I know Ksarcade.com has them(red unit, which I have), as does Marco, but I think they are out of stock right now. Pull the board and see if it's black in the backside.... good sign its shot. That is what tells the lower flips to start working and upper flips to stop working. It was a big issue in my Special Force machine too.

Looks like both of them are out of stock. I should have the parts in by tomorrow and will just rebuild my board unless the relay is toast. I'm going to see if I can get a couple of the pinpoint boards since I'll end up needing an extra anyway if I can do the mods I want to the game.

If you can't wait till tomorrow, the G.I flasher board also has a MOC-3011 you could temporarily borrow to replace/test the one on the solenoid expander

It would be cool to make a different background sound and a lightshow when the multiball start and keep this new background sound until one ball is lost.

I'm not sure how much control the MPU code has over the sounds or if it can just use what is programmed into the sound card. Creating new speech may not be possible but I hope that perhaps it may be possible to string the existing words together in different phrases. Maybe a three ball multiball could say "gamma orbit" or some other string of words already encoded in the speech ROMs.

I am going to see if I can order some of these bulbs for the playfield GI:

http://www.cometpinball.com/product-p/6smdfan.htm

The look of the lens is perfect for the theme. Has anyone installed these yet? I normally stay with regular bulbs or warm whites for GI but I think Elektra would look good with the Natural White or perhaps blue LED's.

It wasn't the MOC-3011 or the diode on that board. I've got a couple of the pinpoint versions on the way and will swap out that whole board once they arrive. At least that will either confirm that was the problem or show that it is elsewhere.

The new pinpoint boards arrived so I swapped out the solenoid expander for the flippers. Those pinpoint boards are nice. They have two status leds and will supposedly work without the bulb. Unfortunately that didn't solve the issue.

I'm going to go over all the wiring. Can some get a good picture of the three connectors at the aux lamp driver? I could also use a good picture of the connector at the upper right on the driver board. I think there could be an issue at those connections.

Attached some before and after pictures of the sound board. Most of the caps had radial caps instead of the axial caps. Removed them all and replaced them with axial versions. Also replaced the two controls and the two tantalum caps. One of the tantalum caps tested bad. It does sound better now. Just need to make up a couple new labels for the EPROM's instead of the black tape. I normally just order my own caps but in this case the cap kit came from big daddy and included all the caps and new controls.

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Looks nice!

If anyone has good reference photos of the wiring in the backbox and the underside of the playfield of a machine that is close to an intact original could you post them on this thread? It could help show how the harnesses are run and secured.

Specifically I'd like to get good images of the connector that goes on the Aux Lamp board, the 25-pin connector for the main driver board, and also the wiring on the front of the playfield by the flipper coils. Some of the wiring for those coils was replaced by heavy gauge speaker wires.

The 25-pin connector is broken on my game and a couple of the wires were soldered to the back of the board. I'm installing new SIP headers on the board and plan on repining the 25-pin connector wires and installing in a new shell.

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Could someone get a good picture of the 25-pin .100" connector on the upper right of the driver board? Listing out the pinout would be extremely helpful. What pins are empty and what colors are in each location. Im trying to confirm how it is supposed to be wired.

Ill try to get you some pics Wednesday evening...i have to lift the hood on mine to tinker with a stingy lower flipper, anyways.

Do you have a manual for Elektra?

I have a copy of the one from the ipdb site. It has been great for working on the boards and it looks like several of the things I've been having problems with point to that 25 pin connector on that driver board. I just did the mod to add the three jumpers on the back of the board and put the right fuse in for the displays.

None of the wiring color codes seem to be shown in the manual that I have. Just getting some good reference photos of that and also how the harness is run and secured will help.

Thank you,

Robert

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I forgot how heavy that playfield is to lift..... there you go.... let me know how you make out!!

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Those pictures will help a lot! Thank you. I'm sure that may help others that could use reference photos too.

Also I must have completely missed that legend box with the color code decoder. I should have the info I need to get everything sorted out.

And yes, that playfield is heavy. It is also probably one of the most densely packed playfields I've ever had to deal with.

Robert

It draws blood everytime I work on it!! Lol.

Good luck!!

It looks like there is a mistake on the schematics for pin 10 on J3 for the driver board. The schematic for the harness says it goes to A2J3 pin 1 while the schematic for the driver shows it going to pin 5. I need to do some more digging to confirm which one is right. I believe it should be pin 1.

It looks like many of the wires on the 25-pin IDC connector had come out and had been pushed back in. A couple popped out as I was checking the color codes on that .J3 connector. Need to check the on for the input to the aux board too. I have a feeling once those are repinned with nex connectors the issues should be resolved.

After going through the schematics it looks like there are several unused outputs on Elektra.

