Hello. I'm sure there have been other posts about hacks people have found in their games. I guess I could have looked a little closer before I bought this game but I got a good price on it, and I feel confident with early Bally SS.
I saw these two "bodge wires" made out of lite extension cord wire, leading from the left leg of c23 on the solenoid driver board to lower right side of BR2 on the Power transformer board, and another one from TP5 SD board to TP3 of Power Tx board. It seems these are to make up for a shredded molex plug on J20, the plug is literally in 3 pieces- but what are they trying to accomplish with this? The machine was running when I began my investigations.
Other than the two major bodge wires, there is another one I haven't traced yet from the huge transformer to somewhere on the power to board.
I noticed the seller had the game set for extra balls instead of extra games. I don't think I've ever seen that actually set. So when the knocker never went off I didn't think much of it. Of course when I re-attached wires to said knocker it was locked on. Well, at least he didn't burn that coil up. I've replaced Q3 in hopes of fixing the knocker lock-on.
I'll re-pin the wires to J3 plug, and hopefully make that whole again and see if it works without the two bodges to the SD board.
This all seems to surround the 11.9v +/- connections between the Sol Drv and the power board, Shredded J3.
C23 says it's a 20v. This bodge from negative side of C23 to BR2 negative It appears to be for the damaged A2J3 on the power board, this is for the -11.9v unregulated.
The other one- TP3 power board to TP5 SD board is the +11.9 v unreg, again for the damaged A2J3 plug.
Now looking at the pics more closely, I see a combination red, and Orange wires soldered to TP4 on the power regulator board! Orange and red are the colors for pins 10&11 of A2J3 again, the crux of the problem here. Hopefully these are still also attached to J3- but If they aren't there, I guess I know what they did with them.
Anyone see any flaws in my Diagnosis? All this bodge to get around just re-pinning a molex connector. Well, I guess it's better than the solder all the wires to the pins trick. At least this is fairly reversible.
Thanks for listening! Please let me know if I've gotten my wires crossed here- so to speak.
Pics to follow. Please forgive the dodgy photography- I'm about as good as a photographer as this guy was a pinball repair guy!
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