded me of walking into the mall arcade YEARS ago!
I have a very similar problem on my Lethal Weapon 3! I’ll try these tips. Thanks Joe!
Very informative video. My first thought was the ram chip because the game got stuck when playing longer sounds but that was mostly just a lucky guess. It's nice to see your troubleshooting and learn from your familiarity with components.
Great work Ron! GREAT! I know many would say "come on man, man come on now, come on man", and say to hook up 8 scopes, 15 frequency counters, 10 or 15 data recorders, but that's not realistic in the real world. Good job on a "field" repair!
Just shows that common sense and experience can fix most things. Good job!
Also bringing this machine in saying "The flippers aren't working, can you fix them?" is the equivalent of bringing a car in a work shop saying "My check engine light is burned out, can you replace that?"
haha, yup, and the car's on a wrecker, lol
Wow, they made it so complicated with the solid state flippers. On the EM I used to have the filpper coils had a center tap and an end of stroke switch that reduced the amperage for holding the flipper in the on position.
Man, amazing work! and nice history lesson :D
Thank you for watching Tyetus!
I love this game. There's woefully little to find about it. Not a single emulator exists for it.
Really cool to see you working on it. Thanks!
In the early 80's repairing the same machines you are today Its help pay why way through college Defender is my favorite of all though lol
Hook has to be one of my all time favorites
"Fun for you? I'm working my arse off...."
LOL! I started off working as an Arcade attendant and quickly made it up the ranks to arcade manager/store tech about 30 years ago. My personal favorite Pinball to play? "Twilight Zone". (close 2nd? Bride of Pinbot) My all time favorite one to repair? "Fun House". I rebuilt "Rudy's Head" as my first official repair.
To this day? I still miss working on pinball games. These things will force you to use critical thinking and logic. It's the best feeling when you nail it and the entire game screams back to life!
Cryin' shame that most pinball companies went "Blech" years ago. Only a handful of companies left.
Great artwork for a Hook game.
Now that was a big challenge to fix, great work again! 😎👍
Man, I'm going to have to re-watch Hook again now, for like the 50th time.
Even better is that I have it in 4K too :D
Hook + Bicentennial Man + Dead Poets Society are my 3 favourite Robin Williams movies.
Your customer is getting great value!
I guess we were both wrong about it being the CPU, but memory chip is logical too. Glad you got it figured out!
Hi Ronnie, thank you to you and your brothers for helping the gaming community.
I would put you in the top ten list with Steve from PBR.
That's very nice of you to say Bill, there are a lot of techs who are much better than me at fixing these though, I just have a lot of fun doing it :) Thanks for watching!!!
Nice fix! This machine was a real basket case, seems like someone who has no business with a soldering iron in their hand was fuckin around with it. At least they didn't do more damage.
Also, the music in this game is awesome as heck! Some seriously great chiptunes. For the buzzing/humming, it's going to be bad/shitty grounds guaranteed. It's always bad grounds. It's definitely an exciting, fast table with a ton of cool bits. Even if Hook wasn't the greatest movie, I always loved it as a kid just for Robin Williams hamming it up. I'd never seen this table before though, can't wait to see you play it more!
We shall be playing it Friday for SURE see you then shermanikk!!
Itemized bill line items: wire-wiggling, part-swapping, trace-patching, connector-fixing, boy-hooking, leg-lifting, cable-flipping, logic-probing, Pan-hating, chip-socketing... what did I forget?
Button pressing sound thinking and screw turning
@@LyonsArcade Hopefully turning the screw on other people's thumbs... That hum is driving me bonkers. That must be the game itself. Usually wrapping the low DC output around a filter toroid would reduce or eliminate the hum to where it's tolerable.
Personally, I think it got hit by lightning and it suffered some damage from it.
@@Nighthawke70- Each game manufacturer has their little quirks with their systems. I own Williams High Speed & Pinbot, those have William's humming while in the attract mode. It is unique to each game but I have gotten use to the hum after 31 years of owning my High Speed machine. My Pinbot I have only owned for almost 3 years, but it was saved from going to be scrapped. Pin-Bot cost me $700, & 2 years worth of work but the time spent was worth it to make sure Pin-Bot's circuits are activated.
