EM Repair Chronicles #23-26

These get posted on the EM group.
But since that group is nearly impossible
to search, i thought i would echo them
here too. These are EM repair chronicles
23 to 26, in a single post. I combine them
together here to save a bit of bandwidth.

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EM Repair chronicle #23
Game: Williams Fun Fest 4 player
Status: Game fully working... almost!
Initial Power on status: Locked on 10 point relay
Schematics: Yes and mildly helpful.
Repair time: 1.5 hours.

The guy bought the game in working condition,
and went thru it himself using the
marvin3m.com/em and marvin3m.com/restore
guides. Man he got this game looking
GREAT. I mean the playfield sparkled,
the cabinet was beautiful. He even
polished the aluminum bars for the
chime unit and the lockdown bar
release mechanism. It looked great.

But in the process, whenever he
started a game, the 10 point relay
would lock on. This of course made
the 10 point score reel lock on,
the match unit in the backbox
lock on, and the 10 point chime
lock on.

I checked all the stepper units.
He went thru them pretty well. Except
for the match unit. It had the bakelite
plate absolutely loose, so the fingers
were resting *between* the rivets.
I removed the rotating fingers and
tightened the two phillips screws
holding the bakelite plate in position.
Replaced the fingers and adjusted the
plate so the fingers rested square
on each rivet. There problem fixed
right!? WRONG. 10 point relay still
locked on.

So I inspected all the 10 point PF
switches, hoping to find one closed
(he did put new rubber on, so this is
a common problem). Nothing looked
closed. So I disconnected the playfield
from the game by removing the connectors.
Now the 10 point relay was not stuck
on. So the problem had to be on the
playfield.

I replaced the connectors one at a time,
until I found the connector that made
the 10 point relay lock on (the only
playfield connector that went to the
backbox, which makes sense). I also
noticed the 10 point PF switches all
had green/black as the common wire.
And behold the one connector that
locked the relay had a green/black wire.
I disconnected this wire from the
connector and installed the connector.
Sure enough, the 10 point relay was
not locked on. Progress! Just trace
the green/black wire and find the
culprit on the playfield.

So I found where the green/black wire
first entered the PF and disconnected
it at the first switch. Two wires to
the switch (the gr/blk wire daisy chains),
so i separated the 2 wires. 10 point
relay not locked on. I did this for ALL
the 10 point switches on the playfield
(six in total). Then added them back
one at a time. Unfortunately this yielded
nothing. It was definately not any of
the playfield switches. (I was hoping
an "Angle Hair" wire fray was causing a
switch short).

So I checked the game manaul and noticed
the "Yellow" relay had the grn/blk wire
too. It goes to a make/break switch,
controlling whether a pop bumper scores
10 or 100 points (100 when lit). So i
disconnected the grn/blk wire from
the relay switch (and reconnected all
the grn/blk wires to the playfield switches),
and sure enough the 10 point relay did
not lock on.

Now this is no solution itself. The
make/break switch was adjusted properely.
the center switch lug on the mk/brk was
a gray/yellow wire. I disconnected
that and reconnected the grn/blk. Again
the 10 point relay did not lock. So now
I have a new wire to trace! Yipee. I manually
traced this gry/yel wire to the pop bumper.
It connected to the EOS pop bumper switch.
I continued to trace the wire and it ended
at another pop bumper EOS switch.

But wait a second. The solder joint on
this last switch was fresh looking.
and there was a WHITE wire also connected
to the same switch lug! And the other
switch lug had ANOTHER white wire!!
Well DUH DUH DUH. The owner now sheepishly
admitted that a "wire broke off that switch
so i resoldered it". The problem was, he
soldered the broken WHITE wire (which
is the main return AC wire for the whole
game) to the gray/yellow wire lug, and
not the correct white wire switch lug. This
effectively closed the 10 point switch
permanently. I put the white wire on the
correct switch lug and VIOLA, game now
worked properely!

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EM Repair chronicle #24
Game: Gottlieb Jumping Jack 2 player 1973
Status: Game semi-working.
Initial Power on status: Not tried.
Schematics: Yes but not needed.
Repair time: 0.5 hours.

The guy bought the game in as-is condition,
and went thru it cosmetically. It looked
great. But he did nothing to the EM side
of the game. He just shopped the playfield.

He claimed the game did "weird things."
Like the game would reset in the middle
of a game (especially a 2 player game).
Would not count the bonus correctly
(each downed drop target is worth 1000 pts,
which the game didn't seem to score).
Ok that's fine, and I didn't ask him
to show me the problems. I could see
just by a quick visual examination there
were some issues.

