Quoted from mkdud:Hello Saviors Club. I have been at work restoring the cabinet for my FG #8396, and I'm finally ready to start putting it together again. I need help and advice on how to proceed. Please help if you can.
My original playfield was changed to a new CPR playfield over 8 years ago. I did not do the changeover. I paid someone to do it; I didn't have a playfield jig or a proper place to do the work. The new playfield has never been tested in the machine yet. It was stored in a dry heated closet in bubble wrap for the past 8+/- years. I wanted to restore the cabinet before putting in the new playfield. Repainting the cabinet was my "stay at home" activity over the past month or so.
I think some of my star rollovers need the clear cleaned out of them; they don't seem to want to go in all the way. What is the best way to clean these out, and should I do it with the playfield out of the cabinet?
Also, the new CPR playfield has never actually been plugged into the cabinet yet. What things should I check before plugging the playfield in? My boards were all fully working 8 years ago when they were stored with the new CPR playfield. I'm nervous about plugging it in.
I also swapped in a CPR playfield. On mine there was quite a bit of clear in the rollover inserts. Honestly that was the most work of the whole swap. Check each one that the star piece goes down completely flush. If they don't the ball will change direction a bit when moving slowly over them. Rather than risk damage, I would snip the star piece bottom nipple off and pull the stars out and get new ones. Use one of them as a test piece, you need at least one as you will be dropping in it and out of each hole 100's of times. They need to drop down fully and not even remotely get stuck, ever. That takes a fair bit of work to achieve. I could only get so much clear out. In the end I scalloped a little off the bottom of the star pieces ribs in around the post to get them all to drop down fully.
As for plugging it all in, I have the playfield out of the machine and right next to the cabinet on a towel on a platform. Start by plugging in the boards and having the cabinet switches connected. This lets you see the displays working, you can add credits, go into test mode. Make sure that all works first. You can start a game and I think FG will make game starting noises.
Then try plugging the switch connectors first on their own. Power up the machine, check all switches, then unplug the switches. Power off, try the lights, power up, check what is happening. Assume lots of adjusting will be required.
Finally, I plug in the solenoid harnesses on their own. Just a brief power up. You can do the solenoid test even without switches or lights. Listen for solenoids that do not fire, listen for odd noises. I turn the game sound down low so I know it has not done something weird but low enough you could hear weird stuff. On my machine, I got a puff of smoke near the upper playfield where a bare GI wire touched a hot solenoid line which was actually something related to my swap. I saw a fuse glow then blow, so make sure the fused are all correct. Assuming that all works out, I add switches and lights back in and the game should be running. There is a possibility of a new failure happening when running everything where in isolation everything worked.
The switches and lights are low risk, very unlikely to hurt something. The solenoids are a bit of a pucker moment but be attentive while doing it.