Thanks to some help from this forum I was recently able to buy my first project, and boy oh boy is it a project. I picked up a Phoenix. I know it's not the most popular game so not as much pressure to make it perfect. It came with 3 playfields, 2 sets of plastics, new cabinet spray paint, extra boards, and much much much more. I figured I should start a thread documenting the project as I really have no idea what the heck I am doing and I will eventually have many questions! So my basic tentative plan is as follows:

1) Clean and wax NOS playfield
2) Clean and install best looking mechanical components
3) Clean and install best looking plastics
4) Attempt to get the machine to play
5) Repair until it plays 100%
6) Buy stencils
7) Paint cabinet

The only thing I have found so far that I might be missing is the spinner but I still have one m]box of parts to go through. Here are a few pictures:

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Haha yes obviously. Thanks!

Sure, not a problem, although it might be a while depending on how well this progresses. I cleaned some of the platics up last night with simple green and novus 2 and they look really good, however some of them do have cracks.

Thanks guys. I wondered what it would look like with LEDs, glad to hear it looks good. Do you have any pics?

I don't think I have anything other than some extra boards, but then again they might be tangled up in there and I don't even realize it. I'll let you know if I have any left over at the end.

Made a (very) little bit of progress this week. I have attached the wood rails and the GI lighting to the NOS playfield. Doesn't look as good as factory but I tested it out as best I could and it seems like everything should work.

A couple quick questions if any one knows:

-Should I install mylar around the pop bumpers? It came with some circular decals but I wasn't sure if I really needed them for home use.

-Where can I get a spinner target assembly? I've seen them for other system 4 games but didn't know if there was a generic replacement I could use.

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Didn't even think about that. Good call, I'm shooting them an email now.

Like this? Sorry for the quality, took it with my phone.

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Got a little more time in the past couple of days to work on Phoenix. I was able to power it up late last night (couldn't resist) to see where I stand.

The good:
-The game plays!

The bad:
-No sound, although sometimes it would play some kind of siren noise when powered on
-After the first ball drains a credit is added and the game ends
-Certain scoring switches add credits and end game
-Right flipper is weak and also scores points and spots bonus lights when the button is pressed
-When I run the on board diagnostics the LED lights indicate a RAM failure

I think there were more problems but I can't remember them all right now. I haven't had any chance to check for shorts yet but I did check for loose connectors before I powered up. I also checked all the fuses and installed new batteries. I have no idea if any of these problems are related to each other but I figure I will just try and knock them out one at a time. I'll post some better pics later but here is one so far:

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I have not tried that yet, I merely wiggled the connectors a little when I was first installing, but that was before I even knew I had a problem. I was going to try sanding the pins on the board a bit to clean them up as well. Thanks for the tip!

I tried messing with the connectors on the sound board last night. After firing it up nothing had changed, then all of a sudden the sound came on and the problem with credits posting when certain switches were hit disappeared! I was also able to fix the weak flipper problem by cleaning the normally closed switch that puts the coil into it's 'second stage'. I am still having problems with points being scored randomly when I press the flipper buttons but things are looking much better! I'm thinking of just going through and doing a good cleaning on all of the switch contacts to see if that helps. I also need to check and see if the RAM failure on the diagnostics has fixed itself somehow as well.

Got the plastics installed and played quite a few games this weekend. Issues that still need to be addressed:

-Buy and install spinning target
-One of the single drop targets keeps falling down on it's own, I think it just needs a mechanical adjustment
-The banks of drop targets don't usually score the bonus for completing the entire bank, I think the contacts on the boards and horseshoe need to be cleaned.

Some more pics of current condition:

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Thanks guys, this is definitely a fun game! I'll try and look into the drop targets tonight.

One more question, anyone know how to stop this from happening? I tried lowering the peg but the flipper would sometimes get stuck on it. Maybe I should shorten the wire guides?

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Yes the pin is on both sides. The ball gets stuck sitting on the wire guide by the pin. The flipper is not strong enough to knock it off when it comes down. I don't have the glass on yet but I have noticed that it happens quite often so it would be an issue down the line. Lowering the wire guide seems like the way to go but it will require either trimming it or drilling deeper holes in the playfield so I thought I should ask first. Thanks!

Awesome, thank you Vid!

Well tonight ended up being incredibly frustrating! I fixed the flippers per Vid's instructions. I then got the drop target working with singlabanana directing me to the spring tension. Then after turning the machine back on most of my previous problems all showed back up. Random credits posting, weird scoring, a coil stuck on, and games ending when a certain switch was hit. I checked all the wiring I could see and resoldered anything that looked like it might have even been close to being loose. Nothing seemed to work so i checked voltages on the power supply board.

Here were the results:
F1 (high voltage) readings were 95VAC or 92VAC with a load
F2 (28VDC Solenoids) readings were 38VDC or 34VDC with a load
F3 (18VDC lamps) readings were 21VDC or 18VDC with a load
F5 (5VDC) readings were 13VDC or 11VDC with a load

EDIT: It was pointed out to me that the 5VDC reading I was taking was unregulated. I'm going to try after the regulator this afternoon and see if I get the correct voltage.

The capacitors seemed to test OK but I didn't go much further than that. Unfortunately I do not have an extra power board to try.

Wow that is full of good information. I can't believe I didn't see it considering I used Vid's guides to rebuild my pop bumpers and flippers. Thanks!

I verified my 5VDC regulated voltage is reading correctly and reflowed the solder on all my power supply pcb joints. I also checked the bridge rectifiers. Still no luck so I went ahead and ordered a bunch of the components recommended in the guide.

Quick update: I removed the CPU and driver boards last night and reflowed the solder on all the connector pins (they looked pretty bad, lots of cold solder cracks). I also reseated all the chips that were in the dreaded Scanbe sockets. After reassembling everything the machine works really well, only a few minor scoring issues. Once the supplies come in I'm going to do Vid's bulletproofing and hopefully that will take care of most everything. In the meantime I'm getting as many games in as I can!

Sorry I was out of town last week and didn't get back to you. Thanks for the offer on help, I'm going to do the bulletproofing method Vid provided and I'll let you know how it's working after that. Either way you're welcome to check it out at that point.

Also, I put new rubbers on the flippers. For some reason the kit that came with it only had 1, so I ordered a pair and changed them out. Good to know about them breaking though. Thanks again David!

No worries Rich, they were only a couple bucks shipped. Thanks though!

Thanks David! Good to know, I really appreciate it as those shipping charges can add up quick (although it's usually the waiting that bothers me more!).

Been way too long since I update this! I put new caps and diodes on the power board. I also replaced the 40 pin connector and beefed up the resistors on the driver board per vid's bulletproofing guide.

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Big thanks to pinsiders singlebanana and tamoore for hooking me up with a spinner and assembly. Just need to get the right decal for it and it will be perfect.

Also huge thanks to topjimmycooks for coming over and helping me get it installed and spinning perfectly. He also took the time to tweak some switches so the game is playing awesome! He was nice enough to point out that if me flipper plungers, coil sleeves, and EOS switches were replaced I would see a world of difference. Boy was he right, my high score went from 457K to 711K on my first game!

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