Category: Repair Logs
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Possible Bug in Bally Pinball Firmware?
I am seeing something across multiple classic Bally pins that makes me think it is an actual bug in the firmware. It has to do with the LATCH signals for the displays. Specifically the Credit/Match/Ball (CMB) display.
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Alltek Ultimate Solenoid Driver Board with only the +43 VDC LED lit
So I have a stand-alone Mata Hari headboard that is used for testing purposes. I previously had a Alltek Ultimate Solenoid Driver Board (USDB) in it that was powering an Alltek MPU board. That USDB was pulled because it was needed for another purpose and I later received a new USDB as a replacement. However,…
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Replacing Bad Customs’ Sockets on Galaga
Had a Galaga that was reporting false ROM errors and had glitching that made me think that the three CPUs were uncoordinated. For example: Game would sometimes play but would have no sound, would play glitchy sounds, or get stuck on sounds Game would have odd graphics-related issues during its startup or sometimes during play…
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Odd Display Issue in Gottlieb Haunted House pin
So I was helping a friend with his Haunted House (HH) pin. The bottom playfield stopped kicking the ball back onto the main playfield, and the two right score displays and the center credit/ball display would distort on a cyclic basis – they would show all segments in a flash-flash-pause, flash-flash-pause pattern, and this happened…
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Galaga Board with Enhancement Pack not Booting
I finally got around to working on a Galaga board for AM and I got it up and running and was leaving it on for a 24-hour test when it crapped out showing a error on ROM 39 (which does not exist). This eventually degraded into a state where it did not display any errors…
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Pac-Man With Strange RAM Issue
So I was working on a Pac board for a friend that was dying at boot with symptoms of bad VRAM. I swapped out all of the RAMs only to have the problem persist.
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Can you “Bulletproof” an Atari AR-II Power Supply? I Think I Can…
Well, like the title initially asks, can you really “bulletproof” an Atari AR-II board? From what I have found on the Internet, and older material like Star Tech Journals, the answer really is no. Pretty much all sources that mention “bulletproof” and “AR-II” on the same page are only taking about performing the Sense mods,…
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WG6100 w/Tempest Showing a Tangled Mess in the Bottom Right Quadrant
So this is basically the second part of a previous post about a tempest that lost deflection. After running for a while that Tempest’s display changed into something that can only be described as a tangled mess: That is something that I never had seen before. The owner turned the game off and back on…
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WG6100 w/Tempest Showing a Multicolored spot in Center of Screen
So I was helping a newly minted arcade game owner when his first purchase, which is his favorite arcade game: Tempest. Shortly after getting it the X-Size pot fell apart and the game ended up only showing a Multicolored spot (larger than a just a “dot”) which changed depending on what the game was doing. …
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+43 Volt Error on a Alltek Systems Replacement MPU Board
So I was helping another collector in the area try to get a Bally Star Trek Pinball running. It had a Alltek MPU replacement board it in that would start to boot but then stop with 5 diagnostic flashes which indicate a problem with the +43v supply. However, when metered at the test point, the…