Going to do something unusual here and post two games being worked on. One needs minor work, the other..

Blackout was picked up a week or two ago, "fully working" well you know how that goes. The machine would reboot itself when the garage furnace kicked in. The power board has a funky remote mounted cap screwed to the backbox and the other board caps are OEM. On the plus side the cabinet and playfield are pretty nice, it has new PinScore LED displays and the sound board had been recapped and has new eproms. The MPU had been worked on at one time and the 5101 is socketed so easy VRAM upgrade is in the future. Flipper links are held in place with machine screws, some plastics are warped, 2 posts are outright missing and the backglass is in need of dire assistance.

I spent the last week slowly going over it and in another week or two touchups should be done. I could have gone with a new backglass but I'm still refining my skills in this area and so far pleased with the results, have at least another week to go though before calling it good and moving on. The last two blackglass pictures were from a few days ago, things have considerably progressed since then. All the area around the space guys is done and I have started on them which is a more delicate area for work to show through.

Caps for the power board and 40 way interconnect on the way from Great Plains and other parts from Pinball Life.

Playfield and backbox lighting already converted over to Comet LEDs. Spent a some time adjusting the backboard to fit proper (someone bent the hell out of the brackets trying when they could have just used the adjusters!) and I flattened all the display cables so they were not rubbing on the glass and casting shadows on the artwork.

Not sure if I like this one; love the art and sound effects but the shot geometry is weird off the flippers. Have to wait and see once it is fully tuned up if it will be around for any period of time.

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Flash Gordon. Played Flash Gordon at Pintastic last year and REALLY liked it so when the opportunity came up I grabbed this one.

Positives: Its all there and the lower playfield is in great shape.

Negatives: The upper playfield which was not mylar'd like the lower is in need of help, cabinet fade with flipper credit button mod, the backglass art is missing a small piece near player four and the electronics are angry.

Initial electrical inspection: a bunch of light sockets need to go in the trash but lamp drivers look good, switch matrix was funky but reflowing headers and playing with the connectors brought all the switches back online but the tension on the headers pins in negligible. Looks like I'm going to be changing out at a bare minimum the J2 and J3 connectors.

A number of the coils exhibit weird or no function. the 2 lower drop target banks don't reset at all, the right popper doesn't operate and when you hit the power switch it triggers the left slingshot! The right sling doesn't work but the MPU is seeing the switch. The single reseting drop target will also drop at when an unrelated switch is tripped. Right now I'm eyeballing U11 as the culprit and may do a quick swap as I have spares and its socketed.

Sound: No background sound at all though you sometimes will hear a faint whiff of it when you go over one of the inner flipper lanes right at the end of the sound effect. The voice is there, it will proclaim FLASH time to time but nothing else. If you press the self test on the squawk and talk it will run through a number of voice files so the voice chip is working.

The plan is to get it working 100% and then disassemble to repair the upper playfield and paint the cabinet. Sound board is getting fully recapped and maybe new sockets and reflowed headers. Solenoid board getting recapped and ground mods done. The MPU has clearly been worked on in the past and already has VRAM. Most of the problems maybe nothing more than really bad connectors.

More pictures tonight, this one is going to be a long haul repair.
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Flash Gordon- Did some poking around after work. The MPU is probably ok as far as the coil firing goes, swapped out U11 as I have plenty about and made no difference. Swapped out the MPU with my spare Star Trek one and the self tests exhibited the same behavior.

Right sling, right thumper, inline reset, outhole, single drop reset and 4 drop reset are not activated by the MPU.

I went over to the solenoid board and started grounding out the transistors one by one. All the coils fired one after another, so the wiring to the malfunctioning devices is good so it has to be a J4 connection issue or one of the chips on the sol. board. Looking at the diagram, no common theme connects U1, U3 and U4 on the sol. board aside from U2 a 74L154 decoder.

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Well against my better judgement I swapped sol boards with Star Trek and Star Trek works fine but Flash does not exhibit any change.

Looks like I'll be order a mess of .100 crimp contacts and check continuity from J4 to J4.

Thanks for the reminder, thats correct it isn't working either.

So if I'm reading the theory of operation manual correct, one of the four lines is not functioning or is open?

You sir are correct, a few items are double activating when going through self test.

Some good news tonight, progress!

1) All the coils are now working as intended! Checking the blue/yellow wire with a meter shows no continuity and I found a poor wiring connection at the MPU end.

2) All the connections are sketchy! Everything has to be "just right" for the switch matrix to work correct. At a bare minimum the MPU is getting done for testing, I don't like the look of these "push on wire connectors" and will end up dumping all of them.

