Ok, hold on to yer hats folks, or drop your linen and start your grinning, because Bublehead has joined the club at TPF. Wife saw a SP with a brand new color DMD (installed brand new at the beginning of the show) for what she wanted to spend for an almost working all the way (you know spits balls, flips, drains, flashes lights, makes sounds, plays music, scores points) pin that had a trough switch harness problem. Well I troubleshot the harness within 5 minutes of owning the machine and I got him to knock off $150 bucks for the trouble. Now the big questions start to come around, like availability of cabinet decals, NOS playfields or recreactions, wire harnesses, title specific parts and things like scats and manuals, and plastics sets, and sticker sets, and missing figures, cool mods, non original figures “I need Towelie!!”

Don’t answer right away, though, I will read the thread cover to cover and post again any questions, however if you got recomendations, I am all eyes...

The Color DMD is a $400 upgrade, and on that poor SP, it needed all the love it could get...

Secret to no one else nabbing it? Mr Hanky. He was missing in the toilet tank. Surprise Surprise I asked to see the inerds and he had a NOS Hanky laying in the coin box, plus cliffys he never installed.

Has anyone replaced the bell wire in their machines? Was it worth it, and did you ever get or feel any feelings of regret, suicide, or self harm after starting your project? I fear the ongoing war with wire breaks, but I fear a rewire too.

The trough wiring harness issue is one reason why I would replace the bell wire. Once bell wire insulation cracks, the solid core wire will break from vibration. If the insulation is still pliable, no problems, but with age, 22 gauge bell wire sucks.

This is my boat too. Wife said “restore the cabinet” and I said, um, well honey... ok, let me see what I can find... so I am on the prowl for decals, sticker sheets and plastic sets. Is anyone making licensed reproductions? I think I saw plastics on a supplier site.

She wanted one NIB 20 years ago, so now I have got to make the dream come true... as best I can.

Most likely, I will end up redrawing the cabinet art and have it reproduced. I would then offer the images to anyone to use and have repros made. That bypasses copyright issues, because they cannot prevent you from recreating something you already legally own, for archive/restoration purposes. But if I had test prints just laying around, they might accidentally get shipped to a SP owner who needed them. I am all about helping owners stay owners, incuding myself.

Has anyone CC’d their pf, or is it worth it, and has anyone seen a NOS pf in the wild? Did factory mylar come standard on all playfields? My pf is not great, but not bad either. The colors seem a little “off” due to age. Chipped wood here and there. At least everything was working mostly, as far as coils, 100%, flashers and lamps? Crap shoot. I think 50% may light up?. Poor thing has been rode hard, but it has a new, friendly ole Geppetto to breath some new life into this wooden boy, and someday, he might actually become real again.

The SP I bought does not have stranded wire, at least it felt like 22 gauge solid core bell wire and looks nothing like the wire in pictures from other machines in this thread. It is thinner and really stiff, with cracked insulation all over the place. It should get here from TPF soon and I will take some pics and post them as I sort the trough switches out. This may be a custom rewire of the trough switches and an added connector to facilitate removing the whole trough mech. It was a birds nest but not unrepairable.

Ok, officially in the club now... here are some “unboxing” pics...

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I was hoping they sent me a Batman Premium, but I had to settle for a South Park...

Ok, set up... havent gone through the guts yet...

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Ok, SP is back up and running. Fixed his trough opto board power supply connector pin which had either broke loose due to vibration, or a cold solder joint that finally failed, or if corrosion due to improper removal of flux residue, or bimetal corrosion due to trimming the lead after soldering the joint caused the failure, but that is all the modes of failure for this, and there are ways to prevent them all, just not at pinball margins during manufacture.

But, SP is up!

Ok, lamp matrix is not working, not blowing the fuse either... the plot thickens.

Ok, a bit embarrasing, but I can not find my meter anywhere. How does one troubleshoot without a meter!?!? I can’t even quickly check the fuse, the voltage, for shorts or opens, Coke vs. Pepsi, up vs. down.

Looks like I might have to fashion a diode/lamp/jumper test lead and do this the old fashioned way.

Looking for any interest from South Park owners who might like a new Toilet for their machines. If I 3D model one and put it up on Shapeways, would anyone else buy one? Pretty sure it would be prohibitively expensive, but might be better than the $299 price tag from the only place online that had one in stock. That being said, I bought that $299 dollar NOS toilet (yeah, but what else are you going to do when your original is already broke dick?) just so I have an original to go in my machine,but I am not stupid either. If I can get one made out of 3D printed SLS Nylon, I can re-engineer the model to be stronger and thicker in all the right places, and even possibly engineer the handle to “flush” when a ball passes through the toilet bowl, using nothing but weight of the ball to provide mechanical force/motion.

Anybody else need a toilet without a broken bowl? Maybe one that “flushes” the handle?

