Well the winter chill is finally leaving my shop. I was actually able to spend the day out there today and got a lot done.

I focused on the cabinet wiring today for the most part. I was able to get the transformers mounted back up, and the plate with the tilt and bell assemblies are also ready to be mounted back up.

IMG_8582 (resized).JPG The transformer board was pretty gross. I took everything off of it, and gave it a fresh coat of paint, and put all the wiring harness through my sonic cleaner. I then ran all new ground braid. The finished board looked much better.

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I also did some work on the cabinet side plat that holds the tilt, bell, and volume reostat. It wasn't in too bad of shape, and it cleaned up pretty easily.

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After the cabinet harness went through the dishwasher, I got everything mounted back up.

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I also got started on the ground strap in the cabinet, and got the transformer plate mounted back up.

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Tomorrow I am hoping to get the plate mounted up in the cabinet. I may have to take some measurements off my old cabinet to get it in the correct location.

At least you started with a decent cabinet... I got lucky with finding someone to build me a cabinet.

Well at least I got a solid chunk of this restoration done over the weekend. With the flu running through my house, I am not be this productive for another couple of weeks.

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After having successfully passed the National Land Surveying Principles and Practice exam, my weekends are now free again to work on pinball machines... That is until I get registered for the California State exam.

In the meantime I have returned the wiring to the head and unsuccessfully tried to power the Sorcerer up...C2EA6137-5E20-4138-9078-01E5C25616E0 (resized).jpeg

This is one thing I thought would be a problem when I decided to gut the old cabinet... I generally don’t like to gut a machine until I know it at least works. That was not really possible with this machine because of the poor condition it was in.

So the main board spent a week or so my bench getting straightened out.

The board would appear to boot, and a 0 would display in the status LED, but nothing else was working: no displays, no controlled light or coils... so it may have been booting, but nothing was working...

The problem turned out to be the Blanking signal was not present, and the board was jumpered wrong. If the blanking signal is missing, nothing will work. This is by design however. Williams designed the board to more or less shut down if the output P2 on U5 wasn’t present. So it the board crashes, or otherwise malfunctions, this is supposed to me a fail safe to keep all the coils from locking on, and doing damage.

Well P2 on U5 was floating... partly because U9 (the display strobe generator) was dead... so I replaced both U5 and U9... However the board still would not boot into audit mode.. The problem turned out to be the board was jumpered incorrectly. The Sorcerer U20 rom is only 64kb. To support this chip, W11 needs to be connected, and U12 disconnected. My board had U12 connected. So after I fixed that ... It booted!8E6D672A-E9C2-4E08-B42F-AA3509AD1C9C (resized).jpeg

I’m not out of the woods yet on the boards... I noticed when it boots the displays flicker when the switch is thrown, and the flipper relay clicks... this means the reset circuit is not working. I will have to figure that out before the playfield goes back in. Also I noticed someone has replaced the K1 relay with a 28v coil, the 5v power supply has about 1v of AC wave, and the +100v circuit is running at 118v under load.

So I need to rebuild the HV section of the power supply and recap it as well. I also and going to replace K1 with a proper 6v relay. I may take the opportunity to install mosfets in the lighting section to eliminate the large resistors. I also need to add fuses to the coil power supply to protect the transformers.

All of this will have to wait until after the Golden State Pinball Festival! I will be tech’ing, so say hi to me if you see me in my red shirt.

Yes, I bought one last year when Planetary Pinball did a run of new back glasses. It is still sitting in the a box in my shop.

Honestly I don’t know, I haven’t taken it out of the box.

Yup, I have a set of those sitting on my workbench, waiting for me to modify my rotisserie to fit 42" playfields.

Ok, the GSPF was a great time, but now it is time to get back to work on Sorcerer....

I have finally put the playfield on the rotisserie. I was delayed in doing this because I discovered that when I installed the rotisserie, I set it up for 46" long playfields, like the one found in my Funhouse. The Sorcerer Playfield is only 42 inches long. So I had to buy some more 1/2" steel pipe to get it to fit.

