Hey Docs!

Last night i was playing my dr. dude and hit the ball into the ray. Once the ball ejected the GI lights on the players left all went out including the lowest pop bumpers lights. everything else appears to be normal. Can someone help me where to look? all the fuses seemed normal and if i removed the GI light plug from the interconnect board all the lights went out, so it must be down stream of that?

Side note: I have been trying to chase down a few other issues including intermident activation of the two vertical ejectors (may be a switch issue) and the top right pop bumper scores and sounds but doesnt pop.

I know you said the fuse seemed normal but first thing is to pull the fuse for the GIs and test them separate from the game. It is not always obvious and of course the easiest fix. I personally had a lot of issue with the GI sockets shorting. It is really easy to do as they swivel. The eject solonoid may have moved something. However, I would expect this to blow a fuse.

If the fuses are all right I would scan the area around the upper left looking for loose wires.

Then it is time to start checking voltages...

However, someone more experienced than me may have a better idea. I start simple and move up.

I recognise that filthy eye!... all my star posts were clear by the way... is clear standard? I wasn't planning to remove the mylar, but gave in to temptation on the end... very pleased with the result!! That layer of glue just after the mylar comes off is quite shiny before the dirt gets to it! So happy the insert artwork stayed where it was!!

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So my game had this stuff on the mixmaster wires when I got it. It looked pretty good (to me) to I kept it on there since the originals weren't that great.

I have a ton leftover. It fits OVER the original coils, It is not stiff enough to replace the originals. Would anyone want some? I have enough to probably do 5 sets or so. Probably not everyone's cup of tea, just tossing it out there. No charge.

Chris
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That was a whole $1. @ the dollar store.

Which is why it's free

LOL

Chris

I bet it's the interconnect board. anything toasty?

https://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Williams_System_9_-_11#Games_From_Taxi_to_Bugs_Bunny.27s_Birthday_Ball

After removing the mylar, which was obviously applied when the game was new, I'm now wondering if I should be clearcoating the playfield or just waxing it... obviously the former will add a massive chunk of work in preparing for the clearcoat... and I'm wondering if its worth the effort... anyone have any advice? It seems like the original paint is quite resilient with only small wear areas outside the mylar at high traffic zones... here are some pics... note the customised ball stop behind the right VUK There is also some yellowing outside where the mylar was near the flippers! Not sure if I can get rid of that... magic eraser perhaps...

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I would touch up and clear it but it is a lot of work. I did mine (worse shape than yours) and it came out in the end. I wouldn't clear it unless you touched it up well. You don't want to bury any defects under the clear. Also I wouldn't consider anything other than 2 Part Automative. I messed up mine up initially just using acrylic clear. The 2PACC takes some work but looks great when done. You need to be very careful about safety though.

For me depopulating was a lot of work too so once you have it stripped you might want to just do the whole thing.

I would note that to my knowledge there is no place to buy new playfields or hardtops. Dr. Dude just doesn't seem to be popular enough. So you need to take care of the one you got.

One challenge on Dr. Dude is that a lot of the art is in the "Pop Art" style with a bunch of dots and it is hard to touch up. The simplest way to do it is to repaint the entire area in one solid color. It is not obvious to the player but is not original. I "faked" it in some areas and it looks okay (great from a distance) but you can tell close up.

Otherwise wax and play.

Here is my before and after around Molecular Million where I "faked" the pattern.

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However, here you can see it as a whole playfield and it look pretty good.

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You can see how everything is a solid color without the dots but you would only know if you were comparing directly against an original.

I looked at the photos before I read your text, and until I read that it was 'faked' I really didn't notice! If I did go the clearcoat route I'd touch up all the bad areas first... it looks excellent of course, and I'm torn... when preparing it for clearing my imagination is that all the holes in the playfield have to be plugged so that the clear doesn't go through and mess up the switches and bulb holders behind them, or did you strip the pf to bear wood before clearing and just let the clear get everywhere? I've never clearcoated before. Personally I imagine stripping the front of the playfield is child's play compared to prepping for clearing...

That 3rd photo appeared between me starting to write my message and then sending it... I can see in that last photo that you stripped it totally...

Yeah I stripped it totally. Some people just strip the top and then mask the holes but it is tricky and handling the playfield with all the stuff on the back is a pain. However if you fully strip it you don't need to mask anything. The clear doesn't really mess up the holes and you can easily re-drill any small holes.

