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....

I think a lot of up vote and down votes happen without the person indending to do so. If anyone reads threads on a tablet then you'll understand. If you scroll up using your finger on the right side of the screen you can accidentally upvote or downvote posts without realizing it. Kind of annoying really and it has happened to me many times.

So maybe you got a down vote when none was intended.....

Poor System 9 board. I guess it could be a rainy day project when there is nothing else to work on. Honestly I don't know what someone was/wasn't thinking as they hacked this board. Just about everything that was touched ruined a trace. Still trying to figure out just how the top of the board is so hacked up for U49. Just sad. Some people just aren't up to desoldering/soldering on PCB's

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Well, I suppose it depends just on how much time I wanted to kill. Since that board isn't particularly rare I don't think I am going to mess with it. I'll focus on more important projects for now. If I did need that board then I would probably use the wirewrap wire to bend up new traces like I did on this WPC board. It had a small hole (filled with epoxy) in the board where the three green jumpers are. All the jumpers that I made are on the component side of the board.

I've worked on boards with the rats nest of wires dangling off the back and if I ever get a machine like that then I'll redo the work and make it more like the attached picture.

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Sorry, I'll just keep to the before pictures in this thread....

We can resume the normal posting again...

Well at least they sort of did it neatly. It probably would have been less work to just fix it properly.

That's why I keep a stack of new headers on hand and end up replacing them most of the time. Had a similar wiring hack on an Elektra. They just soldered a couple really long wires to the back of the board instead of the wire nuts.

Some of the hacks are pretty creative but I sure hope I never see those people working on civil engineering projects.....

Well the way they did the work I would consider it a hack attempt. At least honorable mention.

I hope that is only a temporary hack and you get some of the proper ones in to replace them....

And I've seen a couple with tan masking tape. duct tape would have been a step up.

Previous hacks done to a poor DE board out of a Rocky and Bullwinkle. This has already been completely cleaned up along with a few other hacks and the board is back in service working well again. I have another on the bench that I am almost done with but luckily it didn't quite as many hacks on it....

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Just came across this gem while going over a Stern driver board for a friend. Creative use of solder wick but unfortunately a fail. This is now properly repaired and a new connectors installed.

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You just raised the bar in the hack thread. How is that game even running?

No cover plate?

I received some old pinball boards in trade for repairing an MPU. There were five system 7 displays included that weren't working. No words other than no solder bridge too far...

Three had broken nipples but I can probably save the other two.

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Three had the glass nipple broken off the back so those are gone. Could put replacement glass on those if needed. The other two I'm going to remove all the excess solder, clean the boards, and solder properly with fresh solder.

I've never seen that many solder bridges all at once like this.

I guess they never thought about the toothpick trick. If they are going to get out the drill at least do it though the original hole and put a T nut on the back and change the post to a threaded one. That would have fixed it and been an upgrade.

What were they thinking??

I still think id prefer to have just added a tnut under the original hole and change that center post to one with a matching machine threaded base instead of just one threaded for wood.

I just made one nice credit display for a Pinbot out of two complete hack jobs. The first picture is a board with a brand new display glass that someone had trouble installing properly. It actually worked but was just awful. I had previously picked up a bad credit display with the nipple broken off the back and one of the worst solder jobs I've ever seen. There are so many obvious shorts the person soldering must have had extremely poor eyesight or just didn't have a clue.

I was able to clean off all the excess solder and transfer over the nice display to the board with intact traces and ended up with one nice display.

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That explains why we see a lot of burned up boards and wiring in this threads and others.....

Maybe not expensive but may have not had them. Actually that isn't a bad interim solution while waiting for some to come in. Better than no keying.

Either way it's better than not having it and letting a connector be plugged in backwards!

Whoever did that should not be allowed to work on any pinball machine and they need to learn how to play better....

I'm sure that cost a lot more than the proper lock for that door. What are people thinking??

I guess you can never have too much capacitance. It was neatly done so I'm sort of impressed. This System 6 PS will be done shortly and get the proper Axial cap that fits on the board.

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Picked up a spare Data East sound board for my R & B machine that needed repair. Besides some missing parts I noticed that both voltage regulators were replaced. Immediately pulled off any prior work to start over. They used the correct 7905 for the -5v regulator but instead if a 7805 for the +5v regulator they put in a 2N6107 transistor! Once I get it all sorted out I'll see if that mistake trashed other IC's on the board.

Have boards in from two different people. The blue board is an early Stern driver. Looks like a TIP went up in smoke. Instead of fixing it apparently it was easier to hack traces to move to a different unused transistor...

The other is a Stern lamp driver board. Someone drilled several hole and added jumpers to move then around. This one came out of a Meteor. Not sure what they were thinking on that one.

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Maybe they wanted a cap with more ESR so they added it externally?? I guess their motto was if we can't do it right we do it anyway.

I think you're right. Just an early board that I hadn't seen before. I just cleaned up the board and left that since it was working.

Yes. I don't care for the ramen noodles, etc but am impressed with many of his finishing skills. If he used wood bondo on cabinets (maybe filling in lock bar holes) I think he could probably do a good job spotting in the color for a decent repair.

Someone shipped me some old Williams displays but didn’t wrap them individually and broke off a couple of the glass nipples ruining the displays. Sad since the glass was nice and had board issues that were easily fixed.

When I first saw that picture I thought you were going to say they glued on a strip of bacon. They must have been really desperate or too lazy to look for the right part. They would have been better off just sticking on a piece of foam weatherstripping.

Hair. Impressive or scary. You decide!

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I guess this is what people do when they run out of fuse clips. Going to strip all that off and put the correct fresh fuse clips on the board. That and replace the TIP that recently shorted....

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I've seen much worse too but this is for my own personal game and since I already had the board out and I have a bunch of really good quality fuse clips they have already been changed out. Fixed some cracked solder connections too! Just going to deflux and wash the board after dinner then get it back in the machine.

I let it slide for a while but it was on the list to correct someday and since I finally had to pull the board today was the day.

One of the worst fuse wiring jobs I’ve ever seen. If you follow the wires you’ll see it.

Luckily the only hacks appear to be with the power and those will all be corrected.

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Yep. And they could have separated them all out if they had wanted to. I stripped all that out and have the wiring all cleaned up as original. Just added the two fuses to the inputs of the bridges.

I think the issue they were working with on the GI was all due to a bad lamp socket I found by the flippers. It had an internal short in it (occationally) and I put a new socket there to fix that too.

Elektra has a similar switch too I believe.

Found this gem on a Gameplan Sharpshooter yesterday.

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Found on a Bally Space Invaders. That is a use for a protoboard that I wouldn't have expected. Two pieces of circuit board stacked to make a link.

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Maybe it was a re-import and it was harder to get parts from overseas.

If I had a Centaur (or Junk Yard) I would seriously think about using a chain for the tilt.

Can't you unbolt the whole housing with rod to take out of the machine? The outside grind that off or cut the rod. Either way definitely get a new shooter rod.

Haunted House? Maybe they were trying to let the ghosts out....

Isn't that the one with the Rusty Shooter rod cover and rusty legs? (at least from the pictures). Didn't know swapping out one of the pop bumper caps with one from a Black hole increased the value so much.... Wonder what it looks like under those yellow half circle mylar pieces?

And the original bridges were probably fine....

Probably to make the contacts closer together. Or just bend them like everyone else does.

Better in an easily replaceable set of legs than extra holes in the cabinet....

Looks like it may be a Commodore 64 computer. Probably sitting on someone’s test bench that does repairs.