When I first heard of this guy converting a classic Centaur into a coffee table, I thought "sacrilege!!". Then I watched the video....and now my only thought is "WOW". The level of craftsmanship that went into this restoration / conversion is off the chart. And leftover parts went on to rescue another Centaur project.

Personally I'd have preferred if he had used one with a roached cab/glass but I don't suppose it matters so long as his good parts went on to help revive other projects... not to mention it's his to do with as he pleases. I digress..workmanship is impressive and the outcome looks great.

Impressive workmanship!

Working on a Galaxy that keeps popping the 10A feature lamps fuse. Obviously my rectifier board looks.......... not great... but is there anything else noticeably 'off' here that might cause this? I've not gone through the lamps on the playfield to determine if one of my lamps is shorting out for some reason, I guess I could just unplug the lamp board and see if it still pops the fuse... right? Do I even bother researching anything before I just replace the rectifier?

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I wouldn't. About as far as I'd go would be to check the voltages at the test points on the rectifier and even if they read in spec, I'd replace the rectifier board before delving deeper into the issue.

Yep, kinda what I'm thinking. This one is absolutely hammered six ways to Sunday.

Sweet deal right here.

https://nvram.weebly.com/bally---stern-rectifier.html

Yeah I bought a couple of built boards from Big Daddy for the two Mata Hari hardtops I'm doing. But the transformer/rec board combo my friend doesn't look bad at all (I haven't tested it yet -- I still need to swap it in and see if it works) and if it's good...I'm leaving it be. The rec board in the cab I technically have up and working looks AWFUL (but works)..I've already committed to redoing that one. If I only need to use one of the two I bought, I'll just slide the other right on over to Galaxy.

Rebuilding one of my Bally coindoor and the coil fish paper insulation is pretty grim, anyone has recommendation on replacement options?

PBR sells fish paper.

google could only find the SW one?
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use pinball search to find parts

https://www.pinballsearch.com/#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=switch%20fish%20paper

If the fuse pops immediately when you turn on the game, the bridge rectifier is shorted and needs to be replaced or like others have suggested replace the whole board.

Or...you have a cross in the GI and the Control Lamp circuit.

Do you have an Alltek Lamp Board laying around? or in another machine?

If so, hook up the alltek AND the Control Lamp Jumper. Unplug J1 (8 pin connector to PF) on the rectifier board and power up the game. Got weak lights? Then you have current jumping to the Control Circuit. If not, check the bridge rectifier for J1.

Yeah, the feature lamps did work when we brought this home but for some reason they cut out somewhere along the way after I fixed the left flipper. Not really sure, but the rec board looks like haaaaaaaaaaammered dog sh1t so it probably does just need replaced. We just got a bunch of snow dumped on us overnight, so it'll be a bit before I get out there to start soldering on it, but I think that's the next step. Hopefully once I get that replaced I won't be popping fuses. I nosed around in the head and under the playfield and nothing looks noticeably horrible from a feature lamps or a ground sort of standpoint. Not that I couldn't have missed something...but everything SEEMED fine and not much has changed since it was brought home/flipper fixed and the lamps were working. I'd be willing to bet that the rectifier just bit the dust, given how horrible it looks. It even SMELLS kinda burnt, tbh. It needs to go.

ohhhh i did not know about that though mostly what i found already haha i guess i ll add one of those in my next Digikey order

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/gc-electronics/560/257752

even better, nice find

I wonder if Poly caps better choice than ceramic as I think they can handle ripple better. The class Z or whatever 50v cheap ceramic caps don't last long. Mata Hari kept eating them in a like a month or less on a pop bumper.

Probably a dumb question but out of sheer morbid curiosity...say I wanted to run an MPU200 (from a Galaxy) in a Mata Hari -- why? Because why not! -- what all would need to be changed to do so? That's, of course, assuming it can even be done...

Burn roms or change jumpers to match your mata hari roms
change jumpers for mpu200 speed to mpu100 speed (same as bally -17/-35)
remove U13 5101

the mpu200 is the universal replacement as far as original boards go since you can change it to suit.

You should really also change the display interrupt timer if it was originally a 7 digit game but that's not super important.

?!? Never had a Ceramic cap fail in a pinball machine. Ever. But then again; I'm not actively looking for a failure.
What exactly is the failing mechanism on a pop bumper cap?
Could it be physically mechanical stress? or electrical stress?
I'm betting they are failing due to mechanical stress due to the proximity to to the pop bumper itself.

Thanks for the super fast reply. I'm going to be putting in an Alltek in my galaxy (eventually turning it into a Quicksilver, with xpin displays) and my mata hari mpu looked too far gone to revive (I never did put power to it, I shipped off the entire boardset to my repair guy) so I figured I'd just slide the mpu200 over if it could be done. I'm all for pinching pennies anywhere I can on that one...

Loss of sensitivity for the pop it's on (or whatever switch it's on). Locking switch on (if it's shorted).

It's one of those "replace all these on switches" type of things everyone recommends. They're 40 years old. They're shot.

It shouldn't fail for years though once replaced so I'm not sure what Andrew has happening.

But overall, yes, the poly cap would be better than the ceramic, but they're more expensive.

I don't waste time with ceramic caps on switches anymore. I just replace them with poly caps.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/bally-as-2518-club/page/59#post-6734400

Also had the problem with the small ceramic caps you get these days that have very thin leads which would break after time due to playfield vibration.

Very common failure on early Bally/Stern games where they're used on playfield/cabinet switches. The capacitors become resistive resulting in the switches appearing as stuck closed. I suspect some of the damage is done in the factory when the caps were soldered for an excessive time with brutally hot soldering irons.

