No one has found it yet! Keep looking. =D Clearly visible.
Hints: Someone attempted to fix the non working relay and gave up with the zip tie.
Not burnt parts. The burnt resistor is in a different solenoid circuit.
(Topic ID: 28788)
Are there like, two bronze nails going through the whole thing? Or are those supposed to be there? I really know nothing about this stuff so I'm just taking a wild guess here! 
Williamsburg, KY
I posted some photographs on this thread of an mpu pulled from a TAF that I am restoring. The pin immortal Mr Vid1900 declared: "That is one of the most fantastic piles of crap I have ever seen!". I sent a photo to the inestimable Chris Hibler yesterday to inquire about some board repairs. His reply: "OMG. That is the worst hack I've ever seen".
Perhaps some intrepid soul is interested in buying this board? It might be collectable.
Is there prize for this? 
mpu.jpegQuoted from reynolds531:I posted some photographs on this thread of an mpu pulled from a TAF that I am restoring. The pin immortal Mr Vid1900 declared: "That is one of the most fantastic piles of crap I have ever seen!". I sent a photo to the inestimable Chris Hibler yesterday to inquire about some board repairs. His reply: "OMG. That is the worst hack I've ever seen".
Perhaps some intrepid soul is interested in buying this board? It might be collectable.
Is there prize for this?mpu.jpeg
This needs to be framed on a wall.
Quoted from Ronnie1114:This needs to be framed on a wall.
It could be yours. Let us start the bidding at $200.00.
Ok Andrew i give. Is that spring not correct way to much tension. I can not imagine anything else as you say it is clearly visible.
Well that is my guess.
That next one here well wow. But hey sometimes those boards do function.
Would I want it NO would I do it NO.
Someone had a homemade gottlieb reset board that looks like that this one is similar.
Nope!
The 2n4401 transistor is installed backwards. They went as far as replacing the PIA before zip tying the relay shut.
Quoted from barakandl:The 2n4401 transistor is installed backwards.
I thought someone said that. So is it the single one to the left of the relay? Weird that the board wasn't designed with them all facing the same direction.
Quoted from reynolds531:Perhaps some intrepid soul is interested in buying this board? It might be collectable.
Is there prize for this?
How about we pass it around and try to actually repair it properly? Whoever can get it working becomes immortalized as the Pinside hack-repair guru.
Quoted from pinballwiz:Hacked up Twilight Zone coin door from M&P Amusements.
P1010001.JPG (Click image to enlarge)
This made me shiver...
Quoted from barakandl:Nope!
The 2n4401 transistor is installed backwards. They went as far as replacing the PIA before zip tying the relay shut.
I found it on Facebook in about 10 minutes. The clue to me was probably that I've started at a ton of these recently, and the offset solder pad on that transistor was facing the opposite direction as the row below it.
The Sys 3-7 driver has a few design errors that are annoying. For example, look at a modern PCB. All ICs have pin 1 facing the same direction if they are mounted North - South. And All ICs have pin 1 facing the same direction if they are mounted East-West.
On a Sys 3-7 driver board, that is NOT the case. Pin 1 is marked on the back of the board, but when the boards are filthy (and most of the ones that come to me ARE), it's not always perfectly clear!
Quoted from johnwartjr:I found it on Facebook in about 10 minutes. The clue to me was probably that I've started at a ton of these recently, and the offset solder pad on that transistor was facing the opposite direction as the row below it.
The Sys 3-7 driver has a few design errors that are annoying. For example, look at a modern PCB. All ICs have pin 1 facing the same direction if they are mounted North - South. And All ICs have pin 1 facing the same direction if they are mounted East-West.
On a Sys 3-7 driver board, that is NOT the case. Pin 1 is marked on the back of the board, but when the boards are filthy (and most of the ones that come to me ARE), it's not always perfectly clear!
WMS MPUs do the same thing with ICs going all different orientations. There is not much silk screening. If you look close at the PCB they identify pin one, but if you are not familiar with these PCBs mistakes can be made easily.
