Atlantis
Bally, 1989You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider atari_daze.
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Well kinda, I discovered in an ad here on Pinside
I'm a little disappointed however.
Disappointed that it won't need much work! 
Just wanted to start the thread with some humor, and share the first pic.
I've already scanned the cab and bb to recreate vinyl decals.
Now I'm gonna play it a little bit.
See y'all Monday with more.
Quoted from Inkochnito:Can you see which version your game is?
Sure will, I will let you know.
So while playing Atlantis last night I started to smell the distinct aroma of burning electronics.
I opened the back box and discovered Q62, Q61, Q50 were smoked.
Q49, was cracked open and Q48 and Q47 were in duress.
Today I was going to perform surgery on the board and discovered none of the grounding screws were installed. Only two screws were securing the board to the back box.
Game was playing fine up until the point of noticeable odor.
I then noticed when the game was in attract more some of the flasher bulbs were no longer flashing.
Could a poor ground have led to the failure of the SCR's above?
I've checked all the traces and they are still intact.
I'm trying to trace the logic diagrams to see if those scr's control the flasher but keep finding it a little challenging..
So far I've been able to trace the failed scr's to the their associated 4514, all seem to be common... what signal feeds those ic's that could have caused the failures?
I replaced 6 of them last night, testing this morning found several more I need to replace.
Hope to discover root cause soon.
All the resistors measure within tolerance.
I see on the board that U19 has been replaced in the past along with Q10, 17, 15 and Q39, but those appear to be for the solonoids. So back to the signal that feeds each 4514... grrrr
Andrew, you bring up an interesting point, my LED does not flash at all!
I have a replacement I will drop in this evening, I assume it is bad as the game will boot and play...
I will check the pf for wire damage tonight.
Do you make a replacement board for this system should I want a clean one?
Sooo, J11 has a short somewhere, all scr's associated with that plug have failed.
I've checked the header pins, everything there seems good, no short detected.
Gotta be "south" of the plug.
I shall check it after getting home from work.
Thanks for the link Peter, I had not gone there yet.
Quoted from GRB1959:With your white furry assistant reviewing the electronics schematics you should have this under control in no time
Yea I had to come to work to be able to actually check the schematics without "help"!
Or could it be a bad U10 or U11 sending a bad signal to the 6821s
Guess I'll dig out the logic probe tonight after replacing the other failed SCR's and checking J11 for a short. I suppose I could re-pin this board while I'm troubleshooting...
I do like board work. 
Replaced bad SCRs all is working. I think if there was a short it was prior to my ownership. I noticed there was some extra cabinet work to support the back box, looks like there was a structural failure in this games history. Looks like some cabinet work is in my future for this pin, the extent of which is to be determined. I got one side of the back box art work re-created. Overall I'm satisfied. Hopefully the ownership thread can help me with the color codes etc.
Here are a few images of the items from this post.
What does everyone do to replace these sorry ass light sockets that fall apart just from swapping out light bulbs?
Quoted from dasvis:Replace the socket with standard bayonet type
Thanks @dasvis, I'll be replacing ALL of them in this manner then! I have some left over from Silverball Mania and will buy a few more for this pin.
So here is the right side cab art, now to flip it around and make it for the left side. Again, still not sure about colors but since they are individual layers, easy to adjust.
Quoted from Dagre:Any help that you could give in that regard would be awesome!
Yea it's gameplay is rather captivating to me.
As far as cab art, I'm painstakingly using photo shop and illustrator to clean up the scans for if you were to see the image above at 100%, it needs some help.
It's quite a lot of work but will hopefully be worth it in the end.
Slowly making some progress with Photoshop, retracing EVERY line before converting artwork to illustrator to refine further.
Can you tell which lines I've yet to touch up...
That's just ONE tiny section of the cab art work. I'm just too damn cheap to buy the existing decals, I had some very generous Pinsiders contact me with some, but depending on how much my local print shop wants, I might re-consider!
Not much going on with Atlantis yet. I contacted a local print shop with art work for cab details and they wanted $1000 for a set of decals. Luckily a great pinsider had reached out and offered me a set he had purchased but didn't think he would use so I purchased those from him.
