Have you tried using fiberglass resin instead of epoxy? It gets *super* hard, will allow a screw thread to bite in much more securely than the relatively squishy epoxy.

That said, I am going to be doing a playfield swap on an XFiles soon, I can ask the owner if he wants to part with the old one (I'm guessing he'd be fine with that).

Does anybody have playfield scans of the always-burned-through magnet area? I have a NOS playfield from Marco, and I am planning to shoot extra clear before doing the playfield swap. The playfield already had that big metal plate glued down and you can't clear over that, so, predictably, when I removed the plate, in spite of my best efforts some of the paint came with it.

Would be great to be able to make a waterslide decal repair if possible. If not, I guess we'll stick the plate back down...

I'm tearing down an XFiles in prep for a playfield swap, and the wiring of the optos for the magnet is a mess. Can somebody give me an assist on wiring this back up correctly?

There's a WH/VIO and a WH/VIO/BL wire just hanging there off the rear left-hand side of the sensor. There's a pair of RED wires soldered to a PINK wire and a GRN wire soldered to two BLK wires. Pink and Green are from the front right-hand sensor. Meanwhile, there is a red and black pair of wires on a connector opposite them. Interestingly, the magnet fuse was removed from the board, but when I fired up the game to see what was and was not working, the magnet did work in test and at least partially worked in game play. But obviously the sensors aren't working as intended.

Pics would be great if someone can post them. Thanks!

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I am doing a playfield swap currently. The new playfield was damaged where the metal plate over the magnet was removed, but I will scan the whole thing once the waterslide decal repair is finished.

So I have mostly completed my X-files playfield swap, just a couple small bugs to work out, and will post photos soon. But, for any of you who may be inclined to do a playfield restoration, I thought I would upload this photoshop image of the magnet area. It's a long-ish story, but I was transferring everything over from an old damaged playfield to a NOS playfield which became damaged with the removal of the metal plate over the magnet. I scanned both play fields and had a friend composite the two images into a single clean image, which I was then able to print out as a waterslide decal. The result is very nice; I had to put down a partial decal first, to better cover the bare wood (since waterslide decals are translucent), then a second decal over the whole area. The file I'm uploading is adjusted to try and keep the whites as clear as possible; your playfield may be slightly different and may need some tweaking, which you can do in photoshop. I did a bit of trial and error but it was maybe the second or third try where it came out looking good. Not too difficult to dial in.

So, first, here is the decal image if you want to do this repair on your game:

Decalv.2P-SHOP2-12 (resized).jpg

For further edification, here is a pictorial history of the process - original damag d playfield, NOS damaged playfield, partial waterslide, second full waterslide, finished playfield being repopulated. Of course, I covered the repair with mylar as part of this process!
X-Files 2 (resized).jpegX-Files 1 (resized).jpeg29F68072-718B-4E6B-957B-2D90D5CFC373 (resized).jpeg91B9FC2D-F4A6-4AA1-B33D-6A4A799CFA53 (resized).jpegC53A9E12-7923-43FB-A4A9-C4C436525F74 (resized).jpeg

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The worst design flaw in Xfiles is the wood-thread posts in this high impact area. Due to the opto bracket located under this area, they weirdly got lazy on a critical detail. The solution is simple: countersink some T-nuts and replace the wood thread posts with machine threads.
Since this is a new playfield I took the added precaution of locating the posts further in from the edge. You can see in my first pic in the previous entry that the old posts had been ripped out from ball strikes, and someone had relocated them, inviting the same trouble again.
If your playfield is similarly mangled, I would recommend rebuilding the area with fiberglass resin, then re-drilling in a bit and countersinking the t-nuts.

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The switch arm is a very bad design in that VUK; basically there isn't enough of it to get reliably fully depressed so that it engages the switch. The switch arm that is on there is the sort that ends in a little half-loop; my solution was to unbend it and create an L shape, so that the short leg of the L points up, through the metal ring that the ball sits in. You have to get this *just right*, though - if you make the long leg too long, the plunger with scrape the switch arm and eventually break it off. I just did a full restoration on this game and it is in an arcade now, where it is working reliably.

Let me know if that helps or if there's anything I should clarify. Good luck!

That looks like the subway switch. The one causing the problem is part of the metal bracket coming down off the bottom of the playfield. There is a ring that the ball sits in, possibly slightly bent from wear; the switch arm is rounded, not angled, and protrudes up through the ring - unless it has broken off, which is definitely a possibility. The original one on the game I worked on had to be replaced.

I’ve been going someone would write new code for this game ever since I restored one back in 2019. Love the shots and the overall mood of the machine, but that damned Sega “everyone gets a Multiball” really diminishes all of their machines, IMO. XFiles is one of the best designed games of the era, it deserves a fully engaging rule set!

Look for tear out around those wood-threaded posts in front of the cabinet toy. It’s a really bad design; once that area starts to go there isn’t much that can be done. Those posts are way too close to the edges of the plywood.
If the posts are torn out, the best option I can think of is to drill out and fill the holes with dowels; I would then move the posts in slightly so that you’re getting purchase in new wood. I did an XFiles playfield swap onto an NOS playfield; knowing this was a problem I moved those posts in slightly and used t-nuts rather than wood thread posts. Gameplay was not affected, and if a post wants to break, it won’t tear out the wood.