Spider-Man, The Amazing
Gottlieb, 1980You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider batcade.
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Hi All,
Trying to figure out where the speaker wires connect to the sound board in my 1980 Gottlieb Spiderman. I've been wondering why my board doesn't look like the pictures I have seen online and in the manual (shaped differently, has fuses???). I noticed there are a few stickers on it that says "Williams". Does this make sense? Did Williams produce sound boards for Gottlieb pinball? Or did someone stick in a Williams board hoping it would work? 
Quoted from ForceFlow:Also be sure correct the wiring and connectors so you can actually install that new board.
Keep in mind that the sound board used in spiderman is notorious for chip failure, and the chips are unobtainable. So be wary of untested sound boards on ebay and whatnot.
Here's an aftermarket replacement:
http://www.flippp.fr/pifx.php
Great thank you!
Do you happen to know of a wiring guide for the electrical? There are two electrical cables that have been spliced for some reason in the backbox which I haven’t traced back yet but I was surprised to see electrical wiring there instead of carrying power via 12pin or 24pin or whatever they may be to the boards.. one wire they taped up, one wire they didn’t lol
Quoted from CactusJack:The connector on the left is where 12Vac comes in. The one next to it is the speaker output. The one next to that with bare remenents of wire is where a volume control would attach. The sound trigger inputs have already been spliced into the Gottlieb harness.i see two clipped wires peering out near the bottom center if the loom. Those might match up to being the speaker wires (isn't the speaker in to top of that game?)
I see there is a "flat" style (2 black plus green) line cord and a round style (wht/blk/green) that have been added. You may find one was used to add the external volume control and one spliced into 12VAC on the bottom tray.
A photo of the bottom tray would help with more of the Franken-pin mystery.
Thanks for the information everyone. I plan on tracing back the exposed electrical wires this weekend so I will post pictures of the underside of where these are going.
Quoted from CactusJack:It's that exposed "line cord" that has me concerned. It may have been there to power the 12VAC transformer mentioned by Inkochnito (now apparently missing). If so, it has 120VAC exposed on it and needs to be capped.
All early generation sound boards worked in a similar fashion, originally being adapted to use the 3 or so drives that used to drive bell chimes.
At one point, Gottlieb expanded on this by incorporating a leaf switch on the game over relay and tilt relays to select a different subset if normal game noises.
Your board, featuring the video sound rom, probably worked to some degree and more than likely made sounds like Defender.
I would check across those two exposed line cord wires (with the green one in the middle and see if you have 120AC or maybe 12VAC center tapped there.
This is very interesting and what I was concerned about and what confused me. It looks like the intent was those electrical lines to provide power to the sound board but not connected into any kind of transformer or regulator.
The speaker is in the top of the machine and my guess is the two speaker wires match to the two wires dangling off the second port of the sound bard. Ultimately I would like to get that aftermarket sound board from flippp.fr and hook it up the way it is supposed to be but my primary concern is to make it safe and disconnect any unused electrical wires and make sure it is grounded (ground pin is broken off the line cord and I saw one of the green ground cables not connected to the big transformer), anyhoo pictures will follow.
So the round wire that is taped off in the backbox is being routed to the volume switch, and the flat wire is being routed to a box underneath the play field and then looks like being split off of that into the big transformer (with the ground green wire disconnected).
Anyone know what that grey box is, I don’t see it listed on the schematic I have.
Quoted from CactusJack:That's possible too, but it almost looks undersized to handle the whole game (isolation).
Next, I guess we need a photo of any markings on it to determine it's purpose.
Thanks for your feedback everyone, its much appreciated. My understanding so far is that isolation transformer is there to provide the 12vdc to the Williams sound board. My feeling is that this is new to the machine as system 80 would normally just have the two transformers (it does look newer too compared to the ones with the layered tin exposed).
I will get some better pictures of it and where the wires are going.
Quoted from CactusJack:That's possible too, but it almost looks undersized to handle the whole game (isolation).
Next, I guess we need a photo of any markings on it to determine it's purpose.
Okay I got a better look at the transformer, It's a F83A. Some of the writing is worn off, but based on some other pictures I saw online, it is outputting 12.6V (how do you tell if it's A/C or D/C?..I'm assuming it will be A/C since that is what the williams board needed but how would you know?)
The green, green/yellow and I'm assuming blue(can't see that wire) are what is taped up and mated to the black flat electrical cable which is being sent up to the backbox. Assuming I can figure out which one is positive/negative, how do I tell how they connect to the sound board? Only two wires come out of the sound board, I assume I need 3 as the ground wire should connect as well?
