The planet looks great. I'd be happy with that!

The resistors you mention are all the 10k resistors near the top of the master display board, right? Several look toasty in your pictures.

Be careful with those display connectors. Those contacts have long been discontinued and are pricey to replace if you can even find them. They rarely fail anyway. If you have a bad contact, try lightly cleaning the contact fingers on the board with a fiberglass sanding pen.

Original plasma displays need high voltage to work. I'm not aware of any way to test them without the original power supply board.

Reflow or replace the header pins.
The CPU and ROM sockets - I typically replace them if they are single wipe type (very common from this era).

Looks GREAT! Coin doors are such a PITA to clean up but when done, they look awesome! Love the center coin slot idea!

You can try something like this for sanding and re-graining stainless. I use the 3M version of this that I've had for years. Much less labor intensive.

https://www.amazon.com/DEWALT-DAFE1H0810-3-Inch-1-Inch-4-Inch/dp/B003N9BT4Q/ref=lp_256200011_1_10

I have both and they look really good next to each other. The cabinets are very close. In fact, my son was helping move Blackout to a friends house temporarily and he wondered why I was "getting rid of Firepower"!

Please don't "hope" you have the bridges wired up correctly, please verify. You can do lots of damage if they are wired incorrectly (blowing the big blue cap, boards, etc).

On the new bridge rectifiyers, the single lug that is turned differently than the others is the positive lead, the lug diagonally from the postitive lug is the negative. The other 2 lugs go to the transformer.

That looks really good, don't give up now! One more round of sanding and another coat of clear or keep sanding with higher grit paper and polish the shine back.

That looks incredible!

You should post your progress pictures in the 2K club thread: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-spraymax-2k-auto-clear-in-a-can-club/page/21#post-5628792

The lamp will either never light (diode failed open) or stay lit all the time and potentially cause other to ghost or light (diode failed closed)

Nice!

Looking great!

Did you try adjusting the sound-speech balance pot while the tests were running?
Did you put new ROM sockets in the speech board? Those can be just as flakey as the CPU sockets.

I'm not 100% positive but I think those boards are interchangeable. BK uses the 14pin chip too.

You should be able to detect pulsing on the output of speech board IC1 using a logic probe when speech is playing (easy to find on the + side of C1)

There are 1 or 2 electrolytic caps in the audio path on the speech board. C1 1uf which is usually a tantalum cap (they aren't effected by age and doesn't automatically need to be replaced) and C12 10uf that you should replace (if you haven't already) before trying IC3.

I agree with this.

1) The GI lighting under that plastic once installed will be nothing like your picture. It will be less bright and therefore the hot-spots will be lowered.
2) Seeing a different color red through that plastic will draw less attention than white light shining through!

I can't find a schematic of that voice board anywhere.

Can you tell me what numbers are on the two 8 pin chips on the voice board?

Thanks, that helps!

You are going to use the logic probe to track the voice signal as it leave the digital to analog converter (IC1) is filtered (IC3) and is mixed with the sound card sounds (1/2 of IC2).

Start the sound test and wait for the part where there should be voice.
Set your logic probe set to TTL (this setting is for most troubleshooting). When you get to measuring the op amps, sometimes the CMOS setting is better at detecting pulsing so try both settings on the logic probe.
Probe pin 3 of IC1 - analog out - you should see pulsing from this pin when the system is playing voice. It should NOT be pulsing when voice is not being played.
If you get pulsing here, you know the digital part of the voice function is working (ROMS, DAC, etc). If no pulsing is here, you should make sure you have activity at pins 9 and 12 of IC1 (clock and data). Both of these should be pulsing when voice is being played.

Assuming you have pulsing at pin 3, move on down the audio path, probing points along the path. Probe pin 2 of IC3 - this is IC3 op amp A's input.

Assuming that is pulsing, measure the output of IC3 op amp A at pin 1.

Assuming that is pulsing, measure the Input of IC3 op amp B at pin 6.

Assuming that is pulsing, measure the output of IC3 op amp B at pin 7.

There are 3 posible states the logic probe will read. Hi (with a high tone), Low (with a lower tone) and pusling with a "geiger counter" sound.

To test what each state sounds like, try the pins on one of the ROM chips. You can run this test with anything playing on the sound card (not just voice).
Pin 12 is steady low
Pin 24 is steady hi
Pins 7 and 8 are pulsing - the logic probe will sound differnet based on the type of plusing waveform and frequency of the signal. All you are looking for is a different tone than hi or low plus the yellow pulsing light is lit.

When voice is not playing is pin 3 steady high or low?

IC3 pin 1 shows no pulsing at all? If so, I would replace IC3 next

Awesome, congrats on the fix! I'm happy to have played a tiny part in the restoration!

What a heartbreaker. I feel your pain and sympathize with your "can't unsee" comment.

There was a strategy using UV curable clear to wick under ghosting inserts you might be able to use. Maybe remove the pin, drill the hole out with a bit running in reverse (to not pull up any more clear) to give better access to the space between the clear and playfield to wick in clear or super glue.

Maybe try that and if they fail, chip it off, fill with clear, sand, polish?

The other thing to consider is a flipper bat will be covering 1/2 of that spot plus the other 1/2 will be in it's shadow. It might not be nearly as noticeable once the flippers are installed.

WOW! That looks incredible! Congratulations on pulling it all together!

Love the lit scoops with the sticker on the deflector! What a cool touch!

You never talked about re-installing the roll-over switch with the clear in the grooves. Was that a PITA?

Only thing I can think of is re-flow or better yet replace all the header pins on the sound board (cold solder joint causing bad connection to speaker or volume control). Re-seat the ribbon between the sound and voice boards. Rotate the balance pot on the voice card from end to end and back to the middle to clean the wiper.

I can't remember but did you replace the 10uf electrolytic cap on the voice board and all the electrolytic caps on the sound board (even the 1uf caps)?

Good find!

My guess is a dried up C12 or bad C1 on the voice board or IC3.

C12 is an electrolytic and should always be replaced when bullet proofing a game. C1 should be a tantalum cap that rarely goes bad but can. IC3 is the filter section for the speech. A weak or dead amp in IC3 can cause low or missing voice.

Ah yes, I remember now, thanks for the reminder (too many threads).

I see you used a tantalum cap for C12. Do you happen to have a 10uf electrolitic you can try there. The circuit calls for a low leak electrolytic there, not sure it using a tantalum would cause this problem (that is in the audio path from the voice generator to the mixer).

I'd try the cap before suspecting the pot.

Not at all as long as it is over 25V. 50V, 63V, 100V all good.

Well crap.

Can you doublecheck the socket and solder job on IC3? Do you have another IC3 to try?

https://lmgtfy.app/?q=speaker+capacitor+calculator

A 200uf cap in series will attenuate 6db per octave below 100hz for an 8 ohm speaker.

A 100uf cap in series will attenuate 6db per octave below 200hz for an 8 ohm speaker.

Either use a bipolar electrolytic (orientation does not matter) or a standard electrolytic (positive of cap to positive lead from amp - negative lead of cap to positive lead of speaker - negative speaker to negative amp)

Nice work! Was adding the box to the sub worth it? Did it enhance the sound enough to make it worthwhile?