Edit: Title has been adjusted to reflect that this particular project is not only the refurbishment of a Seawitch playfield but also the building of a universal Bally/Stern cabinet that will run any Bally or Stern standard playfield from 1977 to 1986. Pretty much any MPU-100, MPU-200, -17 or -35 game that is supported by Alltek or Weebly MPU's. In the future I'll also be dabbling with the Arduino Nano add on for rules changes and upgraded sound effects.

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This thread is documenting a Seawitch being built with nothing to start with but a $60 wall-hanger playfield purchased by random chance while leaving Allentown (in the parking lot no less) and a backglass obtained at the same time. No classic Stern pin was sacrificed in the collecting of parts by me to make this pin a reality but surely when I'm done there are those who wish I had! I'll freely admit to looking but there is nothing trashed out there worth my time for sale.

My stash of parts collected over the years is going to take a beating.

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While formulating a plan I started on the playfield. A number of holes needed to be filled, areas touched up, etc.

The paint wear isn't hard to fix but ball swirl is pretty nasty. I even went as far as to start sanding down the factory coating with 800 grit before stopping. Currently I'm waiting for additional clear to arrive so I can fill in a few inserts, do some water slide decals, blending, paint the white ares, clearcoat and block flat.

Some difference in colors in the pictures is normal, its not done and clear coat will equalize the sheen differences.

The red 2X text on the left is getting water slide as is the bonus ladder text.

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Parts start showing up! CPR plastics, some used drop target assemblies, Pinitech displays and a superb set of steel guides from Mantis.

Spring gate on the way from Cliffy!

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What will be undoubtedly the most controversial item on this project... I'm using a Data East Laser War cabinet to house it. The cabinet came with a Secret Service I had purchased that the former owner was going to swap. The Secret Service cabinet was actually very repairable so the Laser War cabinet went up into the storage rack.. till last week.

It was total surprise to find out that the Seawitch glass fit PERFECT in the Laser War head. I added a channel in the bottom to retain the glass and away we go.

And so the die was cast.
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So last night my wife helped me disassemble a spare Last Action Hero harness that was left over from a playfield swap and I started making a harness from scratch for Seawitch. The Stern wiring diagrams are horrible! I'm actually maintaining factory color codes and use as documented in the manual and it might be the only Seawitch to have all the right colors "as documented"

The harness is being scratch made 100%, all to factory code. Its also being done in such a way that should the opportunity presents it self in the future the playfield can be swapped into an actual Stern cabinet and just plug right in.

Some notes from resident Bally/Stern guru:

1) the coin door/cabinet wiring is that Stern shifted all their switches onto strobe #0 - no strobe #1 running into the cabinet/door.

2) The second (memory clear) switch on the coin door just replicates SW33 from the MPU board so you can zero audits without opening up the backbox.

3) The volume control is a 25k logarithmic pot - different to Bally and it's not connected in series with the speaker like Bally.

4) displays, the 7th (millions) digit enable signal is on different pins at the display connector comparing Bally (pin 12) vs Stern (pin 11). The Pinitech displays should handle both.

I take great amusement know a fair portion of this Seawitch is actually using Stern parts.. although from a different era Stern machine (Data East)

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So for the rest of this build..

MPU and SB-300 sound board are from Weebly, have a spare Stern solenoid and lamp driver boards that I had refurbished months ago for spares and the displays are Pinitech 7 digit single PCB. For the moment I'm borrowing the transformer and A2 power board from Flash Gordon and will swap it out when a suitable replacement comes across my path. FG is being bogged down with playfield work and there is still much to do in other areas before the transformer is required back.

Proper Stern spec volume control is already on the way from Ebay.

For the cabinet a DE new coin door, DE shooter assembly and other odds and ends are in route from Pinball Life and Marco.

Playfield mechs are going to be a mix of the Stern and Bally drop mechs you already have seen, Last Action Hero lower flipper mechs and sling kickers with Stern coils and new upper Stern flipper mechs from Pinball Life. Poppers are drop in units also from Pinball Life with proper Stern classic coils.