Hello from Phoenix Arizona!🔥
Awesome work Ron that sounds amazing, we'll done on working that one out a big fat 👍
thanks so much for playing it in the light. awesome!!
Man I poured a LOT of money into Gyruss back in the day. Just to hear that audio! Down under most of the games were bootlegs or kits so it wasn’t always easy to find a decent cab to play.
Did the game come with the bumper pin in between the paddles originally? That seems like something I would install to prevent ball loss. What an awesome video. That was a lot of problem solving and detective work. Sounds like the customer didn't know all that stuff wasn't working.
Yeah usually they don't realize it's more broken than they think because they may not even be the one playing it, maybe their kids are playing it, or their grandma or whatever. Or maybe they're drunk the last time the flippers worked, haha I'm not sure if it had a mini post in it or not, you can look at the flyers on www.IPDB.org to see how each machine looked originally though... thanks for watching Scott!!!
Wow I think that's the longest ball play I have ever seen Ron have and it timed out before it drained so will never know? Fun game with a gazillion lights and of course Ron figured it out.
Now in the next video when he actually plays a game he won't be able to keep the ball in play long enough.
The owner will think it is a whole different game with everything working!
You are a real pinball doctor 😎❤️
Well done!👏👏
What a PITA, but you got it. Excellent job!
Wow! You made that’s CPU sing!!
Great sounding game!
One word. Perseverance. Respect.
Music 3 sounds straight out of 1988 Commodore 64...ahhhh my childhood.
See, this is why YOU repair pinball machines, and I don't. My first two guesses about the problem with the sound board would've been wrong. All that, and it was just a bad RAM chip. You're right about the power supply, though; my understanding is that the original power supply was unregulated, and the replacement is regulated (I could have that bass-ackward). For some reason, that can cause problems with the sound; either static/buzzing, or not quite enough power on the +5V input, which IIRC is C63 on the sound board. I've been talking to a friend of mine, who owns a TMNT pinball (another Data East pinball machine that also came out in 1992, so it uses the same sound board and power supply). His machine had a problem with the sound cutting out when certain lights were on. He eventually traced the problem back to the power supply, which had been replaced by the previous owner. When those particular lights were on, the +5V going to the sound board was dropping to +2V.
I don't like to be negative about any of the replacement stuff or the companies making parts because in general, they're all very helpful if you have problems and the replacement boards have fixed countless machines... but as you can see I much prefer all the original boards with a few exceptions. They didn't make that regulated mistake on purpose or to be cheap, they just didn't catch it. Just an interesting little quirk in the design.... thanks for watching SpearM!
@@LyonsArcade Oh, no argument there. I prefer the original boards, but if that's not possible, I'd happily use a replacement part to get it working, even if the sound occasionally drops out, or has a little buzzing (which I probably wouldn't hear anyway because of tinnitus).
Ron, that was a good video. I been working on that same sound board so I was wondering where you was going with it, I would add that 'Rom Check' for corruption before I got too serious with the repair, I did fix mine but replacing the whole board and then fixing the input on the one I bought, maybe my other has RAM error as it was dead silent. I will be doing a video on that soon myself. Great work... some good videos recently.
Killer soundtrack!
Yeah they really did a great job....
Good morning Joe.
Hello Windios!
Brilliant vid enjoyed it keep em coming 👍👍
Admit it Joe/Ron:
You LIKED working on this one because it was Peter Pan.
Everybody wants to be the kid who doesn't grow up and can fly!
I've never been into pinball machines, myself.
Oh, I had a portable dinky pinball machine (all-plastic!) when I was a little kid but it broke quickly. Those toys in the 1970s weren't built well sometimes! Also had a radio-controlled R2-D2 (original Kenner) but it broke quickly, too. I miss that Artoo unit sometimes! Maybe I should just get a full-size or quarter-scale R2 sometime?
