I'm going to be starting my SI restore. My 2nd. This one has a mint BG, decent cabinet and I picked up a mint, looks NOS OE PF. Doing the PF swap soon. It will be for sale this spring. If anyone wants a fully restored example I can have WeatherbyMAG (look at his work) do a full cabinet job. Will share pics as the work starts.

FWIW:
Upper right flipper assembly rebuilt.
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Main power harness repaired.
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Next, the voltage regulator board repair and adding missing components.
a) correct try wraps to filter capacitor and high voltage standoffs.
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b) bad transistor Q9.
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c) tools to amend flaws to pcb board.
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&
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d) finished amendments.
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e) finished board.
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Now onto the transformer assembly.
before pics.
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&
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&
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& screw ref.
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note: pin one of playfield connector burned off board.
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a) fixing playfield connector with a small metal "strap".
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b) amending power wiring.
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c) cleaned wood mounting board.
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d) remounting transformer assembly.
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e) fitting cover cage.
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f) final fitting of cover cage and power amendment.
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Now back to the client and hope it all works.
Cheers!

Restoration coming along quite nicely

For more information on my old man's build log see

https://www.pinballinfo.com/community/threads/space-invaders-the-reborn.39045/

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Good afternoon. I have 2 issues with my machine.
1 The coil on the coin door keeps humming and randomly activates.
2 I can't get the missile sound to work with the flippers.
Any help would be great.
Thank you

Flipper snd switch's are wired in parallel...
Check for broken wire on switch strobes and /or bad 1n4148 diode.
Or there might be a snd "off" switch on the cpu.

Got the sound with flippers working.

Still trying to figure out the coin lockout coil on the coin door.

The relay coil normally has a buzzing sound.
The small spring on the outside of the assembly can be missing?
The coin lockout coil de-energizes when at max. credits.

Just cut one of the wires to the coil, and tape it off.

You don't need it for home use.

I know this is a long shot but I thought hey what the heck... I just bought a Space Invaders Pinball and it’s not in the best condition. I’m looking for a good new or used playfield also a manual for it. PM me if you have anything. Thanks

Go to IPDB.org for the manual.

I have a project Space Invaders. I have everything, except for the 122-131 transformer. Will any other transformer work? The originals are not easy to find!

The transformer was upgraded to support a higher current load for a greater number of feature lamps (infinity lamps around the backglass).
The E-122-131 transformer was only used in Kiss, Space Invaders and Future Spa.
If you're going to use LEDs in the game that consume less current, you can get away with a common E-122-125 transformer.

Thank you for the response. I posted a similar question on the SS Tech forum and Force Flow basically stated the same. I was looking around the internet and came across this item on K's Arcade website:

https://ksarcade.net/new-used-pinball-boards-parts/power-supplies-transformers/bally-power-house-transformer-rectifier-assembly.html

I posted this same information in response to Force Flow's response, to see what his opinion is. Care to comment on the product?

@GKW, your opening post in the other thread says you have some 122-125 transformers already. Curious why you need the K's Arcade one? (which BTW says it's out of stock).
Space Invaders has the transformer and rectifier board in the cabinet unlike other games of that transformer/power type era.

See this image from the previous page in this thread:
https://images.pinside.com/9/90/dd/990ddbeff994702aac323a771161b1ee4e0c9f57.jpg
Ignore the aftermarket mod on the centre plank of wood.

I was surfing the net, looking for transformers, and K's Arcade popped up as having the transformer that I need. Their 122-125 was advertised as being a direct replacement, so naturally, I brought it up here, to see what the true experts had to say.

From my post on Transformer Interchangeability topic:

I was confused by the product being offered. I understand about the higher voltage necessity, and how using LEDs will negate having to use the -131 transformer. I didn't hear anything about the connectors in the forums, or how using a beefed-up TR board will also remedy the lack of power.

From the product details on K's Arcade "Powerhouse Transformer":

"Can be used with all Bally solid state games including KISS, Future Spa and Space Invaders*. It is recommended to replace the female housings and crimp connectors on the harness at J1, J2 and J3. Crimp contacts and housings are sold separately. *J1 Connector header pin 9 is used for KISS, Future Spa and Space Invaders. All other Bally and Stern games do not use pin 9. Make sure the J1 connector housing has the key plug installed at pin 4."

According to what I read in the ad, the rectifier board is supplying the higher voltage, necessary to use with KISS, Future Spa, and Space Invaders. This is what I was trying to ascertain.
Thanks to all for your input!

