My “new” Eight Ball”. It came to me in a 3 pin deal. Our first real pins. I’ve had it a week and already added new rubbers and fixed a random firing thumper bumper. Love pin ball!

723E55BE-A8D9-42D2-8890-9BCB163BD46D (resized).jpeg

E2E560BB-F88B-4F31-957B-E914D7FB88D9 (resized).jpeg

Hey Eightballers! Love this game & have a question. Is the spinner supposed to be blank on the opposite side?

When Pinball Rescue was selling spinner decals, that's how they arranged the set. Arrow on one side, blank white on the other. However, buying from Marco & elsewhere you get two arrows per set.

Seems to me that a blank side would at least provide some strobing action when hit, whereas putting another arrow on the back might not provide much visual interest since it looks almost the same.

Pretty sure it's blank on the back. Can double check in a couple hours.

I’m not sure if mine is original, but I have arrows on both sides. The one on the back is upside down, so when it spins you always see an “up” arrow.

ECB1F9C1-E58A-4914-B68A-4B040C347720 (resized).jpeg

F324E690-6D55-4C7B-894B-98EAF2B1B653 (resized).jpeg

Just bought one andy.

Hey guys can i be in your club with my retheme?

ssr1 (resized).jpg

ssr2 (resized).jpg

ssr3 (resized).jpg

Looking for a little guidance on a few issues on my Eight ball.

1. After playing for a few minutes the middle chime gets stuck up, i've cleaned it and no success. As soon as one of the other chimes is activated it releases the stuck chime. I have traced the wire back to the Solenoid driver board and have found numerous repairs prior to my ownership. See photo.

2. The light for the #1 yellow ball in the rack on the middle of the playfield stopped working and so did the lights for the 1000 spinner and the break shot lane 5000 point ball save. Traced these wires back to the lamp driver board and see slight heating around Q40 but not 100% sure this is the problem.

I have swapped out transistors on boards in the past but i'm not an expert on troubleshooting. When I see the state of the Solenoid driver board it seems I should probably replace the whole thing. Costs around $150 sounds reasonable.

Love the game as it was the title that got me into pinball as a kid. Any helpful hints would be greatly appreaciated.

00C6249E-214B-4700-8DC7-F4819C068B18_1_105_c (resized).jpeg

1DDDB8CB-0B3B-44EB-BC8E-8140E5E82846_1_105_c (resized).jpeg

When your chime gets stuck, is the coil powering it still on? If so that coil will be heating up quite a bit. It should be Q5 on the solenoid board. If this is happening I would suspect the transistor is starting to short out or the pre-driver transistor which is in a DIP package. It seems more likely it is just sticking though.

The lighting board SCRs fail all the time if they are original. I keep a supply of the SCRs and swap them when needed. I find they fail when powering fresh bulbs due to the higher current draw.

I agree with BJM - likely parts on the lamp driver board (LDB) are bad, and a transistor going out on the Solenoid Driver Board. (SDB) It looks like the SDB had the ground modification done (I can tell by the capacitor lead jumping over to ground). Not sure what's going on with that connector. It also looks like a few of the drive components have been replaced in the past.

It looks like the machine has LEDs installed. Is the LDB original or aftermarket?

Where are you located?

Thanks fellas,
I’m located in BC.
It is original Boards. The previous owner put in a new rectifier board and the resistor is very warm on it. I haven’t noticed the coil heating up. They also put LEDs all over. Maybe this isn’t helping.
The play field is redone just need to work on these boards. I think I will start with a new solenoid driver board and order parts for the lamp board. It isn’t in as bad of shape.
Thanks for your speedy input, it helps with decision making

For the LEDs that don't work, can you reverse them in the socket in case there's a polarity issue? Also, with the original LDB, oftentimes the lights strobe, unless there's a modification done to the socket or a piggyback board added to the LDB.

I agree with the decision about the SDB, unless you have the skill set required to repair, its better in the long run to replace than to send it out for repair.

New rules for Eight Ball

You may have heard of the new Bally/Stern Operating System created by Dick Hammel. You plug a small adapter board onto the J5 connector of the MPU card and a small Arduino board takes over and operates the pinball machine. There has been a small group of people working on several different machines. There is a ton of information here:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/replacing-the-m6800-in-a-stern-mpu100-with-an-arduino

I have been working on an update to Eight Ball I have named Eight Ball Plus. I am getting close to releasing a version of the new game. The original game rules are still there but now there are 6 goals to be achieved with special game play modes after getting 3 and 5 goals.