I'm just working on the insert artwork now so I can get to the point of necessity of finally taking the machine apart for work. I just keep playing it though. 
I've placed a few small parts orders for some things while I try to finish solving the two lamp issues on SBM, I need to get it done and sold so my focus has been on it. It's gonna kill me!
I've got some pretty cool plans for Atlantis and brass plating rather than chrome. Should fit the theme better IMO.
So if you are playing the home game... so far parts are
Plastics
Brass spring
flipper rebuild kit
So for now that is it, keep checking back for more updates.
Well look what all arrived for Atlantis today:
-Cab decals
-Brass color T molding and brass acorn nuts (will compliment the brass work that Chris sc93cobra will eventually do)
-A new MPU should future buyer want it
-A few coils and misc parts (ramp supplies)
-And the NVRAM (by @barakandi) delivered to the house
Things are beginning to take shape!
Quoted from Skypilot:buy the metal ones that go under the legs.
These?
Great tip cosmokramer!
I've started disassembly finally. Was having too much fun playing this while parts started to show up. I'm thinking the shaft for the kick out mech is NOT supposed to be loose and leaning as seen in the image. The bottom (I failed to photograph) appears to have 4 dimples, I'm guessing from a punch to deform the flange for a "press fit"? The fix would simply be to redo the dimples?
Quoted from Inkochnito:Do not re-dimple.
Well, guess I can pull this one out of the tumbler then!
Thanks Peter
No real update other than some metric documenting, I'm a numbers person...
211 images taken
1.15 hours today (3/7/2018)
1.75 hours total
Some sample images of various states of disassembly, how to stay organized using the plastic baggies from Digi-Key and pinball part suppliers and my "helper".
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Quoted from Captive_Ball:That's one mishmash set of LEDs that game has installed
Indeed! Fear not Jim, I shall get a much better balance of lighting once done.
More disassembly last night, got the Submarine ramp and all associated items with it removed.
I'm going to add the hours I spent re-creating the cabinet art even though I was lucky enough to get a set of decals, it is still time spent on this project. Further adding to todays numbers the hours spent creating water slide decals.
I ordered some of these caps to possibly hide the screws heads on plastics where acorn nuts obviously don't apply. The others to protect plastics from damage from screw heads. I will dye them to better blend with associated plastics... thoughts?
Might not get too much done this weekend, I'm making some plastics for a fellow Pinsider who needed some for a game he is working on, always willing to help!
324 images taken
12 hours (again, included back time from decal work)
13.75 hours total
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I really debated if I wanted color rubbers on Atlantis, I went clear as it's an underwater theme... seems appropriate.
A little progress finally last night, more removed from top side of PF, replaced the big caps on the boards, printed water slide decals.
Some interesting findings when examining the back of the boards, should I be concerned about the charred looking trace on the power board?
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Quoted from Arcane:You can solder a wire of the same length and glue it against the PCB.
Confirms my thoughts, thank you Yves!
PF has been de-populated, remaining mylar removed via freeze method, mylar adhesive removed via flour & alcohol, entire pf cleaned with alcohol and magic eraser at this rate I should be able to apply first layer of lock down clear this weekend.
Tally:
660 pictures total to date
3.15 hrs between weekend and yesterday
19.05 hrs to date
PF has been moved to the paint booth, ready for give it's initial light sanding to ready the surface for lock down layer of 2PAC.
I've captured via photos the areas that are going to need touch up, most of them will likely just be done with waterslides. For inserts however, since the font on these is pretty simple, I'm going to try using Oracal 813 for stencils and paint these. I like how F-2NIRO did his on MM, and with Atlantis having a couple similar insert effects around the sharks, I think it is the effect that would be best.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/medieval-madness-pf-high-level-restoration#post-3623862
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And the BB is off the cab and the cab has been emptied.
Goal for weekend is remove decals, smooth the cab any maybe get new decals installed. Might be a little lofty as I intend to paint the interior of the cab to.