I have a weird symptom I've never seen before. On my Bally Black Pyramid, when the game is turned on the outhole coil fires moving the ball into the shooter lane. Boots and goes into attract mode as normal. Anyone seen that before?

Yup did you buy it from Joe s. By any chance? If so you have my old black pyramid and I never could figure out why it did that

I'm having a hard time remembering his name... he was from Charlottesville, VA

Edit: his name was Jon. Maybe it's a black pyramid thing?

I am having a hard time finding a source for Bally coil wrappers/tape.
I know I could buy tape in multiple colors, buy a printer, download the scans and print them but I would much rather purchase a set for my Mata Hari.
The game is hard topped and the cabinet has been repainted. The old coil wraps look rough on an otherwise beautiful machine.

Does anyone know where I could find a set or someone who already has a set up to print that I could pay them for?

Inkochnito has them on his site I think its: http://www.pinballrebel.com/pinball/cards/

Thank you Arari_Daze

Anything you can't find, just ask.
http://www.inkochnito.nl

This is an issue with the cheap squeak sound board. Exacerbated by MPUs with longer reset widths.

When the cheap squeak comes out of reset it programs the 6803 processor mode. The pins that program the 6803 mode also happen to be solenoid signals and forces the bit pattern for the outhole. The PIA ports are in Z state during reset making it easy for the cheap squeak to drive those signals, even through the series resistors to the solenoid decoder.

There is potential coil melting problem here. If the MPU and Cheap Squeak are below the 5v power monitor level and stuck in reset, the mode programming diodes on the cheap squeak can lock on a coil. If the cheap squeak and mpu had a reset buttons, if you held them both down, the outhole would lock on until the fuse blows or worse.

I fixed this on the replacement cheap squeak I make. I put in series resistors and a buffer chip between the solenoid signals and the 6803 processor. That way the mode programming will not be able to force the solenoid pattern for the outhole while in reset. All other bally sound boards have a buffer chip on the solenoid input signals. I think the "cheap" part left out that circuit and they decided to just live with the potential coil pulse at power on.

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Good info to know! That would drive me crazy trying to track down.

That wouldn't surprise me at all, IIRC the MPU in that game was one that had so much corrosion I didn't think it was going to be salvaged at all but I did it as a lark (hey reset components are cheap) and it worked. When I cleaned the corrosion off, all of the silkscreening came off the board so that was fun.

I figured it was something like the corrosion causing it probably extra resistance on the reset? Dunno. Prices were cheap all around. I think that's the game that the head snapped off when it was coming down the basement steps, too, so there was lots of spliced wiring. A real junkyard dog for sure.

Hey Bally SS pros, I am working on an Elektra and the aux power board (#AS-2518-54 ) connectors need work.

Mainly the j5 needs to be repinned. I think I have figured out the sizes but can anyone tell me what gauge wire is coming off the transformer into the connector ? I want to do some practising before getting into it.

You should add this information to the Pinwiki page.

I'd like to be able to test solid state Bally/Early Stern drop target banks outside of the pin, on my bench, using the powered coil to reset the banks instead of manually manipulating the reset bar. I have access to a variable DC bench power supply (0VDC-60VDC, up to 5 amps) that I could use to drive the coil. I've got some momentary switches I could use to trigger the events. I would secure the drop target assembly, temporarily, to a baseboard for operational stability during the reset testing.

Can someone offer some guidance as to how to wire this up? What voltage should I use to drive the coil (24VDC? 43VDC?)?

You should match the 43vdc the machine provides. You should really wire up a timed one shot or maybe use a gottlieb pop bumper driver board to do this because you pressing the switch isn't going to correspond to the timing the machine uses and will throw you're results off.

How To: DIY LED displays from pinballsolutions.eu

Anyone out there got an Evel backglass sitting around because this looks a bit silly.

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I just needed the one thing so I bought off eBay what was supposed to be a Bally/Midway T Bushing that ‘looked’ exactly like the C-934 at Marco.

Now that it doesn’t fit I don’t want to buy the one from Marco if it’s the same one. Maybe my game doesn’t have the correct shooter rod assembly for a Bally Harlem Globetrotter?

Can anyone tell from the pics or should I get better measurements? Thanks.

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I was told by Steve Young at PBR that the Bally nylon T- bushing is no longer available.
What you have is probably a Gottlieb bushing which is a slightly different shape. I have used the GTB bushibg (B8834) along with a GTB exterior trim plate ( A8831+), $12.06 for the pair. The trim plate is plain, no logo.

Thanks for the part numbers @alan_l. In looking at those it looks like the Gottlieb is what was in my game.

The Bally C-934 bushing seems to be available but won't fit here.

Do you know if a shooter rod diameter of 0.37" (9.4 mm) fits the Gottlieb bushing?

Yes, it looks like you got a Bally bushing, however the metal shell trim plate you have looks like it's Gottlieb..

I have a Gottlieb shooter rod assembly here and the rod does measure around 9.4mm diameter.

Perfect. Thanks for confirming.

Bally sound board tip. If you have low volume or need to replace the lm741 at U9, get a LM741CN/NOPB from digikey. It is a direct replacement and you dont need to do the sound board mod with resistors and caps.

Where did you find a Bally C-934 shooter bushing?

I think that almost all shooter rods are the same diameter, someone could correct me.

If you are going through all the work to replace U9 I would suggest doing the resistor/cap mod too. It's only 3 cheap parts and volume was much higher than a non-modded normally working sound board.

Got it on eBay but Marco has it too
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/C-934

i am drawing a blank here... Is there a good replacement for the double flipper switch for top lane change like Centaur/Fathom?