Well, I'm in the club. Found an Al's Garage Band Goes On A World Tour yesterday. Faded (all the red in the backglass is yellow), rough cabinet and CD spinner, topper has a small crack, but seems complete except the knocker.

First major issue is that the right flipper usually causes a reset. The launch button always causes a reset, but if I wait for the machine to time out and fire the launch coil itself, it works.

Second issue is that some of the DMD animations are garbled, but not all.

TBH, the backglass doesn't look that bad. The fade is super even so it almost looks like it's supposed to be that way:
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The only damage seems to be a small pair of scratches where the latch is on the left.

I did notice PSPA had the knocker (and a guitar plastic if I'm keen) and I figured a PSU rebuild might be in order. A flipper rebuild is too, one of the pawls is super dooper sloppy. A couple of the wireforms are missing from the trough too - only the centre switch works so I suspect the game will get confused at some point.

Are there still NOS disk decals around?
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And are those heads on the plastic to the left supposed to be on standups?

Would be good to get a photo of the Bump Button setup on the right flipper from someone. I had to remove the wireform because it kept fouling the autoplung plunger:
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Just the two caps noted in this post?

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/any-alvin-g-repair-guides-out-there#post-552177

Thanks. I had a look in the manual, and the wireform between the bump relay and the button is the same on both sides so I'm not sure why it fouls the autoplunge armature, but in the manual the flipper button is a microswitch, not a leaf? Is the manual inaccurate or has someone done something creative on my machine?

[edit: the version on ipdb is different to the manual I have. Hmmm... ]

How close are they to the late Gottlieb flippers? Looking at the breakdown on PBR (http://www.pbresource.com/rebuildk/kt-gflip-04fa.jpg and http://www.pbresource.com/rebuildk/kt-gflip-05fa.jpg) and the manual, aside from the flippershaft being a single piece, the coil stop having 3 vs 2 holes and the bracket for the EOS they look very similar to me?

eg. an Alvin plate vs Gottlieb 29157:
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I have no Alvin flipper parts so I might get a Gottlieb rebuild kit and see what fits and what doesn't.

Here's the bump button diagram in my manual:
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vs the ipdb version (which looks more like what's in my machine):
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Ah, my cover is dated Nov 92, the ipdb version is dated Jan 93...

Any clues why the DMD sometimes draws the right image, but the quadrants are in the wrong places?
Screenshot from 2018-05-23 10-53-07 (resized).png

Is this extra chip on the DMD driver standard or something strange?
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While I'm grabbing close ups:

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I notice in the manual that there's a solenoid listed to reset drop targets. Could it be that the 3 band member stand ups we originally drops?

I have managed to get this adjusted correctly so the right wire form no longer interferes with the auto plunge coil. The left is still weaker than the right but it's functioning.

Awesome. I notice another difference in my manual, the "eject kicker"?

My manual (resized).png
ipdb manual (resized).png

Looking at the coil locations on page 3-10, that's the kicker at the end of the videomode ramp? Is there a reason that's missing from the ipdb manual? It's certainly in my machine.

The coil matrix pages are also completely different in my manual. Is it worth scanning the whole thing?

I noticed that it didn't seem to be there in the visual pinball version I found. It certainly feels a bit odd and half the time the ball doesn't sit in there anyway. A drop post would've made more sense I guess.

If my machine is early production (serial 2506), I wonder if that explains the odd U2 74LS74 job on the sound board.

I'll get onto that at some stage.

*facepalm* DMD driver. I will have to have a look when I get it out to see what they were actually trying to achieve.

Certainly appears so. The bit that confuses me is that the chip appears to be the correct one as per the manual? I wouldn't have thought an adapter pcb was needed. It will be interesting to see what's under there.

Ok, I buzzed it out today. There's a cut trace on the board between U1:8 and U2:11. The extra chip fits into the circuit there. I believe this is the circuit:
weird-ic-on-display-driver (resized).png

Does that circuit make any sense? !Q feeds back in as data each clock pulse so Q will alternate, which feeds into the next stage which does the same. So this doesn't change the signal getting to U2:11, just delays it slightly?

Ok, I've had a bit more of a look at this. I wrote a little perl script that took the rom images and drew out black and white dumps of the contents:
romdef1romdef2
Interestingly, the images that are garbled all seem to be in romdef2 and romdef1 is read instead or as well as romdef2? Almost like the CE signal isn't switching between the two chips the way it should be?

eg. the Let's rock dude image earlier in the thread should be when the reel to reel deck is displayed. If you flick between the two images they occupy the same (or very similar) address ranges on the two chips, including the slight offset of the images.

Here's a video:

This video shows most of the glitches that are easy to repeat (I forgot Feedback).

Starting with Super Skins, the Trippin' Targets, Rockin' Ramps and Lightin' Loops and then the Record a Song shot in the centre:
eg. 3:50 in drop the ball in the centre shot. The DMD shows a few (4?) frames of reel to reel, then a bunch of static. Looking at the images above, there's 4 frames of the reel to reel on the 1st ROM in the 12 column, then the rest is on the 2nd rom in the 8/9th column. Looking at the first rom, the 8/9th column is static and then "Let's RockDude", exactly what appears on the display.

The other 4 modes seem to be similar, the animation is all or mostly on the 2nd ROM, but never seen.

So that makes me think it really is just pulling correct address from the wrong ROM, or that the ROM itself has garbage on it/is another copy of the first ROM.

Does that make sense to anyone else?