First off, excelent work on the model. Looks like a top notch reproduction. A few questions, if you don’t mind answering them, for the folks at home...

What software did you use to model it? I use Solidworks myself, but I am a veteran, so I can get the educational version cheap.

What material did you use to print yours? Did you do any surface finishing on it?, paint?

What 3D printing method did you use, and did you print it yourself or use Shapeways, etc...?

And as an update to my previous post, the Toilet I found online at CoinopPartsEtc was found to be broken, so they offered to epoxy and reenforce it and knock $25 bucks off of their already ridiculous $299 price. I counter offered $120 and told them for $299 dollars, you expect it to be pristine, because I have a broken one thats already been epoxied and reenforced already in my machine... and it cost me nothing. I don’t think they will take me up on that offer but you never know.

I couldn’t either without the Veterans educational discount, it is literally only $20 bucks (in the past few years) and it creates STL files that I can slice and print without limitations. I already know how to use Solidworks from my engineering job I had working at Grimes Aerospace and designing aircraft lights for Boeing. Organic shapes suck, but most of them can be approximated using swept profiles, it just takes a few minutes to determine in what plane or what axis, what orientation, what path, what plane that path is on, wether it is it coplaner, or non coplanar, etc... areodynamic shapes were usually given to us by Boeing, but they were usually just meshes from their CATIA system that ended up being hand jammed by us into Solidworks by extracting the needed coordinates in the meshes and use those values to build a mesh in Solidworks, or if it was easier to interperet their design intention, we would remodel using standard features that closely (which means within manufacturing tolerances) approximate the shape. This toilet will be easy to begin with but as the final features emerge, the cuts and extrusions get kind of crazy, but you have to keep in mind your printer only has so much resolution and some features can be disregarded due to being smaller than you can print, see, or be able to compare directly to the original, or in the words of my father, just “Good enough for Government work”.

Ok I replaced the backbox LED’s that the former owner had installed, they were too blue for the wife’s tastes, so I went back to a single T8 24” LED replacement tube and the original mounting sockets, so now the machine looks stock again with a new translite. Only got to replace the shooter lane switch, the flipper button switches, and the shooter kicker coil which has one side of the coil wire just dangling in space, the terminal completely melted off, so the coil wire is just soldered to the coil diode and coil driver line and then bent so it touches nothing... So yeah, replacing the coil. After that, a complete cleaning, relamping with all LED’s, replacing all broken sockets, replacing all the characters and their mounting springs, and finally, get a new toilet (or get it printed) and replace the broken one. Then get all new cabinet decals printed and I will be finished. I am going to redo the cabinet art to match the backglass artwork, i.e. more textured paper looking artwork like the original show, not the crappy original cabinet artwork.

Have you washed your coin mechs lately? Mild soap and water, dry thouroughly. Huge difference. Just think of all those sticky, wet fisted kids jamming every coin shaped piece of crap they can find through them, and now you know why they can be dunked and dried out!

Anyone ever replaced their toilet lid plunger bushing? This looks like an oilite pressed in bushing on the lid solenoid weldement. Mine is WTFO and the plunger looks worn too, my lid is sticking open, and closed, depending. Is this bushing a standard size? Anyone know what to replace it with, it is not listed as a seperate part in the diagram/manual, and god knows what plunger might work to replace this one, it is not in stock anywhere, as one might expect. To clarify, this is on the black lid solenoid, not the white tank lid/Mr Hankey mech.

Ok, well today marks the last repair on South Park until I swap out the playfield. I have fixed and repaired all switches, solenoids, burnt out silicon, converted the backbox flourescent to LED, replaced the translite, replaced all burnt or broken coils, replaced the worn out flipper switches, but it still needs a flipper rebuild and bushings, but that happens during the swap. I have replacements for all South Park figures, and replaced all of the old and new figure’s mounting wires with new springs. I have two Kenny’s if I need to replace one, and I found all four boys in 6” size to mount on top along with the warning sign, not just a Cartman. I have my NOS playfield now and need a NOS plastics set, hopefully I can find a complete set from someone hoarding a set back. The sets on Ebay are incomplete and overpriced. I didnt mind paying $$$ for my playfield, those are the backbone of the machine, but incomplete plastics sets for more than $250 to $300 is outrageous and they are going to sit on ebay for some time...

I will have a used one that is in decent shape, no real lost wood with the exception of the spooky insert has a chipped wood edge that left a small divot and shows bare wood. There are a couple of places the factory mylar is coming up, but no lost artwork, the Kenny hole and Cartman hole are worn but not chipped up real bad. I found a guy on here with a NOS one, so when I get the playfield swap done, I will have the used one left over. I guess Southpark NOS playfields are rare.

Ok, I will save you some major head ache on flipper switches....