Anyway, I do have a few pinball games but they're all virtual. Probably 6-8 different playing fields at least on Sega Saturn (CD-ROM) and PS3 downloads. Some of this stuff isn't bad when they get the physics right but it's not a real pinball machine, either. I don't kid myself there!
I can't say what my favorite pinball machine is. I've seen 20-40 different models over the years in arcades. A lot of them I just glanced at them and never played. I was more into videogames...
From what you've fixed, I would say the Star Trek and Black Knight pinball games stick out the most. I think they had a nice Star Wars pinball machine released in the early 1990s(?) but I don't remember much about it. Again, the stuff that interested me would like the 1983 Star Wars arcade game, Star Wars Trilogy (Sega Model 3, 1997/1998), and Capcom's fighting games (CPS-2).
This is a somewhat vague comment, but from my good old days playing pinball, I think this flipper arrangement is annoying. It's essentially changing an analog function to a digital one. By putting a timer on the voltage change rather than using relays, when you press the flipper button you are committing to a full swing. On the older relay type, you have the option of releasing the button before it reaches full movement, giving you a weaker swing - so the ball is not at maximum velocity constantly. The temperature in the flipper coils as it warms up also create some variation in the game play. As a kid, a lot of it was instinct. Now I can understand the reasons why different machines were different. The patent issue is definitely obnoxious. In the 1920s, the battle between AT&T, RCA, and General Electric almost killed radio until the government intervened.
thats the most wonderfull sound i have ever heard :) hehe
It's pretty cool :)
10:00 The transformer output coil in the schematic is a 9-C-9 which is just a 18vac coil with a center tap and the diodes in the circuit create a half-bridge and not a full-bridge rectifier. Across the two ends of the coil you'll get total AC voltage but the two half-bridge rectifiers are only converting the positive side of the AC on just half the transformer. And the center tap is used as a ground so that only half the transformer is being used at a time. Since only half of the AC wave is being rectified on just half the transformer coil you only see about 9V DC on the output of the diodes instead of 25V DC you'd get on the full coil with a full-bridge...
Thank you 10100rsn that makes sense...
Gr8 video! I have a lethal weapon 3 with no sound at all. The three audio amps section works and I can hear the hum. Voltages are a little bit off: -14v , +11v, +4,9v. What can it be?
This game has very enticing music, i might add... It's really nice :D
The BSMT2000 is a TMS320C15NL-25 DSP
Great content as always. With the 9/8/18/…VDC supply for the flipper hold problem, what did you actually do to make them hold again? Probably me missing something but (amongst all the other amazing things you tracked down and resolved) you just seemed to check the voltage rail.
The fuses were blown which is why that rail was missing.... must have had something traumatic happen at some point that blew all the fuses....
Thanks for watching Ed!
Great game! i love it! waiting for the next video :)
Awesome video detailing your work. Question on one part, you mention checking the Hook sound ROM at 34:00 and it checked fine, how did you go about that?
I’ve got an EPROM burner I checked it in
@@LyonsArcade Gotcha, but I mean how are you checking the ROM, against another of the exact same chip? Or are you able to find a dump online to check it against?
Love all these videos you do, and just got my hands on my first pinball machine, and yes, it's the Hook. Has issues though, lol, don't we all.
On switch-on the machine starts up, shouts out Hook, Hook, Hook, lights flash and a few of the solenoids fire. The display then shows the Rom version "DISPLAY: HOOK A4.01", but doesn't show anything else.
Anyone any ideas how to get past this and onto the test screen?
Do you have to reverse both ends of the ribbon cable or just the one going into the soundboard?
Yes, you have to reverse both ends. If any of the wires is carrying voltage (e.g. +5VDC), and you only reverse one end, you are risking providing power to a pin that does not normally receive power, and burning something out.
Another one saved mate :)
Thanks Ron! Any ETA on the Night Rider video?
In December we are running videos every day of the month, it will be near the beginning of December, so that's about 5 weeks away see you then!
A TI DSP with custom software written by a guy who is both a composer and an electronics engineer.
I hope he fully retained the copyright on that sucker! Thanks for watching douro20!
