(Topic ID: 267345)

Bringing back to life an Eight Ball Deluxe

By matiou

3 years ago


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  • 187 posts
  • 31 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 3 years ago by Lovef2k
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11
#1 3 years ago

So.... I bought this Eight Ball Deluxe pinball few months ago... Or at least what was left of it! The price was low. Very low. Some could find it was not low enough when looking at the machine... But come on, it's an EBD! and I always wanted an EBD...

I took care of 3 or 4 project machines in the past, but I never started with a machine in such a bad shape. It spent the last 15 years in a warehouse where water was dripping on its glass, slowly rolling into the lock bar, and getting out through one the front corners, along one of the legs. It obviously caused some pretty bad damage to the cabinet. The MPU is corroded like crazy, there is no backglass and the lamp board got deformed by humidity. The playfield is heavily used, but not water damaged.

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I decided to take the challenge to bring this machine back to life. My approach won't be to "restore" it, but only to get it to a "playable" state (at least for now)... To qualify for this, the cabinet needs to be solid and clean, the machine needs to work and to look and smell good enough to be moved from the garage to the house This is likely going to take me months... The hard part will be to do all this without spending money like crazy, I would like to *try* not to spend $3,000 to end up with a $1,200 pin!

Even before starting working on it, I already bought some things (who never did that?). I found from a fellow pinsider an used backglass... Not in perfect shape, but will be OK for this machine.

If everything goes well, one day I may install a hardtop and stencil the cabinet. But this may be months from now (years?). As I said, my first focus will be to just... make it play!

Things purchased so far:
- Birch plywood 2ft x 4ft 3/4
- Plywood 2ft x 2ft 1/4
- 2x2 pine wood for corners
- Used backglass (Pinside)
- New black legs (Pinball Life)
- Leg bolts
- Leg levelers
- Metal bracket (Home Depot)
- Wide leg brackets (Pinball Life)
- Bally sticket for coin door (Pbresource)
- Misc metal screws (Home Depot)

#6 3 years ago
Quoted from Lovef2k:

Holy cow! Does the lock down mechanism actually move?

Yes it does! Once I drilled the door's lock I managed to pull the lever and release the lockbar, of course it needed a bit of force. I was positively surprised to see that the inside was not "that" bad. The manual was even there, in a relatively good shape! Sadly, there was only one quarter in the coin box

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#7 3 years ago
Quoted from Lovef2k:

I can probably donate a used Lamp panel board for your back box if you pay shipping.

That would be awesome! Mine is falling apart... Thanks!

#10 3 years ago
Quoted from Lovef2k:

I'm concerned about all of those inline fuse connectors, looks like tied into the GI's?

I was surprised by these as well... it looks like there is one inline fuse per solenoid, see picture below... to protect the circuits when solenoids get stuck ?

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#14 3 years ago
Quoted from Daditude:

If you are looking to replace the apron, one just came up on pinside.
https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/ad/95297

Thanks for thinking of me! Appreciated! However, it looks like it's an used apron on which was put a large sticker. I could do this on mine, it's not too damaged by rust. I would have bought it if it was a silkscreened one.

#15 3 years ago

The now empty lower cabinet... in all its glory
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Quoted from Dallas_Pin:

Not sure that cabinet is even salvageable. Might be easier to find a donor cabinet to use as a the base?

You may be right.... One of the leg is definitely going to be hard to bolt on But I have to see the positive side of things... The other 3 corners are pretty strong!

For sure the front of the cabinet is dead, it won't be able to hold a coin door anymore... and the corner of the right side is gone too... but not much to lose trying to fix this (except my time!)

#18 3 years ago
Quoted from Bohdi:

Think i would definitely look for a donor cabinet. For as much work as that one will need, you'd be much better off with a different cabinet IMO

I'm going to do both... fix this cabinet... to be able to assemble the game and make progress on the whole machine. won't be pretty but will work and won't cost much.

In parallel, I'll look for a donor base cabinet. When I find one, I will take my time to prep, stencil and so on... To make a nice machine, without rushing things.

#20 3 years ago

Now all the rotten wood is gone...
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I need to build a full front panel and a piece of the side... and of course replace the bottom plank.

#21 3 years ago

Using a router pattern bit, I built a piece of plywood replicating exactly the missing part.
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#22 3 years ago

I also cut a rectangle of plywood for the front panel...
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Now I need to make all this tight and solid. It's going to be a mix of miter joints, pocket holes, strong wood glue and some reinforcement brackets... to be continued....