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/500-6889-01

This is the switch you need for flipper cabinet switch replacement. It’s for digital flippers, which SP has.

Oh, forgot the cabinet switch too...

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/A-16883-4

One tip for those who have got their Kenny optos working... drop a small drop of epoxy on the base of the led between the clear LED envelope and the board. This prevents the led from vibrating and breaking the leads and stabilizes the solder joint so it cracks less. Notice I said cracks LESS, not stops it from cracking. Also, once the LED is epoxied to the board, direct ball strikes will not knock it out of alignment. When replacing the LED, just dyke the old envelope off the front and sand away the old epoxy with a dremmel. Works 100% like factory after the repair, stays fixed longer than just reflowing solder joints, and requires no added opto protectors. But hey, what do I know about pinball?!?

Yes, if the PIA is shot, this.could cause the symptom, however, I would think you would have more issues on other switches. So most likely I would venture a cracked solder joint on the output pin to switch wiring harness. Reflow solder and recheck.

Would you go $40 for both? What I am really in the market for, however, is cabinet decals that are more color matched to the original artwork... I’ve heard tell the ones available right now suck... so I haven’t even considered buying them.

What? Someone gets a Grand for putting cabinet decals on cabinets?!? Does this include complete cabinet prep, painting, sanding, and application? It better. I put decals on my AFM cabinet, took all of about two hours but I had already sanded and painted the cabinet black. Me and my wife did it together, nearly cost me my marriage, but we got it done.

I think it all depends on the quality you expect afterward. I sanded the cabinet, primered it with grey, shot it with rattlecan black semi gloss. Took all of a couple of hours. The cabinet looks fantastic, just don’t look at it from oblique angles. I did NOT fill in any gouges, or make sure is was smooth as a baby ass, so the underlying imperfections do show up if you look for them, but hey, it looks good from 2 feet away, and I’m not selling it before I die, so win/win in my book.

I tell folks, you need to aim the opts, get it working well, then stabilize the leds on both receiver and transmitter boards by putting some 5 minute epoxy underneath the base of the leds and the boards... goo it on there so there is no gap between the base and the board, let it cure. Problem solved. The opto leds get hit by the ball, the led bends over a little bit, The base wedges against the board thus putting huge stretching force on the leads of the led. This will cause them to eventually fail. By stabilizing (bonding) the leds to the board with epoxy, there is no rocking and wedging to pull on the leads, the solder joint is protected, the leads are protected. There was one guy who 3D printed LED protector shields to prevent ball strikes, but coming from the aircraft lighting industry, this fix worked for Leds that were getting hammered due to the same force, except it was vibrational input (actual mass of the LED being flung back and forth) causing the failures.

Doing what you said is not required, there is a switch in the subway that backs up the opto already, so not sure why you would need to go to the trouble of adding boards and switches, but you could do it if you feel the need. I was having the exact problem you are having, but since the epoxy, no failures. Good luck.

Look for dipping in p/s voltages...put a scope or meter on 5v and wait for the reset, look to see if power dips or not. Try all your voltages... that’s were I would start.

Yes, this, but I don’t know if the software compensates for the opto failing like a Williams machine might. Seems to me B/W had a patent on that, so not sure. But my machine, when I first got it, needed all kinds of love, the Kenny opto included, along with trough switches. But when playing it, prior to fixing the opto, you could kill Kenny. So what he said, check with a ball.

Adjust the LEDs and aim them before epoxying them. I left mine in the machine after aiming and glued them as they sat. I pondered removing the boards to do it, but was afraid I might nudge them out of alignment in the process, so glued while in place seemed to work. I let the 5 minute start to thicken up so as not have it run all over, but still cling and stick and flow under the LED. This is more art than science, but I have a LONG history of using 5 minute epoxy in RC aircraft.

Hope, mostly...

Wait for ball search, they shake Kenny during that... I have seen a few added plastic hacks to try and stop it, but usually it’s worn links in the Kenny mech limiting travel that causes balls to stay stuck. Rebuilding Kenny mech with new links and springs and sleeves can help with this. I have also seen missing Kenny plastics cause ball hangs as well.

Actually, the center post is not to make it easier on poor players, but make it harder for experienced players. The center post prevents bang backs off the left apron wall when the ball drains out the right outlane. and vice versa on left outlane, however left outlane bang backs are way harder. Once you get a wizard playing your machines on site, an operator's only defense was tightening the tilt and installing the center post to bring average ball times back down. I have seen several wizards (including my friend Rick Stetta) play all day banging the ball back into play, and some of them do it so effortlessly that it can make an operator weep.

They are needed, otherwise the ball hops into the outlanes after falling from upper ramp on left or being popped from Cartman VUK into right inlane.

Anyone know of a good source of SP playfield plastics? I know I have been looking for some time, but the Kenny plastic eludes me. Anyone have high res scans?