Hope to have the pf shut with a lock down later of 2pac such that art repairs can begin.
Stay tuned.
Was successful at removing all the cab and bb decals this weekend, did some sanding. Had to fill a few divots in the bb so more sanding will be required.
Made new coil wrappers and affixed those. Was not able to do the lock down layer of 2PAC, my supplier was closed on Friday, I had forgotten for most of the working world Good Friday is a holiday.
Not a banner weekend of progress but progress is progress!
Tally:
823 pictures total to date
3.50 hrs
22.55 hrs to date
Several little updates rolled into one...
Cab and BB sanded and moved to paint, first layers of black laid down - still working to replace the neck with the help of a fellow pinsider or two,
light board sanded to remove skid marks and nice new layer of white applied,
Multiple coil re-builds done (all coils getting replaced),
started work on artwork for areas of PF that need touch up
repaired the up kicker hole
removed lingering lettering from inserts (https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-ultimate-playfield-restoration/page/113#post-4329580)
started repair on the sub mounting base
last but far from least, first lock down layer of clear applied.
Tally:
952 pictures total to date
5 hrs
27.55 hrs to date
Thanks for playing the home game!
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Quoted from Skypilot:what material are you using for your wrappers and how are you cutting them?
I found some multi color card stock at Walmart, the wrapper files had printed lines as cutting guide so I just cut with scissors.
I did them over a weekend and didn't want to wait for work to use a paper cutter.
Latest update: Got some stencils cut last week, alas they were the wrong scale - start over.
While waiting for new stencils to cut, I began color matching various sections of PF that need touch up.
Repaired and rebuilt the sub mounting base.
Finally got first color shot onto PF!
>>Started to rebuild flippers, and realized I failed to take but TWO before pics, any one can help me with re-wiring them?<<
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/oops-bally-atlantis-flipper-pics-needed
Got a few more parts in from suppliers, checking out various pop bump skirt colors.
Updated tally:
1047 pictures total to date
8 hrs
35.55 hrs to date
See ya soon
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Alright, got another section of blue shot last night along with painting the launch hole repair. I try to expose only a little of the stencil to allow precise placement. See the image where I've split the stencil backing in two and then spaced them so a narrow section is open. Once stencil is in place, affix the exposed bit, hinge the other sections and smooth down onto pf. This method prevents having to pull off stencil for relocation and yield to possible clear & paint lifting. Always remember when removing stencil after paint, apply the 180 degree rule, DO NOT PULL STRAIGHT UP, basically fold it back on itself and remove.
Still in need of some flipper wiring assistance:
>>Started to rebuild flippers, and realized I failed to take but TWO before pics, any one can help me with re-wiring them?<<
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/oops-bally-atlantis-flipper-pics-needed
Updated tally:
1059 pictures total to date
1.5 hrs
37.05 hrs to date
Thanks for tuning in!!
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Quoted from g94:airbrush skills have improved
Thanks, practice makes perfect, as you witnessed, lots of practice came on SBM
Quoted from g94:What cutter are you using
Cameo ver 2, the one with touch LCD
With Oracal 813 material and their brand transfer tape.
I had run out of transfer tape over the weekend, my local art supply store had the cricut brand, boy it was WAY to tacky!
Luckily I learned that before I stuck it to the playfield.
Just another short update from weekend:
Touched up another blue section of pf and worked on the center of the sharks, last night did the black in the lower section of PF. There were a few spots I missed but they are under star posts so I did not choose to worry about them. In between layers of black I finished rebuilding the flippers with help from vid1900 and @djblouw.
Updated tally:
1100 pictures total to date
3 hrs
40.05 hrs to date
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One more little update. Game is at the phase where it just doesn't look like much is going on, but it is...
My new neck arrived from @cosmokramer, it was primed and ready to paint! What a help this was.
I applied all the water slide decals onto the inserts, x2. Meaning just like on the SBM, each insert received TWO decals.
Successfully cut and stenciled the CAUTION notice for the back box. While working on the paint for the arches, got the BB decals applied.
