Howdy,
Have a friend (seriously not me) that has a Mexico86 with major playfield wear just above the flippers, half of the striker (RHS) and beyond is completely worn away, otherwise it is in very good cosmetic condition.
I am trying to help his clean it up a bit and make it much more presentable.
If anyone here has access to a Mex86 and can take a hires scan or photo (straight on and zoomed beyond the flippers and slings) with a reference for size, I would greatly appreciate it. It is such a cool looking game otherwise and would be nice to do it justice.
Cheers

yes, I saw that one. I couldn't believe how much wear it had. i've never seen a zac wear like that.

Silly question. What flipper bat color is correct for Devil Riders? Mine are a bit mismatched. Blue on the main playfield, red on the top. I don't believe either set is original.

-Hans

Translucent red flippers with dark red rubber. That's how they are displayed on the flyer and two I have had were like that.

My Devil Riders is working great with the exception of the motor that spins the motorcycle. Has anyone found a replacement? It spins but just barely, seems weak. Thanks.

Just for doublecheck, have you verified the transmission joint?
I had the problem but it wasn't the motor but the rubber joint which was totally dead and slippery.

Just in case...

I actually just put in a new rubber ring. Should probably double check the size.

rubber ring was slipping on mine as well. I replaced it with an elastic hair tie and has worked great ever since.

Also check the connections. There are 2 different transistors that control the motor for 2 different speeds. The fast signals directly drives the motor with the supplied voltage, the slow signal has a resistor in-line to reduce the speed.

Anybody have the correct belt for this? Found the dry rotted one in the bottom on mine and it's a thin o-ring and not a pinball rubber. A friend had the same game and the motor barely turned and it was because someone used a size too small playfield rubber ring.

the ring is similar to a belt drive ring for a cassette player. I don't know a source for them, but you could use rubber belt to fit that electronic repair places sell. I think DVD/cd players that use belt drive would have them as well.

Is it normal for the 15A fuse (furthest left) on the power board on a Gen2 game to get super hot? It's hot enough that you can't touch it for even a second. Everything runs fine just seems odd to me. Had to replace CN1 connector because it was burned. Replaced the fuse clips too due to tarnishing but it's still very hot. Just seeing if this is normal or not.

Nope, not normal at all for a fuse to do that. Something is drawing too much power, but juuuuust barely enough to not pop the fuse. Either that or it's the wrong value fuse and the problem is still present that caused the normal value to blow.

Yeah it doesn't seem right. But the fuse should be designed to handle the current without getting hot. Too much current and it should blow.

Ok, what's the trick to changing the lights behind the 6 targets on the lower playfield of Devil Riders, along the back wall.

I'll see what I can sort out on a drive belt for the motorcycle, I have a few ideas to try. I'm guessing the correct sized o-ring would be what you need, and if they're all rotted out at this point the originals were probably buna rubber.

Looks like Zac's are LED sensitive to some brands. I've got a box of about 30 LED's right now that were in the game when I bought it, but weren't working at all. Replace with a different brand and the circuits are just fine. Really down to just a few small things now before declaring my game fully operational.

-Hans

you have to take off the upper playfield to get to those lights.

Some LED's will not work, some will randomly quick flicker and some will be just fine. It's best to use comet 2smb frosted daylight/sunlight for GI's and use bulbs for any controlled lamps.

That's what I was afraid of, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I expected it to be. I've got good LED's in there now. The plain comet cool/warm white frosted are my normal go-to, the ones you buy in the 100 pack. Those work just fine. I'm actually surprised at how little GI lighting is in this game compared to all the other machines I've worked on. I think there's only like 6 bulbs on the playfield in the GI.

Other than waiting on some flipper rubbers, my playfield is now 100% functional. This is the exciting part of a project machine when everything is coming together and you see tangible results. Once I get it going is when I'll start doing some product development. I've already got some good ideas on things to work on.

-Hans

For the drive belt on Devil Riders, head to the hardware store and ask for a #38 o-ring. Looks to fit perfectly without too much tension, drives my bike fine. If that's not tight enough, can also use a #25 but wasn't sure if it was too much tension. Should be able to grab both for under $2.00 total.

Picked up a Locomotion yesterday. This one unfortunately is scuffed up and has some pf wear by the flippers. Also the bg has a break in the very upper right corner - it is taped together and not real noticeable at least. It is all there and the battery hasn't leaked. I didn't turn it on but the previous owner said it didn't work. What is a fair value for this?

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Value? Not much unfortunately. This is a low cost zac (gen1) in working condition. In unknown condition with a trashed playfield, it would be best to get working and just enjoyed as a player. You don't see many locomotions but its not as fun as the gen2 games (IMO).

I think locomotion is really fun. Love the rules and layout. It's going to take a bit to get it going though. Mine was just as rough as this one when I got it, and I did a full restoration on mine. glad I did, because it's a really fun game. Was worth the time and effort to do it. I do have a nice used playfield available for this game if you decide you want to make it look better.

