Just to clarify, Forceflow is right, you do NOT need any mods nor anything to make LEDs work. Due to the boards they used LEDs work right off the bat.

Also I have the really garbage individual sockets as well, you just bend them back and hold you breath as you perform nanosurgery trying to avoid touching other metal parts.

Unfortunately for all it’s unusually clean look, my Baby Pac came from an arcade where it didn’t get played much but was left on forever.
Several inserts are brown, thankfully they are still level. The screen has wicked burn in that only becomes noticeable if you “ride the pacsaltor”
(You can clearly read the copyright lol)

My issues I’m having are finding a source for those lamp drivers parts mentioned earlier? As I have some locked on and locked off lamps as well as several bad SCR/IC’s for the coil controls on a spare board that I would like to fix as a backup.

Oddly enough, I’m also getting the xmit issues again. I fixed them and it worked since September, and I’ve played over ~20 hours on the machine and suddenly 5 minutes into a session, I lost xmit 40 again. And I waited and tried to fix it this week, now it works and xmit 20 is out!!
Why on Earth would these comms issues be TRAVELING??

This is how mine is attached to the monitor.

Ok. I'm going to figure out some alternative way to put up the tinted screen then.

Thanks everyone!!

I have a few issues with my monitor if anyone could chime in here. I did the cap kit just to revive a tired monitor. The same issues were present before the cap kit was done as well. The screen flickers and the brightness goes in and out so the colors change hue regularly during game play. Also I get static white lines on the video display while the flippers are activated. Any help will be greatly appreciated. I have already ordered 2 new flipper solenoids for my machine gun flutter.

When you recapped the chassis, did you reflow solder to all the large resistors, coils, header pins, pots, power transistors, etc? Try reseating J4 on the videot board to see if the color changes and flickering stops for a while.

I did not reflow any of the other solder I will do that tomorrow. However I have reflowed every connection on the Vidiot board, mpu, and driver/ light board. I tried reseating j4 and nothing changed

OK, good luck. Flickering and changing colors like that sounds like a bad solder joint somewhere.

Yes all of the common problem ones are done.
I actually re-did J1 and it seems to work for a little then it starts out again.
Such a weird error. Is there a way to test the wire harness with a multimeter?

My Baby Pac was the floor model for the original Fun Spot. As well as the personal game of a longtime arcade/pin tech. He apparently used to run a big website that held a lot of the information everyone looked too around the 2000’s.

I’m having trouble figuring out what things to test to try tracking down this issue?

Are all of the problem connectors done or are all connectors done? This is an important troubleshooting question.

I had many intermittent issues that would resolve for a month or more and resurface. Once I sucked it up and did all connectors they went away. I’m telling everyone here with weird issues — there is no guarantee the connectors are the cause but you will go nuts fixing things that may not be broken and chasing gremlins on even the best condition Baby PAC. The best thing you can do is eliminate the biggest source first.

+1 - nice to have fresh header pins and crimp on connectors to know, they are not the cause of intermittent issues. This was the single best improvement to make my Baby Pac 100% reliable.

:’( alright, I guess I’ll have to finish them off... only the problem ones were changed out. I just couldn’t imagine the others are giving issues but I guess I’ll do it

I have two issues with my baby Pac-Man:
1. When I use the flippers, they spark (normal from what I gathered). The problem is that the screen flickers (displays some static for a second) every time the flippers are used.. any idea what could be wrong..

2. The screen has a slowly moving line that is brighter than the rest (could be two lines displayed in the same spot). I ruled out the vidiot board (used two boards and replaced rams / video processor chips on one with the same issue) .. ignore the red wavy lines as those are specific to one of the boards and not the other but you can see the vertical line in the video.. I also messed with all the knobs and couldn’t get it to go away.. the monitor hasn’t been capped..
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated..

Hey All. I didn't know this existed. If you like, I'd be happy to post pics of mine. I purchased it several years back and restored it. I now bring it every year to the York White Rose Gameroom show, some of you might have played it. The bulk of my effort in mine was in the boards. I replaced all the connectors and socketed most of the chips. As well, like others noted, the bulb sockets are shit. I had to fix a lot of them due to broken diodes (I have the individual sockets). Also, this is what led to a lot of SCR repairs on the driver board. I had to replace the flipper relay since the old one had an open coil, so someone wire tied the contacts so the flippers were always enabled. I rebuilt all of of the major components on the underside and went over the power supply as well. I changed the marquee lamp to LED, rebuilt the monitor chassis (WG 13), new control panel overlay, new flipper switches....and I think that's it. Oh, new T molding. Just this past show I picked up some new side art, but I haven't put it on yet.

I can’t promise it will fix your issues but it wouldn’t surprise me if it did. Regardless - it needs to be done eventually anyway.

Does anyone have a good picture of the right flipper EOS and how the diode is attached ? My ball shoots automatically I don’t have control of starting it with the right flipper. Maybe my band is backwards?

the ball kicks automatically on mine as well.. picture is attached..

A970E1A5-6CA8-4889-ADBB-C9961014FCCD (resized).jpeg

I do t see a diode on yours at all

Switch also looks as if it is closed all of the time, at rest, and when the flipper coil is energized (blade is bent).