First up was the player stepper unit
in the backbox. The stationary bakelite
plate with the brass rivets was pretty
dirty. I did the usual systematic rework
of this stepper. But the player unit on
Gottlieb multi-player games is a bit
involved. Remove a single threaded screw
and the unit folds down revealing 5 sets
of switch stacks. The 2 stacks closest
to the bakelite plate are for the 1 and
2 players respectively. When the #1 stack is
'engaged', it directs all play to the 1st
player score reels. Likewise for the 2nd
switch stack to the 2nd player reels.
All the switch stacks on this unit were
loose. So i tightened them down. Then
some of the switches needed a bit of
adjustment for a good wiping motion.

The next 2 sets of stacks are used to
reset the player1 and player2 score
reels when a game is started. Again
these switches were out of adjustment too.

The last stack is the 'home' stack.
Just a couple switches on this stack,
but they need to be clean and adjusted
for the game to reset properely.

The only other stepper unit in the whole
game is under the playfield, and is the
bonus stepper. At the end of each ball,
this stepper goes around 360 degrees
checking each of the zillion drop targets,
one at a time, to see if it was knocked
down. If the target is down, give 1000 pts
bonus. If the target is not down, advance
the stepper one and check the next target.

This unit i could tell immediately was
a problem. The moving "snow shoe" plate
was mis-adjusted. The fingers (snow shoes)
were aligned *between* the brass rivets!
This stepper is never gonna work right like
that. I did the systematic approach to this
stepper too, and properely aligned the
snow shoes they they were centers on the
stationary bakelite plate's rivets. The
trick here was to figure out where the
'home' position of the snow shoe finger
plate was located. A little common sense
and visual assumptions got this corrected.

So now I fired the game up and it worked
perfectly! The owner was quite impressed
that in 30 minutes his whole game went
from a mis-fit to fully working. He was
quite happy.

---------------------------------

EM Repair chronicle #25
Game: Williams Darling 2 player 1973
Status: Hasn't worked for 15 years.
Initial Power on status: Not tried.
Schematics: Yes but not needed.
Repair time: 2.5 hours.

The guy bought the game from a Kalamazoo
operator in 1980. Played it for 10 years
or so, broke it, and then the game sat.
Was building a new house so he figured
he should get the game fixed. The game
was in decent cosmetic condition.

Just a quick look revealed the reasons
why he stopped playing the game. The left
flipper apparently broke the plunger link,
because it was missing! Also the hold side
of the flipper coil lug was broken clean.
The flipper was probably still usable (as
long as the player didn't hold the cab button
in too long). This may have contributed to
the broken plunger link.

First up was the stepper units
in the backbox. Did the systematic approach
to those. Just two units in the backbox,
a continuous unit that moves on every 100 pt
score. And a ball count unit. Since this
was a two player game there was no player
unit (unlike say Gottlieb that used a
player unit on 1970s two player games).

I also inspected and adjusted the row
of relays in the backbox (10pt, 100pt,
1000pt, reset, etc). I noted one switch on
the 10 pt relay had a broken blade. I
disassembled the switch stack and
installed a new blade.

The only other stepper unit in the whole
game is under the playfield, and is the
bonus stepper. I did that unit too,
systematic approach.

I then inspected all the other switches
in the bottom panel and under the playfield.
I also saw one of the chime coils was
disconnected. I used my DDM and checked
the resistance of the coil. It was .2 ohms,
a dead short. So I replace the coil. I also
noticed all three chime plungers were
glued to the foam strip along the bottom
of the chime unit. This is very common,
as the foam degrades it sticks to the
plungers, preventing them from moving.
Just pulled them up from the foam to fix
that problem.

I also went thru and adjusted and cleaned
all 8 score reels. They all had mis-adjusted
zero position switches. Somehow I knew this.
I'm not sure how, but I did. Sometimes you
can just look at things and say, "hmmm,
something doesn't quite look right."

So now I fired the game up and it kind
of worked. I mean it did actually work
but if you hit a 100 point switch, the
100 pt relay would stick on. That was
the only problem, but it's a pretty serious
problem. I pulled the 100 point reel
from its holder, and manually hit the
100 point relay. The score reel would
try and move, but it was like the pulse
was not long enough to move the reel a
full step. Yet the 100 pt relay was stuck
on. This pretty much indicates the switch
on the relay that activates the reel
was mis-adjusted or dirty. I had already
adjusted this relay's switches, so I got
a flexstone out and cleaned the relay switches.
That fixed the problem! Worked perfect now.
Remember on Williams score reels the controlling
relay will *not* release until the reel's
EOS switch opens. Once that happens,
the controlling relay de-energizes. So
if the score reel does not pull in all
the way or the reel's EOS switch is
broken, the controlling relay will stay
energized.