Goals:
- Singles digit of your score shows qty of goals achieved
- Can be achieved in any order except for some that are unlocked

SuperBonus - the original Eight Ball rule set goal. Get balls 1-7 or 9-14, then 8 and lose your ball. On the next ball SuperBonus is lit.
Next Ball - Capturing sequential balls gives 5000 pts (time set in coin door)
Pop Mode - Hitting the pop bumpers more than 40 times (qty settable in coin door) scores 1000 pts per hit
Spinner Mode - Hitting the spinner more than 50 times (qty settable in coin door) scores 1500 pts per hit when lit and 2000 pts when lit if you do it again.
Spinner Combo - Complete Spinner mode twice starts a timed mode where you have to shoot the Bank Shot and then the Spinner again. You have 12 seconds (time set in coin door) to reach it for 5000 pts. If you do you get a second ball to chase for 20000 pts.
Scramble Ball - unlocked by pop bumper mode, hit the otherwise useless target to the left of lane 1-9 to randomly rotate your captured balls (have 1 and 2 currently? Now it might be 6 and 7).

After getting 3 goals, you enter Ball Chase mode. This it is a timed mode (settable), where you pursue the single blinking ball target for 5000 pts. If you get it on time you get a second chance at another one for 20000 pts

After getting 5 goals, you enter 15 ball mode. This is the wizard mode. You can now light up all 14 balls, then get the 8 ball for 100000 pts. However there is a catch. If you capture balls 1 and 9 for instance you get 5000 pts for each one. Go through the same gate again, you lose a ball and lose 10000 pts. You need to know when to quit while you are ahead.

Here is a video of the game play:

I have a few more things to clean up and some additional display features not shown in the video, then I will release it on GitHub.

This looks awesome. I just finished my playfield swap and would love to try this.

Edit: The link does have an overwhelming amount of info. I'm certainly not that technical. Is there a way to simply buy everything ready to go and install?

Bet it would still run on my Sunset Riders.

Eight Ball is a grail game for me. I cut my pinball teeth on one in an Aladdin's Castle when I was a teenager. I just can't seem to be able to find a good one nearby. Now, this makes me want one even more. Well done BJM-Maxx !

You can pretty much plug and play if you want to. I think the links in the video show you to a Pinside store where you can buy the hardware. You then upload the correct game into the Arduino. I wrote a specific set of instructions for people who are new to Arduinos. It will be pretty straightforward.

Is that the Eight Ball beach re-theme? If it is running the original boards it will work fine. Is it still using the chimes?

Sounds good. I will find the hardware and purchase it. Thank you!

I really wanted to make more of the chimes compared to the original games which were at the time mostly mimicking EMs. If you have headphones on when watching the video you can hear the double chimes from the spinner, pop bumpers, and the bonus in 15 ball mode. In pop mode each bumper has a different twin tone. I also use the knocker as an event indicator much more often than the original game.

So cool. Yes I can definitely hear more chimes in that video. Very much looking forward to installing this.

The guy selling the boards RoyGBev is who I bought my boards from. He won’t be able to load the code yet for you since it is not yet released but it is coming soon. If you wind up with a board in your hands I can just send the code to you by email, it is not a huge file.

I have to check out a few more things but all the timed modes now display a count down in the other 3 displays while the mode progresses which really helps you keep you track.

Thank you for this! I did just find him in the shops and will buy from him shortly.

Yes it is. it's still running the chimes, but it has a car stereo mounted in the cab that runs cool 70's music as well through a usb stick when the ball is in play.

I believe it is still running the original boards, but will have a look next week when my tech mate is here looking at it.

ATM when you start a game it's firing the kickback coil instead of the trough coil for some reason.

I was thinking a transistor has failed, but i know fuck all about electronics.

What happens during the solenoid test? If only that one is wrong it is probably the transistor. If a few do, it could be a stuck address line. A stuck address line though would likely mess up the lights too.

What is stuck address line? Google only brought up email related stuff.

On the solenoid driver board, the outhole kicker should be Q4 (the bottom row of the board start counting from the left), does it look like the others?

The address lines are in connector J4 on the solenoid board, pins 3-6. They are set in unique combinations (1 of 16). The outhole is 7 (binary 111), the kicker is 6 (110). I would really make sure that connector is well seated. The other end is connector J4 on the MPU, pins 1-4. Make sure both connectors are cleaned and seated nicely.

But before anything I would run the solenoid test from the coin door. Does the machine do all the solenoids in order:
01 Outhole
02 Knocker
03 Kicker
04-07 Chimes
08-11 Bumpers
11-12 Slings
13 Coin Door
14 Flipper Relay

Cheers mate, thank you for going to the trouble of explaining that. I have printed it out and will show it to Neil when he's here next.

Well beyond my alcohol soaked brain.

So cool. And I finally own one of the games that is being worked on. So, for instance, if I ordered this one:

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1304-roygbev-pinball/05495-silverball-mania-2021-arduino-complete-and-ready-to-use

I could then use your software to overwrite the SBM 2021 software once you are done?

Yes, that one is correct. Whatever you order, make sure it is the Arduino Mega as that one is. We all started with the Arduino Nano which requires a different adapter board but we all ran out of room. The Mega is 8 times bigger.

I wrote detailed instructions for people to use when programming the Arduino aimed at people not familiar with them.

Just ordered this one as well. He told me he would remove the software since I'm using it for Eight Ball but I figured I may as well keep it in case I need it down the line.

My mate was here and spent an hour or more looking at sunset riders yesterday.

