Super helpful! Thank you.
Have a great Holiday.

Got to messing around with the harness yesterday. So far this is where I'm at with wire separation. The question I have is that three wire connector in the backbox. There is a solenoid wire there, along with two other wires from the MPU that controls the Little Demon. The solenoid wire is Q5, which is the center drop targets, which is also connected to the Little Demon bonus.

Why is that connector there, it looks as though all of the wires could just be a straight run, with no need for the connector. Was that in every Fireball II? Does everybody else who has this pin, have that connector?

It's still somewhat of a mess under the backbox, as I'm doing what I can without taking the playfield out. I'm not seeing any reason that is obvious for that connector to be there, and it would aid in separation if it's not necessary.

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The solenoid wire for Q5 comes from pin 10 of the J2 SDB connector. That J2 SDB connector is designated for cabinet wiring. So that 3 pin plug allows you to separate the playfield harness from the cabinet harness to pull the playfield out separately. You didn't mention exactly where those other two wires are coming from for me to comment, but very likely it's a similar situation (they probably come from connectors designated for cabinet or backbox).
There's a few Bally games with that extra connector.

Sometimes I get a bit "yappy" in my posts, while trying to be thorough and I leave stuff like that out. Sorry, I'm a work in progress

The other two wires go to J2 on the MPU, and feed down to the playfield. If that connector were not there, it would present no issues if the playfield needed to be removed from the game.

edit to add:

Played six games last night and the Little Demon post behaved itself. I guess I will see what I will see.

MPU J2 is designated to the playfield switch harness. Having said that, the schematics show two wires from that J2 connector running to the cabinet for the little demon kicker post button. It's a bit weird since MPU J3 is designated to the cabinet but for some strange reason that little demon kicker post button is mapped somewhere in the switch matrix that isn't supported by that MPU J3 connector.
The doubled MPU J2 wires split off into the cabinet harness.
BTW, that connector in your machine isn't the factory Bally fitted connector. If you look at the gallery in this thread, that connector looks a little different.

[Edit] This is what that connector looks like from factory:
https://images.pinside.com/5/9b/e2/59be2de85a5f04c5b4347894a8270fcc2432e4af.jpg

I put that connector in. I also changed other connectors in the backbox (harness only) to the Mate N Lock types, because I was in somewhat of a hurry to get the game done (grandkids), which was at the tail end of the the summer of 2018. The playfield swap began in earnest the 2nd week of June that summer, and I was still troubleshooting things at the end of August, although the game could play. Most of my issues at that time were switches causing the displays to strobe.

I couldn't find the original style, but knew I could go back and rework them. The originals are .64's, I went with .84's.

The issues I have been noticing are three, and they have been consistent:

In addition to the Little Demon post which I have already discussed, from time to time when the ball goes in the Odin saucer and kicks the ball out, the Little Demon post will activate OR a new ball will be kicked out for play. The other issue involves the out lane (on the C Lane side of the game), where every once in a while, after the ball rolls over the switch toward drain, the game will make the Fireball sound that you hear when inserting a quarter for play.

It's not an MPU issue, does the same thing with the Alltek, but the occurrences have been decreasing since I started replacing the coils.

Coincidence?

I don't know. I'm assuming that there is a connection, but not necessarily the cause. Newer stuff replacing 35-40 year old stuff.

I've relegated them to KI's (known issues) and am proceeding from there. I may re-pin those backbox harness connectors. I'm getting pretty good at re-pinning(it's almost fun), and since some of those wires are smaller gauges (when compared to 0.84 connector pins) even a slightly off crimp might not have been tight enough. I was a bit rough around the edges when I started this project. I didn't know what I didn't know.

That's my theory atm.

fyi - the Alltek SDB was reading the same voltage at the 180vdc test point as it was at the 230vdc test point. Sent it back and got it repaired/replaced. Not sure why that happened, as I haven't blown but two fuses in that game, both before I put any Alltek boards in. I think I'm going to replace the fuse holders under the playfield. I wish I could get another set of eyes on my work.

I don't think I have serious issues, but they are annoying issues

Sorry so long, wanted to be thorough.

Ok just wanted to make sure you were aware.

Sounds like you have issues in the switch matrix. I'd suggest that you run through the switch test mode for diagnosis.

Raise all the drop targets and remove all playfield balls from the game.
The game should report "0" in the ball in play display indicating no closed switches, if not you have a stuck switch that needs investigating.

