Penthouse fuse! Classy.

faz

To someone who has never seen a Tootsie Roll it doesn't look like candy.

Hack? More like a must have Mod. Where can I buy this?

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Each game is $5 though

New product I am going to sell on eBay brilliant! Fuse adapter boards.

Should be shaped better so that a fast ball would auto shatz. Like a puck going around the net.

Now compatible with circuit breakers!

Saw this on another site, not pinball related, but similar theme.

I sure hope that's a left-hand thread on that screw

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OOF that color coding is certainly a guessing game!

Nah...red for fire starter. Not hard at all.

I had an early SS game from the 70s where the standard wire colors were reversed for the 5v and 12v rails. I checked another game in case it was a hack or mistake in mine, but apparently, it was manufactured that way.

I once spent a ridiculous amount of time troubleshooting the electrical system of a 45' sport fisher. The wiring seemed to change color inside every bulkhead pass through. I'm pretty certain someone did that on purpose. I couldn't figure it out until I had a helper pulling on the wires as I labeled them. Probably part of the reason I am going bald. But I digress...

I once owned a Duotron that had all of the wiring to the head cut through. Came that way. It looked pretty much like the ones pictured above.

I picked up a Chicago coin big ball bowler that had the same thing done, but they put male/female spade lugs on it. And the crimps weren't good either so half of them were missing. Replaced them all with butt connectors like the ones in your picture and made sure they were crimped with the proper tools. Most wires were faded so after doing them all only got 2 wrong and luckily they were only 2 lamp wires.

Owner had the game in the basement installed 25 years ago by some coin op company. 2 years ago decided to move it out to barn but couldn't figure out how to separate everything so started cutting and labeling everything. Said it never worked right when it was in the barn. I told him about the connectors and he didn't believe me so i showed him and he just shook his head and said he felt bad about cutting it up.

Not sure what would possess someone to do this. That wire form isnt going anywhere.

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Sometimes the hole gets hogged out from the ball hitting the wire form so many times. I've seen that on of the games I worked on, but someone used a much smaller screw that was less obvious and hardly noticeable. I left it alone rather then mess with it, since it was secure.

For an ugly repair like that, I'd probably take the time and repair it properly.

It's so easy also! Bondo and gray paint! Not even dithering or anything else on that spot!

Here's one. Is there some reason for this I'm not aware of or did they just not know how to operate their cutters? I was going to start a thread for this question but I believe it belongs here.

Edit: also notice the resistor clot in the background.

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I would guess they did not realize there were holes there? And soldered it on like a surface mount component? Just a guess...

I've got the same thing on one of my system 6 driver boards. Makes me wonder, why are sockets that tall made in the first place?

That's what I thought at first until I pulled the board and they appear to be in the holes.

Fair question. I don't think anyone is using 1" thick PCBs.

I made use of one of these once when a previous person had replaced the cmos ram, but not socketed it (ugh) and lifted many traces in the process. I happened to have a tall 22 pin socket around, so I raised it up a half inch off the board, allowing me to solder from the top side as well as the bottom so I could get all the traces. Doesn't look like this was done on my other board or yours though, from what I can tell

They're called wire-wrap sockets - an oldskool way to prototype circuits:

...and for daughterboards.

Someone may have pulled out the through hole plating so they used a wire wrap socket I order to solder the traces on the component side of the board. Instead I would have used a machine socket since you can still do solder from the top too and not have it stick up like that.

For the resistor mess in the background they probably didn't have a resistor pack and didn't want to wait to order the proper one so they just made one....

Actually that may be the case here, though the full inch probably wasn't necessary There are other smoked traces on the boards from bad soldering.

Oooh yea.

True.

I think soldering from both sides must've been the intent as you guys suggest but they are actually machined sockets so they could've done it without raising them so high.

Yeah, and maybe a field repair even. It wasn't always so easy to find and order parts online. And it is definitely functional, just funny, would've taken them 30 seconds to make it aesthetically pleasing!

I gotta ask: what was that prototype for?

Not sure, I grabbed it off Wikipedia - some sort of Z80 based backplane from 1977.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Computerplatine_Wire-wrap_backplane_detail_Z80_Doppel-Europa-Format_1977.jpg

Yep, wire wrap sockets by Augat. The pins are too large to fit through holes on PCB's but fit in proto-boards. I spent my first two years at Rockwell building and debugging wire wrap prototypes. Both with the hand wire wrap tool as well as the battery powered "gun".
Now I enjoy a monthly pension check from Rockwell.

