Space Invaders
Bally, 1980After doing some work on my machine, the game is randomly adding 1000 point scores. Happens consistently across players 1-4.
My first thought was there was a 1000pt switch that was getting triggered by vibration, but they all checked out.
There also appears to be some issues with the controlled lamps - specials lit at the top of ball 1, very erratic. Occasionally it can be reset and starts normally, but that is the exception.
Any ideas on where to start would be helpful..
Played a bunch last night and the 1000pt thing seems to have gone away, but the controlled lamp issues persist.
Game plays and scores correctly, but lamps do not follow gameplay at all. Really hoping this isn't a board issue..
Quoted from cody_chunn:Possibly a connector issue. Reseat the connectors on the lamp board and MPU.
Thank you. Completely solved after that.
Can someone explain to me why this worked?
On these older Bally games, the connectors became tarnished and make weak or bad connection. Re-seating them tends to clean some of the tarnish and allows a good enough connection...usually a temp fix. I see a re- pinning in your future.
I would recommend reheating all the header pins. It is really simple mad takes not time at all. Over time the solder holding the pin into the hole and onto the circuit board actually cracks leaving the connections with a sort of short circuit. Re-seating connectors can sometime solve the problem but doesn't fix anything. Just take a soldering iron and heat up each little pin on the back of the board til the solder is liquid. You might need to add a TINY bit more solder to get a good flow. Thus has solved TONS of screwy inconsistent problems. The other problem is exactly what Cody and wolf said, the connectors can get tarnished or sometimes they are just crappy connectors.
Reflowing the solder on my headers solved 1/2 my problems, later replacing the headers and connectors fixed the other 1/2 of them.
Did the header pins first.
image-274.jpg
Just transfer one wire at a time to make it easy.
image-427.jpg
I also added a remote battery while I was in the soldering spirit.
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Rutland, VT
