Hello all,
I am new to this thread. I purchased a Space Invaders pinball last year from a private owner who said it was working but needed fixes in the power supply. I could see burnt connectors on the power board, but the price was good and I took it home where it sat for over a year in major pieces in my basement. The only thing I did buy for it was the special front-glass since someone had replaced it with straight single-pane clear glass and it really made the back board look funny.
So, fast-forward to about four days ago. We hauled it all upstairs and put it together. I spent an afternoon validating voltages on the transformer and rectifier board. The transformer was wired for 115 and I changed it to 120 after checking my household voltage was at about 123. Eventually everything got plugged in and the machine essentially "works."
Here are some details about the machine:
- There is a mylar sheet over the primary playfield, I hadn't noticed it previously but it's there.
- the playfield is in really nice shape, probably due to the mylar
- All plastics appear to be in great shape, I haven't found any cracks or broken pieces as yet
- Machine serial number is ESI7081 and I just registered it on the serial database web site
- The horseshoe tunnel has the larger inner posts (plastic) instead of the slender metal-only posts
- I have both the machine specific manual, with schematics, and the general Bally maintenance guide for this era
- The machine plays pretty well
Here is a list of items I need to repair/replace and I could use some pointers:
- Small flipper on right side is cracked, need replacement(s)
- Small flipper on left is limping; low power flips and sometimes goes dead when "holding"
- All bumper tops are burnt from lamps, need all (four passive, three power), where is best source
- the lamps between the three lanes at the top all have a clear plastic tube on them and they are cracking/falling apart; what is best to do with these?
- I would like to replace all lamps with LED, what is the process and best parts, and suppliers?
- The scoring displays flicker, I don't remember if they are supposed to do that, it's kind of annoying
- I'll probably need to replace all the rubber on it, I've already done a few items but overall it all should be gone through
My son of 13 years is very much enjoying the game so far, as is my wife. I plan to do work on it as I am able to between other projects and hobbies.
I would appreciate any pointers I should know about keeping it in good shape, replacing the parts I need and making it even better. Here is one photo. I have more photos in the gallery on my website, but I'm having issues with creating thumbnails right now. You can browse them (without thumbnails) here:
http://www.asajay.com/gallery2/v/asajay/1980SpaceIvadersPinball/
Thanks
Asa Jay

IMG_20161224_121853147_HDR (resized).jpg

Added over 7 years ago: Updated the photo album so the link has changed slightly, please use this one:

http://www.asajay.com/gallery2/v/1980SpaceIvadersPinball/

Thank you Mk1Mod0 for the information. I'll begin looking at those resources.

wayout440; I'm sorry the idea of replacing all the lamps with LEDs makes you sad. It's something I'm considering because they give off a lot of heat and use a lot of energy. I figure any reduction in power I can manage will only help the machine with a much longer life. I have hundreds of the correct bulbs that came with the machine so it's not like I'm short on them, and I -have- been replacing burnt bulbs. I'm not looking to create a wild color-crazy playfield with them, just wanting to cut down on the power. Even if I choose not to replace them all, I would certainly replace all those under the bumpers, to avoid burning the bumper caps again.

Asa Jay

Agreed, white would be the way to go.

Fourbyracer; That's a good looking machine and thank you for the links.

I had the credit/match display go out sometime today when my wife and son were playing. Nothing on any digit at all. I swapped displays with one of the player displays and the problem follows the display board. Not much to it. What typically goes wrong on these? The caps, the Zener or something else? My guess is the zener. I'll keep troubleshooting it and see what I find.

Asa Jay

Update (a little later), it looks like the display panel itself is bad. All voltages and data appeared to be coursing through the board. I had a spare display panel in the parts stash that came with the machine. If I gently hold all the leads of the spare panel to the circuit board, it lights up, whereas the one installed to the board does not. So my guess is the panel is bad. I'm going to have to start making a list of spare parts.

Battery info!
My Space Invaders is not keeping my programming very well. The first that goes is the lowest of the high scores for replay. Though I set it to 460,000, within a few days of being off and on, the score sets to about 20,000. This is convenient in that it pretty much ensures a game each time you play, but it's annoying because if I let the machine sit for a few days without turning it on, it clears everything, including replays, high score and replay scores.

I discovered the battery that was installed before I got the machine is a 3V Lithium. I put a voltmeter across it when the machine was ON and got 5V. With the machine OFF I got .5V (yes, half a volt). I also found someone used a very poor job of soldering wires to the battery (a no-no by the way) and then to the board. I used a set of diagonal cutters to snip the wires and removed the battery. it doesn't appear to be a "rechargeable" battery either.

Checking a few things on-line, I see that some folks replace the battery with a coin-cell or other replacement 3V non-chargeable battery. I also see that in order to properly do that, a resistor needs to be changed to a diode, to prevent the system from attempting to charge the battery.

Inspecting my MPU, I find R12 is still installed... meaning it was never swapped out when this Lithium was put in. It's probably lucky it didn't explode at some point.

I am now in a position that I need to replace this battery. I found one place that offers an AA 3.6V rechargeable Ni-MH battery, but other than that, it looks like most are non-rechargeable. I stopped at a BatteriesPlus tonight but they wanted to sell me a rechargeable triple-pack for a wireless phone. I could have made it work but for $20 I figured there was something better to be had.

What is the collective wisdom here? Replace with a non-rechargeable and swap R12 for a diode? Or go with the rechargeable, and if so, what do you put in?

Thank you for the recommendations ahead of time.
Asa