Fair value this condition , $450-$550

Sorry to disappoint you but:
Locomotion is the last gen1 machine, the most wanted/valued of this generation and it is among the nicest Zaccaria games.
The game, the sound effects, and the backglass are extremely nice.

I have one to be restored and I really look forward to it.

I cannot estimate the US value as it is a different market but the wooden structure looks quite tortured unfortunately.

Gianfri, When will you have Gen 2 Zaccaria MPU's back in stock. Really want to get one into my Devil Riders ASAP as I never could eliminate the last bug I was having with the stock board (randomly locking on different coils). Your website says backordered.

Thanks
Kris

I agree. It's like gen 1.5 since they modified the board to handle a lot more to get ready for gen2. It's a fantastic game. And they did make a ton of them, but a ton also have been parted out. I run into parts from locomotion all the time.

Yes,
it was so good that they had to start another production run after it was already closed and Soccer kings was already being produced.
The result was that part of the Locomotions available on the market have a headbox from a Gen2 machine because they didn't have any Gen1 headbox left in stock.
If I'm not wrong, only two games had such a success, Locomotion and Pinball Champ, the second had similar problems to the locomotion since Zaccaria was forced to open the production again while the were already producing the Devil Riders and no more 8 digits displays were available.
They used the 7 digits displays and changed the playfield in order to decrease the scores by ten and use 1 million to replace 10 millions scores.

@kbliznick
I may have an additional MPU in stock but I need to verify.
On the other hand, when you have problems with the outputs it may be the 2101 ram or the 74HS157 which control the 3081 so this may solve your problems.

Gianfri

ahhh, that's why there are 8 digit and 7 digit pinball champs. I was wondering why. I have had both version. I did not know 8 digit version was super rare or I would have kept it.

You guys have me watching videos for Locomotion now, been wanting a train themed game for a while but didn’t know of any in the solid state era.

I kept thinking that the videos must have been next to a black knight, I kept hearing familiar sounds, I didn’t realize at first locomotion used a lot of the same sounds.

Honestly, I think 7 digits are more rare because was a second production run to satisfy the high demand for that successful game.

Probably, they are more common is Australia and USA while 8 digits are more common in Europe.
I only had one 7 digit Pinball Champ (vulgarly called Champ 83) and many 8 digits (Champ 82).

HHaase
The Locomotion sounds are amazing, they even added an extra sound board to generate more sounds.
I also think it is one of the most american style game Zaccaria ever made.
Full of stars and stripes, cowboys...

Don’t forget Space Shuttle
Pure Usa

Just entered the club got my first Zacceria a very nice Soccer Kings. Also own a Mr.Game Mac Attack which is a from of Zacceria I guess.

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I’m going to have to report another instance of a pinitech NVRAM causing coil lockup problems. My Devil Riders was working just fine but without a battery. Swapped in the NVRAM and it started randomly locking coils on startup.

Last time I powered it up I didn’t notice a stuck pop bumper, until the coil started to melt and the board transistor blew out. My own fault it got so bad, I completely forgot to check the fuses to make sure values were correct.

Also seemed to respond a lot slower in some ways. The reaction flippers were most obvious. I wonder if the NVRAM causes issues on the data bus and this screws with the I/O circuits. I’ll have to look into the speeds on the NVRAM compared to the original style.

Unfortunately the bad coil is on the bottom left pop bumper and looks like I have to pull the upper left flipper too in order to work on it.

On a happy note I’m also starting to test some 3D printed flipper bags. Anybody have a pair of short flipper shafts? My game has Bally flippers for the main two and the top playfield just won’t be enough of a durability test.
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Holy Carp. This is exactly the problem I am dealing with on the Devil Riders. The outlane flipper will periodically lock on and back off but not enough to melt anything, However I have replaced a pop bumper transistor and coil more times that I can count. Totally did not occur to me that the NVRAM would be causing it. Going to have to swap this back out.

I might not need it if the NVRAM is causing the issues!!!

Interesting. I have an nvram in my Spooky and the left slingshot will lock on when you first power the game on but never subsequently. All I have to do is a quick power cycle and it boots just fine. I’ve got the driver board removed to hunt down some feature light issues but will have to test it next time I can.

Edit: pinball_ric and I posted right at the same time

10 years ago we used a backup memory cap instead of the pinintech nvram (which wasn't created). Simple solution and scores/settings were retained for months without play(although I never had a game I didn't play for months). I installed this in place of batteries on all of my zacs.

Kris..... right react flipper and bottom left pop bumper?

Yep, very familiar with memory capacitors. I used to install a good number of them on Williams boards before the NVRAM's became a thing.
I was up in the air on which way to go for this machine.

Kinda glad I went the route I did if it helps resolve a lot of other problems for people, and goes into the general Zaccaria knowledge base.
Don't mind sacrificing the coil and transistor if that's how it goes.