And in typical Atari_Daze fashion, after all that, took a little step backwards in not allowing my lock down layer of clear to fully cure ontop of the inserts and while sanding, lost a little section of repair under the ramp. What's more, as I had forgotten to touch up the arches, while painting them, well in removing the mask, I got carried away and lifted some of the art from the inserts around the hole. DOH.
But, nothing that cannot be corrected with just a little time. So all is not lost, one must persevere.
So tally:
1150 pictures total to date
4 hrs
44.05 hrs to date
Thanks for watching!!
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Quoted from g94:That's a much better alternative to screen printing
I'm not sure about that LOL, took the ole' cameo about 15 minutes to cut, took me about 20 minutes to weed, then paint, then remove the stencil. I'd bet I have an hour in it. But thank you, I'm happy with the result, closely matches the original.
Happy to share my art file with anyone who would like!
Quoted from Skypilot:silver paint andtouch up that bally symbol
Ah, I would not have thought of that, Thanks!
Quoted from Colsond3:But if you were going to powder the wireforms blue like Skypilot, I would go with the blue skirts.
My wireforms are going to be brass plated. I felt that look would go well with the theme of the pin.
Lockbar and rails also brass. Give it the look of an old diving bell.
Quoted from DS_Nadine:what Fuse is supposed to be put in there
Mine is a 15A.
Quoted from Colsond3:Almost there!
Dude, I'm so stoked. I mean it worked the first time! NO fuse blows etc.
Quoted from Colsond3:Man, when you work on a game even to this level you really get it done.
I just want to make 'em better than when I got 'em. I've got a Laser Ball in queue after Atlantis, most would say why, I say why NOT!
Thanks for your comments.
Hey, thanks guys. Feels damn good, this one took far less time than SBM but also didn't get torn all the way down either.
So the big question American Pickers / Pawn Stats style, ... so what's it worth?
Better than the archived values at least?
Oh I'm sorry to leave abruptly, I was playing pinball!
Just need to fine tune the sub lift ramp and the thumper bumpers and this one will be done!
HFS this game is fast, ball rockets out the shooter lane and it dont slow down.
Video will follow soon.
Thanks for watching.
20180627_200534 (resized).jpgYes Jim, it is better in person (check your mail soon for invite) , and DAMN it's a fast game! I've got the back feet all the way out, may lower 'em a bit.
As mentioned, video soon and some final as built images once it's fine tuned.
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FYI this one will be headed to the PS marketplace soon!
Quoted from Pinball_Nate:Progress report bump.....?.
Well since you asked, I literally just played the first game with NO issues!
I had been dealing with a couple switches that needed adjustment, one of which was the submarine multiball launch. Pop bumps could use a little more adjustment but all in all im happy! It plays sweet.
20180630_183757 (resized).jpgQuoted from Arcane:I love the lights and the atmosphere of the upper playfield
For that I owe thanks to @DS_Nadine, he posted pics in the Atlantis owner forum.
So my list of BIG thanks on this build goes to:
@DS_Nadine, lighting input
ryanwanger and Comet LEDs,
barakandl and his NVRAM,
TaylorVA for the fabulous Reese Rails he did for me,
cosmokramer for the replacement neck he manufactured,
ibuypinballs for having a NOS 6803 board he wanted to sell,
Inkochnito for Atlantis score cards and misc game decals,
CaptainNeo for assistance with the PF Fonts and some PF scans,
spiroagnew for selling me the replacement Cab decals,
sc93cobra for the fantastic brass plated wireforms, side rails, lock bar and shooter rod.
terryb and
Quench for troubleshooting assistance on the boards
mrm_4 for helping me get a matched set of legs.
Xerico for selling and delivering this Atlantis to me.
vid1900 for his PF restore thread.
any likely others that I can't recall at the moment.
This build is now complete and pending a listing in the marketplace. $3299 for this imamculate specimen? It's not Baywatch but I will supply LEGS. ..
Quoted from mrm_4:And where’d you get those legs?
And thanks to mrm_4 for being a stand up Pinsider!
I knew I was forgetting someone.
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