Williams Honey, Worn Out No. Match Unit

First of all, congrats on your first pinball project. Sounds like you have a good handle on things mechanical/electrical, and especially the desire to fix it.

I'll start with my thoughts, and I'm sure others will chime in with more useful info, maybe even correcting some of mine! I've never played HONEY and don't have a schematic, but I think I am mostly correct is what I am about to say.

When you are playing the game, and after the last ball and "GAME OVER," you can earn a replay if the last number(s) of your score match a random number(s) that light up on the backbox. You will see the numbers if you look at the backside of your backglass. The random match number I speak of comes from the match stepper unit. That stepper I believe rotates each time you score a point (or ten points, depending on the game). Then at the game over, whatever number it stopped on provides the circuit for the match lights on the backglass and the replay circuit for a free game as well.

All the steppers (ball in play, match unit, replay unit, etc...) in your game should be serviced, as they have been sitting for a long time, the lube is dried out, and if they are rotating (which I doubt) they could be damaging the copper traces.

Regarding the one pictured, remove the nut and spider (the thing with flexible copper legs). Next, using alcohol and a paper towel wipe clean all the old dried gunk on that board. After the gunk is removed, take a small piece of either 400 or 600 grit waterproof sanding sheet and alcohol and clean up the traces making them like new. At this point evaluate the "pits" you mention. Maybe they aren't as bad as they look now. More on that later.

From the other side of the stepper remove the rotating gear and clean the old grease on the shaft, and reassemble. If the shaft and bearing are both metal, you can apply a drop of machine oil. If one is plastic and the other metal, then no oil should be needed.

After the board is cleaned up, and the little tits on the spider are cleaned up, apply a thin film of dielectric grease (you can purchase at Harbor Freight) around the board where the spider contacts. Reassemble and you should be good to go.

Can you post a picture after you have cleaned up the board?

#4 3 years ago

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ChrisM2319

Pinside apprentice

dr_nybble and JethroP thank you for explaining the how the free replay works. I have cleaned and lubed the other stepper units using the recommended process and grease. As for the pits, they are not something that cleaning is going to make go away. They are worn halfway through the board material, from about the 8 to 11 o'clock position, I know its hard to tell depth from the pictures. I am not sure what caused such wear, there is nothing else like it on any of the other stepper units. The fingers dip down into them quite a bit as they cross, and I would imagine it will dig/catch and keep getting worse. Even if not, I would think it would be hard on the finger contacts, and make it harder for the unit to step.

#5 3 years ago

237

slochar

Pinside member

7y 86,550 6,883

Hard to tell from the picture are you saying the worn path doesn't have any copper left on it? It's kind of normal to get a ton of wear through the copper as the contact fingers are wearing through it constantly. You cannot prevent this, but you can stave it off by lubing it correctly. There shouldn't be roughness on it, if there is you need to sand it more to smooth it out. It probably still won't matter, it will still step correctly. This type of unit is surprisingly robust.

Pinball Resource likely won't have this listed on their pages, you have to call/email them for this type of part. They're really old-school that way, they stock over a million parts, but there just aren't that many listed on their webpages.

It gets a lot of wear and tear because it's one of the most used steppers in the game, most games pulse it with different signals so that players couldn't "predict" the match number.

Schematic is at https://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=1230 if you need it.

If you look through old parts catalogs from williams you can probably find out what other games used the same stepper to rob parts from.

#6 3 years ago

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ChrisM2319

Pinside apprentice

slochar I am talking about the area between the copper strips, it has craters/pits between them. I attached a better picture with the areas circled. Sorry for the confusion.

Inked20201222_104856_LI (resized).jpg

#7 3 years ago

237

slochar

Pinside member

7y 86,550 6,883

The lands don't matter there. The strength of the pulse should still pull the contacts over it. I suppose you could put some kind of epoxy in there to smooth it out but as long as it pulses over it I wouldn't worry about it. (No matter how quickly and forcefully you pulse this type of unit by hand, it will never match what the coil's force applies in either speed or pulse strength)

#8 3 years ago

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JethroP

Pinside+ Frequent

Post pictures of the cleaned stepper. I'd like to get a better look at the pits remaining. Maybe could be epoxied as slochar said.

#9 3 years ago

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ChrisM2319

Pinside apprentice

Quoted from JethroP:
Post pictures of the cleaned stepper. I'd like to get a better look at the pits remaining. Maybe could be epoxied as slochar said.

Will do, I should get to it tomorrow, and I will post some pictures.

#10 3 years ago

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ChrisM2319

Pinside apprentice

JethroP here are pictures after cleaning and a close up of the area

20201227_101239 (resized).jpg

20201227_101352 (1) (resized).jpg

#11 3 years ago

Dono

Pinside+ Frequent

Glenelg, MD

9y 86,050 1,784 12 25

As a previous poster stated, I'd use an epoxy to fill in those divots, smooth it out as you apply it, but you want to keep the metal portions of that unit free of epoxy as that would affect the ability to pass current from the fingers. The rest of the unit looks good and can definitely be saved without replacement.

#12 3 years ago

MarkG

Fun With Pinball

9y 71,300 4,356

The holes were likely caused by carbon tracking described elsewhere in the forum. Basically the wipers track carbon soot trails off the copper traces and onto the board. Eventually enough carbon builds up to form a conducting path with high resistance over the board that heats up as current passes through it, which can burn holes in the board.

/Mark

#13 3 years ago

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ChrisM2319

Pinside apprentice

Quoted from MarkG:
The holes were likely caused by carbon tracking described elsewhere in the forum. Basically the wipers track carbon soot trails off the copper traces and onto the board. Eventually enough carbon builds up to form a conducting path with high resistance over the board that heats up as current passes through it, which can burn holes in the board.
/Mark

Thank you, that makes sense, I was wondering what caused it.

#14 3 years ago

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JethroP

Pinside+ Frequent

Great job cleaning up that board. Definitely salvageable. I would carefully mask off the copper traces with blue painter tape, then apply a little self leveling epoxy (JB weld, etc.) to the depressions. Won't take but a drop or two using a toothpick. I suppose if you're really careful you could do it without the masking.

#15 3 years ago

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JethroP

Pinside+ Frequent