I had an epiphany.

I fired up Visual Pinball and tried a few things like swapping the romdef files around. Duplicating the first one in both positions results in the symptoms I'm seeing. Swapping them was similar, but different, but worked enough that I decided to try swapping the romdef chips.

Well, all the animations that worked now don't. All the animations that didn't do. In the example of hitting the centre ramp that I used above, the first 4 frames are wrong, and the rest are correct.

I guess that validates that the roms are both working and at least close to the right data. Also appears to support the idea that the selection between ROMs isn't working for some reason.

Fixed.

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EPSEL1 and EPSEL2 were on pins 2/3. Moving to 1/2 means the 4th bit of the code page switches between ROMs instead of the 5th.

Thanks to skybeaux on Aussie Arcade for being a sounding board and pointing out that the ROM images were half the size of the ROM chips.

Super stoked.

Does this work?

alg-0.png

alg-1.png

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[edit: removed alpha channel so you can see these properly when you click to view in the gallery. ]

So I noticed something odd on my AGBGoaWT. The left and right trough switches had their wireforms snipped. I made up some and popped them in but then got nada in the switch test. Manually activated the switches, nothing. So then I shorted green/black to white/red, picking two spots in the matrix I knew are connected and still nothing. Everything else in those columns and that row work fine.

Have these switches been coded out? The game seems to work fine for the most part without them, using only the outhole and centre trough switches to keep track of the balls?

I know a bunch of people still using c64 5 1/4" disks from the late 80s/early 90s. If they were stored ok, they're probably readable. The real question would be is there anything that can interpret the data on them anymore.

Sounds like you could really pad out the Alvin G pinwiki section.

Really great to see that a bunch of this stuff has survived.

Noticed a Garage Band for sale and it has the same weird extra chip on the DMD driver board:
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The seller says prototype? https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/al-s-garage-band-goes-on-a-world-tour-proto-w-xtras

Thanks xTheBlackKnightx

Do you know if any prototypes ever existed with drop targets or did that get killed too early in the prototyping? I've always assumed that's why the faces were stuck on the plastic above the band member targets.

Do you know when the upper of the two right VUKs got dropped?

It's a shame the drops didn't make it.

I thought it wasn't a proto as it's got the same features as mine. It is interesting that the extra piggybacked chip is on the DMD driver though. I wonder when they changed/fixed that.

Pinball Spare Parts Australia just posted a bunch on their facebook page.

Can anyone tell me the correct parts for the post that holds the lower corner of the video mode ramp on Garage Band?

I lifted up the plastic to see why the post was always rattling around and found this:
IMG_20190208_181008 (resized).jpg

IMG_20190208_180959.jpg

I have a weird issue with my Al's Garage Band.

Sometimes where you turn it on, a couple of coils fire and you can't start a game. Flipper buttons change the volume.

Pushing on one of the connectors on the power board seems to resolve it? Ground issue? Cracked header pins?

Does the manual help?
Screenshot from 2020-04-06 09-10-44 (resized).png

Or a crappy picture I had lying around?
Screenshot from 2020-04-06 09-13-52 (resized).png

Better pic:
Screenshot from 2020-04-06 09-15-24 (resized).png

Screenshot from 2020-04-06 09-15-24 (resized).png

10 11 12
7 8 9
4 5 6
1 2 3

PJ11:
1 Yellow/White (not present on my machine)
2 White/White
3 Yellow/White (not present on my machine)
4 White/White
5 Blue/Blue
6 Green/Green
7 White/Black
8 N/C
9 Green/Green
10 Violet/Violet
11 Blue/Blue
12 Violet/Violet

My bad, I forgot this thread was about all the different machines. I should really ingest coffee before using the internet.

However, those pictures show you how to map the diagram to the cables for Al's garage band. That technique should work for the soccer too.

Here's the scheamtic from the AG Football manual:
Screenshot from 2020-04-07 09-59-25 (resized).png

1
2 White
3
4 White
5 Blue
6 Green
7 White/Black
8 Blue/White
9 Green
10 Violet
11 Blue
12 Violet

That is idential to the layout in my machine, except the addition of pin 8 with Blue/White.

There's some spares available from pinballspareparts.com.au.
Bats: https://www.pinballspareparts.com.au/ag-flipperbaty.html
Cranks/pawls:
https://www.pinballspareparts.com.au/agflipper.html
https://www.pinballspareparts.com.au/agflipper1.html
Bushing: https://www.pinballspareparts.com.au/fsb-001.html
And more: https://www.pinballspareparts.com.au/catalogsearch/result/?q=alvin+g

However, I've never found anything that works to replace the flipper links, nor the bushing between the link and the crank/pawl. I only have an early production Al's to go off.

Has anyone found a combination that works to replace the plunger and link and/or the bushing?

The hole in the WMS link is way too big though without the bushing... I probably wasn't clear, the bushing is the bit I'm missing. I've tried using the bussing from a WMS link, but it doesn't seem to fit on the AlvinG crank?

Is there an existing tech thread for Alvin G machines or should we create a new one?

To be fair, many of the club threads have weird names. Given there aren't many Alvin G machines, it kind of makes sense that there's a club thread with a name that covers all of them.

I mean, given the number of times people have mistaken this for a club thread, yes, it's obviously not clear that your intent for this thread is not a tech thread. Maybe change the title to "Alvin G tribute - NOT A TECH THREAD"?

Maybe we could start a new thread "The New improved Alvin G club - now with added tech talk"?