Hey all. When Covid hit I was told to stay home for almost a month. I had nothing to do, so I dragged my old Williams Flash pinball machine out of my shed where it had been sitting for about 20 years. Long story short it was covered in Mylar (may have been something else) either from the factory or early on. It took me a week to fully peel it all back and the play-field is mint. I've replaced all the displays and power supply. Anyway, I'm in the process of replacing all the switches and I found it's much better to just buy some cheap switches and reuse the old parts, only replacing the contact arms. My machine has at least 90% of the switches installed incorrectly with the switch closing pad to back of rivet vs. pad to pad. I guess this is normal? Anyway, it'll work much better with new switches. I'll post pics when I'm further along. I added a bunch of mods.

Hey all, I'm restoring a Flash and wanted to post a few pics. I just received the new backglass today and it's perfect. Paid $260 off eBay plus $50 to ship. The artwork on this machine is so bad, The faces don't have the eyes centered and she looks like a fat lobster from the chest down. Anyway, in 1979 I was 17 and spent a lot of time on this machine. We'd ditch school and the entire arcade was ours in the afternoon. So far I've rebuilt the pop up bumpers, flippers, and kickers with new coils and parts. I'm also replacing every switch because they were all built wrong, because the contact on one switch hits the back side of the contact on the opposing copper blade. It's really fun going through these switches because someone worked on this machine and they didn't know what they were doing. One horseshoe contact had gobs of solder on it to try and make contact. I rebuilt the drop targets with all new parts including the plastics and then found out about the magnet mod from oldschoolbob so I bought a kit from him. Instead of rebuilding the ones I already rebuilt I think I'll just build a new set off eBay parts. There's a lot of parts the cross between these machines of the same era. I'll be turning it on in a few weeks so I'm sure to have questions. Thanks for all the great info.

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The mylar was lifting up and I didn't expect it to come up easily. I removed everything from the playfield and just grabbed an edge with some pliers and slowly pulled it. It took me a few days working couple hours a day to finish it. One tiny spot on the guy's arm came off and one spot of black, which was easily fixed. It looks new now. I didn't use heat or anything else.

After reading how to clear coat sand and wax the playfield, I opted for an overlay. With an overlay there was no issues with raised areas around the plastic insert pieces. If I ever sell it and a purest wants it waxed, they can remove the overlay and do what they wish.

Curious about opinions on overlays. How does it play vs. a waxed playfield?

That looks awesome! I want it. Is the mod for sale?

Good to know. I haven't turned my machine on yet (waiting till I fix everything), so I won't know the difference. Are you planning on clear coating your new playfield and sanding and polishing, or are you going to reinstall the protector? It's a lot of work to strip the whole thing down, but it's a relaxing kind of work. If I were to do a new playfield I'd probably pay someone to clear coat it.

I finished installing a Inkochnito rectifier board with fuses in my Williams Flash along with a Rottendog power supply PCB. The old bridge rectifiers are screwed into the back side of the cabinet. The existing holes are too low for the transformer to fit under the caps on the Inkochnito PCB, so you have to raise it up so the wires are pulled away from the transformer. I also added some transistor silicon grease to the back side of the new rectifiers, because they use the back steel plate to dissipate heat.

I'll also include the section of the schematic you'll need to wire it in. The colors matched exactly for the wires on the DC output of the rectifiers and on each input AC wires from the secondary of the transformer. Be forewarned this is not a simple plug and play. A miss wire here could be bad and the assembly comes without instructions. If you're smart about it and at least own a voltmeter and know how to use it, it should be simple enough.

Start by figuring out where ground is. Note that I have not turned my machine on yet. I installed new Rottendog displays and power supply PCB (PN - WDP3211A). With the new Rottendog PCB plugged in, it's marked where Ground and +18VDC is. With an ohmmeter, make sure there's continuity between ground and 3P2 pins 6 and 3. Cut the ground wires and strip them. Note the schematic defines Lamp ground and solenoid ground and being separate... they aren't as the grounds are all strapped on the Rottendog power supply PCB. Connect a black ground to each output connector on the Inkochnito PCB. Next verify the +18VDC continuity from the Rottendog PCB 18VDC pins on J2 to the violet wire on the +side of one of the two rectifiers. Cut it off and strip it. Connect it to the outermost +18V connector with a small flat blade screwdriver. At this point you should have a black wire (ground) and a violet wire (+18V) connected to output side of your Inkochnito board.

Next trace the higher DC (schematic says 28V and the Inkochnito is labeled 34V) wires to the two wires red/wht and orange and cut them off and strip them. They should ohm out to the to the Rottendog LL connector red wires. Connect them to the two 34V terminals on the output of the Inkochnito PCB. You should also have a black ground wire on the GND terminal of the solenoid DC connector.

What you should have left are the ac wires for the bridge rectifiers. Cut the blue wires off and strip them. Connect them to the Inkochnito 14VAC outer two terminals. Next cut the two red wires and strip them. Connect them to the two 26VAC terminals on the Inkochnito input.

Drill some new pilot holes for your rectifier screws and screw them down tight. Make sure they're as high as you can put them and still easily clear the Rottendog power supply PCB. Put the cage back over the transformer and make sure the transformer terminals aren't touching it.

************WARNING to all ******************* This post is my opinion. I could very well be wrong about something, so please take this as just how I interpreted this install on my machine. If you read something that's incorrect, please point it out. This is a pretty cool thing to install on a stock machine because it adds fuses to the DC power supply.
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Finally turned my machine on. The left flipper doesn't work and the sound doesn't come on unless I press the button on the sound card, but the lights all work. I really like the blue base pop bumpers with the white LED caps. I tried a clear blue cap and it seemed to be too much.

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Question about blue vs. red in the plastics. I've read when Flash was at its peak the blue plastic bumper pieces were in such demand they had to substitute red ones because they ran out. In the flyers it shows Flash with red drop targets and almost all red plastics. I love the blue personally and it's how mine in set up. Was wondering when blue became a thing?

Below is a eBay link to blue LED's for Flash from Wolffpac. I have 2 Flash machines and started out with the orange Rottendog ones, but at $125 these look awesome and put them in both machines. You have to solder them together, which is easy if you know how to solder.

ebay.com link: itm

Here's a set in Laserball

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These machines are old. All of the switches on most machines are built wrong, in that the pad for one switch hits the screw on the arm of the other switch. Look at the base of the pop bumpers. If they're all chewed up and still work that's a good sign. I bought a machine 2 months ago and while it worked, once I start really cranking out the points it locks up. May have to upgrade the main board? Also, the plastic inserts develop a dip over time with the bulb underneath. It's noticeable and changes the direction of the ball as it's rolling. Not a big deal, but you have to take the inserts out and clear coat them, sand them down and put them back in. Super fun game.

What was the asking price? I paid $1550 for my second one with issues.