I am happy to be in the SI club as of today, the machine I bought at https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/ad/62145 has arrived finally.

It has the typical playfield wear and battery acid damage, but I have been collecting parts for the last two weeks and will be doing a complete restore. I am replacing the playfield with a CPR repro when they are done later this year (hopefully), but otherwise everything else will be done this summer.

I am keeping this machine permanently, so yes I am aware I am dumping too much money into it but it's worth it to me. I vividly remember seeing this game for the first time when I was 9 years old and it scared the heck out of me lol. Loved dumping quarters into it and it's what got me into pinball lust. I have been looking for a project machine for a long long time, and when I saw the one posted here I jumped on it. Very happy to own it finally.

I will be posting restore photos and videos as I go.

picked up an SI about 3 weeks ago and looking forward to giving her a complete restore.

looking for feedback on the overlay install and how it's holding up to wear?

Also a new owner, and I was wondering what guys have done to the bulb sockets on the "50" caps to keep them from flickering? I one that no matter what I do to try and secure the bulb, the damn thing just sits too loose, so when the pump bumper near it fires, that bulb gets loose and dark.

Sometimes a light squeeze with a pair of pliers (with the power off and the bulb removed!) anything more than that, and you are wasting your time. Replace the sockets at that point.

I am happy to say that today I finally finished my Space Invaders refurbish project. The machine I received 5 months ago was completely dead, and actually set itself on fire twice during initial troubleshooting lol. After putting in all new boards, repinning and replacing all connectors, and chasing down several gremlins (namely, non-working coils caused by the box connector between head and playfield, and non-working passive scoring caused by a bent leaf switch) I now have a fully functional game! I decided to not do a full restore, too expensive and the wear on the machine has grown on me.

Learned a whole lot that will apply to my next project in Eight Ball Deluxe, and definitely happy to have my childhood favorite game

I have a SI I've had for about a year. I've never had any issues until recently the horseshoe stopped scoring, it will intermittently pick up the ball rolling across. But if it is going it too fast the switch doesn't register or score. Therefore, I replaced the leaf switches, but it continues to do it, any thoughts? I made sure the switch gap was barely open to make sure the rollover button would register.

The switches should have .047uF capacitors across them. Sometimes they are clipped off because if they became shorted they would stop the switch from working correctly. I noticed this problem on the horseshoe of my SI, but the targets as well. I added the caps to all the target switches as well as the horseshoe switches on SI for the same problem. The .047uF cap should be soldered across the switch. This allows the cap to "stretch" the pulse of a quick switch so the MPU has a better chance of reading the switch closure.

thanks for the advice, I have read to cut the capacitors, but this makes sense. Which leads are the soldered to?

One side to the cathode side of the diode, and the other side to the switch contact that is not connected to the diode at all.

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Put new capacitors on the switches last night and works perfectly every time. thanks for the advice! It had been a frustration of mine and machine working great now.

I just aquired a Space Invaders pin. Unfortunately, it’s beyond repair. Missing boards, no backglass, and rough playfield. The plastics are wavy, but clean and unbroken. Either way, I’ve got spare parts I’d be willing to part with if it’ll help someone restore a different one.

How's the head and neck? Mine has a bunch of jury rigged repairs to hold it together.

Can I join the club? I am picking one up this weekend. Based on the pics the playfield looks great because the previous owner of 20 yrs put the mylar protector over the playfield. I will post pics when I pic up the game. The back glass is flawless too. The game is clean but not working. The current owner said the previous owner of 20 yrs said it was working fine until he put a new rectifier board in it.

I will post an update when I get the game and get it home and set up and begin messing with it.

Let me ask this now: Would it be wise to remove the protector from the playfield and clear coat the playfield? The playfield is not perfect but it looks good. Wouldn't multiple layers of clear coat make the playfield more vibrant and also protect the playfield more and enhance the game play?

Personally, if it is in good shape I would leave it be, wax it and play it. At minimum, if you want to clear it you should plan on high quality touch up and a lot of prep work. As far as game play goes, to me there is something unnatural about the feeling when they are super gloss cleared. But that's just me.

if I remove the mylar, would it pull up the playfield art work in some areas? Isn't the way to do it is turn a can of canned air upside down and spray it on it or something like that? I need to look up the youtube vids on the process.