The last problem was the left flipper.
I did not have an old fiber flipper link
and plunger. So I used a new WPC style
plunger and link. The WPC plunger is about
1/8" longer than the original. I used a belt
sander and ground the plunger down to the
correct length, and installed it. Amazingly
it worked just fine (though the link/pawl
attachment point was a bit sloppy). I was
able to fix the original flipper coil lug,
and checked the resistance with my DMM.

I then played the game, making sure the main
feature of the game worked (moving the
center "U" balls to the lit side getting
a "same player shoots again"). Also made
sure the side kicker aimmed correctly
at the center "U". I cleaned the rubber
and playfield (the installed rubber was
actually in very good shape). The owner
was very happy with their game.

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EM Repair chronicle #26
Game: Chicago Coin Sharp Shooter Gun game (1971)
Status: Bought from a local antique shop.
Initial Power on status: Works, kind of.
Schematics: Yes. Game manual needed.
Repair time: 1.5 hours.

This person's first coin operated game
of any kind. Bought the game from a local
antique shop as working. This guy lived
in mid-Michigan, and was clearly a hunter.
So the gun game aspect seemed to appeal
to him (heck it appeals to me too!) He
got the game home and found a few
things not working. For example
the number of shots light would
not work. And some of the features that
trigger at certain shot levels did not
work. For example there are two "candles"
on either side of the game that can be
shot. After they are shot out, they
should re-light after 10 shots. The
game has a total of 15 shots (unless a
certain point level is reached, then
another 10 shots are awarded).

Gun games are usually fairly simple.
It's a single player EM style game,
not much different than a pinball game
really. One difference is an
electronic sound board. But these
rarely break. And the sound activation
is pretty simple. Just a Normally Open
switch on a relay which closes, telling
the sound board to make a certain sound.
Usually there are a maximum of 4 different
electronic sounds on gun games from this
era (1968-1976). If the electronic
sounds don't work, often it is as simple
as a bad electroyltic capacitor or bad
connector. And most of the time it's an
"all or nothing" type deal, with all the
sounds working or not working.

Regardless, these sound worked so I
didn't have to mess with that. In
the back of the game there are 4 score
reels (like a single player pinball),
and one "shot" stepper unit. This stepper
keeps track of the number of trigger
pulls on the gun, and displays the
number of shots taken on the score glass.
Also it tells the game to activate
certain features at a certain number of
shots.

In this case the moving "fingers" for
the shot stepper were broken! There was
a total of 6 fingers, and 4 were completely
gone, broken off. Sometimes I'll see one
finger broken, but four???

I contribute this largely to CCM's
quality (or lack of it). Chicago Coin
was not known for their high EM quality
during the late 1960s and 1970s. Score
motors used nylon turn wheels (where
Gottlieb and Williams used metal),
and in general CCM uses plastic where
ever it could get away with it. In
the long run this doesn't help with
longevity. Also the CCM score reels of
the 1970s are absolute crap, and parts
for them are hard to come by. Luckily
this game's reels were Ok.

Back to the shot stepper. So what you do
when stepper fingers are broken off?
Well you make new ones! I just so happen
to carry with me old stepper unit finger
wheels. To fix this unit, I sand the
existing metal where the old finger broke.
Then I cut off a finger from my spare
finger wheel, sand it clean, and solder it to
the existing stepper finger wheel. This works
amazing well, just you have to be accurate
in the placement of the new finger.

The trick is to know *where* the
stepper finger goes. You can tell somewhat
from old "tracks" on the bakelite plate.
Also the game manual was most helpful,
as it has a picture of this stepper unit
printed in the book. Though not perfect,
between the picture and the "tracks" I
was able to figure out where the four
old fingers mounted. Remember you have to
have the new finger cut to the correct length,
so it meets perfectly with the bakelite rivets.
And there were four different "tracks" of
rivets for the total of six fingers. You must
precisely mount and solder the new fingers
in place, or they just won't work.

After doing this and inspecting/adjusting
some miscellaneous switches and motorized
targets in the game, it worked perfectly!
I was pretty amazed. The candle features now
worked (along with a couple of other features),
as did the shot number lights.

.