#26 3 years ago

Thanks Lovef2k for all the information! Unfortunately no table saw here... But I have a circular saw which can do 45 degree angles, and a router... Should be good enough for the job.

I'm planning to do miter joints for both sides, I never tried this before, so I bought a miter router bit few weeks ago to try it out.
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To make things easier, I improvised a really simple custom router table (thanks youtube!):
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And I made some miter joints using scrap wood... It took a bit of time to adjust, but once set up, it worked great:
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Finally, once satisfied with the trial joints, I routed my new EBD plywood pieces:
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#27 3 years ago

And... I'm working on the coin door integration!

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#29 3 years ago
Quoted from Lovef2k:

Don't forget the top groove for the glass channel

I forgot about this one! I guess I need to buy another router bit... a slot cutter. Or do you know any other clean way to drill such a slot ?

#31 3 years ago

Drilling "pocket holes" to attach the two parts of plywood together...
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Prepared to glue and screw in the 2 pieces...
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Using my awesome router table to build the inside corners of the cabinet...
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Here are the corners and other inside wooden parts. I modified a bit the original set up... and planned to add a custom metal bracket and some wide leg brackets... all this to tie everything together and reinforce the location where my cabinet is a bit weaker than normal (the side with the assembled plywood)
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This cabinet will be on its 4 feet this week-end!

#33 3 years ago

Assembling stuff at night... I like this picture

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#34 3 years ago
Quoted from Waderade812:

This is one of the coolest repair jobs I have seen!

I like a lot your "looking old but playing fast" EBD playfield! I'm applying the same spirit to this cabinet

Quoted from Waderade812:

Did you make some spreaders to hold the rest of the cabinet together while it's in this state?

Yes! horizontal braces to hold sides in place. You can see one in the pic I just posted.

#35 3 years ago

I updated the first post with everything I purchased for this repair so far... And will update on a regular basis.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/bringing-back-to-life-an-eight-ball-deluxe#post-5618590

#36 3 years ago

Drilling leg holes with a custom fixture, to make sure they are at 45 degrees, and spaced correctly.
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And finally... ready to be up on its legs:
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12
#38 3 years ago

Still a bit ugly and in need of a big clean up but solid!
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#41 3 years ago

Thank you @dasvis, @mathazar, @uphamj! Still a long road before I can hear "quit talking and start chalking"

Quoted from uphamj:

FYI, I have just ordered one of the miter router bits you used as I have a backbox I have to rebuild.

Cool! Some pieces of advice: Practice a lot on scrap wood before you do it on your final plywood. You can practice with any wood, but do it at least once with the same plywood, to get the "feel" of your wood going through the router bit (very different depending on the type of wood). Height and horizontal depth of the router bit have to be very precisely adjusted to get the 2 sides of the join to match well. If you don't have a template (I did not), use trial and error. Once you find the position that works, route a piece of wood you'll keep as a fixture to later reproduce the same exact position.

#42 3 years ago

Let's take a pause and leave the wood working aside for a little bit... Let's talk about backbox electronics...

First the MPU:
Well... not much to see here, we can move on right away I guess if you want to explain to someone the damage battery corrosion can do, this is a good picture!
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Then the lamp driver:
Mmmm... this one got reworked in many spots... we'll see how it goes.
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The solenoid driver:
Not that bad but... why are some transistors missing ??
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Aux lamp driver:
Ok-ish... it looks like someone added a big ground connector... anyone familiar with such a mod ?
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And the most important one (because hard to replace)... The Squawk and Talk!
I have big hopes for this one... And it looks good. I ordered already the replacement capacitor kit. Someone did a weird parallel capacitor hack.
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#43 3 years ago

I knew from day one that my MPU was not usable.
I'm planning to go with a LISY35 from @bontango. This is a little project on its own! We'll see how it goes.

#44 3 years ago

Quick Sunday night update...

This week-end I emptied the backbox and inventoried all its parts.
It is not perfect.. but in better shape than the lower cabinet... and... filthy!
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Some planking and damages on one side...
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The lamp board is the worse, completely water damaged at the bottom...
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The harness got the dishwasher treatment... it recovered its colors! and Ican touch it without getting my hands dirty and greasy!
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And finally... Sunday night activity... Shotgun replacement of the Squawk and Talk capacitors... hoping it makes it work!

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#46 3 years ago
Quoted from Dallas_Pin:

What was your cleaning ingredient?

Regular detergent... read more here:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/cleaning-playfield-harnesses-vids-guide

#48 3 years ago
Quoted from Lovef2k:

The lamp panel is due in tomorrow. I guess you you started the game to know that the S&T isn't working or is just assumed not working?