The missing wire lane guides are going to be made from stainless wire, already had practice on Flash Gordon making them from scratch.

The missing carriage bolts for various posts on the playfield are being replaced with t-nuts and threaded shoulder posts.

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The only apron I have to work with, going to repaint and stencil with Stern graphics.

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I'm aiming to have this beast at Pintastic this fall, if all goes well I'll have a rattlecan paint job on it and might even do some wood trim work on the head to make it look even more like a classic Stern.

Been flirting with buying a Cameo vinyl cutter to make my own stencils for cab and playfield work, this might be the project that pushes me over the edge.

Actually might be using a Bally unit as that is what is available.

Current legs of a Bally too!

Good thing.

I have a Bally Supersonic at work watching nervously, good thing it is in too nice a condition to molest and I have such an extra pile of parts to work with. The residents love it!

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1) I already own the 2 flipper mechs, I'd run 4 DE flipper mechs if I had them.

2) Already ordered the 2 correct Stern coils and double stack high current EOS switches.

The DE mechs already have EOS switches and mounts, trivial problem swapping coils and switches.

Let's talk backglass.

Flakey but I have touched up much, much worse. Currently on the back burner while banging away on wiring. Depending on how it comes out I might seek a new one out, I'm funny about backglasses.

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Last Action Hero coughs up a few more needed parts. Going to use the diode stand offs to mount the upper flipper resistors.

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A Bally receiver and lockbar look viable, I'll know for sure once the DE coin door arrives and check clearances.

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While waiting for some colored wire to arrive, moved over to rebuilding the GI circuit. No smoke yet! Should have GI done tomorrow.

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The Bally lockbar receiver isn't bad but I see why DE went with their own design as the release lever pivot bolt head is REALLY close to the radius of the door bezel. Matter of fact with the original door that is used on Laser War it would have crashed into for sure.

The later door I have on order don't have the squared off bezel so looks doable.

The benefit and curse of running two projects is when you get bogged down on one just shift to the other to keep momentum going. If I had a week off from work I could smoke this out rapidly just being held up on parts.

Everything is connected and has a snowball effect.

I was going to do waterslide decals on Gordon inserts but want to make stencils and paint them ideally.. Now that I'm doing Seawitch I want to make my own stencils for that so makes more sense to buy a Cameo Silhouette 4 for the cabinet and apron work. So Gordon most likely will get painted rather than waterslide insert keylines which will look nicer in my opinion.

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Thanks! James is good people. So far I have found most of the references I need on the board but will be asking for close ups on a few spots that I'm unsure of the color codes and locations.

I had given that some thought, now that you bring it up I think that is what I'll do.

Playfield GI done but the center socket! I missed that while making runs, easy fix.

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To be frank, Seawitch is the only classic Stern I have enjoyed playing at the shows. There isn't a lot there but it makes the most of it with unique layout and twitch fest action. I'm not a big fan of games with more than two flippers either so curious how long it holds my attention.

One facet of this project which I have not mentioned is I have an eye towards making this a universal Bally/Stern cabinet where playfields can be swapped out in minutes. The hardest part would be sound, though I might just add a dual pole switch to swap the speaker and volume control from Stern to Bally with a flip.

Parts raining in today! Sound board with cables from Weebly and a bunch of smaller parts and coils from Marco.

While working giving paint some thought. My initial thought was do a modified Seawitch stencil but currently leaning towards "Generic Stern" as utilized on Viper and Orbitor One in Seawitch colors.

Thoughts?

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Well if I was a purist it would not be in a Data East cab

I could go either way, I'm just thinking of the swappable nature of what I'm building and it would look funny with a Meteor or Galaxy playfield and a Seawitch cabinet.

I'm considering IDC style .156 connectors for the major assemblies and then using a patch cable to swap pin assignments.

Decided that is how I'm going to install the drop assemblies so that they can just be unplugged and removed with ease. I certainly have enough molex and z connectors about along with Trifurcon .156 contacts.