Ah. I thought you had one of those floating playfield protectors when you referred to it as a "protector". Removing mylar is tricky business. I've done it a number of times. I lost considerable art on Bally Mata Hari (my first game) and some on Williams High Speed. It's a process that requires patience and practice and nobody can guarantee that you won't lose any art. I also had better success on many games using a heat gun to soften the glue, rather than canned air or freeze spray. I chose to leave mylar on my Space Invaders, since the art and mylar were in great condition

that era art loss is highly likely and a lot of the playfield is art and not sold colours. I'd leave the mylar or get a pro to remove it, touch up, and clear

Picked up my SI on superbowl sunday. Here are a few pics. It is not working but everything is there and cab is solid. I think the playfield does not have to be replaced. I think i can get by with a good cleaning and waxing. It does have the mylar protector on it.

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Very Nice! Having a nice playfield like that is a huge help. I'm waiting on a CPR playfield as my playfield was completely blown out.
I'm in the process of completely rebuilding/restoring mine still, though its on hold while I'm moving to a new house.

Nice one! They are getting hard to find. Just a SWAG, but I believe the piece that supports the neck at the back of the cab is not original and I would check that it is solid before mounting the head and opening it up with back glasses installed. This part often goes bad from the weight of the glasses when the door is wide open.

Shawn

Anyone know where I can pick up a fairly nice apron for a space invaders , ideally not an overlay ?

Has anyone found pop bumper caps for SI? Thanks

At this moment you can get the dead bumper set from Marco Specialties, and the main pop cap set on EBay (Classic Arcades)
ebay.com link: i

Thanks - I thought the pop caps were unobtainable.

vid1900 I know this is 2 years old. My SI left side ball return wire broke off inside the hole by the flipper, leaving just the tip still inside the hole. Do you have any advice on the correct gauge or methods to get the curved bend right?

Would a Space invaders owner be kind enough to help out a fellow owner get a pick of the playfield just below the U shaped multiplier area and just above the female alien's head. I need to repaint that section but cant find a pick with decent detail. Thanks

Like this?
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Got this years ago off E-bay for cheap. Best way I know to get decent bends.
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Yes thank you very much

A friend had a wire-bending tool, and I was able to make a decent one.
My game has mylar, but not inside the center horseshoe. I'm trying to decide between one sheet of mylar for that area (cutting out holes for the star rollovers), or buying a $110 clear playfield protector from Cointaker, which lays on top of the whole playfield. Suggestions?

On this era game I'd go the cointaker sheet. Full protection and can be removed at any stage

Picked one up that has a few positives but some major negatives. It’s my first full restore so I hope I can hit you guys up for help from time to time.

Back Box...water damaged and requires at least a partial rebuild.

Back Glass...really nice and intact but has a few spots cracked that need to be glued down.

PCBs...all look good except for the main board which has battery acid damage.

Playfield... not bad...needs touch up...will contact HSA.

Plastics...all nice but the larger ones are warped.

Cabinet...needs a bottom, front, left side and back while I am at it. New art needed.

Wiring and underside of playfield look really good.

This is going to be at least a $1500 investment which isn’t horrible but I feel the game deserves it. Looking at a new PCB for $200 playfield repair at $500 cabinet stencils at $200, wood and proper router bits at $300, misc parts like new pop bumper caps, $300 and whatever else I run into...really for something like this the ultimate price isn’t a big deal...it’s the satisfaction of returning it what it once was.

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Your playfield is in Much better shape than mine was. I'm waiting on a CPR playfield for mine as it was a lost cause to attempt to repair.
Pretty sure HSA is closed at this point, so you might have to look to another playfield restorer if you want to save that one.
I had to build an entire new cab for it as mine was dry rotted and delaminating all over. Cabinet wood, Pinball pimp stencils, new coin door skin, new Rectifier board, new stainless rails, new glass, coin door lock, shooter rod, coin door bolts, it adds up quick and that's just for the cabinet.
My biggest heads up for you is to be prepared to re-pin all the connectors and replace all board headers in addition to having to replace many of the lamp sockets. Connectors will either be loose or corroded and the lamp sockets will be no better off.
Good luck and let us know how it goes!

Thank you JDissen87 I appreciate all the advice. Gonna need it on this one.

No problem. I love to see games getting restored.
Let us know how your restoration goes. I'm sure i'll need some ideas for mine as well!

I was really on the fence about it, but there are plenty of parts to be had at a pretty reasonable price and enough of it intact to make it doable. More pics to come! A challenge for sure.