I "bench tested" it... unfortunately the capacitor replacement did not help... I still get a locked on led I'm not really surprised, but I had ordered the capacitors, so I guess I had to install them

Thanks again for the lamp panel! And I ordered new light baffles, as suggested.

#49 3 years ago

Look what I got in the mail today! Thank you SO much Lovef2k !
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A bit of sanding and a light coat of white paint will make it like new!

#51 3 years ago
Quoted from Mathazar:

Good karma, lovef2k! Keep those EBD's alive!!! Just laid down my new EBD hardtop this afternoon. Dremel trimming/adjustment starts tonight, should be starting to rebuild the playfield with new and cleaned bits this weekend. Perhaps will get to the cabinet interior freshening up next weekend!

I'm following your thread... great job so far, it will be soon a whole new machine! good luck with the dremel job. one day maybe it will be my turn to install a hard top on this machine, so I take notes

1 week later
#53 3 years ago

Quick update... Not much done these past 10 days. I managed to spend only few hours of EBD time during this period... Kids home-schooled and busy job are not helping... at all.

I had a closer look at the transformer board. Filthy!

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But surprisingly... All the voltages are testing good! All the test points are showing the expected values.
I will still replace the bridge rectifiers. Someone relocated them to the side of the board, directly glued to the metal plate. As you can see, the soldering and wiring job is not.... ideal
And definitely, I need to give a big big clean up to this metal plate, board, connectors and transformer...

#54 3 years ago

I also primed my front of cabinet...
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But I should have done a better job at filling the wood to hide the grain... This is not good looking. I will sand and start from scratch.

And I started to take care of the new light board...
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I sanded and primed... but in some places in the top part the wood particles are really visible (some light humidity damage). Same... I will sand, wood-fill and try again.

#56 3 years ago

I just spent 15 minutes cleaning it up (first pass)
- removed the rust with steel wool
- removed the goo with "goo gone"
- cleaned up with mean green, rinsed with water, dried with cloth

now it's clean... and smooth... but not good looking

not sure if I'm going to paint it... and be careful with all the locations requiring electrical contact for ground... the paint will have to be scratched to allow conductivity.
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#58 3 years ago

@Mathazar... You'll find a great example of black transformer plate in the making here, from HEP:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/hep-this-week-9-17-18/page/27#post-4702358

from the thread: "They are then lightly blackened using a black metal etching primer. This gives it both a nice bond and the correct look I am after. Kind of industrial or military like but clean."

1 week later
#59 3 years ago

Some painting happened this week-end...
Not my favorite activity... Had to restart a couple of time to get the desired results.
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But for now I'm happy with my front cabinet. And the light board looks like new! Except for a little drip, but this is exactly where the light baffle will go, so should not be notiveable.

#60 3 years ago

As you can see, for the front of the cabinet, I took the easy route of using the stencil from EBD 84'

1 week later
#62 3 years ago

Ok... It's now time to paint the inside... A good way to get rid of stains and bondo marks. I'm going for full black sides and bottom board natural. I won't go crazy on the finish as it is the inside, but it will definitely looks better.

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Paint job sponsored by Trader Joe's

2 weeks later
#63 3 years ago

Ok... not much EBD time these past few days... However this long week-end should allow me to progress a bit on the project.

Where was I ? Oh yes my last update was about the inside paint.

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I was hesitating to do it, because, remember, my goal is to make it a player first... and who cares about inside paint when it comes to play ? But honestly, that's a game changer... it looks so clean now! I don't regret the time spent.

#64 3 years ago

And a bit of black gloss on the neck grid will look good as well!

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#66 3 years ago

Now the ground braid...
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And with this step I reach a big milestone.... the cabinet moved from the garage to the house... No need anymore to work on it in the heat of a non-AC equipped Texas garage!

1 week later
#67 3 years ago

Cleaned up the siderails.... nothing crazy. mean green and scotch brite. Enough to get rid of the light rust.
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Drilled the missing flipper button hole....
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The cream of the backbox frame looked not only used but dirty... So I decided to sand and paint it. I identified "lime gelato" from Sherwin Williams to be quite a good match.
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And it definitely looked a lot better with a fresh layer (without touching the stenciled areas)
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Now what I get really starts to look like a pinball machine!
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I can't wait to start having electrical issues instead of wood working, sanding and painting issues

1 week later
#68 3 years ago

Remember this super rusty lockbar receiver...
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Well... Vinegar did its work... no more rust, but heavily pitted of course, and not really shiny... but like I said: "solid and clean"
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#69 3 years ago

I built a new wooden "switch support" for the bottom of the cabinet... nothing crazy here, but I like before/after pics
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#70 3 years ago

I took a bit of time to rebuild the tilt panel as well...
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I flipped the wood board, cleaned all the items with scotch brite and soap, rerouted the wires properly, and molex'ed the thing to make it practical. It now looks a lot better!
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I know it's not the type of molex you find in these machines... but I have a lot of these "minifit" on hand, and good tooling to crimp them.

