Note: The old #555 staple lamp sockets have a bent edges that leave the housing
-- slightly counter sunk. The new #44 bayonet socket does not have the staple legs
-- bent... in order to counter sink the light bulb. So the L.E.D. now stick to high up.

I would contact CT. Chris and Melissa have great customer support. Now that your swap is almost complete it would suck if you had to put the 555 sockets back in the GI's. Maybe they have a shorter bulb in a different style. If you absolutely hate the 555 socket, there are bayonet style with a 3/4 inch bracket that would allow the bulbs to sit lower. Judging by your pics, you need a socket that comes no more than halfway through the socket holes of the PF. I just looked at Marco's sockets and most are out of stock. I know Pinball Resource has many sizes not list on the website. Call him if you dare LOL. I know that F2K uses the 3/4 bracket for the GI's so maybe they will work.

Sorry I don't have an easier solution.

Madmax541 fantastic.

Test the fit with the old pf. You don't want the bulb to be too low either, will make them a pain to change a bulb.

Yes my Stern Lightning has those sunken sockets and I put brighter warm LEDs in about a half dozen of them. They are shorter than 44s so they sit *really* low. But they are much less likely to burn out and are more resistant to flickering from a weak socket connection than a bulb so I figure I’ll probably never have to mess with them.

Duplicate post to my dedicated restoration thread but I figured I would add it here also.

Here we go... first time I tried to fire it up was when I noticed I was missing u9 and u11. It took about 10 days to get those and on boot up found that u8 was bad. I ordered the nvram replacement and that arrived today..

Installed and... we have life. ! There are still things to sort out but we are where we need to be. The volume pot seems to be flaky but the audio is strong and clear. The are little gremlins here and there but I have managed to play a bunch of full games on it...

Another one is brought back from the dead...

One of the displays was bad and I pulled it. I swapped it in the place of another, reflowed the header pins put it in and they both work fine.

Dave

Nice job Dave. The first EBD I had also had a bad 5101 chip. Anyway, I noticed when the ball hit the flippers, it made a the side drain sound effect. Check the outlane switches for adjustment.

I didn’t notice that. (So excited it makes any noises). The underside of the pf is high on my list. I have new one to swap in so I hope to sort out most of that stuff then. I have a feeling that there are some bad and misaligned switches.

Dave

Does anybody have an image of this area (tilt area) inside the body of EBD? I clipped a few wires and unhooked a couple ground wires trying to solve my electrical issues and now the add credits button isn't adding credits. I should have snapped a photo before being so reckless. This image I already have isn't clear enough to really see how things should be hooked up.

Tilt (resized).jpg

Does this help?

Dave

EE593D2F-EFF3-4EE5-9195-7342E638553D (resized).jpeg

You guys are awesome! Thank you.

One more. Always better to get a couple of angles.

D

A108FBA9-F14D-461B-B168-E58BCC4FD1A3 (resized).jpeg

OK, I've got everything temporarily reconnected, except for this "diode" or whatever it is that I broke. Still not able to add credits so I'm guessing I need to replace this component. Anyone know its specs?

20190402_174423_resized (resized).jpg

The "add credit button" is somebody's aftermarket hack. No one else is going to know how that was put in except the original hacker (though maybe someone here has done a similar type of hack).

Two easy ways to add credits without needing to hack up the wiring...

1) Set the first replay value to the lowest possible value (I think it is like 10,000), that way you will always earn a new credit each time you play.
2) Set the "credits per coin" for one of the coin chutes to be 14 credits per coin (the max), this makes it easy to add a bunch of credits at once.

The pic of his back box showed it has an Alltek MPU. If that’s what you have it has a free play option by turning on left-most switch of the Game Select switches... but you also have to turn off feature sw. #27 to kill the credit display which kinda stinks so I don’t use it.

Setting the first replay at 10,000 is great for adding credits, but we're used to using scoring thresholds for extra balls. Can the 10,000 level be set for replay, and the other two scoring thresholds be set for extra balls? It doesn't appear so if I'm reading the manual correctly.

Thanks for that. I made both switch changes you mention, but the credit is still displaying the number of credits and its counting them down as I lose games. What will happen when it gets down to zero?

Are you sure you turned #27 off? Verified on mine which is also Alltek (though it’s the same with a Bally MPU) it turns off the credit display. Until you do that it won’t be free play. And if you are used to playing on extra ball settings for scores and Specials, perhaps you won’t miss that the credit display must be turned off.

Yeah, I definitely switched #27 on and off a couple times to verify and the display did not go off. Also tried switch 20 and 16, which the Alltek website said are sometimes used for the credit display. No dice. This was all done after the left switch on the Game Select was shifted up to the ON position.

Is it possible that because the extra button and wiring is present to add credits that it's not allowing the MPU to go into free play mode?

Weird. #27 applies to EBD. You’re powering down and back up again after you changed the switch(es), right? I can’t see that hacked button having anything to do with this, looked like it was simply wired to one of the door’s coin switches.

To make a Bally game have "free play" with the Alltek, the left dip switch setting must me turned on.

https://www.allteksystems.com/pdfs/dip_ver8.pdf

If that doesn't work, then maybe it's an older version of the Alltek? I'm not sure if they are all free play for Bally. I would also return all the coin credit switch wires back to their original switches. The piece that is broken by the tilt bob is a capacitor. It helps the MPU see that a switch was closed. They are used on fast acting switches such as tilts, star roll overs, pop bumper and stand up targets like the yellow deluxe targets. No need to replace the one on the tilt since the game is being used in a home setting. These caps often fail from age. They can cause switch matrix problems when they short out. The value is .05 micro farad 25V rating. The .05 are hard to find these days but you can use a .047 which are more common. The switch matrix voltage is around 5V and most capacitors exceed 5V so just about any will do.