Ok, due to lack of availability of playfield plastics, I am looking to recreate the entire set. What I don’t have are great copies of the plastics to start from. The set that came on my SP are a bit faded and several are broken with missing artwork. What I am proposing is we create a HD photo archive of all of the playfield plastics and make it available to owners so we can recreate them as they break going forward. Does anyone have in their closet a set of NOS, “haven’t seen the light of day” plastics or have in their possession high quality digital scans of the plastics that could be used as the start of this project, I am willing to pay for the cost of having high quality scans of the artwork taken from pristine copies and will gladly pay for SD memory cards for all owners looking to get a copy of the artwork for their machines if scans are currently available. Now if anyone has any inroads on the original playfield artwork (silk screen negatives) or has access to it, I am all ears. Lacking that, if left with recreating the artwork, I know I can actually do that as well, but being a lazy programmer at heart, the path of least resistance is always our goto in times of need. I figure one of us SP pinheads has got to have a NOS set squirreled alway somewhere.

Just finished doing a playfield swap on my SP with my nephew… Thanks again Trent. We only had a couple of issues to track down afterwards and ended up only blowing one flasher fuse which we think was due to a couple of diode terminal boards we missed getting screwed down and one flipper pf fuse. I still have Mr Hankeys left hand lamp to track down, but I think that is a punch down issue on the lamp holder I replaced. Put in a full set of LEDs and flashers, new rubbers… thing looks 1000% better. New translite. Working 90%. The remaining 10% is when I get my Mr Hankey installed after his welded carrier bracket comes from Marco. Went to install the figurine and determined part of my carrier was missing. Previous owner didn’t mention that, but did blow the $90 bucks on the figurine so I’ll cut him some slack

Ok, I ordered a set, let’s see if they can deliver… now if I could just get a replacement ramp return my restoration will be nearly complete once I do the cabinet refinish/decal. Got to paint it and sand it first.

They have the around Kenny plastic by itself in stock as well, I bought an extra of that too.

Ok, complete plastics set just arrived from Marco in the post. So this is actually happening people. Get a set while in stock.

They are complete, pretty and beautiful. It comes with all the keychain fobs too… they look great. And yes installing the ones that are broken in my machine.

They look like NOS but they are remanufactured, they are laser cut, at least that’s what it looks like with burned protective coating edges.
Not sure of the printing process but they feel screened because you can feel the layers, but how it was applied?!?

Ramps are more unobtainium than anything else save maybe a Mr Hanky figure with arms or NOS playfield. Good luck fellow brethren.

Put me down for both left and right and a toilet. Mine all are still working, but barely. Hazed, star cracks around all mounting holes, ready to fail if you look at it wrong. Toilet throat is a memory.

I’ve asked Larry at Starship Fantasies if he was interested and he said only if the molds could be located, else you are paying for him to make a fixture/mold which requires access to a machine to do test fits and provide an original set of ramps to copy. Not undoable but expensive.

I heard the color difference occurred because they had to reorder during production and the supplier had run out of one color and offered it up in another and they ran with it, or something like that, then a different color when the repair part order eventually went in, and a different color when Stern took over because they switched suppliers? Heard the story at expo years ago? Not sure of the accuracy.

Mine had the CDMD added free by the factory rep at TPF for nothing but the free advertising sign they ask to hang up with it, and the owner sells me the whole machine at his cost, free cdmd included? Sold!!!!

Check high voltage? Seems if coil didn’t change, the only thing that increases power is higher source. Unless there is a current limiting resistor in the circuit, you really can’t increase the current flow without a change in source voltage or circuit resistance, I.e. shorted turns or a shorted current limiter, which is highly unlikely. So shorted turns in coil or high voltage high is my two guesses, and a meter will tell the rest of the story.

Like $35 less than the normal scalper rate of $100

I got my SP at TPF in 2018 and the ColorDMD guys were picking non-upgraded pins that were for sale off the floor and offering no charge upgrades to the owners to let them install one in the game and put a ColorDMD sign on the head. Now some guys upped their asking price, but the ones looking to move their machines didn't and I picked up one up that needed a little love but how can you go wrong at $2500 with a CDMD? Kenny needed help in the opto dept and there was a chunk of wood missing around the spooky vision insert, but electrically it needed flipper switches and some lamp sockets replaced, a new set of LED's and rubbers, I put in a new translite I already had from winning a prize at a tournament, and now I have cabinet decals and blades to install post playfield swap and wire and mount the 4 boys as toppers like the guy above did, except not using Chef but a second Kenny up top to match the BG. It will look sweet and pretty once I am done. If I could just get a ramp and left return to replace my elderly cracked and broken ones. They work, but oh the embarassment and humiliation and heartbreak of cracked and broken plastics and ramps.