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I am not sure what bugs called this playfield home, but they made a mess...

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So new I need to pull everything off this playfield and start getting things cleaned up.

Progress...the wiring harnesses are off and ready for the dishwasher.
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And today the harnesses made a trip through the dishwasher.

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So on to the new playfield... First I wired up the GI..this is the first time I have worked with stapled GI wire. It went down easier than I thought it would.71A70F0D-0EA1-4516-BD52-3198B86CCAED (resized).jpegFF4C37BD-C6EB-49F5-B24E-F40CECAFA3D4 (resized).jpeg

Next I fitted the Reese’s rails I picked up a few months back. The stock rails are a light wood color, and the new rails are black. I really like the look of the black rails.
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Next the playfield will go back in n the rotisserie to start repopulating the backside.

It’s a John Greatwich restoration. Until this year, he was the only source for rested playfields.

I made some progress over the long weekend. The switch harness is back on this weekend.

I’ve run into an issue with the light harness. A lot of the light sockets are corroded pretty bad, so I need to order new ones.

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So I addressed something tonight that has been bugging me since I bought the new playfield from John. During the process of applying the overlay to the playfield, John first puts a coat of white paint on the playfield to make the colors stand out better. The results are pretty good, but the registration between the white paint layer and the overlay sometimes is not perfect. It was especially bothering me around the pop-bumpers and top roll overs.

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I thought about painting the white over, but worried about the paint not sticking to the overlay. So then I came across a post where someone had used wood grain vinyl to cover over the white in the pop-bumper area. I have an HP 4600 scanner I use when working on playfields, and I recently purchased a Cameo vinyl cutter. So I decided to combine the two and create covers for the white around the pop-bumpers and the top roll overs.

After I scanned the playfield, I used Cameo Studio to trace over areas I wanted to cut out. It took me about 30 minutes to get the vinyl ready to cut.
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It turns out the hardest part for me was finding a wood grain vinyl that didn't clash too much with the natural wood on the playfield. I settled on a maple vinyl I got from Amazon.

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The pop-bumper covers came out pretty well. I put them down much like you apply decals to a cabinet. I lined them up, and then taped them at one end. I then peeled them back and removed as much of the decal back as I could, and pressed the vinyl down. I then removed the tape, and removed the remainder of the decal backer, and pressed the whole thing down. I think the end results look pretty good.

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I pretty much followed the same procedure when laying down the vinyl around the top roll overs. I used tape to hold the vinyl in place, and then removed the backing.

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Having the pop-bumper areas match the roll overs I think makes it look a little more natural.
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I think once I get the pop-bumper bodies on the playfield, it will be hard to notice I used vinyl around the bumpers and roll overs.
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The roll overs at the bottom end of the playfield are not as bad as the upper ones were, but I did scan then, and I will be cutting vinyl to go around them.

that is a good idea. I have some mylar, I just need to figure out how to mount it in my Cameo cutter.

I think it is a personal preference thing. I didn't like the look of the white.

Well I got the light harness and power harness on the playfield today. The coils are also mounted, so it is about time to a power up test!
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So I was able to move the cabinet next to the work bench, and powered up my playfield.

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I started with just the GI, the. I connected the lights, the switch matrix, and finally the coil power.

Almost everything works! The only issue I found was I am missing a column of lights, and I’m about 90% sure the problem is in the MPU.

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So next the playfield goes back into the cabinet, and the long neglected coin door will get some attention.

The outside of the coin door was stripped and repainted with an initial coat of rustoleum hammer finish paint, followed up with a coat of satin black. The results were pretty good.97B769EC-517E-4BE9-84C9-D59B8391B203 (resized).jpeg

The inside of the door wasn’t as easy to fix up, I stripped down the whole thing to clean it, but I don’t think it will ever look new, unless all the parts are replated. Still, at least it is clean.36A1CA7E-8985-4CAA-876D-2DE486B8C9EE (resized).jpeg

So I did something today that I should have done 6 months ago... I unpacked my new backglass!