10
#71 3 years ago

That's where I am now:
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Lovef2k will ask why the heck I have not drilled the hole for the shooter yet

#74 3 years ago

Not sure why I postponed so far... I guess I'm so proud of my pure and even black paint on the front of the cabinet that I'm afraid to drill a hole in it

But I will soon as the game won't be fun if I cannot launch a ball into the playfield!

#76 3 years ago

I guess you're right... not the best strategic decision... I was under the impression I would make sure of the shooter alignment only once the playfield is in... but it may not be that practical... oh well... it will be ok

#77 3 years ago

Time to play a bit with electronics...

Let's take care of the solenoid board... after a basic clean up with soap, I replaced the 3 electrolytic capacitors. The new ones are a lot smaller!
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I also added the 2 or 3 bridges advised by pinwiki...
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Then I tested all the transistors with my DMM... They all tested good. (more convenient to do this now than when it is in the machine)

Time to install the board in the backbox to see if I get good voltages.... and yes! they all tested good, especially the steady 5VDC... It means I can safely install my MPU board.

#78 3 years ago

As I said earlier... I will use a LISY35 from bontango for the MPU. It took me few nights to assemble, but looks like it's working well so far.

Who would have thought that a 1977 power supply board would one day power up a 2020 raspberry based system....
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#79 3 years ago

What's awesome with LISY is that it provides a web interface you can connect to from any phone or computer to perform any type of test, in a very precise manner... Solenoids, switches, display and so on.

So let's test the 40+ year old plasma displays by displaying "8888888" on each of them...
pic64 (resized).jpgpic64 (resized).jpg
And... Impressive! I can't believe they survived that long in such a humid environment. Only "player 4" has a little issue, the top left segment is off on all digits... Maybe it can be fixed. I'll investigate.

I had purchased in advance some LED displays as I was not counting on these to work Now I need to choose which one to use... plasma or led...

#81 3 years ago
Quoted from Mathazar:

As for the 4th display...if memory serves, Q18 drives that upper left segment for all digits. It may be as simple as replacing that transistor or, if that doesn't resolve it, replacing the 4543 Decoder chip.

Thanks! I confirm your memory is right... However Q18 appears to test ok from basic DMM test... Anyway I'll order a transistor and a decoder and change both... but I wait to accumulate issues before placing an order, to save on shipping. I'm sure I'm going to need more things in the coming days!

#83 3 years ago

Lock bar receiver installed today!

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#84 3 years ago

And then I worked on the shooter rod........ and sh*t happened

As you know the original front panel of the machine was rotten and destroyed... So no way to use it as a model to know where the rod was. So I used a template from a Xenon machine... a Bally from the same era. And then... after having drilled and properly installed the whole thing... I figured out that the Xenon and EBD cabinets were different. The Xenon rod is way lower than the EBD one......................... so I drilled the front panel at the wrong location... you know, the nice front panel I spent so much time painting... lol. Oh well, lesson learned. Measure twice and verify physically with your playfied before you drill something! I will drill higher and find a way to mask the other hole. To be continued...

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#85 3 years ago

Mistake "fixed".......................
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I'll have to find the best way to fix this... Structurally speaking there is no issue, knowing the hole is way higher than the other one... But... I guess I'm not done with painting after all!

#89 3 years ago
Quoted from Quench:

Don't feel bad, my Medusa has the same repair from factory!
[quoted image]

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing... I guess they were repurposing cabinets depending on the needs.

#90 3 years ago

Ok..... time to fix that thing and move on...

First I created a "wood plug" shaped like the mean bad hole which ruined my Sunday night
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I glued it inside
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Then 2 layers of bondo... nicely sanded with fine grid... quite ugly but with your eyes closed you cannot tell where the hole is
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After that... painting... well I could not use spray paint inside my house... so paintbrush only... and some novus 2 to try to blend the touch up.
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Not perfect... but pretty good. Good enough!
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If I'm courageous enough one of these days... I'll bring the machine outside and spray paint the whole front panel to make this disappear... Maybe it will be the opportunity to actually stencil it.