Very interested in how Hellfire retinned the acid damaged MPU. I would love to give that a try. Mine seems pretty bad but if it can be saved that would be a huge plus!

Just some pics...plastics off...I like to divide the game into 9 quadrants and take 9 pics every time I do something. A side note...removed the front of the back panel and it’s saveable. How the heck does the front glass come out?

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To remove the front glass, open the backbox, on the door that swings out near the top, there are two metal tabs you have to pull back.
They block the front glass from lifting, once you pull them back you can lift the front glass up and out.

Thanks JDissen! Fortunately the front box is salvageable on mine. The pcb door is as well...the rest of the back box...not so much.

For mine, I had to build a whole new lower cab but I was able to save the backbox outer door frame, lamp insert and *most* of the back box. I had to replace the back panel as it had moisture damage and was swollen. The rest of the backbox was ok, just needed lots of sanding and filling to get it smooth again.

The MPU that came with mine was beyond destroyed due to battery leakage. It was missing numerous traces and had damaged through holes as well. I built a new one from scratch using a two-bits board I got on eBay (they are still listed I believe, $50 for a blank pcb). The rest of the parts were sourced from Ed at GPE and a few from Digikey\Marcos\Mouser. I wanted to keep it as original looking as I could (just felt like keeping it that way on this game) and i was looking for a good solder project for a weekend.
If you wanted a new board with less work involved, I would look at a replacement board from barakandl at nvram.weebly.com .He has several other boards for this era of game as well (MPU, SDB, Lamp, Rectifier, -51 sound, etc..). You can also go with Alltek if you choose.

JDissen87 I just picked up a really nice MPU on eBay with a GI board for a good price. Should be an easy fix and rom swap. I saw the NOS empties and I love to solder but not that much...you are very patient! Will be very nice to have an original board.

Bally AS-2518-35 MPU AND AS-2518-23 LAMP DRIVER board - FOR REPAIR

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Nice grab there. That MPU seems to be in pretty good shape, though please cut off that battery ASAP. You can replace it with an nvram to be done with batteries for good. You will likely need to replace many of the sockets, especially if they are of the scanbe type. Those things go bad and then nothing makes contact correctly.
The lamp driver looks to be in good shape as well. Looks like a few components have been replaced at some point. Thankfully there isn't much work to do to those other than replacing the headers.

LOL...My message to the seller:

“Hi there. Will you please do me a huge favor and cut the battery off and throw it in the garbage before you ship it? It’s the big silver/white capacitor looking thing on the left side of your picture.”

His response was..”OK!”

I have a high res pic of the MPU and it is really really nice. Hopefully new sockets and headers will fix it.

Hi everyone, I’m looking to join the club, but I’d like to do it as a project and start from the ground up. Does anyone have a populated Playfield to sell? The art on the wood is not important, I’ll get a cpr when the time comes, but I will need everything else on the Playfield

Thank you for any help

Chosen_S I think you can find most of the PF parts new for a reasonable price. This is a great project game because most parts are available and it’s relatively easy to work on. The back glass is very expensive, so that should be a priority. I will have some extra parts soon, but they won’t be mint (which is why I am swapping them out).

There are quite a few beat up games out there that I'm sure you could fine a populated playfield. Pretty sure I saw one in a group someone had for sale a few weeks back. There aren't that many parts to the game that are unique either. Only harder parts to acquire would likely be the apron, drop target banks, horseshoe ball guide, transformer and backglasses. I don't think it will be too bad to source boards, playfield, plastics, posts, etc... as all of them have been remade as of late.
Technically I think I have a spare horsehoe ball guide as Vid1900 made me a new one a year or so back that is going on SI once i get a new pf.
Let me know if you need that and i can send it your way. Good luck on the scratch build.

Thanks guys, I’m good with Not mint parts, I plan to do a lot of cleaning as needed. I have most of the underside parts from other projects, and most of the mechanical parts; mostly looking for all of the hardware for the top;

Horseshoe Ball guide, ball guid brackets, Playfield rails, posts, apron, lamp sockets, spinner

I appreciate any thing I can get from you guys from your refurbishments!

I might be able to help with the playfield rails fairly soon as well. I need to get ahold of Reese Rails and see if he can use my old rails to make a template for some new ones. I'll have a spare rail set and horseshoe ball guide once I can get a new PF to start populating.

Sweet! Love me some alien wood!

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