I'm open to suggestions. I did consider a Stern/Bally logo which would confuse the hell out of people.

Something like the Bally Midway cabs came to mind.

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I do like a good cabinet job though, give it more thought as we move closer to completion.

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Ding Ding Ding!

That where my head is after looking things over.

Parts raining from sky today!

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How rude, no diodes. I would have caught it when wiring but still. Thanks!

Work is tight in spots!

Dick move on Sterns part, they start recycling color codes! Upper spinner lamp and stand up lamp both yellow/green!

Can someone confirm double loop value (2× loop value on playfield) are hooked to each other, blue/white to A5J1-23? Thanks!

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A few people have mentioned using this product for filling inserts, thought I'd give it a try.

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Thank you sir!

On that I don't know, I do know one or two people have done or tried doing complete playfields with the stuff. I'm more interested in just filling divots and insert edges. Manufacture states can be sanded in 24 hours and can be covered by auto clear or put over auto clear. I have no problem drawing some from a quart and using a dropper to fill. Very easy and controllable, more than Spraymax 2K is when doing fills.

I'm at work today for the hurricane so the work station and printer goes brrrrr.

Here you go, half assed cover for Seawitch manual.

Just used MS paint or whatever is on this workstation, maybe I'll do something nicer when I'm home and have access to Photoshop.

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Appreciate the offer but the downloadable copy works fine for me! I was just dinking around while at work. Quiet while the storm rolls in.

As of this morning this had set nicely, still not fully cured yet. I could fingerprint the surface with ease and it would
"fade out" in a minute or two. See what it is like tonight. Did not note any shrinking.

These should be on the way soon.

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Slightly less hacky manual cover.

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Update on the Diamond clear: Still pretty soft, so much so I used a razor blade to dig an imperfection out of one of the inserts with ease and refilled with new product. Would recommend letting what you are filling to set at least a few days, the manufactures statement of 24 hours might be optimistic under best conditions.

For reference, the lamp wiring from the back edge of the playfield to lamp board connector is 64 inches. I came up with this number to work with after measuring the Mr. and Mrs. Pac-man harness that will be used in Flash Gordon and after test fitting in cabinet looks good. You might be able to go a little bit shorter but might be pushing your luck when standing the playfield upright.

The last of the parts I need will be on the way!

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Shout out to board member Brian3120 whom I have purchased several parts from, great service!

Checked the clear I dipped into an insert a day and half ago, seems to solidified nicely. I don't think it is 100% yet but thats fine as I don't plan to sand it flat till I'm done with the bulk of the playfield wiring.

Bally.

I'm really hating Stern right now.

Not only do the wiring diagram have stuff missing but no 2 machine agree on color codes!

Colors in print not matching bits on playfield sockets and sometimes not matching pinwiki either.

I'm working through it. Have the four spinner lamps and 3 lamps for center drops and I can start pinning connector.

Flipping blue with white tracer used three times! Must have been on sale.

Controlled lamps are complete.

I'll start pinning the connectors tomorrow so I can plug into Fireball for a light show but they have all been tested with a battery.

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Last of the parts is on the way!

Something I'm working on for the next poor schmuck.

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If someone could be so kind to eyeball this to see if there is any errors so far, I'll work on it again at break time.

Runaway Special is the only one I'm unsure about.

Gary

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That was you? I would have chatted longer, though we were already pressed for time.

My wife is a trooper and most of the work is getting done when she is either at work or sleeping. I'm a VERY early riser and will amble off to the workshop while she is still out cold. This morning I started separating lamp runs into connectors J1/J2/J3 so I can start stripping and crimping. That when I had the idea it would be so nice to have a lamp chart and started banging away on that.

Is that particular insert Runway Special?

Thank you! Think I'm starting to get the hang of the MS paint tool.

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I'm already working on reducing clutter on the print, work in progress!