-Hans

anyone have problems like that with brinks chips? I bought a bunch of brinks. So far I only have had one that wouldn't hold settings and had to swap it for another.

EXACTLY!!!!

I popped a 5514 into it and the pop bumper hasn't locked on yet through 10 games. The right react flipper still locked on twice at start-up, but went down after a few seconds. While checking the ribbon cable between the MPU and the driver board I found that flexing the driver board would cause the flipper to drop, but that might be a different issue.

I already dealt with a weird issue on one of the other RAM chips on this game. The 2101 was causing some controlled lamps to lock on and others to not work at all, and a couple of coils did the same. I totally thought it was a I/O problem on the driver board and went through almost a dozen chips before swapping the RAM fixed it. (installed a 5101 as I didn't have another 2101). There was a pattern in terms of which coils and lamps it was but not based on hardware, but the ordering of the I/O.

Also the game does play noticeably better. Way more action from the pops and slings and outlane flippers.

Yeah, that was the first thing I noticed that made me suspect the NVRAM, was how everything went so sluggish immediately after installing it. Even the sounds seemed different and less responsive. Reaction flippers are about a quarter second slower with the NVRAM than a standard RAM chip. I do find it interesting how the Zaccaria boardset CPU will still run with huge segments of the board set not functioning or missing.

Neo:
With the Brinks chips, can you post up the part number on the actual RAM chip they use? Like I said, I'm suspecting this is tolerance stacking or something of that nature, and not a fault with the NVRAM itself. Interesting to see if it's faster/slower than what pinitech uses.

-Hans

I had the same NVRAM installed into my Farfalla and didn't notice any issues. I think I saw the right outlane flipper lock on once on start-up but didn't have any coils melt down.

All depends on what's causing the oddness. If it's mixing in ROM data to the I/O somehow, the symptoms could be game specific.

Makes me want a good logic analyzer again. One nice thing about the 2650 processor series is you can de-clock it and run them in step mode. Would be able to see what signal differences are going on. But I don't have the time or equipment to do that right now. Maybe after I hit the lotto and build that new shop.

-Hans

brinks chip uses

Ramtron
fm16w08-sg
A11400u908g2

Ugh, sorry to hear of the issues guys! First I've heard of incompatibility on Zaccaria GEN2.

These modules were originally designed for arcade use (5114). Pinout on the 5114 is the same as 2114, 9114, 6514, 5514. Straight-forward wiring (address-to-address lines, data-to-data lines, R/W and CS signals wired to the FRAM). When researching what other uses the 5114 had outside of arcade I saw @gianfri had 6514 nvram using FRAM to replace IC4 so at some point I added Zaccaria GEN2 to the compatibility list. Hadn't heard of any issues or received any emails indicating problems over 1-2 years, but then I'm selling only in the US market & most of what I ship for 5114 are going for arcade use. I don't imagine I ship out more than a handful or two of these for use in Zaccaria machines per year. Based on what's been posted here by a few people I'm going to pull the Zaccaria compatibility from the product page for right now.

One thing that stood out to me as a bit odd was JUST replacing IC4 (instead of both IC4 & IC5). The schematic shows these two chips share CS, R/W and an 8-bit bus is created between the two chips (DB0-DB7). Further research showed IC4 is what actually held settings/high scores. IC5 looked the equivalent of a "scratchpad". I don't know how the software is working or whether the full 8-bit bus could be used as a scratchpad for certain things, but something to consider. The Brink NVRAMs are replacing both IC4 & IC5. It might be worth trying a single NVRAM at IC5 (along with the NVRAM at IC4) to see if that makes a difference. Unfortunately, IC5 is not socketed, so that takes any plug-and-play aspect away.

Hans, if you want to try another chip at IC5 I can send another 5114 out to you. Looks like there'd be room for 2x side-by-side.

Pfffft.... I'm not in the least upset, nor worried, nor concerned. No apologies needed here. I was going to e-mail you this evening to ask your opinion, but wanted to see if the 'hive mind' may have more info to give you. I hate just saying there's a problem with no data to back it up.

There's more than enough room for another one, and I've already got sockets in both locations. So I'm all for buying another and giving it a whirl. Want me to just do that over the website? Or did you want to send me a paypal invoice? You should have my e-mail already. Hadn't even thought about the split RAM space between the two to be honest.

-Hans

Oh I'd just send one out no charge as an experiment we're both in on =)

Hopefully the software is clearing IC5 by running some tests when the game boots. Suppose you could try that now even with sram in IC4 and nvram in IC5 to see if anything odd happens. Might be good to disconnect solenoid connections or pull the fuse on initial bootup with IC5 to see how the game acts tho.

that's one aspect I liked about your chip is that I didn't have to install a socket in the other side. But by the time yours was released, I already bought 14 brinks chips. I do have your chip in some boards, i'm going to have to watch for lockups.