Using the switch identification table in the manual (print page 17), activate each switch one at a time but do it in REVERSE order listed in the manual - i.e. start at switch 40 and work your way in reverse sequence to switch 1. Important that you do it in reverse order because the game only reports the lowest switch number that's closed.
Leave drop targets down after you've activated them and leave balls at the corresponding outhole switches after activating them.

Look for switches that don't respond, and switches that report the wrong number.

I tend to agree with you vis-a-vis the switch matrix, which is a lot of the reasoning behind comments I made some time back about wanting to replace switches. Again, 35-40 year old stuff. I'm wondering about vibration causing odd and intermittent switch contact/activation as well.

I have seen my upper flipper in D&D not engage, yet by eye contact, the contacts are in the normal position, e.g., NC. This was after a complete flipper rebuild, too. Fireball II did the same thing not long after (this was earlier this year), the lower right flipper. I just gently pressed the contacts together (same issue, they looked as though they were touching) and it hasn't happened since.

Maybe something of the nature of a reverse effect is occurring during game play, switches that are normally open are close enough to cause some issue down line.

I don't know, just putting it out there.

I have done something similar to your reverse order switch test. I did it randomly, in test mode. Just hit one here, one there, multiple times through all switches, to see if I could get the displays to strobe. All switches register (and registered) their proper number. And another little funny experience, related to your suggestion: when I had the issue with the display's strobing, I learned the hard way how a switch matrix works. The lowest number reported isn't necessarily the problem child

edit to add:

the strobing problem I had in August 2018 ended up being related to the B Lane rollover. Thing is, it wasn't the switch per se, as I put a new switch in and still did the same thing. I ended up tinkering with the mount that holds the switch and rollover in place, and that resolved the problem. In some ways, I think I'm still paying for the lack of care this game received prior to me saving it

LOL

You nailed it, Quench. The problem was somewhere in the switch matrix.

The Odin Saucer was wired incorrectly, which goes all the way back to the playfield swap. I feel fortunate that this is only the second mistake I made during the swap. The other wiring mistake involved the Fireball bonus light ring, specifically number 4 and number 6.

The wiring to the Odin saucer switch was bass-ackwards in two places, two wires on the top leaf needed to be on the middle leaf, and the diode between the middle leaf tab and the top leaf tab needed to be reversed, with banded side towards the top instead of the middle. The middle leaf is not a full length leaf, only being as long as the separators.

Little Demon is behaving better, not perfectly, but better. We have only 10-12 games since yesterday, but so far so good.

I'm using 1N4004 diodes on all of the switches. The schematic calls for 1N4148, which is rated lower than the 04's. I am making the assumption that this is not an issue.

The C-Lane is using a two leaf switch with no diode, it is the only rollover switch configured that way.

You can give new EOS and flipper button switches that are tungsten (high current) contact based a bit of a clean with sand paper to remove any protective coating, otherwise you might get what you saw on new installation.
Suffice to say, never use sand paper on gold plated (low current) contact switches.

No issue at all using 1N4004 - the earlier Ballys till about '79 used 1N4004 diodes on the switches..

That's not right, it should be the same as all other switches with a diode. It might cause problems when certain drop targets are down.

Did you manage to separate the wiring for that switch? For test, just run a new wire direct from the MPU board to the button switch (while disconnecting the old wire in the harness). If the problem goes away you know it was caused by electrical noise from the flipper current.

I segregated the wiring from the backbox down to right where it rolls on to the playfield. Looks a little messy under there when the playfield is up, and I don't think it's perfect, but it is segregated.

When I separated the harness in the cabinet, I made sure that the Little Demon wiring did not get tied back in to any harness. Haven't changed the wiring just yet, but it's on the list to do.

It behaved very nicely last night. No phantom pops in the last dozen games.

Interestingly enough, I fried a transistor on the Alltek Lamp Driver, Q58 when I was rewiring the Odin saucer switch. What happened is a blob of solder dropped on to Odin qualified lamp, but I didn't see it and powered up the game and the lamp was off. Verified it as a board issue by plugging in my old Bally Lamp driver. I didn't even see the blob of solder, but I heard something drop, but thought it landed in the cabinet. Those mofset transistors are easy to replace, btw.

I'm going to order new switches, or find a source with individual leafs and build them. That C Lane switch is definitely getting re-worked, and I want to replace the two chime switches on the playfield, the one up top and the other one located on the right side, off of the Wotan saucer lane.

Thanks for the cleaning tip, too.

edit to add:

Had I more experience with these games, when I decided to do the playfield swap, I would have picked up the difference in that rollover switch compared to the others. My approach ended up being to just get the old stuff off the old playfield, and on to the new.... and then proceed from there.