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Quoted from CactusJack:Here is a crude drawing of how you need to hook up what you have. Also, a more legible print of the transformer you have. Technically, AC is not polarized so you don't need to worry about which of the wires goes to which fuse. The critical one is the Center Tap (CT) Green/Yellow wire as it has to go to ground (10J1 pins 5 or 6). And, a Transformer's output is Always AC until you put it through some diodes/rectifiers.
Awesome, thank you!! This will let me at least try and boot it up and see if it plays 
Well, I haven't had a chance to actually test the sound board. I wanted to make sure the game actually boots before spending time on the sound, so for now I have capped off the live 12vac and sure enough I have boot issues.
My F7 1/4a fuse kept blowing at startup when all displays are connected. P3 and P4 displays light up, but P1, P2 and credit display doesn't light up at all. I Have created a new thread for this issue, if anyone has any ideas on how I can begin trouble shooting it would be much appreciated.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/gtb-amazing-spiderman-displays-blowing-f7-fuse#post-4148381
srcdube I will get back to you on some of your questions. From what I see my feeling is the transformers intended purpose is to supply 12vac to the Williams sound board. From the schematics it looks like this is needed because the gtb 12vac supply is rectified to 12vdc as required by A2 and A5 boards... I guess no way to split off the 12vac into two spots?
The orange capacitor definitely needs to go, but my plan is to do some testing and only replace the stuff I need to right now. I’ll post more about the transformer, I haven’t noticed any other transformers which is strange since I’m in Canada too but who knows maybe this thing came from the states.
The isolation transformer you have, is it designed to replace the two normal coiled transformers?
Now you got me curious so I’ve been googling isolation transformer, and I don’t think mine is an isolation transformer, just a regular transformer.
Quoted from CactusJack:In theory, ANY transformer (other than some simple "tap" transformers) is an Isolation transformer as it electrically isolates the input current from the output. But most would consider an isolation transformer to be one that has the same input (main line) voltage as it does an output. IE 120 -> 120 or 240 -> 240.
While I am not that well versed on CES, I would assume that an Isolation transformer would be added in the case where line voltage were to appear anyplace other than at the transformer or power distribution assembly (120V coils, fans, etc.). However, in compliance with UL 22 requirement, Gottlieb/Premier installed a safety interlock switch on the front door to disconnect line voltage should a "non-qualified personnel" were to enter the cabinet where voltages higher than 48VDC were present. Some early 70's Gottliebs also had a small microswitch added just under the lock down bar receiver which disconnected the AC line voltage from the transformer. Thereby killing all power to the game (other than the AC wiring which lead up to the switch and at the transformer and main line fuse).
Isolation can also be a way to pass Hi-Pot testing where extremely high voltage is applied to the joined line cord inputs and then the cabinet is checked for leakage to any exposed metal or from line voltage inputs to earth ground. Only a certain amount is allowed. Adding a good isolation transformer solves any shortcomings.
Sometimes, what you might think is an isolation transformer is actually a step up or step down transformer to convert the operating voltage to that of the local line voltage. Although many modern games are made with voltage taps to convert the line voltage to anything from 90 VAC (low 100VAC) to 240VAC. In order to save money, many Domestic Gottlieb games were made with line transformer with only one set voltage (120VAC). But the game built for export may have used a dual voltage tap transformer. But likewise, we have seen games which only have 220VAC as an input option.
I am sure the gray 12VAC filament transformer was added to power the sound board simply because the installer looked to see what the WMS pinball game it came out of required. And not trying to cross reference the board to video game application etc. where DC was used instead.
Back to CES and Canada. Many "converted" games have been found with additional EMI filters installed between the incoming line cord and the rest of the game. I believe this is to help the games pass a more stringent RF/EMI emission testing in Canada verses the US.
Unfortunately I am slowly getting aquatinted with everything this is all new to me. I thought I saw that the original system 80 sound used 12vdc so it will be interesting to see what they did with that source, since they now ran the 12vac, and if this Williams board does support dc as well here’s to hoping converting it back will be easier than I thought.
I’m sure they had the Williams board laying around and figured why not. The original spidy board probably doesn’t have very complicated sounds so it’s probably not bad. Hopefully I will find out soon.
Quoted from Inkochnito:To make a Williams board work you need to have 12Vac at J1-1/2 and J1-8/9.
You also need ground at J1-5/6.
An 8 ohm speaker at J2-1/2 and J2-3/4.
A remote volume controller at J4-1 and J4-2.
Grounding pins J3-2/3/4/5/6/7/8 should produce sounds.
All kinds of combinations are possible, like grounding pin 2-4-5 should give an other sound than grounding pin 2.
In theory the machine should be able to drive the sound board if the Gottlieb driver board grounds the outputs.
It will just give the wroung sounds.
Thanks for posting this schematic, love the quality of it! Too bad my 1980 spidy schematics arn't this good 
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