OP

Quoted from Arcane:

After taking apart the main cabinet and the lightbox, I decided to redo the little board holding the Tilt mechanism and the two chimes. I got the inspiration of painting it red, from Matt (see https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/i-thought-she-was-a-dirty-girl-before-i-stripped-her-down).

OP

Quoted from Arcane:

Today, I redid the power supply.
The Bally AS-2518-18 are notorious for being extremely poorly designed and failing on a regular base. The original PCB is not very well traced and numerous modifications must be made to bring it to modern standards (See Marvin's recommendations). Instead of wasting my time trying to improve and make reliable an old piece of electronics, I decided to go with the $35 kit from NVRAM.WEEBLY for a complete replacement of the Power supply including fuses and shipping. It is truly hard to beat such a deal and I am very happy with the product and the final result.
Here is the kit as provided by NVRAM.WEEBLY:

It takes a little bit of assembly to put it together. The fuse holders are re-enforced for the 20 Amps and 10 Amps fuses.
Here you can compare the original Power Supply and its replacement. The replacement uses 35 Amps rectifiers instead of the 20 Amps used by Bally in the late seventies. There is only one drawback with the replacement power supply: the clear plastic insulator cannot be mounted on top of the fuses, because of the up mounted heatsinks. It is not such a loss as the two resistors are generating a lot of heat and are better off with as much cooling as possible.

The replacement circuit is very well designed with large tracks and makes for a much cleaner and more reliable assembly:

Below is the finished assembly:

The replacement PCB is mounted with four sturdy columns, instead of the awful and fragile plastic pins used by Bally. There is plenty of space to prevent a bending of the wires and for air flow, underneath:

After powering up the transformer and installing the fuses, all the values are matching the schematics. Overall, I am very happy and feel a lot of better about this central and essential piece of equipment.
Yves

OP

Quoted from Arcane:

Well, the stencils have arrived. Very fresh stencils, perhaps a little bit too fresh....They stick so much, it is scaring.
Anyway, there is my first ever attempt at Using Pinball Pimp stencils:

I am quite happy with the results but the stencils took some tiny specs of paint with it. Mostly on the edge. I wonder if placing the stencils in the fridge may reduce their stickiness a little bit.... I am mostly concerned for the final stencil (Black).
Overall, the quality and ease of these stencils is incredible. The junction between red and yellow is perfect and there is no leaking. I went with very soft sprays/coats trying to be patient (5 minutes) between them .... and ended up with about three passes. Five minutes later, I am pulling on the stencil.
Quite happy so far, but that is a lot of work and masking..... Rolling the colors may be so much more convenient.
Matt, it is your turn now with the main cabinet...... Be brave!
Yves

OP

Quoted from Arcane:

A little progress on the Lightbox:

I am really impressed by the quality and precision of Pinball Pimp stencils. No wonder Jeff is the reference when it comes to repainting these classic Pinball machines.
Yves

OP

Quoted from Arcane:

Time for a little update. The other side of the lightbox has been painted. It did not work as well as the left side. One of the stencil piece reap off and I had to install it by hand, carefully. Then my black coat was slightly too heavy, causing some issues when removing the stencils. Fortunately, I found a trick to fix my mistakes using a small cotton swab, impregnated with Naphta. By working very lightly, it lifted the black paint, leaving the yellow or red untouched. Relief!!!

After this, it is time to re-assemble the power supply and the various boards. Fresh 10-32 screws for anchoring the heavy transformer to its mount.

I like this....

For the time being, I am only installing the Rectifier and Solenoid Driver board and the Light board. Before going further, I want to verify all the voltages and grounds.

It is coming along. One of the display has been installed and the high voltage adjusted to 165 VDC. I can see a faint light on the left side of the display. There is hope.

Yves

OP

Quoted from Arcane:

Some updates: working mostly on the electronics and displays.
I received a new Alltek CPU and installed it. The beast is alive, sings a tune and scores accordingly when the playfield is connected.

Only shadow to this picture, the new Alltek board will not go into Self Test mode and I cannot access the Bookkeeping or test any of the lights and coils. What a bummer. I am in negotiations with the owner of Alltek to get an RMA and an exchange. I have purchased 3 Alltek MPUs in the past (10 years ago) and they have always worked perfectly. The new version (NVRAM based) although more sophisticated may not be as reliable as the old one.
I have tried removing J2 and J3 connectors on the MPU and pressing the SELF-TEST button....to no availability. I swapped it with another of my machines and the behavior is the same.
We will see how this goes.
Yves

OP

Quoted from Arcane:

I installed the knocker in the main cabinet. Bally was out of its mind when they placed the knocker near the CPU board.... All this to save a few feet of wires and one connector. It does not make any sense to have this coil spitting coil dust over the boards and shacking the backglass and all the electronics near by.... Very poor design that was quickly modified in the following years and models.

That will provide a nice and loud whack that can be heard by the whole attendance.
Yves

OP

Quoted from Arcane:

Interestingly enough, the holes do not exactly match and the replacement rails do not have the hole on the top rear part.

OP

Quoted from Arcane:

Just finished brushing the rear of the playfield:

A lot cleaner than what it used to be.
Yves

OP

Quoted from Arcane:

Thank you. I am following your thread too, with a lot of interests.
Yves