I have a 24"x36" print out of firepowerpinball.com's MPU and driver board layouts up on my wall in the work shop. I am going to do the schematic pages soon. I is nice to have it blown up in 24"x36".
Quoted from johnwartjr:I found it on Facebook in about 10 minutes. The clue to me was probably that I've started at a ton of these recently, and the offset solder pad on that transistor was facing the opposite direction as the row below it.
The Sys 3-7 driver has a few design errors that are annoying. For example, look at a modern PCB. All ICs have pin 1 facing the same direction if they are mounted North - South. And All ICs have pin 1 facing the same direction if they are mounted East-West.
On a Sys 3-7 driver board, that is NOT the case. Pin 1 is marked on the back of the board, but when the boards are filthy (and most of the ones that come to me ARE), it's not always perfectly clear!
This was normal for hand routed boards... anything to make it easier.
Once the board routing software started providing decent auto-routers, no excuse for not keeping components pointing the same direction.
Quoted from Mrjamma:I did once find 2 #8 machine screws jammed into a double fuse holder.
That baby'll never blow!
Challenge accepted!
faz
Quoted from thedefog:How about we pass it around and try to actually repair it properly? Whoever can get it working becomes immortalized as the Pinside hack-repair guru.
Sounds like a good idea. Do I get the repaired board back?
Quoted from reynolds531:Sounds like a good idea. Do I get the repaired board back?
or course, it would be for fun.
Let me throw the proverbial gauntlet down to all of you board wizards/geniuses/gurus/artistes/experts. Any of you care to take a shot at repairing the worst hack ever? Untie the Gordian Knot of hacks! Think of the challenge! Think of the fun! Not to mention the free advertising and accolades.
Quoted from reynolds531:Think of the challenge! Think of the fun! Not mention the free advertising and accolades.
LMAO. Give up on this? I would just buy another board.
Quoted from reynolds531:Let me throw the proverbial gauntlet down to all of you board wizards/geniuses/gurus/artistes/experts. Any of you care to take a shot at repairing the worst hack ever? Untie the Gordian Knot of hacks! Think of the challenge! Think of the fun! Not mention the free advertising and accolades.
IMG_0224.JPG (Click image to enlarge)
Take a few more hi-res top side photos. I wanna see what happened to the top in better detail. I'm assuming this was alkaline damage.
Quoted from lurch:LMAO. Give up on this? I would just buy another board.
No worries: I bought a Rottendog mpu replacement board two months ago. The rest of this is all in fun.
Sana'a
Quoted from thedefog:Take a few more hi-res top side photos. I wanna see what happened to the top in better detail. I'm assuming this was alkaline damage.
Oddly enough, the area around the battery holder and the ASIC look totally clean. The chip above the ASIC is the problem. There is no chip receptacle for the pins. The chip and pins are directly soldered to the board and smeared with glue from a glue gun. PM me an email address and I will forward you more photographs. I don't want to clutter up this thread with more pics of the same thing.
Whoah, whoah whoah!!! Hey slick, not so fast. You might just destroy the world's first pinball with built-in AI! I mean, have you fired this thing up in a machine yet? For all we know it'll say "good morning, Dave"...or "shall I open the pod bay doors, now" ...or best of all, "would you like to play a game?"
Quoted from vid1900:As long as you don't want the board back (in case I really f it up removing all that goo), I'll take a stab at it.
I guess I really just want to see what's wrong with it that required so much BS, lol.
Me too. I want to know the back story that would make someone go to those lengths.
Quoted from thedefog:Me too. I want to know the back story that would make someone go to those lengths.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
In this case, it was a glue gun 
The board hack looks kind of funny but a game with board installed in it will think for itself and some day rule the world
Quoted from reynolds531:Let me throw the proverbial gauntlet down to all of you board wizards/geniuses/gurus/artistes/experts. Any of you care to take a shot at repairing the worst hack ever? Untie the Gordian Knot of hacks! Think of the challenge! Think of the fun! Not to mention the free advertising and accolades.
IMG_0224.JPG (Click image to enlarge)
I've handed wired entire 8 bit computers. Fixing / improving that hack would be child's play for me.