When running the solenoid test the coils do not fire inj the correct order.
One of the chimes fires twice and one not at all. one of the slings fires twice etc.

We took the latec board out and swapped in a brand new one i had spare, same thing. Swapped the chip that i think is the game chip (says vers 1.0 or something on it) for the chip with the new board etc, same thing.

Swapped the solenoid driver board for one out of spy Hunter, same thing.

My mate seems to think it's the ic for the game chip thingo that has become corrupted. Which chip is that and can i buy a new one somewhere?

I'm assuming that the sunset riders is running the same rules as Eight ball.

What is the latec board? Which board is that in the machine, top left? It sure sounds like a stuck address line. What does the lighting do, do you get the normal looking attract mode? Do the displays work?

You've most likely got a bad connection on one of the solenoid select signals from the MPU board to the solenoid driver board.
If you go into more detail as to exactly which coils activate correctly, incorrectly or not at all I can pinpoint the signal connection - ultimately you'll need to reterminate a pin at a connector.

Thank you mate, he did say that the attract mode lighting wasn't working properly. I'll text him to give me more detail, i do know the left most 9smallest) chime was sounding twice while the middle was not sounding and the right was sounding once.

I really appreciate the help.

Alteck board if i spelt it wrong.

The Alltek board is so much newer than the originals it is likely not the issue, especially if you had a second one to try. The specific solenoid order is what will help sort this out.

I have now released the first version of Eight Ball Plus now on GitHub. https://github.com/BallySternOS/Eight-Ball-Plus

I also created a new thread specific to the the new code here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/eight-ball-plus-new-rules-for-bally-eight-ball#post-6841147 so if you have any specific questions about the new game post them there but I still follow this thread as well.

Eight Ball Plus is available as a plug and play kit here...thanks for looking.

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/shops/1304-roygbev-pinball/06642-eight-ball-plus-arduino-complete-and-ready-to-use

Can't wait to try this once I get the Arduino. Thanks for posting.

I have created an updated version of Eight Ball Plus V80. Some new rules and display functionality. I put all the info in the dedicated thread.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/eight-ball-plus-new-rules-for-bally-eight-ball#post-6906568

I have an original light driver board and solenoid driver board if anyone is interested.

The light driver board (AS-2518-14) was replaced because I had a few lights out on the playfield and I'm not super comfortable working on circuit boards. So it would need some work.

The Solenoid driver board (AS-2518-22) was replaced because of an issues I was having issues with a solenoid. See post #106 above. It turns out I just needed to replace a coil on the chime unit and never needed to change out the board. Oh well. So its original, has had some work to it in the past but works.

So if anyone needs either of these boards contact me and we can arrange price plus shipping.

Everything on my Eight ball works great, occasionally my displays are temperamental though. Ive noticed that if I wiggle the display connector on the MPU this problem will go away.
orca-image--205144496 (resized).jpeg

I have a connector rebuild kit from www.bigdaddy-enterprises.com.
20221114_190732 (resized).jpg

Only problem is my amazon crimpers don't crimp the .100 size very well. (They work great on .156)
20221114_193058 (resized).jpg
Can anyone reccomend a crimp tool that does .100 really well?

My tool looks very similar to yours and works perfect...

Perhaps you can change that part that crimps and keep the handles?

IMG_20221115_165448 (resized).jpg

IMG_20221115_165838 (resized).jpg

Cheers to you fellow Eight Ballers! I dropped in a ceramic powerball tonight and it is a ton of fun when the ball starts flying around off the bumpers. Extra balls, top row balls lit, and bank shot are set to maximize scoring and playing time. As a result, my kids are having a blast on the machine! I'm waiting on the Eight Ball Plus rom to ship. Can't wait to play the new ruleset.

20221227_162120 (resized).jpg

20221227_223813 (resized).jpg

20221227_223841 (resized).jpg

20221227_225108 (resized).jpg

Such a gorgeous machine, thanks for sharing!

I have to refinish the apron and wood rails on my EB. I can't find any color even close to that shade of turquoise in a spray paint. What have you guys done to match that color?

Thanks,

Alan

Maybe try reaching out to this couple? I thought the color looked really nice.

https://m.facebook.com/groups/pinballrepair/permalink/6059216740767149/?mibextid=Nif5oz

I did a complete new playfield for my Eight Ball. I painted the side rails and the apron the same colour, you see no mismatch that way. I had the colour custom mixed and used a cheap air sprayer to apply it. One thing is when you paint the apron, any non-automotive paint will be chewed off by the ball pretty quickly. You can either coat the ball face with mylar or in my case I used spray Varathane the water based stuff. Put on thin, there is no effect on colour and the toughness is many times that of regular spray paint.

I'm finally in!! Today's pick up.

033 (resized).JPG

the-fonz-happy-days.gif

Congrats!! Ive really been enjoying the new ruleset with the 8 ball plus upgrade created by BJM-Maxx This ruleset features several new goals and even a nifty light show in attract mode. Here's a thread about it if anyone is interested.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/eight-ball-plus-new-rules-for-bally-eight-ball