Yes there is several items for the backbox noted, which I'll expand on when I'm done going over the playfield.

Version 5

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I'm just goofing off at work.

Thought I'd make this up for a reference to double check my work tonight and share.

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Using my handy chart I found four errors to my chagrin and in process of repairing with correct color codes.

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Ball trough parts are Stern, receiver and brackets are Bally.

Let's get to it! I want to see this lit up by an MPU tonight.

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Well I got one connector done. Time consuming as I am toning every single wire before it is crimped after verifying color code and location.

All three of the lamp control lines are going to be individually bundled. When the connectors are completed the three will be bundled together. Just easier to diag in the future should some problem arise. Just cut the main tie wraps holding them together and *poof* you have three seperate bundles again.

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Only a few pins on J1 this morning, woke up at a normal hour unfortunately! Counting the hours at work till I can bail out. Can't wait to see this puppy light off when plugged in.

Thursday I have off and the last of the packages will be in, going to be a busy day.

After the lighting checks out, the next step is the coil harness which should be a snap. Power and control of the coils will have its own harness and the tie wraps will be a unique color to identify such harness. As with the main lighting harness it will be attached to "the mains" with large tie wraps which can be removed to separate the light/switch/coil harnesses for troubleshooting.

It just makes sense from a service point of view.

Might never been needed but at a cost for a buck or two of extra tie wraps why not do it anyways?

Forgot to mention: Current plan for the cabinet is to paint a nice semi-gloss black and then decal and paint as necessary. At a minimum it will be painted and be ready as a blank canvas for Pintastic. I'm even going to call up a buddy who gets his van wrapped and look into wrapping the cabinet as an option.

We got a heartbeat! ONE LIGHT out.

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And the light out is a bad driver on the driver board.

The Pinball Resource gets in on the parts action too.

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Replaced the bad lamp driver, removed some excess solder on the socket and loaded the Weebly mpu.

I'd say it looks like a success! Now back to work on the playfield. Once it is cleared I'll go back to work on the wiring while its curing.

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<chuckle>

I'll post a pic in a minute.

I'm not proud on this project, if a few sockets needed a little help they got it. Spent a small fortune on all new sockets for Flash Gordon.

Connectors have key pins in place and labeled of course.

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Fireball Classic has been pressed into service as a test rig and workbench. Sound board and solenoid outputs disconnected to be safe as is the switch matrices. The displays don't read correct since Stern and Bally 7 digit output are slightly different but that is not an immediate concern as I'm just working the lights at the moment. By the time I get to displays, the other cabinet will be up and running.

Power is obtained from a jumper wire clipped onto the backbox controlled lamp string. With both pins fully led the load is negligible.

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It changes too, not like some Bally's of this vintage. Most notably the upper blue lamps change patterns a few times in attract mode..

Dremel with an abrasive flapper takes the coating off in seconds, sticks great after that.

Playfield scan of right side- Coworker is going to vectorize and use it to waterslide repair the left side so it looks nice.

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Solder tabs, I used them on Flash Gordon.
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Nice chart! Might have sped things up slightly but not significantly. The biggest time suck was the learning process, by the time I got to the third connector I had streamlined the process considerably and moving right along. Doing this little side project will help me immensely when I get to the wiring stage for Flash Gordon.

Just having a playfield "map" with the wire locations and color codes for quick reference I think helped the most.

Curious, looking over the Pinitech display instruction and there is no notation about differences between Stern and Bally 7 digit displays. I was assuming there was a jumper but don't see one. The 7 digit displays on Fireball are not displaying correctly when the Seawitch MPU is onboard so I guess I'll find out once I assemble a display what is going on.

The LED boards might be pre-jumpered so a non-issue I think.

That is the conclusion I came too after looking up interchange of displays.

If the weather cooperates and work not too unpleasant going open up the pop bumper holes tonight for for the DE/Stern poppers and prep for clearcoat.

Oh and I sanded down the diamond coat in the one insert, tough stuff! At one point I was actually blading it down with a single edge razor and finished off with 800 grit.