Like I've said several times, I didn't know what I didn't know.

The two fuses under the playfield:

Everything I've read when it comes to spec stuff, only refers to one under the playfield. Any thoughts on whether this was a practice by Bally, or a later mod by an owner/operator?

Chalked up almost two dozen games last night. The Little Demon only mis-behaved once, and that was on a button push, going from five credits to two.

I think I may have resolved most of the Little Demon issues, so will be interesting to see what happens when I replace that rollover switch and redo the wiring for the LD post.

Which playfield wire did you segregate? If you're rewiring the wire to the little demon solenoid that won't buy you anything. The issue is switch matrix wiring picking up noise from the flipper wires. The wire to segregate is the white-green wire coming from MPU J2 pin 8 although it runs to a few switches on the playfield so could get difficult/messy- the worst part (noise wise) probably being the last section running adjacent with the flipper wires to the outhole switch.

My Fireball II had two playfield fuses too.
Ballys of that era have a 1 amp slow blow fuse for playfield solenoids (except the flippers). The Fireball II schematics lists that playfield fuse as 3 amps slow blow - it was increased from 1 amp to 3 amps because of the higher than usual current draw for the doodle bug magnet.
It's probably safe to presume a decision was made to ensure all other playfield solenoids were still fused with a 1 amp slow blow and that the doodle bug magnet should have it's own dedicated 3 amp slow blow fuse.

I separated - as best I could without taking the playfield out of the game - the wiring that runs from the SDB connecters from the wiring that runs from the MPU connectors. Instead of one big happy harness going to the backbox, it now has several. Some of the wires, as you noted, were interwoven in ways that would require me taking the playfield out to separate properly, which I just don't want to do at this point. It's not the prettiest looking result, but it seems to be effective. The only oops I managed was the P2 (J2 on the original) connector on the SDB. I have to unplug it from the board if I want to put the playfield all the way up, leaning against the backbox.

I was also surprised at the pull on many of the connectors on the MPU and SDB when the playfield was in it's normal position. I was able to provide some relief to that stress as well.

The Little Demon wiring is laying all by itself in the cabinet, plus I separated it as best I could from the MPU to the switch that activates it in the cabinet. I may try to neat it up a bit more. I haven't worked any wiring under the playfield as of yet. If it keeps playing the way it has been since I corrected the wiring mistake with the saucer switch, I may not worry about it.

Thanks for the thoughts on the fuses, that was, more or less, what I had assumed, other than the magnet. That makes sense and is nice to know.
backbox1 (resized).jpgbackbox2 (resized).jpgcabinetwiring (resized).jpglittledemonwiring (resized).jpglittledemon (resized).jpg

btw, another question.

Were any Fireball II's manufactured with a Little Demon post light?

Is that Little Demon still being a Little Devil every now and then?

My guess would be no.
Medusa which came out a few months after FireBall II also had that same post between the flippers (on Medusa it's called the Shield of Gods post). Medusa has red flipper shaped inserts that are lit under transparent red flipper bats. So Bally was playing with lights in that area but they didn't light the post between the flippers.

Thanks, I wondered about that.

It is mis-behaving from time to time, but I have only noticed it when pressing the button to activate it. Most of the time it's fine, but sometimes a press will use up two, and sometimes three credits.

The phantom pops are getting rarer and rarer.

But I will see what I will see as time goes on. Still some work to be done in that area.

I made a change to the rubber on the middle drop target posts, pulling the called for 2 inch diameter rubber, replacing it with the 1.5 inch diameter rubber. The bigger rubber ring was causing the targets to bounce off the rubber and not drop on direct hits far too often for my liking. When I drilled the holes for the four posts, I probably should have drilled them another 1/16 of an inch closer to that bottom pop bumper, although it's pretty tight in there as it is.

So far so good on that.

The game is playing well, the players.... meh.... not so much at the moment

I also had an issue show up about 10 days ago, involving almost all of the playfield lamps not working. Everything from the top right pop bumper over to Wotan qualifying arrows and all of the lamps on the bottom half of the playfield, plus the credit indicator lamp under the apron.

Sometimes playing a game would activate them, other times nothing. Lifting the playfield for inspection would sometimes re-light them. This just started to occur regularly about ten days ago. I did notice it one time over the summer, for the first time since the swap, so I knew the issue wasn't board related, but it never recurred until recently. We've been playing the game a lot which is probably why it started to manifest itself now. I used automobile connectors, made for 14-16 gauge wire, in that area after I completed the swap. I noticed they were browning in the middle when I was changing out the coils and made a note to revisit that area at some point in the not too distant future. That point came this past Friday.