A beefed up rectifier board doesn't remedy a lack of power; higher voltage and current capacity are a function of the transformer. And by beefed up, all it means is it has bridge rectifiers that are capable of running at higher currents and the PCB should have thicker copper traces. The standard Bally rectifier boards with E-121-125 transformers has a 10 amp bridge rectifier for the feature lamp circuitry. The Bally rectifier board for the E-121-131 transformer has a bridge rectifier setup capable of working up to 15 amps.

Most of the aftermarket rectifier boards these days have a 35 amp bridge rectifier for the feature lamps circuit.

The rectifier boards J1 playfield connector for Kiss, Space Invaders and Future Spa was increased from 8 pins to 9 pins. The 9th pin is a load sharing wire running to the playfield for the feature lamps so there's two feature lamp power connections at the rectifier board (reliefed connector/wire stress), not one like the earlier games.

Hit a snag with my Space Invaders restore with a new problems that cropped up last weekend with my lights. The first is when I turned on my game and sections of of the chasing lights in the back box are out. If you start in a corner and divide the lights in groups of four, every other group of lights are out. Also, the right side of the creature lights are out as well. The light on the left side are on with a bit of flicker. I’ve put new solder on J1, J2 and J3 on the aux lamp board thinking that might fix it, but no luck there. The wired things is that these problems this the first time in the year I’ve had this game that this happened.

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Found the problem and fixed it. The high voltage/solenoid board had corrosion/lite surface rust on the bottom side of where the corner grounding screws go. Cleaned up both spots and the game works like a champ. It ever brought the sound board back to life!

I'm in the club, a surprisingly fun pin for a wide body.

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I have some stencils from pinball pimp and going to redo the cabinet. The instructions say paint it black red and white. I believe it is a flat paint but do not know if there is a specific shade. Any one who has done this could you help me out. I do not know if shrewin williams could match it off of a picture or not. Also what are some thoughts on clear coating the cabinet. Also any tips would be appreciated.

My old mans build thread over on pinballinfo will be of use to you (will need to create an account to see photos) https://www.pinballinfo.com/community/threads/space-invaders-the-reborn.39045/page-4

He used epoxy primer as a base coat then instead of flat paint used automotive metallic paint which accurately matches the original as close as possible then clearcoated afterwards

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I have an ongoing restoration of my Space Invaders in another thread https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/space-invaders-restoration-bringing-back-a-hunk-of-junk. Mine isn't finished yet (soldering the harness back to the playfield currently), but i did build a new cab from scratch and used those exact stencils to make mine.

You definitely don't want a flat-finish machine. Original cabinets were actually fairly glossy when they were brand new, I have an unrestored BK whose cab is almost a full gloss. Most machines' finishes dulled down over time. When I repainted my Space Invaders backglass frame, I used a Rustoleum satin black spray that matched the sheen of the rest of the backbox.

Joined the club today! Love it! Really fun pin for a wide body. Initially had a paragon I bought for $1600. The seller(friend) wanted to trade me back for a Future Spa. Then he contacted me and offered to trade me Space Invaders for Future Spa plus $100. I really liked Future Spa but so glad I did the trade.

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Finally got my Space Invaders setup. It had been sitting for at least 5 years before i got the game. Game boots and was able to get a game started. The thing preventing me from actually playing a game is that any switch closure on STROBE 0 tilts the game. I am refreshing the driver board to install a fresh 5V cap and do the ground mods and tie the two 5V lines together on the board. Will be checking for any shorted wires on the strobe 0, any shorted diodes, and check to see if any have caps and if any are bad. Hopefully it won't be too hard to isolate and track down.

I've never playing this game before and looking forward to it.

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I have noticed that some members have SI toppers. Are these available somewhere as they look awesome.

https://classicplayfields.com/shop/pinball-plastics/space-invaders/

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Hey everyone! Just joined the space invaders club this weekend! Was curious if anyone knew were to get new wire ball guides for the inlanes? Part number is m-121-78? Any help is greatly appreciated!

You likely wont be able to get them anywhere unless you find someone parting out a pin.
You probably will need to make some of your own. Vid1900 has a good guide for that
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/making-new-ball-guides-from-scratch-vids-guide
Its not that hard to do, I had to make 3-4 of them for my Xenon.

Hey thanks for the video! Looks like i can achieve that.. thanks again!

I am going to be restoring a SI for a buddy of mine. One thing he will need are the cones/post replaced....ive been searching online and I dont see any post kits available..do they exist or am I supposed to "just order what I need"?