At the very least, Sw #27 off absolutely should be turning off your credit display once you power it back up after the change since it is one of the original EBD features and not an Alltek add-on.

I was wondering about this myself. What I assume is the model number on the board (HS3 94V-0) doesn't match what Alltek has on their website now.

Maybe for other games but not for EBD. There is a free ball feature on the playfield.

Contact Alltek customer support. They are very responsive, you should get an answer fairly quick.

I've got Allteks in a couple of my Bally's, but I don't use the free play feature. Part of reliving the arcade days of my youth is to try to drive up the credits by winning free games during game play, kind of a "game outside of the game" approach to the fun. The wife thinks I'm silly since every game is free anyway, but there's such a satisfaction for me to making that knocker knock, especially getting the three-in-a-row knocker spelling out D-E-L-U-X-E on EBD or setting a new score on Mata Hari. Sometimes on Mata Hari I can get into a zone where dropping all of the targets scores a game, making the A-B loop scores a game every other loop, and hit one of the high game score thresholds all on one ball. The other night I got 9 free games on one ball and set a personal best high score for a total of 12 credits for the game. I felt like I was 13 again.

I'll set the maximum credits to 40, and then start off with 15 credits with the goal to try to run the credits up to 40 without getting to 0. I'll leave the Extra Ball and Free Game settings at factory defaults to be fair, set the first free game score to a setting just above what I usually average, and the other two free game scores to scores I don't achieve that often.

Just to be clear, you can have free play enabled on the Alltek, and still set scoring thresholds to trigger the knocker. This is what I do.
I have thresholds at 1 Million, 2 Million and 3 Million, and set Specials to be a replay. This gives me the nice knocker feedback for doing well, but makes it so that there are always credits available (especially if my kids have friends over).

Gotcha - but I also like running up the number of credits based on pin play. Good to know about the knocker noise preservation, tho!

Me too. Would be great if the free play mode simply let the game start with zero credits and the credits could still be displayed. I have set replays/ex balls to just do knocks or points on a few other games but EBD is so Special oriented I just use that “keep a handful of credits on it” method.

Then why not just disable free play then? It's easy enough to switch back. I like to set games to earn extra balls instead. That's more a of challenge for me to beat my high scores.

Exactly, I don’t use free play on EBD. If it didn’t require killing the credit display I’d use it just to save me from having to flick the coin switch once in a while. For me EBD is more of a “how many credits can I win in one game?” sort of machine. Five specials, the backglass Deluxe, three thresholds + high score, with the rewards maxed for them that’s 14 possible credits, and even that’s assuming you only win them once. I’ve never actually done it yet of course!

The DELUXE progressive on the back box is cool. Most people don't even realize it's there. My games have been in storage almost a year because of a recent move. I can't even remember the EBD bonuses lol. Hopefully I can start pulling all my games and parts from the storage unit this month since we are finally in the new house. The best thing I added is a welled stairway to the basement so now I can bring games right in w/o having to remove the backboxes.

Oh yeah, forgot the alternating outline specials too. There’s always the option of setting the specials to “credit” but the score thresholds to extra ball, I might give that a try.

Me too.

I leave my coin mechs fully operational and do not have free play on any of my pins. Free play ruins the game for me.

As for changing the specials to award free balls instead of free games... in all my years of playing this title in the field (including from day one of it's release in 1981), I have never seen it set to free balls.

Just wouldn't cut it for me.

I liked having the coin mechs operational instead of free play, but it also sucked when my kids and their friends wanted to play and needed credits on the machines and I wasn't home. I really didn't want them unlocking the doors to add credits.

And I agree that having the machine set to extra balls would just be way too easy. I do, however, keep my EBD set to 5-ball play (with the recommended settings for 5-ball). This makes it a little less frustrating when you have a ball or two that immediately drains.

As do I, but I add a tiny hidden momentary pushbutton switch next to the on/off toggle on the bottom of the machine. Just wire it to a coin switch. Best of both worlds, free play if you want, & coin op always available.
Yeah, overkill on the wire gauge, but it's what I had lying around at the time.
switch (resized).JPG
IMG_3364 (resized).JPG

dupe

If you want to keep things hidden, add a switch stack to the credit button which is connected to a coin switch. When you drop a credit by starting a game, one gets added at the same time.

20190407_085043 (resized).jpg

Only a few days ago I was thinking hmm, wonder if anybody ever tried that. Only problem I see is eventually the credits will max out (if set for replays) and then you’d need to manually reset them. The added button by the power switch seems better since you only add a credit when you need one.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/eight-ball-deluxe-owner-club-guests-welcome-as-well/page/30#post-3926014

Helped a buddy repair and restore this 8BD to players condition. Here is the repaint before and after. Debated about painting around the inserts with black. Brian_G

8ball repaint Apr 2019 (resized).jpg

Nice job! My 20-years-in NOS pf even has a little wear on a few of those black circles, they seem to be the first things to go. Could make stencils out of masking tape to expose only the circles for painting I suppose. Black, probably the only color I could capably match where it would look decent.

Just wanted to give a shout-out to Dave at Alltek. He's gone beyond the call of duty to help me get my EBD working properly. Excellent customer service and warranty on Alltek boards.

Absolutely great service and product, very responsive.

Referring to my posts from about a month ago, it turned out to be a problem with the coin switches (or their wiring). I snipped the wiring to them and the multiplier problem and 1-ball/3-ball problem went away. Thanks very much to everyone who helped narrow things down to this!

Restoration looks great, nice job! May I ask, did you use acrylic or enamel paint? And if acrylic, did you apply some sort of clear over it (and on the entire playfield or just one part)? Thanks