#92 3 years ago

Ok I brought in the playfield... It was stored and I have not looked at it for a while.

Man, that thing is old and heavily used!!! Never saw a playfield that yellowed. The plastics are really really faded and dark, no way to recover anything from them... nothing is transparent anymore.

This is going to be quite some work on top and below... I see rusty solenoid plungers...

First easy test... installing the playfield and connecting the GI power...
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I see 3 GI lights on........ that's a start

#94 3 years ago

"Backbox light" week-end job...

I know these sockets don't get much love... but once cleaned I got 90% of the ones from the backbox working pretty well.

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Stapling session...

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I'm going full warm white LEDs for the backbox (I'll do LED for the inserts as well, and I think I'll keep the incandescents for the playfield GI)

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And then wiring and soldering... well as much as I could

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1 week later
#97 3 years ago

Once the cat was gone, I managed to finish wiring up and stapling all the GI lamps of the backbox... Here a quick test with a 5V power supply (this is without the harness, so some bulbs are not connected yet):
IMG_20200807_225617 (resized).jpgIMG_20200807_225617 (resized).jpg

I cleaned up the lamp extension board, and removed the ugly ground fix that was done to it (see post #42). Then I hooked up the harness... That took more time than planned... Some corroded wires were not really cooperative when trying to solder them to the bulb sockets! But the results is quite OK, I like my fresh new door!
IMG_20200809_215517 (resized).jpgIMG_20200809_215517 (resized).jpg

#98 3 years ago

I'm keeping the playfield GI as incandescent... But I put leds under all the inserts... quite a task. The leds are quite hard to fit in these old 555 sockets... but when they're in, the contact is usually pretty good. Here is a nice picture from underneath... And yes, I need to get rid of these fuse holders.
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I have 2 inserts stuck on... and 2 that never turn on... But the led and sockets are good... so maybe a transistor or a faulty connector... I'll troubleshoot this later.

And there is ONE bulb that I have not changed yet... I guess the whole drop target assembly has to be removed to reach it ?? I'll do that later too!
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#100 3 years ago

Backbox door fully installed and functional... with new light baffles and original displays.

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#101 3 years ago

Next................... the coin door!
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#103 3 years ago
Quoted from yfz450:

Light baffles look great!

They do! Thanks for your help! And thanks again to Lovef2k for the wood board. What would I do without pinside ?

#104 3 years ago
Quoted from Mathazar:

As for the 4th display...if memory serves, Q18 drives that upper left segment for all digits. It may be as simple as replacing that transistor or, if that doesn't resolve it, replacing the 4543 Decoder chip.

I just received my GPE order... I replaced the Q18 transistor... still missing the same segment... So I replaced the decoder chip... Still missing the segment Arg!

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#105 3 years ago

Unfortunately I think I found the source of the problem... Corrosion... This segment is powered via the last pin of the display (39)... And you can see on the pin the turquoise type of color we all hate. I believe this is in the glass, so no way to clean this up
Too bad as the other 4 displays are really clean and flawless...
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1 month later
#107 3 years ago

37 days with no update, wow!
I guess September was pretty busy, with kids going back to school... work never calming down, and other pinball machines to take care of!

But back to EBD... Next step is to take care of the main mechs (bumpers, flippers, drop targets). These are not really working reliably at the moment... definitely need to be rebuilt.

#108 3 years ago

Always exciting to get a package from pbresource! $150 of parts which should allow me to put most of things back to work!
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#109 3 years ago

First the bumpers... Full disassembly... Clean up... And good to go! Thanks Vid for an excellent how-to thread! These are not simple devices.
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#110 3 years ago

Honestly it's the first time I work on a machine which was maintained by such "innovative" people. The flippers and slings are good examples: crazy type of screws, all different! With half of them going THROUGH the playfield Different types of nuts, bolts, some models I never saw in pinballs... Even at one place some glue to hold things together!

I'm OK with this type of wear:
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It means "this pinball was played a lot"

I'm not OK with this type of wear:
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It means "I did not have the right type of screws so I used some others I found in my toolbox, unfortunately they were a bit longer than the originals"

Look at these screws :
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#114 3 years ago

So... the flippers have to be rebuilt... no question here.

rust, missing parts, bent EOS... and I guess grease... beurk!
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I was planning to keep the yellowish bats, as my goal is to play pinball, not to have a pristine machine, but I changed my mind, they really look dirty and some of the stains cannot be washed or polished out...
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#115 3 years ago

I decided to follow Vid's advice and rebuild the flipper with the previous generation mechs.