Thanks can you tell me which one is the bent part. That could explain why I get flickering on the screen when I use the flipper..

I thought the ball was supposed to kick out automatically after small amount of time, but you can speed that time up with a flipper press.

Anybody have any help on pinball release switch and diode I asked about a few days ago?. Mine releases immediately and doesn’t allow any time for me to press my flipper.

Mine kicks out automatically and I’m able to flip it? The ball should auto launch heading up above the top of the left slingshot giving you just enough time to change from holding the joystick to the Flipper buttons on the side of the cabinet

Anyone know why my high scores all show up on attract mode as random letter and number combos? If I type in AAA for example after I reach a high score, the top 8 will displaybit as 5DR or something completely not what was entered. Very strange. Anyone know how to fix this?

Mine was getting scrambled due to a burned out driverboard. I swapped out the board which had dozens of bad components and reset everything and it worked just fine.

Also might be the connectors? Those always cause everything!

Driverboard tests out fine it just started doing this recently. Seems funny that it would happen all of the sudden it was working fine until just a few days ago.

Nvram has been in place of the 5101 chip for 2 months. Before that I had a battery bank wired away from the board. The scores don’t reset, the initials just dont represent any of the characters that I entered into memory. they sort of create their own alpha numeric name beside the actual high score created and my initials are replaced with whatever code it desires it’s strange it still keeps my score.

Thanks for everyone’s help.. I did a cap kit yesterday and the second issue is now resolved.. I now only have the flickering/static when I use the flippers.. any ideas??

Having a strange problem when I start a game. The pinball play field is starting out with numerous lights already out on FRUITS, several of the PAC-MAN lights, and TUNNEL. Any idea what’s causing this?

See picture below. This is what is lit up as soon as I start a game.

B9429C91-89DE-43CF-9BDF-D3B48AB19C8D (resized).jpeg

Does this happen every time you turn it on or only randomly? When you earn something on the PF (like a "P" for example), does the correct insert light?

Happens every time. I’ll have to test the insert lights later.

Are these inserts flashing during attract or are they always stuck on? Did you change anything when this started happening?

The lamp matrix uses an AC signal from the one of the GI bulbs to alternate between the 2 insert bulbs on each string. If this signal is not making it to the CPU board correctly (mine had the wire cut and hacked to another voltage source) the lamp matrix can light the wrong half of the lamp matrix which makes the wrong inserts light for various events.

Take the glass off, start a game, hit one of the drop targets and see which insert lights. If the correct insert lights, this is not your issue. If the pair to the insert that is supposed to light is the one that lights, you have a problem with the AC sensing circuit.

Any other ideas as to why high score initials are wacky upon saving? Mpu or Vidiot related?

Finally broke 1,000,000 points last night on Baby Pac. It's been a long time working on that milestone!

Not Vidiot related, it has no memory ram. I would swap another NVRAM or 5101 just for kicks. Maybe then go into bookkeeping and clear the high score initial entries.

I have swapped out for another nvram I have a few laying around. I have also cleared the high scores and yet it continues. Ugh

next up. swap MPU U7 6810.

One last thing, are the initials set with the joystick at all? if so, the PIA on the vidiot controls that. They can pass the vidiot self test and still cause problems(if its an AMI brand chip replace it for sure?) either way swap the PIA.

Yes they are set with the joystick. Which chip location is the pia on the Vidiot board?

U7

Looks like I have some chips to order

The PIA’s are same as mpu U10 and U11

GAH! I hate that you were right!!!
I was having the most insane issues. I mean everything was going haywire. I was getting some video, then suddenly there would be ZERO video on display! But the test would still function! Then the xmit test would randomly show up then be completely blank! The inserts were on, then the entire play field would be completely unresponsive.

The wackiest issue, that I should have recorded, was on some of the bookkeeping functions there would be a constantly changing value of pure nonsense! It would say like “Game Minutes” 395EHO86HW and just constantly change while just sitting on that screen.

I swapped out for my spare driver board AND vision board, (I ended up finding some cold solder points and 2 totally broken joints) and the issue persisted.

Welp I finally got fed up and started yanking on the wires and suddenly the game restarted perfectly and was instantly playable.

It’s those DAMN IDC CONNECTIONS!!!
I didn’t believe it till I witnessed it. Pure garbage!!!

I am changing it out right now. Stupid, stupid, horrible IDC’s! I should have listened. Baby Pac is a solid game once these trash connections are replaced! I’m goin to replace them all, shortly.

Picture of the devil included

image.jpg

Biggest improvement I made to mine was to ditch the IDC connectors! Should be the first thing done!

Congrats on finding the cause and the soon-to-be fix!

My only question is for the group of wires to the left. Those ones make a connection but then continue to another connector, so do I just cut it and strip both ends and crimp them in the same pin?

It still blows my mind that that single connector made my entire game non-functioning... the smallest details have the greatest impacts!

Yes there is one or two connectors that have two wires going into one pin.

Glad you finally decided to change all the connectors. It is a pain in the butt — however a necessary evil.