Now I can sleep at night.

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Those are wire wrap sockets; which you now know.

Something you might not: Wire wrap sockets sometimes had tapered pins, so it's possible they got this far and got stuck.

Or: they were designed for protoboard, not PCBs, so if you try to shove those sharp edged pins all the way in you can cut or
dislodge the traces. It's possible they got that far, the traces started to lift, and they decided that was good enough.

I bet they either didn't have the right sockets on hand, or with them in the field.

Not saying it's right...but I understand.

I still have my wire wrapping bus wire and tools...and I don't think I've used them since 1992 or so.

As for the resistors, well, you never have the SIP resistor line you need, but everyone's got 1/4W carbon :p

Yes wire wrapping was before my time but I did learn about it on the shelves of radio shack.

After removing them, I found the through holes were undamaged and the socket pins easily fit in the holes with room to spare, so I still think they couldn't find their flush cutters that day

This board just had a ton of field repairs- plenty of diodes and transistors that were "close but no cigar."

From a BSD I recently got. Can anybody tell me what they were trying to achieve when they were connecting wires from one place to another on the board? Was it bypassing something, etc? Also would you replace the board or fix it? I already replaced it with a Rottendog board but I'm not sure if it would be possible or worth trying to save the original board.

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The ever popular hack, spade bridges, placed on stilts in place of wire lead bridges.
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://ChrisHiblerPinball.com/contact/
http://www.PinWiki.com - The new place for pinball repair info

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Regarding the BSD "hacks".
Pic #1 - the butt connector is being used to split the wire so that it can be connected at two points to the J101 connector. Common.
Pic #2 - The current limiting resistor for the 50VDC LED indicator burned up. Fairly common.
Pic #3 - Possible shorted coil or shorted drive transistor to the knocker. Either way, they were taking the knocker out of the circuit. WPC knockers are usually connected via a keyed molex connector.
Pic #4 - Jumpers to "repair" ham handed attempt to replace BR2/C5, probably fighting a reset issue. The original "repair" was perhaps completely unnecessary. http://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Williams_WPC#Game_resets
Pic #5 - Ouch. A scorch perhaps from the resistor in pic #2 burning.
Pic #6 - More jumpers, caused by inadequate skills/tools while trying to replace BR5/C30...which is generally unnecessary unless the 12V circuit has gone south. All of those jumpers can be replaced by "solder stitches". http://pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=General#Repairing_traces_or_creating_a_.22solder_stitch.22

It's salvageable...but you'll need to send it to a pro. Once fixed...I always prefer OEM over aftermarket.

--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.ChrisHiblerPinball.com/Contact
http://www.PinWiki.com - The Place to go for Pinball Repair Info

They were using it to get 12volts, lol

I've seen a few hacks in the past couple of years, but none that I thought worthy of posting here. And this week I find both my favorite hack and least favorite hack on the same game, a Williams Liberty Bell.

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Apparently, the owner liked his rubbers tight!

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Least Favorite:

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There is a 'crispy critter' in this pic as well...

See, the nice things about that bungee include the fact that you can change them without removing anything, and they come in a decent variety of colors; So, everbody can customize their machines!!!

Gottlieb mechs are built like tanks! Good upgrade.

The only problem I see in that picture is that someone installed a Williams flipper mech on one side...

The old "build a resistor" hack.
1/Rt = 1/R1 + 1/R2 + 1/R3
This works out to about 117 ohms using 3X 350 ohm resistors.
Close enough. Spec is 120 ohms.
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://ChrisHiblerPinball.com/contact/
http://www.PinWiki.com - The new place for pinball repair info

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This ain't gonna fly...

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But this candy-striped Bungee might become the latest rage...

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On my way down to Captain Dollar right now for a bag of 'em.

Quick release rubbers ! Gotta luv it !!

Uhmm... ..... wait, never mind...I better just go hang in the basement for a bit.

Bungee cords from China Freight are cheaper than rubber rings from certain pin part vendors....

Solid bungee cords designed for.pinball actually doesn't sound like a terrible idea. No rubber shavings on the pf and customizable looks

Terrible--the upper switch is on the wrong side of the bungee cord. Fix this atrocity.

Found these being used , it worked just fine lol

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rubber baby buggy bumpers...

Better than nothing