However, when I ordered from pbresource, I learned the hard way that a slight difference in a part number can get you a very different part (my mistake)

I ordered BLY-A3714 (long) plungers instead of BLY-A3714-3 (short plungers)... So I had to cut these EM plungers to make them work for me (too impatient to wait for another order to come in!)

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#117 3 years ago

Another issue happened... this time with the third flipper. It was literally impossible to take out. I tried hard, with many tools, but there was no way, the bat shaft was stuck in the mechanism for good. I guess I could have hit it hard with the hammer, or blast it with wd40... but would not have been very good for my playfield...

So I had to disintegrate the bat from the playfield side, using dremel and cutting pliers! and I got the job done In the meantime I found a couple of Pinside threads with people having the same issue... Sometimes it feels good not to be the only one!
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#118 3 years ago

The rest of the flipper rebuild activity went well... and soon enough I got 3 fresh and snappy flippers on my machine!
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1 week later
#120 3 years ago

Crimping... Molexing... This is quite some work! So many connectors to do! I guess I'll do MPU and Solenoid boards and stop there for now!

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#124 3 years ago
Quoted from Bryan_Kelly:

When I restored my EBD, I had all the harnesses sitting on a workbench and it still took me 8 hours to repin everything. I did 4 hours one day and 4 the next. My back couldn't take doing them all at once!

4 hours in a row! that's dedication! congrats i don't think i could do that... and in my case I crimp while I'm standing, next to the backbox... so yes, it kills the back!

#125 3 years ago
Quoted from Mathazar:

I actually find it relaxing if I'm able to pull the harness all the way out and do it on my workbench with some tunes blaring in the background. Hunched over a cabinet and trying to do it with the harness still installed...yikes. Unless it's just one connector you're trying to get done, that's the job form hell!

in fact, doing good crimps, and hearing the little "click" when inserting in the connector, is quite satisfying!

and yes... i guess i should have re-pinned my connectors when the harness was still out

#126 3 years ago

It's time to attack "the beast"

It works... but not very smoothly... and sometimes does not reset completely. Likely due to rust and dirt.
Luckily this assembly does not appear to have been "serviced" much (hear "hacked" much), as opposed to the flippers or slings. All the screws and washers are there, and all the right size!

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#127 3 years ago

yuck!

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#129 3 years ago

I found where the resistance comes from when resetting:
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This arm does not rotate freely at all, it's super stiff... So I guess I could have just disassembled this part, cleaned it up and be good for my "player" machine... but would not be reasonable... this whole thing needs de-rust and clean up.

Here is an exploded view like I like them:
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As you can see I "molexed" the switches to make the assembly/disassembly easier in the future.

#130 3 years ago
Quoted from Mathazar:

Nothing a few days in the tumbler won't fix.

I don't have a tumbler But the rust on these was quite easy to remove...

Before:
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After a bit of steel wool scrubbin' and some dish soap:
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Quite happy with the result.

#133 3 years ago
Quoted from Lovef2k:

You must have some killer dish soap!
I like Evaporust.

The steel wool gets easily rid of this type of light surface rust... then cleaning up with dish soap or mean green removes dirt and rust residue...

#137 3 years ago
Quoted from mark532011:

This is such an awesome thread. Thanks for posting your progress. I love it when these disasters are brought lovingly back fro the dead

Thanks! And it feels great to see this machine, little by little, looking more and more like an Eight Ball Deluxe Never been that close to be able to play a game!

#138 3 years ago

Now the other drop target assemblies... same story... dirty... slightly rusted... stiff... but luckily not hacked!
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Funny the targets are either not the right ones or, when they are the right ones, not at the right spot!
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In the bath!
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#139 3 years ago

What about the sling shots ? Extremely dirty. I'm pretty sure someone did put some grease on them at some point... This plastic arm is supposed to be white...
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And now... especially for those of you who like nice hacks... The screws holding one of the coils stop were maintained in place by...... a blob of hot glue... yes!
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1 week later
#141 3 years ago

Ok at this point I'm more or less done with the under-playfield toys... I still want to change some light sockets, but I'll do that later.

Time to populate the topside.

If you remember the first posts of the thread, my plastics are in a pretty bad shape. Like very bad. Like I've never seen that bad The picture below was taken AFTER clean up!