There was a voltage drop on the stapled line under the playfield that feeds the lamps, I was getting between 0.999vdc and 1.3vdc, whereas I was getting 7.3vdc on the other line at the top of the playfield. The connectors on two of the wires (the navy blue wire) were obviously starting to fail. I don't like those connectors, but I used them after the swap because that was all I had, and I was working bigger issues at the time. One of those wires runs to that two lamp stapled line for the Wotan arrows. So I cut them off, powered on the game and the lamp issue appeared. Problem solved. New connectors and some solder to reinforce and good to go.

My inventory now includes proper wire connectors for the various gauges of wire used in the harness.

In that case try putting a 0.047uF capacitor across that little demon button switch in the cabinet.
BTW does your switch have a diode on it? The cabinet schematic doesn't show one.

It does have a diode on it. I replaced every diode when I did the playfield swap, with 1N4004's.

The Little Demon post is behaving very nicely. I think the problem is, mostly, resolved.

Now, to work on the controllers who push the flipper button and play this game....

not sure there's a cure for that

Picked this up today. Not sure if I am keeping it. Removed everything from playfield. Cleaned with magic eraser and rubbing alcohol. Changed all rubbers, bulbs to leds. 2 new drop targets, drill lock out because there was no key.

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That is a good looking FB2, especially for one without a full factory mylar. Did you choose to protect the playfield in any way for future wear?

I did not do anything to protect it. I just cleaned it up. Going to sell it as soon as my league night is over.

I have to concur with Jappie, that game is in remarkably good shape for a FBII. You can scroll through this thread and find my personal two examples of a bad playfield, that apparently lacked care or even a modicum of attention over their lives. The cabinet looks better than mine does.

Is there a backglass? I'm assuming there is, I didn't notice one in the pictures. Whoever ends up owning that game, I'd recommend one of two things:

Clearcoat the playfield. With care and patience, it can be done without stripping the entire playfield. Care and patience. I used KBS diamond coating and am quite happy with the result, considering my inexperience. It was a tedious project - I spent almost four months on it, Jan-April 2019. I think I ended up having some curing issues in the upper left corner of the game, and I relegate that to inexperience and the time of year, even though I did it in a reasonably controlled environment, e.g., the room it sits in for play. That's the nice thing about brush-clearing, you can do it indoors, if there is no option or mechanism to move the game somewhere else. I cracked a window and wore a face mask, but it wasn't necessary, there was hardly any hint of smell or odor. Hindsight tells me that I should have waited til late spring and moved it to my front porch. That would have had the downside of breezes and dust, but also warmer air and sunshine. Additionally, I have four acres and a big house and spring is when a lot of outdoor projects and just day to day stuff have to take priority.

or

Buy a playfield protector.

I almost wish I could buy it for the spare parts, but I just can't do that right now. How much are you asking, or going to ask. You can PM me if you wish. I'm just curious.

The brush clear turned out well enough, considering that wasn't the best option and I didn't know what I was doing. I started getting ghosting spots up around the three stand-ups and that area by that side of the pop bumpers, probably about a month after finishing the clear. Lots of banging around going on in that area, especially off of that upper flipper. The rest of the field turned out fine, even with the 8 inch ball drop test, but I decided, right after my recent adventures y'all can read about earlier in this thread, to try to fix it. I was able to undo some of the clear with very very minor paint damage.... just that upper area and corner.

I was somewhat successful, but then decided to go with a playfield protector. I still have some buffing to do up there, but decided I just wanted to play the game for a while. This fall or winter, I plan to take the protector off, and buff out some of the rough spots that I left in place because I'd had it. This game has been a restoration project since June, 2018. I did not know what I did not know, about playfield swaps, clearcoating, the whole nine yards, but I dove into it anyway

Hindsight tells me now that I should have cleared the playfield before I did the swap, but as I said: I didn't know what I didn't know. Someday, maybe I'll write a book about what I learned by tackling this particular pin the way I did

Time to play it and have fun.

btw, on that note.... Approximately 100 games played since my last post, and the Little Demon has not mis-behaved once. Not once. We're quite happy with that.

There is a back glass here is a few pics, looking for $1400

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I am ordering a few parts for Fireball 2.... I cannot find the part number in the manual.

Does anyone know which rollover switch this is? It's under the upper lanes. Thanks

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The Fireball 2 manual doesn't show what the ball shooter has for part numbers.