Once the first coat of clear is laid I'll be able to hit the rest of the wiring while its curing.

Yes I saw that in the instructions.

Forgot to mention, hat tip to @cliffy! The spring gate for the shooter lane is on its way and in considerably less time then quoted.

Stripped the mylar off the popper area, unfortunately there was drama on one of them and paint touch up was required.

Whites done, lock down coat in progress.

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Table saw goes brrrrrr.

Little stuff bothers me sometimes. No one but I would see that mangled piece at the back of the playfield.. but easy to fix.

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Switch matrix on deck!

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Started roughing out the switch matrix wiring on the playfield, PITA without switches in place. Might just switch over to doing the cabinet wiring for now as I feel like I'm wasting time that could be better utilized. I also have some drop target banks that need modification too.

Stripped the Data East hardware out and did some paint work.

Fresh tin work installed.

Boards mounted. Placement makes sense if you think about for a bit. Can't mount the soundboard on the side, not enough room.

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Thank you, things are coming along nicely.

Now if the post office can get of their duff and find the priority package that was suppose to be Thursday..

August 27, 2021
In Transit, Arriving Late
Your package will arrive later than expected, but is still on its way. It is currently in transit to the next facility.

Priority mail once meant something, now its just more expensive first class.

Package was shipped 7 days ago, last time from same Pinsider was here in 2 days flat.

Low energy after a hard Monday at work but here is tonight's shenanigans.

I wasn't done with the Stern 3 bank just yet as I did not like the return spring mounting. Bally had also used the method but had changed it to a separate spring bar on later units. Flipping through several Stern restorations I see that Stern did something similar and in a fairly clever way.

Stern took a hollow tube and held it in place with one screw of the coil bracket and a new screw on the other side. Well I can do the same thing! Picked up some 7/32" aluminum tube at the local hardware store and some 8/32" x 3" machine screws. The tube was cut down till it was just a snug fit in the housing and the machine screws cut down so they meet in the middle but not touching. After that I added the wiring to the switches and coil and added a molex connector and contacts. The wiring order is "coil hot - switch one - switch two - switch three - switch return - coil ground" so if I have a senior moment and flip the connector at worse the switch matrix is still isolated from the coil power.

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On the Bally four bank unit I decided to make a guide out of aluminum angle. If the steel guides don't wear out the drop targets then the drop targets are certainly not going to wear out an aluminum guide! Some scrap around the garage happened to fit perfect on top of the mounting tabs and after some careful work with a nibbler and file good fitment and operation was achieved.

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1) They work well.
2) Convenient for servicing.
3) I have a pile of them.

Package update! Missing package will be here today along with package from Cliffy.

The Z-Connectors you can get from Pinball Life, the Molex .156 from Ed at Great Plains.

https://www.pinballlife.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=MWWS156-1624&Category_Code=

The Z connectors comes in different sizes or you just get the largest and cut off what you need.

https://www.greatplainselectronics.com/categories.asp?cat=37

https://www.greatplainselectronics.com/products.asp?cat=86

Now we're cooking!

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Drop target #2 ready.

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1) They work well.
2) Convenient for servicing.
3) I have a pile of them.

Technically they are Molex, just different style and I have plenty of Trifurcon contacts.

The Z connector itself is just a gender changer so you can hook two female Molex connectors together, very common on Data East.

Well it doesn't make any sense to order up ANOTHER type of Molex connector and contacts when you already have plenty of these on hand and they are known to work very well on Data East pins for target and assembly hookup. I keep contacts and 9 pin on hand for doing GI repairs on DE titles. For the hell of it I ordered a bunch of different sizes a year or two ago to have on hand and then ended up with a bunch of 6 pin for a project I was dabbling in for a bit.

These are very common connectors and used on all brands.

Always looking for a neater and faster way of doing things, I ended up clearencing the other four bank Bally drop with a hole saw. Looks neat and clears the lamps with room to spare. Drop target assemblies done!

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