I've attached a pic of what I have to order thus far:

(also..the cab and back glass of this pin is a 10/10...im am in AWE of the condition of this pinball machine body but EVERYTHING else is a 1/10..ive never seen a playfield this bad.)

I am ordering a rotisserie and that will be my payment for doing his restoration...I may upgrade it to the pin doc LE model.

just in convo with him I threw out some numbers and ballparked what he wants done and I said "To get it looking how you want im ball parking 2 grand."...based on the numbers today (before shipping) it looks like I'm spot on.

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A few suggestions from rebuilding my SI from scratch over the past few years. Apologies in advance, but this won't be that organized...
Here is my thread if you want to see anything else I did https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/space-invaders-restoration-bringing-back-a-hunk-of-junk

-Use LEDs from Comet or Cointaker. Just better quality overall and they have better light. I tried Pinballlife, Marcos and Comet in mine and Comet won.
-remember to either modify the lamp driver or buy the adapter boards to use LEDs with -35 era bally pins. The extended board does not need the adapters, at least mine did not. They are available if you have issues.
-You will have bad lamp sockets, plan to buy some. They aren't cheap unless you buy in bulk. even then...
-likely will be bad caps on several of the switches. Just replace them all.
-There are 4 flippers on the game, so you will need 2 kits. The upper flippers also have an extra switch for the noise you can (optionally) enable. You have to DIY that or you can get the flipper kit from PBR who will get you exactly what you need.
-check the flipper bats for cracks. also check to see how the metal is where the screw digs it. some are pretty trashed.
-replace all the sleeves in the game. Flippers, drop targets, pop bumpers, kickers, knocker
-check the drop targets as those can break or have issues. Mine had to be replaced.
-pop bumper caps are generally burnt bad on SI. I had to replace mine with NOS ones I was able to source. Beware some crappy ones that show up on feebay and other such locations.
-I sourced my posts from PBR, I believe it was 8 short and 32 tall
-make sure you have enough metal nuts for the plastics. I was missing many and they are in short supply. I ended up going with the nylon ones. Not original, but looks good and is easy to source.
-I use a pindoc Pro rotisserie. I just prime/painted it myself. Works great.
-make sure the boards are all built up and working correctly. SDB ground mods are a bit of a must with this game as is new fuse holders for the rectifier board. Check all the sockets on the boards as most of them will be crap. Headers, headers headers. Replace them all along with the pins.
-check the shooter bushing, I believe its a C-934, as it will likely need to be replaced. Marcos had them the last time I checked.
-I ended up needing alot of spare hardware as some stuff was just too corroded or broken or worn to be reused. I got a big bag of everything and it very much helped during the rebuild.

Good Luck and let us know how it goes!

Thanks for your info..i didnt even think about the second set of flippers haha....how do I modify the lamp driver for led use? I will check out your link.

This forum post covers the adapters for the lamp driver board and it covers more of a DIY approach if you are into that. The big reason they are needed is to prevent flickering. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/classic-ballystern-led-adapter-kit-review
Here is another guide for most of the boards that are in SI, the important ones are the rectifier, SDB and MPU. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-quick-bally-driver-board-repair-bulletproofing

both of these are posts that I used for my rebuild and they helped immensely

Hey all, kinda new to restoring machines… had the upper left flipper was basically in pieces so instead of replacingevery part I just ordered a whole flipper assembly. I have a question about the leaf switches that came with it vs what was on it.. can this be used by itself or should I use the old switch? Thanks alot.

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You are missing a switch for that new flipper.
Both the upper flippers on space invaders have both the standard EOS switch and a scoring switch that is used to trigger a sound (if enabled).

What you should be able to do is use the new EOS switch and stack the old scoring switch on top of it and use the old screws (so that they're long enough) to screw it all in. Make sure the screw does NOT hit the coil when screwed in. Just make sure that when the flipper is fully extended, the EOS switch should be open and the scoring switch should be closed. Vid1900 has a good rebuild thread you can reference for flipper rebuilds.
If you want a new scoring switch, I used pinball resource for mine and they worked great. That being said, I'm sure Marcos or pinballlife both have available options as well.

Awesome thank you! Thats what i was thinking wasnt sure what the extra leaf switch was but now i know. I will use the original with shorter bolts as it poked through the coil! Thanks again

Hello all,
I have an opportunity to buy a Space Invaders complete minus the back glass. The game is going to need a full rebuild, but I don’t want to go down that path if the glass is going to be unobtanium.

Wondering if anyone reproduces the glass?