3) The single drop target wasn't popping back up, after adjusting some of the rollovers seems to work proper now though I'm not sure what is the triggering event yet that makes it pop up. Have to print out the manual tomorrow while at work

4) Sound is clearly distressed; "emperor ming awaits" is garbled and some of the other call outs I'm unsure if working. "Flash" and "Lucky shot" comes up as well as "miserable human" but someone else mentioned something about the 15 second timer and death rays and I have not heard it even though they have lit time to time while testing. Some sound effects are missing or "off" which I'm not going to get too excited till recapped and chips cleaned.

The garbled speech sounds just like this one when the machine is in attract mode

Just a small update; yesterday was brutal at work so disinclined to do anything serious last night. I did pull all the chips out of the squawk and talk board, gently clean the black tarnish off and reinstall. Didn't seem to make any difference. About all I can do till cap kit arrives from Big Daddy.

"Emperor Ming awaits" is garbled in the middle.

"Flash" sounds off, the F sounds shortened.

Ming laughing, "15 seconds" and the clip about death rays are missing.

When I pull the board for cap work I'm going to jumper U2 and U5 for 2732's and burn a pair utilizing the ROM files from IPBD.

Other then that, just making a list of stuff to order which is growing by the second. Package came in for Blackout so this weekend will recap power supply board and replace 40 way interconnect.

Gary

Picture of upper playfield.

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Some more FG upper playfield pics.

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You know sometimes a solution is right under ones own nose. I have been looking for an upper playfield scan without luck and it occurred to me all I have to do is scan in my own playfield. I have access to two large high resolution scanners and twenty years experience in Photoshop, it would take little time at all to clean up the scan and then decide how to proceed.

Blackout update; recapped the power board and replaced the forty way and touched up the pins, looking for cold solder joints.

Hakku de-soldering gun is da' bomb! Made short work of the task, wish I purchased one years ago.

Which made not a wit of difference, machine still glitches out when the furnace kicks on. Not too worried about it, won't be in the workshop much longer. Just odd this is the only pin that has done it so far. Should stick a meter on the MPU for entertainment and see what the voltage is dropping too when it happens.

Thanks to Ed at Great Plains for the prompt service! And yes I recapped the high voltage section as well even though it has LED displays, next guy might convert it back and caps that size are pocket change.

Waiting for the post man to come in, he has cap kit for Flash Gordon. Going to recap the sound board and see if the speech problems clear up.
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Flash Gordon; progress!

While waiting for the post man to show up, I converted the squawk and talk board over to 2732's and burned two chips using the files from IPBD

Yes! Most of the sounds are there now (15 seconds, activate death rays and the laugh are now working) but "Emperor Ming Awaits" still has the garbled "ming" in it that other people have reported too and you can hear on the video above. Right after that was done the post man showed up and I pulled the board out and went to town installing caps. Except for "ming" I'd call the sound good aside from I think the speakers are spanked and need replacement.

All in all a pretty good day. I'll post a video in a bit.

Right at the 14-15 second mark you can hear where it states "Emperor Ming Awaits" and the Ming is garbled.

Its garbled to my wife and I, have heard other Flash Gordons where the "Ming" is clear as a bell.

The majority of them seem to have the 'glitch' there though.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/flash-gordon-wrong-speech

I might play around with the variable resistor as someone mentioned to see if it changes much.

All the socketed chips were pulled, inspected, cleaned and reinstalled aside from the data proms (U2 and U5) which were replaced.

Some speculation that it could be variances in the speech chip or even some degradation of the chip or circuit over time.

Blackout update; almost done touching up backglass, coming out all right.

Went to start the machine this morning, no boot. Displays would just run a series of numbers but oddly would stop if start button was held. Resettled some board connections and it booted up but locked up again not long after. After that is was fine.

Measured the 5V at the MPU at the cap, only getting 4.93V which is a little low in my book with reset at 4.75V Did some checking around, did find the F5 fuse had a little resistance on it and replaced. Played a few games but will do more in depth voltage checks when I get home this afternoon.

Blackout: Doing some voltage checks, looks like the 12V unregulated off the power board is only putting out 9.6 volts, one of the diodes (which looks perfectly fine) is open. Parts on order from Mouser, here Tuesday.

Flash Gordon: Oddly enough, leaving the machine on while I was painting the phrase "Emperor Ming Awaits" notably improved as the machine warmed up, rather curious. The wife states it still sounds off but better than when it started.

Question; When does Ming laugh? So far aside from the self test I have not heard it do so once.

Flash Gordon:

Did a quick board search, Ming laughs when credited up or tilted, both which work.

One thing that was a curious, I swear "Emperor Ming Awaits" played when the 1st ball was first ejected into shooter lane. I'm going to have to watch some videos and compare since it isn't doing it now that I have swapped roms/eproms.

EDIT: Figured that out quick! One of the drop targets doesn't stay up when reset. So when you first press the start button it resets all the targets, the one drops back down which registers as a target hit which preempts Ming speaking as the ball is pushed out into the lane. Holding the target up and the voice works fine.