You can see my labeling of the wire harness in the back.

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Actually, I just noticed that is Taxi but you get the idea.

If you are interested I layed out the whole process and lesson-learned here:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/dr-dude-first-time-restoration#post-6092450

a

Definitely very interesting to read!! I haven't read the whole thing yet, but got to the point shortly after the initial clearcoat disaster... I felt your pain... I think I would have thrown the playfield on the trash at that point and stripped the cab and head for parts and put it down to experience... well done for persevering!! You certainly came though with shining lights, literally! Interesting that you de-soldered the wiring harness... I've decided to go the whole hog and strip the playfield down to the wood for application of a 2PACC, but my intension was to not de-solder anything, just to unscrew everything from the back of the playfield while it's lying down on the floor, then move all the wiring across with everything attached and just leave it there on the floor and move it all back into position when the playfield's done... I've got enough floor space in the basement for this. Some mechanisms would come apart in this process, like the slings and Big Shot, so those bits would go in a bucket. Certainly not got such a good workshop set up as you though, that's awesome!! Thanks for the inspiration and motivation!!

My method is to put Molex connectors on all mechanicals prior to removing the harness. (I stole that idea from HEP)
It takes time up front, but over the life of the machine the easy removal of mechanicals for servicing is worth it to me.

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You can see why I recommended the 2PACC. I think the key is the order of operations, this is what I would recommend:

1. Clean the Playfield
2. Remove and replace worn inserts (make sure they are flush)
3. Light coat of clear (this is critical to avoid any chemical reactions and have a consistent surface for painting and decals)
4. Touch up paint
5. New decals
6. Final coat/s of clear
7. Sand and polish

Also, you are right, you should de-solder as little a possible. On my second one I only disconnected the heavy mechs (i.e. coils) but kept all the lighting sockets and switches on the harness. I did a lot of labeling and it went back together really easy. I like the idea of connectors for future ease of repair but resoldering once you get used to it is easy.

The simple method I used was to put masking tape on the coil before soldering and give it a number (PB 1 for Pop Bumper 1) and then label each wire connection with a 1 or 2. Then label the wires as they come off as PB 1 - 1. Then you know exactly where they should go.

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I would also recommend labeling where the wire harness clips location and orientation so you can remember the overall routing. I put a label on the playfield like this:

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And I also put a label on the wire harness and put a wire tie to mark the location.

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It takes time up front but goes back together really easy.

Thanks for the additional tips! I've not started tearing the stuff off the rear yet, so I'll be implementing your advice!

Feel free to ask me any questions here or you can PM me. You should read through VID's playfield info as well but I found it a little overwhelming (there is a lot) and your situation will always be a little different.

Be very careful with the clear coat, it is super toxic. You need to make a booth and get good full body PPE. I made a booth in my garage.

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I was thinking of taking the playfield to a car body repair shop and get them to apply the 2PACC... not sure of the practicality of that though, need to investigate... using local businesses for something they don't normally do is a bit challenging for me because I don't speak the local language, so it adds a complication... I might get lucky and find a shop where at least one guy speaks English, otherwise I'd have to go there with a local buddy, which is doable, but in COVID times, not so easy!

I'm looking for the attached plastics, in un-damaged form... I believe I could by a complete set from Coin Taker, but with import tax, it would cost about $200... so just wondering if anyone out there has these as spares to sell...

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Yeah I thought seriously about doing the same but you will have to make at least two trips. One for the initial layer and one after you paint and decal.

I don't know the laws of the Czech Rep. but it might be illegal to buy 2PACC as a individual.

Unfortunately I only read your chronology list after I've already done some touching up... so I appear to have already got things in the wrong order... but I'm a bit confused about the criticality of that order... if I clear first, then touch up, then clear a 2nd time, that 2nd coat of clear will come into direct contact with the touch up paint, and any chemical reactions that might happen will happen then... so what's the difference between touching up onto the wood and clearing over that compared to touching up onto clear and clearing over that?

That is not the end of the world but there are two problems that I ran into. The first is that the original surface (even after you clean it) has wax and other contaminates on it. These can react with the clear coat and cause problems like "fish eyes". Also, sometimes people wax their playfield with stuff that has silicone in it (minwax for example). This also reacts badly with the clear coat. I believe this is what happened on mine with the acrylic clear. So you want to do a thin base layer of clear first so you can touch up any issues and not have to worry about it from then on.

