Wichita, KS
So I was contacted a while back by a very nice person who said he had a "Hook" pinball machine that needed some repair work done to it. He said I came recommended by a friend who I've done work for as well in the past. So we scheduled a time for me to go over and diagnose his issues. First thing out of the gate was the display was intermittent and shorted. When it actually did work, it only displayed half of what it was supposed to. That was the first thing that got replaced. The next task was the balls were not being kicked into the channel after draining. I had to adjust the switch that kicks them out, which solved that issue. That was about all I could get done at the time because I had him order a full LED kit and a full rubber ring kit and we had to wait for them to arrive. They did so this past Friday.
Fast forward to today. I went over to finish up the rest of what needed to be done. Ended up having to do some troubleshooting and power supply 'modding' that I wasn't expecting. I began with installing the LEDs in the backbox. After doing so, I turned on the power to make sure they were all working only to find out that the top half worked...the bottom half didn't. The top half had the proper voltage. The bottom half had almost nothing. I knew exactly where to go and found exactly what I expected to. The connector that supplies power to the backbox lights was burned and charred from 25 years of amp draw and heat. It completely disintegrated in my hand when I tried to disconnect it. The wires were burnt and corroded, resulting in not allowing the amperage/voltage to get to the LEDs. What I had to do was cut the wires back far enough to escape the heat damaged portions, remove the header pins and solder the wires directly to the pads on the board. It's not pretty, but they are secure and it fixed the issue!
With that all done, the next step was to dismantle the playfield to gain access to all the general illumination bulbs. All the open/accessible areas were somewhat clean, but after taking the playfield apart, man o man, it was dirty. I thoroughly cleaned it all up, waxed it, polished it, installed the full rubber ring kit, installed all the top accessible LEDs, and put everything back together. Then I installed the remaining LEDs under the playfield and finished up the last of what needed to be done. The machine still needs a flipper rebuild, which I'll do the next time I go over, but except for that, it's back to minty fresh condition.
That's how I spent my Sunday. Good times. Here are some pics!...
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