Thanks!

Two things for you on that one...
1) Space Invaders has two backglasses, an inner backglass with the mirroring and artwork and an outer backglass that is smoked with no other artwork (the infinity lights are sandwiched in-between).
2) I don't think anyone has repro'd any smoked backglasses, at least not that I've heard of.

I don't think anyone is producing repro backglasses (inner or outer) for this title currently, but BGResto does to restorations on the inner glass.
That being said, you'd probably have to find a game with both glasses and get the inner restored if its in bad shape. Unless, that is, you can get lucky and find some in great shape.
All that being said, they made a ton of this game, so I would think you could find a pair of glasses if you really tried.

Thanks for the reply. I did not realize it was 2 pcs, so both would be missing in this case. Anyone out there with a spare set they'd be willing to sell?

Ended up picking up the project game, and also a very good condition backglass piece to kickstart the project. A big thanks to Randy_G for hooking me up with the backglass. There are some really great folks here on pinside!

Regarding my playfield options (replace with repro playfield or overlay it), wondering if there’s an overlay option that just covers the center open area since my wear is mostly limited to this area.

It would be nice if the hardtop product was an option for this title, but who knows if that will ever be available. Also, the repro playfields are out of stock and don’t know if/when they will become available again. I guess that means overlay it or wait.

Hello!
I wanted to ask, has there been any custom ROMs for space invaders which removes the "loop all day long" aspect of the game and makes more use of the other cool features and shots of the playfield?

Not that I'm aware of.

Hi Guys, i've been asked by the son of a family friend to get his Spacey machine up and going again (was his dads and was in a games room in their holiday flats) Unfortunately this poor gal has been non working for at least 22 years that they can recall so it's in dire need of some love. The guy just wants to get this running, he's not interested in any of the aesthetics and also wants to do it as cheap as possible so a full restore is not the option (including no new plastics etc) The boards will all have to be sent away for repairs but in the meantime i was going through the basics of what i needed under the playfield. The most obvious was the flipper switches, as you can see by the pics they are totally stuffed/missing bits. I bought some ones from Marco's (from the specific Space Invaders section) but after looking through this thread i'm not sure they will be what i need for the job. Also wondering about the cab flipper switches too as the one's on this machine are busted.
There will be a few unknowns i'm sure with this so until i have the boards up and running i'm just dealing with the obvious stuff first.
Any help with the switch part identification and/or the right part numbers will be greatly appreciated.
Cheers!!

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https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-upgradingrebuilding-flippers/page/15#post-2235465

Thanks for the link Vid but that doesn't incorporate the secondary EOS switch for the upper flippers?? I wanted to rebuild the full flipper mechs on this machine but he really doesn't want to spend the money on it to go that far, despite me telling him the flippers could be potentially weak and or crappy. There's a LOT of things i would like to do to this machine to give it the proper attention it deserves but for now he's only setting aside a budget for bare bones work and a lot of that budget will most likely be tied up in the circuit board repair. I identified the obvious stuff just looking at the underneath and top of the PF so at this stage it's only EOS switches for the flipper mech, Cab flipper switches, full rubber kit, 1 target from the left bank (busted off underneath) and both upper flipper bats are cracked (virtually falling apart) As mentioned before there's probably going to be heaps of things that will need adjustment or repair and wont become apparent until i get the boards up and running but for now the parts mentioned are the obvious stuff needing replacement.

You can see incorrect mechanical parts installed on the flipper mechs, even from the internet.

It's a huge playfield, it's going to need fully functional, powerful flippers

On the main flippers, the inner switch is Normally Closed (EOS), the outer is Normally Open. Look on schematic if this is unclear

On the small flippers, you only have the Normally Closed EOS switches

Well now i am confused
Which mechanical parts are you referring too??
I'm aware the mechs should be rebuilt but as mentioned the guy wants to be tight so until the time comes i can show how weak the flippers will most likely be then i won't be rebuilding them.
I understand that the inner switch is normally closed and the outer is normally open but the link you provided to the rebuilt mech doesn't have a secondary switch on it, only the inner?? unless i'm totally missing something (apologies if that's the case) My question was if the 2 EOS switches i bought are usable as the one's i've seen in this thread look different (mainly the normally closed one)
Not sure what you mean about the small flippers?? On this machine i have, the left upper has the blades busted completely off the secondary switch but the stack is there and the right is damaged but is on the mech.
Do you mean that this machine doesn't normally have the secondary normally open EOS switch on the upper flipper mechs?