Aux lamp driver:
Pin 18 on J3 - from U5 #3

Lamp driver:
Pin 2 on J2 - from U3 #14
Pin 18 on J3 - from U4 #9

Driver board:
Pin 4 on J2 - #0
Pin 9 on J2 - #1
Pin 10 on J2 - #2
Pin 11 on J2 - #3
Pin 12 on J2 - #4
Pin 14 on J5 - #13

Dedicated:
Pin 15 on J2

Since there looks like there is an extra dedicated output I think it is odd that they didn't use that to switch between the upper and lower and instead hung a sol expander board off the aux lamp driver.

I should be able to use at least one of these to control an additional relay to have both playfields active at once.

I still want to take a look at the switch matrix to see if any extra switches could be added if needed.

Robert

I'm not sure Bally ever designed their solenoid power source for the current rush of 6 flippers simultaneously.

What fuse have you got at F4 on the rectifier board for solenoid power?

That is definitely a concern and one of the things on the list of things to check. I may have to do some updates there too.

If it's a problem, you might need to consider using lower power flipper coils on the bottom and upper playfields - something like:
AQ-26-600/34-4500

The thrust winding is not a huge difference, but should be a little less strain than standard flipper coils.

Great suggestions! I'll keep that in mind when I get to that point.

Also with the extra possible outputs I was thinking about the possibility of adding a magnet coil under the lower playfield in the middle if one will fit. That's another option to tweak gameplay without doing major mods to the playfield.

Maybe add a mode while the lower playfield is active saying you've been exposed and then randomly activate the magnet to toss the ball around. Just gathering ideas and will see what I can make work.

Magnet coils live close to the playfield surface so you'd need to find a way to cut out a section underneath the playfield to fit the magnet coil into.

I thought there were some coils that just mounted right flush against the bottom of the playfield. If one of the smaller ones would fit in the middle of the bottom playfield it may make an interesting gamma effect at certain points in play down there. Since the playfield is so tight it may be a challenge but if some of the lamp sockets are moved and LEDs installed to save space it might be possible. I'll look for other games with magnets under the playfield to see how they are used.

i know on my pharaoh, the PF is routed away till it's only about 1/8" thick.

Sorry , not a great photo...

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Thanks for the picture. I had never seen one like that before. I think that the Dracula had a smaller magnet coil that could travel along and I'm not sure if that is routed too. I know someone that has that game and I'll check. Maybe that magnet would be good enough just sitting flush. It doesn't have to grab and hold the ball. Just turning it on may be enough to mess with the ball for a good effect.

It is used as the outlane magnet from Pharaoh, BK, Jungle Lord, Solar fire. Probably others...

The divot shown in the top left corner of the blank Centaur playfield is for the magnet:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/centaur-clubmembers-only/page/13#post-3520450

Centaur magnet:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/centaur-clubmembers-only/page/17#post-4218365

what seems smaller than the Pharaoh magnet. ii'm not near the game, but I'd guess the Pharaoh magnet is 3-3.5" Diameter.

Just joined the club. I'm glad to see this thread span 4+ years!

I see the plastics and targets are available .. yeah!

I'm also looking for a backglass as I see many others are. Any way we can get this on someone's radar to remake? Any translates out there?

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Man, that has a nice upper playfield, should clean up nicely.

Thanks! Yeah .. that's what I hope. From what I can see the upper playfield is usually a problem. I figured tracking down the backglass maybe hard but putting it in place is easy

Mike V

Welcome to the club, the translucent targets are the coolest.

(THANKS) I'm not sure how cool they are, but i know where you can get them:

www.langelius.com or Big Daddy

I got mine from Bob Langelius at www.langelius.com

Here's a in progress vid I made. I have it playing now but it's not finished.

Last nights project. This sits between the two metal ramps and replaces the plastic piece there. I'm going to print this in a few other translucent colors (red, yellow, clear) and see how they look in the game and when lit. I may end up tweaking the crystal design but I think this is a good first attempt.

I may try another version that just sits on the playfield directly behind the targets instead of sitting over them.

If this works out and looks good I will be able to make more.

Thoughts?

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Neat idea! Is it designed to prevent a possible ball trap issue?

How often does the ball get up on top of the plastic there? I may have to add more crystal spires toward the back of the piece to try and prevent that. Hadn't considered that aspect and will have to check.

I mainly made this as an option to replace a broken plastic there and have a nice crystal structure to enhance the game. I think it will look pretty cool as you hit the red targets and light them up. The whole crystal should glow.

Not often, but it only has to happen once to spoil the fun. I have had it happen on my machine a couple of times.

There is GI back there - perhaps painting the underside of the crystals silver except where the light tubes will be. That should help light things up.

I'm making one in translucent red now. Will see how these fit and will try setting a ball on it and if I need to try adding extra crystals.

Finished bringing a few more games back from the dead to get into The Sanctum. Time to get the ball rolling on this. First step is to scan the cabinets and get the files off to Jeff. PM me if you haven’t already and you’re interested in a set of cabinet stencils so I can get these made.

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I'm still interested, ..... and how did you get your scanner to work with modern Windows? I haven't dug in yet, but I figured I'd ask before I go online hunting for a solution...

I forget. I do remember it was a huge pain in the ass and took way too long.