Blackout:

Ok here is more or less the final result of the backglass touchup. Enjoyed doing it and learned a few more tricks, might pick at it a bit more but for a player I'm happy with it.

Considerable improvement.
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All set now, drop target was not resetting correct and interrupting call out.

When I was first testing the machine I had a wedge holding it up and coincidentally removed the wedge when I re-capped the board.

Thanks for the video! Looks sweet!

Tilt and adding coins. I had not done either yet till I got to that point in testing. Had a bunch of credits on it when picked up.

Blackout-

Tonight compounded the playfield, touched up the area near the saucer, waxed it, placed Mylar on the lower section and shooter lane exit, flattened a plastic that was badly warped, removed the cheesy bolts near the cab door and replaced with something more subtle, did some minor touch up on the cabinet.

Game plays nasty fast now, definitely more difficult with a good cleaning and wax. Just need for the diodes to show up now and I'm done with it.

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Thanks! I already hit the fuse holders with a brass brush and changed the fuse out with new ones. Good tip on the regulator, when the board is back out tomorrow I'll snug up those mounting screws.

Blackout-

I replaced the power board diodes and tightened the regulator screws, this netted me over 10.3 volts feeding the MPU and a solid 5.00 volts on the same connector. Much, much improved. I'd like to see at least 11V at the connector but was running ok at 9.3 or so. Is this an acceptable voltage reading on the unregulated 11-12v line?

Effectively I'm done with Blackout at this point aside from the SBA dollar lens for the coin chute from PBR that will be here in a few days. A minor electrical problem I was chasing turned out to be a missing ground which was a quick fix. Adjusted the flippers.. and were good to go.

Nothing too exciting to wrap up my day. Pulled the solenoid board out of Flash and returned it back to Star Trek. Took the Flash Gordon S.B. and replaced the capacitors and did ground mods to it. Took the negative leg of the upper cap and wrapped it right up to the ground plane trace.
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This turned out to be a missing ground strap to the head, flexing the head would cause it lock up. Found the strap in bottom of cabinet, attached it and problem went away.

Backglass ordered from Marco for Flash Gordon.

Peeled off the mylar good and slow with heat, now to get the adhesive goo off. Had some free time so started stripping the playfield to get an idea how far I'm going to go.. Inserts are all in tough shape. Do I want a decent player or am I building a showpiece?

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Oh that is exactly my plan, the question is how far am I going? Almost all the inserts have heat cracks I assume. I'll have to do an inventory and see what is available for sizes and colors..

The upper playfield is going to be a tough go to make look decent, hope to have it scanned in by next week and decide which direction to go.

That looks great!

Boxes coming in...

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Had a good belly laugh working on Blackout this morning, not only was the wire falling out the 110v plug but wired for the wrong polarity to boot. Always check the other guys work, I failed in following my own mantras. Much less fussy about running when the furnace kicks now.

Installed sunlight white LED's on the playfield GI using Comet 1SMD with clear domes.. A little to overpowering on this playfield, think I'm going to swap them out for warm white retro frosted domes and see how it looks.

Need to wrap up what I'm doing on Robocop and Alien Star and get back on FG, won't get done at this rate.. Stencils on order for FG as is NVRAM for Robocop, Secret Service, Alien Star and Blackout.

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Should be getting back to FG this week, just waiting for lift table to come in so we can move a dozen pins around. Stencils are in for FG, Robocop got NVRAM this weekend and some minor cab touch ups, Blackout finally received the dual fuse upgrade for the bridges so the wiring doesn't catch fire and Lethal Weapon 3 is done being refurbished which was my big time suck the last 2 weeks.

One final repair to Blackout before taking up position in the lineup, the plywood channel was ripped out behind the coin door causing the cabinet bottom to sag. Ripped a piece of wood on the table saw, some trimming work, poly glue and clamps and its good as new.

After cutting up 2 cords of wood, back to Flash Gordon. Work tables are setup to spread the parts out, pulled the head off last night. Think I'm going to start by going over the displays and wiring harness and detailing the light board.

LW3 came out great!

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Work is proceeding.

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I feel like a bum if nothing gets done even after a long day at work. Tonight cleaned all five displays and reflowed the connector pins. Very few with cracks under magnification but they all got done regardless.

New paper shields on order.

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I planned on it when my next order for Mouser goes out, be a few weeks. Not a big hurry as it will be a few months till this is completed though the cabinet should be done by the end of the month. Should be.

Busy day yesterday but still took some time to work on FG. Took the backbox light board outside, sprayed it down with Super Purple and gave it a good scrubbing with a brush followed by a through air drying with leaf blower and parked it on top of the furnace to thoroughly dry out.