To eliminate speaker hum, simply put resistors in series with each speaker. This lowers the max volume slight but removes all the annoying hum. Try resistors around 10-50 ohm.
hi Ron sorry i did not like yesterdays video this i do like i enloy watching these old pinball tables being saved thanks Ron and i like when you say comeon people that makes me laugh hope to see you friday
Thank you John, we’ll see you then!
Those 6264s are eol if original, i didnt know the sound board had those!! But, common failure when u look at those 6264 rams on wpc dmd boards. Man that hooky glory sounded great at the end!! And yup, when you think of bad ram, that jumpy music earlier in the video was it!!
Thank you Andrew yeah I wonder how much longer some of these chips that actively handle a lot of action are going to last, even though it's just digital surely the more it handles the easier it is to 'wear out' at least that's my thinking :) I'm sure eventually (or maybe even now) there is a better way to handle these ram that are becoming obsolete.... thanks for watching, we appreciate it!!!
@@LyonsArcade i think as long as u socket it, u can pull it again and should be smooth sailing but that game looks solid now - just catching up on your gsme play one. Now check this out : ruclips.net/user/shortsijLxzkXZURU?feature=share
Ron can you do a video on how to use a logic probe and how to hook it up and how to use it
We've done some before, check this one out where we show it a little bit : ruclips.net/video/8ovJxZQbcX0/видео.html
The EMI hums like that are hard to solve.
Great job on the sound board. Man that was crazy trouble on that one. What happened to the Data East company? Gorgar still speaks. Thanks Ronnie
Could be the shorted 50V line upset the 8v line, but not sure. Maybe the fuses were pulled from the old board and already dead, but not ever checked
One question, one request - Did you at any point really believe it was going to be 'just the flippers'? Request - would love to see/hear about customer's reaction to seeing their treasures restored!
No I never thought it would be just the flippers. I've never seen it be just the flippers, lol but I understand that's just the symptom that the customers see first so I don't mind it or anything. We'll have to see if we can film anybody's reaction, they usually love it, sometimes they reply on the videos..... thanks for watching Richard!
@@LyonsArcade This is a great game and a great repair video to watch. Love following your logic and troubleshooting. Much like diagnosing a patient.
Hey, i'm not an expert... but the music and sound is probably read from the 3 sound chips then converted using the mousetrap chip (it probably is some sort of codec converter. i have not looked this up) and then saved into the RAM. Just so the CPU does not have to convert the audio all of the time (saves CPU processing and time). But if the RAM is bad it can't write the music to the RAM or only parts of it with some parts screwed up. Then the machine (CPU/audio just gives up or hangs). The voice chips audio was probably written in a part of the ram that still worked but the music (that's longer and needs more space on the RAM chip) not. Or maybe it does do the converting all of the time but the music was just too much to save on the chip (after it's converted it needs some space to save the outcome and by continuously converting sound and music it will use more CPU but you can do with less memory but it can still loop fragments of it without reconverting the same bit every 10 seconds)
Think of it as it were a DVD player setup. The data is on de DVD and is read fine (Voice and music chips). The DVD player (Mousetrap) converts the data from the chips into the memory of the DVD player then the DVD player wants to output this to the screen and audio but it does not know what to do with some parts of the data or maybe it's even missing the data it got from memory... but still tries to play it... now i think pinball machines are not as advanced as the computers we use nowadays as nowadays computers would just skip the parts it cannot read and continue from where it can or skip it entirely.
Hay ron👍
Hay arcade Crusaders!
just lovin it. i want a t shirt but in england. and postage is terrible
I think I know who you're talking about with a guy who designed the Xbox.
I remember watching a documentary and they were talking to the person who designed the electronics.
And also John from John's basement arcade did an interview with him I think it's the same guy.
Hey, while I'm thinking about it: point out a video you did that shows you soldering or repairing a trace. I want to see someone who has done it a lot. Every time I've tried, the results look like someone handed a two-year-old a bowl of mash-potatoes. Thanks.