There are little adhesive dots that you use for circuit board repair when you need to stick down a wire.
And I think we have all been guilty of using a hot glue gun once in a while. Little dots of hot glue.
But that board is just crazy.
Quoted from ForceFlow:In this case, it was a glue gun
That's not glue. It's alien slime, since the board was modified by ET as part of his "phone home" hack.
https://img-s.pinside.com/market/09/medium/09798470f9aedd210fdb43f02dd9c868e28665b3.jpg
This one came up a month or so ago, a Williams 'Rat Race'.
Never got developed far enough for dedicated boards to be built. Apparently the ALL look like this, and this was original Williams work done during circuit development and prototyping.
Every time I look at it, I see more jumper wires that I hadn't noticed before.
-Hans
That's pretty ugly Hans! Glad I never came across one of those for repair!
I wouldn't touch that WPC MPU with a 10 foot pole. You'd have to remove all that crap, probably the socket's that the "tech" installed, rebuld traces and through-holes, retest, etc, etc. There might be 10-12 hours of work there. Ouch!
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.Team-EM.com
http://webpages.charter.net/chibler/Pinball/dex.htm
http://www.PinWiki.com - The Place to go for Pinball Repair Info
Quoted from ChrisHibler:I wouldn't touch that WPC MPU with a 10 foot pole. You'd have to remove all that crap, probably the socket's that the "tech" installed, rebuld traces and through-holes, retest, etc, etc. There might be 10-12 hours of work there. Ouch!
I agree Chris. This would not be a simple rework.
Hey Reynolds531, go ahead and post a photo of the top of the board. We're all curious.
Quoted from terryb:I agree Chris. This would not be a simple rework.
Hey Reynolds531, go ahead and post a photo of the top of the board. We're all curious.
Wow, some serious masochists out there. This board actually worked (sort of) for the better part of six years. top back II.JPGbattery holder.JPG[att=2423576,535787 caption=front mid.JPGback mid I.JPGtop back I.JPGtop front II.JPGtop front I.JPG
Quoted from ChrisHibler:There might be 10-12 hours of work there. Ouch!
Just think about how many hours that hack took. Easily twice that, buzzing out all those bad traces and putting in jumpers for a botched socket job.
I've got two sys11 boards that look pretty bad currently. Like 4-5 jumpers on each. I hate jumpers, the moment you add the first one is the moment you know it is an uphill battle. Jumpers multiply like rabbits.
Quoted from vid1900:There are little adhesive dots that you use for circuit board repair when you need to stick down a wire.
And I think we have all been guilty of using a hot glue gun once in a while. Little dots of hot glue.
But that board is just crazy.
What? You mean you don't hot melt glue all of your replacement sockets to the boards your repairing? What holds them to the board once all of the traces are melted away from removing the old chip? 
Quoted from vid1900:There are little adhesive dots that you use for circuit board repair when you need to stick down a wire.
And I think we have all been guilty of using a hot glue gun once in a while. Little dots of hot glue.
But that board is just crazy.
These are great...
http://www.circuitmedic.com/products/310-2100.shtml
That board isn't.
I wonder if any of the hacker's responsible ever come on to Pinside & recognize their handy work as featured here ? 
(THIS one of.... if not my #1 favorite thread on here)
Quoted from TecumsehPlissken:I wonder if any of the hacker's responsible ever come on to Pinside & recognize their handy work as featured here ? (THIS one of if not my #1 favorite thread on here)
I'll own up to my early work if I ever come across it. It was limited to guitar FX pedals though, and most, if not all the stuff I built as finished is still working, decade + later. So not too much hacky stuff... But we all have (had) our moments.
Quoted from TecumsehPlissken:I wonder if any of the hacker's responsible ever come on to Pinside & recognize their handy work
Barakandl's last example was my board. I did not create that hack. It was that way when I got it (I swear!).
Back in the game and working great now.
Regina, SK
Quoted from thedefog:"IT WAS THE WORST HACK I EVER SAW!"
download (3).jpg
"Tell em, Large Marge sent ya!"
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