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Need less to say I was rather relieved that it was in one piece, and the proper backglass. I got it from Planetary Pinball, so I was not really worried that it was the wrong glass.

It mounted up pretty nicely. I do need to clean up and adjust my backboard through.

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I tend to cycle through machines pretty regularly. So once it’s done, I will probably hold on to it for 6 months and then sell it.

I got her up and flipping this evening. It was nice to finally get a few games in after nearly a year of work. So far I have found a few switches that need adjusting, but nothing too major.

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The next thing I want to address is the apron. The color on the existing apron doesn’t look bad, but the clear coat on it is pretty cracked up. Right now I have a choice... I know where I can get a nice looking near original apron for $50, or I could repaint the one I have. Decisions... decisions...271B510B-4173-44CA-B76E-5115CB3255EF (resized).jpeg

So we have decided to repaint the apron. I scanned the whole thing last night, and started the sanding. The paint was a lot thinner than I expected, and I am hoping to get the black base coat on tomorrow.

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Repaint the apron has reminded me how much I dislike spray paint. The only way to get a decent finish is to spend time polishing between coats. But the black base coat is almost done.

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So I finally have the black base coat more or less finished. So I have turned my attention to the graphics on the apron. The apron was originally painted with a two color silk screen. My original plan was to use Silhouette cutter to cut the paint mask to put down the yellow, and then to put down the red. Then it dawned on me that if I am going to use the cutter for the paint masks, why not just cut yellow and red glossy vinyl for the graphics? It would save me having to try to use a stencil to paint the very small lettering.

So the first step was to convert my stencils to cut my stencil files out in yellow and red on my Silhouette Cameo. I added some more registration marks to make lining up the two colors easier.

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Then I had to cut out the files, and remove the extra yellow and red from the sheets so I just had the graphics and registration marks left on my paper. This turned out to be harder than expected, as the small letters tended to want to pull up with the extra vinyl around them. I ruined one set of yellow vinyl, and had to recut it. I ended up putting the small lettering on the right hand side on its own sheet so I could work with it alone.

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Finally I had the red and yellow all cut out and ready to go. The vinyl came on rolls, so I put the finished cut pieces between two pieces of pinball glass overnight to get them to lay straight, and not roll up on me.
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After the vinyl is all cut, you then have to apply the transfer tape over the top of the graphics. This is what will hold everything in place while you line it up. This is best done on a flat piece of glass (like a pinball playfield glass!). So today my fish tales pulled double duty as a workbench...
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Then comes the difficult task of lining everything up and applying the first layer of vinyl... I did it a lot like to do pinball cabinet decals. I lined every thing up, and held in place with tape while I peeled back the decal backing, and then smooted everything into place.
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So the yellow went down fairly easily. I just had to be carefully removing the transfer tape so I didn't take my graphics with it.

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And yes, my Black Hole pulled duty as a work bench to day as well... The lighting was better over the Black Hole.

Red was not as easy as the yellow was to put down. I tried alighning the red graphics with my registration marks and discovered they would not line up. I think the issue was the yellow graphics my had a slight fold in them when they went down. Do I decided to split the red graphics up into three separate sheets, and apply them one at a time. I cut little reference windows in the red vinyl backing to help me get everything lined up. Here is the largest sheet ready to go down. Notice the little holes around the circle? Those are my reference holes I cut to make sure everything lined up.

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After I got the first piece piece of red vinyl down, I was pretty confident I was going to be able to get the rest of them down without issues.

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And finally, I put put the small lettering in place. The only issue I had was with the 'TM' that appears after 'Lane Change'.. Other than that, it looks pretty good. I don't think I would have been able to do as well had I tried to paint on these graphics.
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So there it is, the apron is done...