The second issue I had was that my paint kept coming off on my frisket. The frisket is low-tack but it can still pull up old paint. So you are trying to fix one area and you pull up the frisket and have created an issue somewhere else. This quickly becomes counter-productive. If you get that first layer of clear down it locks the old paint in place.

However if you have done some touch-up it should be fine but I wouldn't do all of them and then hope the clear coat works. The worst case is you do everything and then take it to a shop and they cover it and there are fish-eyes everywhere and you have to start again.

supermoot

I'll check out the interconnect board when i finish with work. i did give it a quick one over after it happened, is there anything inparticular i should look for? take off the whole board?

killerrobots if the GI fuse was blown, wouldnt both sides of the GI lights go out?

I think there are two fuses. Mine went out only on the left.

I would hope that the body shop would be aware of this possible issue and would do a thin layer first... afterall, if I gave it to them to do the first layer, then take it back to do touch-ups, then this first layer would be susceptible to 'fish eyes' (Inthink it's what we call 'orange peel') anyway, so I don't see how taking it back to do touch-up on top of it would eliminate the problem...

I can see the benefit in sealing in the original later so you can apply 'frisket' though, this makes 100% sense... but in my case my touch-up areas are pretty small, so I'm not using the frisket method, just using my (not too great) hand... see attached... I hate doing those thin black lines, and can see how carefully cut frisket could help here, but I'm too lazy!

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I don't want to come across as some all-knowing expert, I am not. I have done two playfields and one was a bit of a disaster. However I did do a Dr. Dude which likely has the same paint, age, substrate as your machine and I had issues. My impression is the first light coat of clear is an insurance policy against future issues. But I see your logic and maybe you will be fine. There is ton of stuff on Pinside about clearcoating (in some ways, too much) but you should read through Vids guide. It seems to be the "bible". Also you might check out this video by Cary Hardy and see some of the issues he had:

Ultimately it is up to you, it will probably be fine to do one last coat but you should know there might be some risks that there are issues.

Here is something you don't see everyday.
The Doctor is in surgery !
I went the NOS playfield (Diamond Plate) route for my restore.

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Just curious but where did you find a NOS playfield. I couldn't find one when I looked.

I stubbled across that online from a guy in Michigan.

I was gonna say - how the hell do you find that?! Good score there!

Chris

Not sure that these are any better than what you already have but let me know if you want them.

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Thanks for your continuing support and advice, I appreciate it. Sorry if I came across as doubting what you said, I just like to understand what I'm doing and why I'm doing it, so I question stuff if I'm not sure it's relevant to the way I'm doing things, and in this case, so far, because I'm not using the frisket method, then making two trips to the body shop is probably not necessary because it seems like touching up first is fine, the guy just has to do a thin layer first to prevent 'fish eye'... so where do I find 'Vids guide'? I'd like to read that!

Thanks again!

PM sent.

PM replied to

Here you go. You will need to skip past a bunch of tangents. Just read the stuff he writes and ignore the comments.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-ultimate-playfield-restoration

Thanks! Wow, that's some reading! Nicely sectioned up too! Looking forwards to delving into it!

Wiring loom detached with only one desoldered solenoid... the out-hole kicker. I went the lazy route!20210130_210934 (resized).jpg

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Looking good, you are committed now.

Yep, I'm committed! Will probably go the car body shop route, but will give him a spare playfield first to test on!

All attached on the back side today except the Mix Master.
Notice everything that could not go in the wash has a Molex connector.
I tested putting one mech assembly in the wash, but I did not like the results. (I did the others by hand)
All sealed switches have Molex and did not go in wash.
I am more bashful than some about putting everything in the wash.

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Wow! Is that a regular dish washer, or something more special?

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/cleaning-playfield-harnesses-vids-guide#post-3179351
Vid1900 shows the way....
Bud

Interesting read... my wife doesn't work though and pretty much never leaves the house while I'm still in it, so this method is out for me... if she sees me even enter the kitchen with the filthy wiring harness in my hands, I can't imagine the world of pain I will enter!

Check to see if it’s installed backwards. My pool sharks was like this