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I bought from a fellow pinsider some second hand plastics, leftover from a restore, which will be enough for now. I also got in the package an apron, a shooter lane cover, both a lot nicer than mine. Some plastics are a little bit cracked... but I'll live with it. It's day and light compared to mine.

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#142 3 years ago

I used my heat gun to salvage the precious bell posts... Another opportunity to see how bad these plastics look

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Unfortunately I miss one of the bigger posts... I'll have to somehow build one, which I will use in one of the most hidden location.

#143 3 years ago

A little before/after picture... impressive how "clear" can be clear
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#144 3 years ago

The set of plastic is definitely usable... Except for 4 of the transparent ones, which are either missing, broken, or with holes too wide for the posts.

I decided to build my own... first time I'll do that, and I'm not very well equipped to cut plastic, so not too sure about the result... low risk anyway as PETG is cheap.

First step, tracing the plastics with a sharpie on the PETG protective layer:
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Then I did put together a plastic cutting set up, using my drywall cut-out tool. Definitely not ideal! At the beginning I wasn't sure if it would break or melt the PETG while cutting... it did not.
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I managed to get rough shapes... that I finished using a file and some sand paper... and... not bad!
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#145 3 years ago

Good progress on the top side! New rubbers, new skirts for the bumpers... still need to align flippers.
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Don't ask me why the 3 plastic lane guides are red and not blue... that's how it came to me
I added the blue ones on my next order list... same for 2 posts that are transparent instead of blue (can you spot them ?).
No big deal for the player.

#146 3 years ago

Everything's there!
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I had to use washers for the big plastics as the post holes were too big (remember, these are used plastics, and I guess the removal of the bell posts enlarged the holes). But overall it looks OK to me. Anyway it's good to have not-too-perfect plastics, they match well with my far-from-perfect playfield

#148 3 years ago
Quoted from Mathazar:

Awesome progress. When do you think you'll throw the power switch and see what happens?

I turned it on of course , but for a very short time! Locked coil on one of the drop target... weird because everything was fine last time I turned on to check lights, switches and coils... but yes, I confirm: one of the coil transistor is shorted. let's heat up the soldering iron... Luckily I have an old half populated solenoid board I can steal components from.

#149 3 years ago

Yep, that was it... Q14 replacement on the solenoid board fixed my locked solenoid!

So... couple of games... a lot of switch adjustments... and a broken drop target!

I've been told, when repairing old drop target assemblies with yellowed targets, that all targets HAD TO be changed because they break easily. I did not listen... and the "2X" broke after 2 games. Ok, ok, I will order new targets. But for now I will use a spare one I have to get back into play.
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If you think about it, in this game the "2X" is the one taking the most violent/frequent hits... so maybe the others will be ok for a little while

#152 3 years ago
Quoted from mof:

Nice work !
Sounds like your fan base gets a victory-lap "first-game -- but will it work?" video pretty soon!
-mof

Thanks! Yes, we're getting close to the victory lap

#153 3 years ago
Quoted from nplg:

Looks awesome. I was whining about the work to redo brackets and screws on my recently found EBD-LE but your work to restore this game tells me to be thankful for my find!

Thanks! I think a game like EBD is always worth fixing!

Quoted from nplg:

Will be interesting to hear how the new flippers play compared to the OEM Bally "Linear" flippers.

I'll give feedback... but my experience with linear flippers is limited!

#154 3 years ago

I erased the spare drop target with Novus 2... Yes it's that easy to erase.
I printed some water decals.... took me some time to find the right font... It seems even Marco does not have the right font on their repros. I took the opportunity to print more decals for my future needs.
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I did 3 layers of clear to protect the decal
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And voila.... new one on the left, broken one on the right... the font is a tiny bit too "bold", but good enough!
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#157 3 years ago
Quoted from wamonkey:

Wow - the efforts you do to make it work is amazing. I am too lazy honestly to not just replace stuff. I always fear that saving now means spending some time later

I also do this for fun and to learn things, not only to save money. In my "real life job", I have a lot of pressure and delivery dates that are very important to meet. For my pinball projects it's different... it will be ready the day it's ready

#160 3 years ago

2 main reasons why not having installed my coin door yet is an issue:

1/ the coils are making a lot of noise when testing
2/ my cat thinks EBD is a play house

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yes, i already posted this pic in the cats thread
the hack wires you see in the back are to simulate coin door buttons. they will be gone today.

