Oh, and just to throw out the level of confidence my wife has in me:
I came downstairs for a break before plugging PinBot in. I told her I just took a minute to come down, but was going to go back and plug it in and see what happened. She looked at me and asked if I came down to say goodbye before electrocuting myself or burning down the house...!

Great morning. Coin door repainted, reassembled, and reinstalled.

Cat assistance provided of course.

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And back to the playfield. For those of you who haven't tackled this before, wiring harness installation is intimidating at first. You have this mass of wires and somehow they are supposed to go back to where they came from.
First picture is the pile of wiring.
There are actually two harnesses together, one for just the switches, and one for lamps and solenoids. If you're careful you can separate them. Second picture shows the switch harness separated.

And, again, all done under cat supervision.

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Switch harness laid in place. Mostly secured.
I will say that I am really disappointed with the dimpling on the CPR playfield. The dimples provided are mostly misaligned. I'd probably say 15% of them are correct. It's proven a lot easier to lay the old playfield next to the new and manually lay out where things need to be. Unfortunately it's taking a lot more time since I now need to lay out every switch, pre-drill holes, then install as opposed to just laying out and installing.

That said, this is where previous planning comes into play. Seeing labels for switches and having pictures of how the wiring was run through the loops is priceless.

Just really disappointed on this. The Mirco playfield I did in my AFM was 95% dimpled and every one was correct. For $750 it should be correct, but at this point I'm past any ability to exchange it, so I move forward.

That said, taking a break to go run an errand and have a nice dinner with the wife. More work tonight!

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I didn't. The coin door was 100% flat when I got it, and a few others also seem to be that way, so I left that in place. I've done the hammered look on newer ones, but this one just flat.

Pretty much finished the switch harness. Few little things left.
Threw the drop target assembly into the ultrasonic, dried it off, reinstalled it.

Tomorrow, time permitting, second harness going on!

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I just ordered like 25' from pinrestore. I think I still have at least half left over. I think probably 6' would be enough if I didn't mess up and did it exactly as originally, but it's so cheap, safer to get more than not enough!

Still around, just haven't had any free time. Since last weekend I've picked up Taxi and Funhouse and appearantly managed to put a deposit down on a MB. And I need to get AFM prepped to go to its new home this weekend. So busy few days at the gecko's house.
Hopefully tomorrow I get some time. Hoping to have a bit of time in the next few days to get the bottom of the playfield buttoned up.

Trust me, the cat will reappear again!

My cat will so win...she knows the game inside and out! Literally.

So had a little time between last evening and lack of sleep last night. I moved Attack from Mars out so I now have a bit of room which is nice.

That said, I started to put in the coils. The only ones that went in without any problem were the pops. Guess those were easy since there were nails pounded from the topside of the playfield! The others...well, the few dimples present just were off.

I had to resort to tracing from the old playfield. What a pain in the neck! I will try to get some pictures later of how I need to do it, but suffice it to say that doing this on a partially populated playfield is ugly.

My big lesson learned....take old playfield, lay out tracing paper and trace the entire playfield's dimples. Transfer onto new playfield before anything else. This is going to take up hours...

Still hopeful to get this mostly done today.

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Quick update. Yesterday was largely taken up with construction, and I only had a little bit of time before the crew showed up today.

Just about done on the bottom end with the exception of soldering the coils back and the target bank and flippers. Target bank probably won't go back in until the playfield is installed. Little backwards, but it makes it a lot lighter to move.

Tonight if I have time I will rebuild the flippers.
I pretty much finished up the upper part of the bottom of the playfield. I started it, realized nothing lined up in the CPR playfield so I had to take paper and trace the holes in the old playfield. So two steps backwards, but at least now it's all lined up. I just need to run in the rest of the screws. In a strange act of intelligence, I only secured most of the components with one screw until I knew how they would line up so I could shuffle them as needed.

And yes, I could have done better with stencil material, but you work with what you've got

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It's really disappointing. I was going to say something, but at the point I realized, I was too far into it. I can't exactly send it back.
Honestly really nervous about how everything is going to line up on the top side. Wiring is a little more forgiving if it's off a bit here or there, but if ramps don't line up it's going to be a nightmare!

Guess I could ping CPR and see?

As far as the dimpling, I did touch base with CPR and they were responsive. Basically they pointed me to their site that pretty much says dimpling it best effort. They were a bit surprised that mine was actually missing most of the dimples, so so be it. It's done.

Busy night last night. Little bit of time, and I was determined to get something done, so I figured it was flipper time!

Old and nasty plus bag of new parts has gotta equal something!

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Amazing how much wear these things get. I've seen worse, but still amazing how metal can wear down.
Nasty nasty stuff!
EOS switch was pretty crispy too!

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In the end, cleaned up, rebuilt, and reinstalled!

Now all I've got left is soldering the coils back and installing LEDs...then onto the topside!

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Almost forgot my furry assistant. She got a hold of a rubber from somewhere and made sure I was protected from it by batting it across the floor for 45 minutes.

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I don't know...I still am not convinced I know what I'm doing yet!

Had some more progress last night. It's tough with the hours I work. Free time during the week is slim to none, but a little baggie or two showed up....

And a little helper under my playfield.

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Led to a very nice outcome.

Last time I saw lights in this backbox was when I picked the machine up. It had incandescent bulbs, half of which were blown so this is an awesome sight for me!

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Also started to reconnect the coils. Got a bunch done, but still a lot more to go.
Hopefully some more time tonight...coils will go in, then I can put in the rest of the LEDs, then away we go!

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Figured it was time to do the LEDs, but I'm doing them the way I want to. Using mostly cool retro and just mini's from cointaker for everything else. I don't want to do super bright or ablaze or anything that's blinding. This is a dark-ish game so I feel like having tiny spotlights everywhere is not what I'm after.

Also not going with LED flashers. Strong personal preference there.

Tonight...more fun! I don't see it happening, but I'd love to get enough time to get the coils soldered and get this puppy back in its home!

Ted...not at the moment.

So put some time in. Worked through most of the LEDs. All of the coils are soldered. Connected most of the leftover switches.
Still need to solder in the GI leads. Just not tonight...had to spend some time with Paragon. And family too

Safe trip Ted....!

Few updates today...
Pop bumpers back together. Quick session in the ultrasonic and they are good to go!

Finished pulling the old nasty bulbs, all LEDs now down under!

And, finally, lots of little cleanup on the bottom. Soldered in the GI, installed the last few switches, popped in most of the T-nuts.

Reinstalled the diode in the coin door as well, so now my controls are working 100%.

Later today I'm going to flip the playfield and do some things on the top. Excited about that....I've spent enough time staring at the bottom side of this thing!

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Funny how these things go. Just waiting for the family to get ready to head out. Took a few minutes and cleaned up the visor/target bank brackets. OK, just a few quick connections. OK, just a few screws. OK, just another few minutes.

OK, all mounted.

Took a few steps back. Did all of the T-nuts this morning. All the GI is wired. Coils soldered. Bulbs changed. I'll be darned...I'm done on the bottom!

I was planning to do most of the final details on the bottom after I got the playfield back in the machine because it was going to be a big mental hurdle to get to that point, but now I don't have to.

Tonight I'm going to flip this bad boy over, do some stuff on the top end, and put it back in its new home!

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