I don't ever film it, the sad reality is anytime I show anything specific, I get a whole bunch of people just complaining that I didn't do it good and I don't know what I'm talking about, I shouldn't film it, etc. I had a guy email me the other day to let me know he's started a private facebook page where he and his fellow assholes can post about how horrible I am at repairing things, lol This is the level of hatred you get when you do social media stuff, so I make sure not to do anything like soldering on the video because you only get negative comments about things like that. I try to keep it about the little bit of theory that I know, and how fun and cool the game and designs are and people seem to enjoy that. Anything too technical like how to solder is best left to the assholes who think they know it all, I know I don't know it all. Thank you for watching JustJoe Oleson!!!!
@@LyonsArcade Know-it-all assholes give me a rash. I understand your feelings on this and respect em. Still a fan, thanks for the quick response.
@@justjoe942 Just to back up Ron's point about not doing solder videos, there's a guy who has some advanced solder technique videos up on YT. He's an instructor for mil-spec soldering for NASA. In other words, he teaches people how to do soldering for the freaking space shuttle, etc. And guess what? There are people in the comments telling him he's not doing it right.
@@gregoryschmidt1233 Thanks, Greg, I appreciate the information.
I got a Data East Star Wars isue with the drop targets 1 falls down randomly.And when there all knocked down they stay down until the ball drains.Also randomly the game ends on the 2nd ball in play it shows the 3rd ball and ends.Can you do a show about what to diagnose.
Thanks love the show.
We're actually going to be doing videos on a Data East Star Wars but it'll still be a little while, but yes eventually we'll do exactly what you're talking about.... Basically what's going on with them not resetting is that it doesn't know they're all down, there must be a switch that connects when all of them are down and that's not working right. The one that falls randomly i'll have to look into that on ours when we work on it and I'll film it for you... thanks for watching starwars68!
Yeah the drop targets there's only three act up when you're playing for a little while and not a thing sometimes it ends on ball to the game but it does everything randomly and the game works fine for everything else it's not that big of a deal I was told by the person I got it from just clean it cuz it wasn't shopped but it is a really nice condition
Sorry Joe I meant the game ends sometimes on ball 2 you see the 3 ball come up and then the game ends
Oh one more thing I should mention Joe it has the 1.07 updated chip from Chad on the internet so I don't know if that's what's doing it
where do get your service manuals
Btw... those ribbon cables connectors are looking quite interesting but they use the same technique as the other connectors (insulation displacement connector) they just have a plastic part over it to try and stop the ribbon from coming loose..... but pulling them can also loosen them up... DO NOT try and fix them.... it's hard (or maybe impossible) to get them back on right :P
My experience is that if you try and take a ribbon cable connector apart the plastic clips break, they are really designed to be one-time things.
Terminating new connectors on clean ribbon cable (if you are re-using a cable I would cut off the part that was damaged by the old connector, if you can't afford the length loss I would replace the whole cable) is pretty easy though. Just put the cable in place and the cap on loosely, then squeeze everything into place with a vise (you can get special tools, but a small vise works just fine)
I’ve been struggling with a LW3 sound board. Re-capped, new roms, and I saw this vid, so I socketed a new 6264 today. Nothing…we’ll not nothing, but the same “We’re ba- ba- we’re b..” then nothing. The only thing left is the bsmt2000 chip. Do you think that could be the problem? Or would it be all or nothing with that chip?
Ron, did I detect a "Kentucky Fried Movie" reference when you said "One more time with feeling" during the self test?
Bangarang!
I was really hoping that Brian Schmidt would turn out to be a relation. Alas, no. Although according to his bio, we did both live in Chicago at the same time, so that's kind of fun.
one of my favorite games along with dr who
Ok oxidation removal and reseating the chips helped
Pretty much any channel I subscribe to that is about people fixing things or doing interesting work, the comment section attracts sh-t posts from people who think they can do it better.
These people don't actually post videos of them doing anything. Let alone doing things better.
Keep up the great work, and Let's go Brandon.
I didn't think you were gonna get it I wish you could work on my Sega airline pilots
It's not rare for data on EEPROM to get corrupted because it relies on having or not having an electrical charge on hundreds of mosfet gates that can dissipate over time._
I rarely find a bad eprom