#161 3 years ago

I disassembled the coin door weeks ago.
Dirty. Dusty. Rusty.
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Clean up in the sink
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And re-assembly...
Not as easy as planned... I disassembled a long time ago, and decided not to look at my pictures... I found out the hard way that things had to be assembled in a certain order... or else... you lose some time
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But all is good, even better with a fresh Bally sticker. And the cat won't be able to get in the cabinet anymore!
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#165 3 years ago
Quoted from Lovef2k:

Please explain the coil noise...humming, buzzing, chatteringm machine gunning??

No, by coil noise I was just referring to the regular "clac" of the coil when activated. When you don't have the coin door in place to close the cabinet, the noise is pretty loud, but nothing abnormal.

#166 3 years ago

So maybe today I should post a gameplay video... Wait no... I have more (and more) crimping to do lol

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#169 3 years ago
Quoted from mof:

Now yer talkin!

almost there!

#171 3 years ago

I've been crimping connectors every night last week (small 30 minute sessions)... And I'm now done for all connectors. What a task! The only ones I have not done are the display ones, as they appear to work quite well as is, and any intermittent failure would not be a "game breaker", worst case just a flickering display.
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As you can see on the picture, I still have not figured out how to fix my Squawk and Talk...... but not a big deal my LISY35 board takes care of the sound.

At this point... I'm pretty happy to report... all the components of the game seem to work 100% (switches, lamps, coils)... I guess the next post will be about a working game, yea!

#175 3 years ago
Quoted from mof:

A VIDEO!!!
Sweet!!!

what about a gif

ebdgif.gifebdgif.gif

#177 3 years ago
Quoted from Lovef2k:

Pretty cool. Can you give me some deets on this Lisy board please?

Hey Lovef2k! The Lisy35 is a MPU replacement board designed by @bontango. It's a "do it yourself" project... you cannot buy it, you have to assemble it on your own. As opposed to other reproduction MPU, it's a software emulation. A raspberry pi is running pinmame and emulating the game of your choice. It's sending signals to your regular solenoid board and lamp board and (optionally) s&t board. In my case I use a rpi sound board to emulate the sounds as well, as I don't have a working S&T. The sounds are recordings of the original, so it's playing sound files, not generating the sounds. I'll post a video today. The cool thing with Lisy is the fact that it hosts a web server... from your computer you can troubleshoot lamps/switches/solenoids/displays/sounds without using the limited test mode of EBD. The downside is a little bit of delay when you turn on your machine to allow it to boot up. If you have more questions about Lisy, I suggest to ask them here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/diy-lisy-a-replacement-mpu-for-gottlieb-bally-amp-stern

bontango is also working on a DIY FPGA based MPU replacement, which will fully replace your MPU for approx. $60. (check https://lisy.dev/ballyfa.html). I will test it soon. If someone is interested to test it as well, pm me, as i will have spare PCBs I can sell at cost.

#178 3 years ago

So it's now official.... my local 7 year old champion confirmed... EBD is back to life

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#179 3 years ago

So as the title of the thread reminds it, this was not a restore project... and I think I reached my initial goal.

The machine:
- is solid
- is clean, smells good
- is allowed inside the house
- is 100% working

All this re-using a lot of the parts, and buying only what was really dead, missing or worn out, keeping the budget really low.

I went a bit beyond "bringing back to life" on some points:
- re-pinned/replaced all board connectors even though only one of two were failing
- replacing all displays with DIY led kits, even though only one was failing
- completely rebuilt from scratch (restored!) and rewired the backbox door
- installed leds (except playfield GI)
- bought new legs, when I could have cleaned/painted the old ones

All this took me quite some time, a bit more than I thought at the beginning... but the past few months (like for a lot of you I think) life has been a little bit more "complicated" than usual

#180 3 years ago

Sorry for those waiting for a video... but please wait a little bit longer, as the one I took had crappy lighting.

In the meantime here are some cool before/after pics:
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#185 3 years ago

Thanks all!

That was a fun project... and quite satisfying to go from old piece of rusty junk to great used-but-shiny game

It was nice to share it here and get some feedback...

Thanks to all of you commenting and "upvoting" and special thanks to those who actually contributed by selling me parts at a good price (@bbriese, @schmitty, @yfz450, @bontango, @damonator, @diver12) or even giving away a backbox door (@lovef2k). Pinside is great!

Next steps:
- hardtop
- cabinet stencil
- new plastics, drop targets...
But not now! I will enjoy the machine as is it... and maybe in few months!
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#186 3 years ago
Quoted from Mathazar:

On the light baffles under the Player 3 display...did you repair that wood or start over with new piece?

New (used) piece... no way to salvage anything from this water damaged backbox door!

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