Does anyone know what they would be?

I think theres a couple of springs.. sleeve etc.

Thank you.

http://www.planetarypinball.com/reference/partsmanuals/BLY_Parts_1981/index.html#/27/zoomed

Thanks for the link... is it just me or is the wording very blurry or... blacked out?

yeah a little blurry but I can usually make out a part #

can usually cross reference with Marco Specialties on the part # but didn't work with shooter springs :/

https://www.marcospecialties.com/control/keywordsearch?SEARCH_STRING=shooter+spring
https://www.pinballlife.com/search.html

Fireball 2 shooter (resized).jpg

I looked through the Fireball ll manual & didn't see the part number for the flipper buttons. Would they be the 1-3/8 shaft size? Thanks

Bally Parts Catalogs are downloadable from PinWiki:
https://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Bally/Stern#Parts_Catalogs

Eg: you'll find the flipper buttons in the 1980-1 catalog electronic PDF page 33 (paper page 63).

That's a bit steep I think. Having said that, these things are so hard to come by, it's probably worth it to somebody that has a playfield that was torn up as badly as my original was. I would probably pay it, were I in dire straits. I was able to get the replacement for my swap for $600, plus another $50 or so (I forget now) for shipping, and that was from France.

That was also back in 2008.

That's a bit steep I think. Having said that, these things are so hard to come by, it's probably worth it to somebody that has a playfield that was torn up as badly as my original was. I would probably pay it, were I in dire straits. I was able to get the replacement for my swap for $600, plus another $50 or so (I forget now) for shipping, and that was from France.
That was also back in 2008.</blockquote
I sold My FBII
And this is what I have into the play field got from a pinsider in the Netherlands it’s less than a guy on eBay quoted me $2,000 For his! .getting more scarce a guys restore games .

Well I just joined the FB II club and quite happy with it. But I’m having an issue with a few things.

1: little demon popping by itself sometimes
2: GI lights going dark during the game and randomly coming back on
3: left drop target bank not always popping back when playing, but when I drain my ball and get a new one then it pops back up without a problem.
4: right drop target bank missing the return spring underneath the playfield, but apparently this doesn’t prevent it from working
5 looking for the left and right outlane plastics, the bottom clear ones. Not the ones with the print on it.
All help welcome

Ps: go easy on the technical terms, not that good at it. And completly new to Bally machines, only had Williams up until now.

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ebay.com link: itm

Are these the plastics you're referring to? These worked great on mine

Yes indeed thx for the tip. Point 5 resolved.

Common problem with Fireball II. Software is designed to be sensitive reflex.
Try to make sure cabinet and playfield connector contacts on CPU board are
clean and have a good mating with each other.

Thx for the tip, will check

Nice looking specimen, congratulations!

For point 3, I suspect that (at least) one of the drop target switches is not registering well when the target is down.

The logics behind this: during gameplay, these targets reset when the software registers all 4 switches of the drop target bank as closed. When the machine 'thinks' that at least 1 target is still up, it will not reset the bank.

The reason the targets do reset in between your balls, is that this reset between balls always happens. No matter how many targets are down.

Take the glass off, start a game and trip the drop targets by hand, one by one. The machine should make an electronic sound (and adds points to your score) for every drop target that you shoot down. The target for which it doesn't (or doesn't always) do this, is the switch you want to check.

Good luck!

I have the same issue... Thank you very much for explaining a possible fix so well !

Thanks Jappie, was indeed drop target 3 that wasn't registering, EOS (I think is the name) was bent a bit.

While we are at it. I'm also looking for some plastics, or scans of them. The left side plastics are slightly broken, so looking for a replacement.

Furthermore all the decals numbering. Anyone have that on a file so i can create waterslide transfers for them? Or does anyone know what font they used?

just points 2 and 5 from my original post to be resolved.

2: GI lights going dark during the game and randomly coming back on (probably going to have the boards maintenanced)

thx for all the help

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You're welcome! Glad to have helped.

EOS stands for End Of Stroke, which is a switch on the flipper assembly. The switches on the drop target bank don't have their own fancy abbreviation that I know of.

Yes, thought they all had the same name. They have the same function.

They do, that name is 'switch'. Or 'leaf switch', in this case.

The eos switch is the switch that makes contact (or stops making contact, depending on the system) at the end of the stroke of a flipper plunger. It puts the coil from the higher 'pull voltage' to the lower 'hold voltage'. When this switch is broken, missing or otherwise not working, the coil stays in 'pull voltage' and can get really hot.