Really gorgeous!!!

Finally back working on Locomotion after The flu came for me! I’ve reseated all the ribbon cables as suggested and sprayed deoxit on some of the connectors. I reseated the power for the MPU. Unfortunately, there has been no change. The game does make some sounds on power up and still advances the a single digit in each of the displays as previously shown. Nothing seems to show up in the credit display and only a couple of playfield lights come on when cycling through the self test options. I am at a loss for what to do. The game was working fine and was left on. When I returned to it, it had a single zero in each of the displays and turning off/on had no effect. Any advice on what to do next would be appreciated!

I have a Nautilus pin but with a busted bakelite on the ball count unit--see photo. My plan is to dissassemble the unit minimally and use an epoxy or glue to adhere a thin piece of plywood onto the backside of the bakelite only, making sure that none of the epoxy or glue bleeds through to the front of the bakelite.

My question: Does anyone have a recommendation for a product to secure the bakelite and plywood together? I am considering a DAP product called Tank Bond, which is an epoxy that says it's good for plastic or tile, but I have never worked with broken bakelite before. Any opinions?

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Instead of wood you may have good results cutting out a blank piece of PCB material. You may be able to get the blank FR4 type material which should be thinner than the plywood and very strong.

Glue I would try would the JB weld Clearweld. See if you can try on scrap material first. May help.

Thanks so much. Sounds like excellent advice. A woodworking friend of mine is helping me with this project and he suggested I post to this group for any suggestions. I'll share this and any other advice that comes in with him, and when the project is done I will post the results.

Following up on the advice from Robotworkshop about my Nautilus project, I took the approach of cutting a single backing piece from a blank PCB on a bandsaw and expoxying it to the bakelite with JB weld Clearweld, using clothes pins to clamp the pieces. I was able to do this without any disassembly. After a day of curing, it looks and feels great and I'm optimistic that it will hold up well. Thanks so much for the advice. Two photos of the repaired bakelite from different views below.

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I have a question related to a wayward wire from my Nautilus project, for which I have no schematics. As shown, I have a red wire that is unattached to anything, and I'm thinking that it is likely a jumper that came disconnected from another red wire, as evidenced by the wrapping of the red and gray wires together. The first photo shows the unattached wire with the associated pins in their slots; the second photo shows the pins pulled from their slots and the two red wires joined as I think they should be through soldering.

Would you say my assumption is correct?

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Schematics can be found here.
https://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=3381

-Mike

Man--don't know why I assumed they wouldn't be on ipdb. Thanks!

Okay just finished my Devil Riders machine up. Some of you may or may not like what I did, but haven't seen anyone do this before to a Zaccaria machine, so let me be the first. I sent the legs, side rails and lock down bar off and had them powder coated to a blue color similar to the blue on the cabinet. I also added lighted flipper buttons. All in all I think it turned out great.

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Here are my two beauties beside each other. My Magic Castle will be one of the next one's I do.

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Looks great. I love the powder coat.

Thank you! Appreciate it. It was a fun refurbish restoration. Also having fun finely getting to play the game.

I just brought home a Time Machine and was thinking I might want to powder it after I touch the cab up. This is a vote in favor, looks great!

Thank you! Appreciate it. Devil Riders was a fun project to bring back alive. Working on these Zaccaria pinball machines is quite a learning experience. They are sure fun to play.

Question to Zaccaria generation 2 machine owners. What are you using for the battery back up on the CPU board?

Gianfri's dual NVRAM.

https://www.pinballsolutions.eu/product/nvram-dual-module-6514-2114/

Will require you to desolder the old RAM and potentially add a new socket as well.

For all of my gen 2 games I used a backup memory cap. Super simple. You can get these from amazon too.

From Dave Gersics site:

To replace the original battery, a 1F 5.5V computer memory backup capacitor like Jameco P/N 142957 or Mouser P/N 555-1.0Z5.5 can be mounted on the CPU board in place of the battery pack and short leads used to connect it to the battery (+) and (-) traces...

Thanks guys for your suggestions. Appreciate it.

Turned on my just finished Devil Riders last night to play. Machine booted and went into normal mode. Only thing was the high score and ball/game credit was not showing and/or switching back and forth as it normally does.
Machine would not take any additional credits or start a game. Tried reseating all connections to the CPU with no changes. Also tried going into the diagnostics which it would not let me enter once switching switch 4 on the CPU. I am guessing here is the cause a bad battery on the CPU?
Any other thoughts as what could be the cause?

Anyone doing repairs on Zaccaria boards? David stopped repairing boards back in 2021.

I have a guy out here. What is wrong with it?

I have a pinball champ 83.

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Hi dvs626,
My TM has the same size as GTB System 80's. Considering that Apple Time stole the playfield design from GTBs Bounty Hunter, I would say that a GTB cabinet and head would work. I can't measure mine right now because I'm in a bar. When I sober up tomorrow I will send you the measurements from mine.
I'll compare the lockdown bars from Wms. Bad Cats and GTB Hot Shots as well.

Can I have another one of these, please?
Oh, sorry, that wasn't meant for you.

I think it is a driver board issue but am not for sure, and think there are other issues as well.

I am restoring a shooting the rapids. New mpu and power board and original driver board. I set dip switches on mpu to shooting the rapids, turn on the game and displays show 0s and high score 222222. MPU board lights indicate everything is okay. The new mpu has a way to clear memory if game will not enter setup. I disconnect driver board from mpu and clear the memory. Displays one and two show the correct values indicating the operation was successful. Reset dip switch to correct game and now get alternating 666666 and 999999 on displays and a sound alert - according to David Gersic's site this says there is still a memory issue. Game will still not enter setup.

What is interesting is when I plug in the driver board, the displays now alternate between 444444 and 999999. If I clear the memory with the driver board connected I get a wrong set of values on display 1 and 2 after the operation. Set dip switch to correct game and 444444 and 999999 alternating on displays but no alert sound.

It could be IC38 CA3081 which is dead and doesn't get the inputs on the switch matrix.

Just one idea...

if you have a dead driver board you may have problems on the DMA circuit.

Regarding the case of 666666 and 999999 all looks good there. I don't think David says that the memory has a problem when indicating 666666 and 999999, you must have got it wrong but in any case that's the correct way and it indicates that the memory is ready to be programmed.

Once you have 666666 and 999999 you can press the program button SW1 and then use the coin door switch to move forward over the different parameters.

Thank you for your insight. Funny though the next day turned it on again and all is well. It booted up and ball in play/game credit/high score display worked correctly. Game took credits and played as it should.
It also did again last night. So, hopefully will continue working, but at least I'll have something to review if it happens again.
Again appreciate the help,

Mike

How are your ribbon cables?

I just compared my Pinball Champ to an Alien Poker. The lower cabinet measurements were identical. The heads, however, were not. Pinball Champ's head was slightly smaller overall. If you need exact measurements I'm happy to provide.

New interconnect ribbon cable.

Went back to basics- should have done this to start with - and checked continuity from board to inside door game settings button. No continuity on the white wire. Could not for the life of me figure out why - all connections looked okay and had continuity to coin door connector. Unbundled the coin door wires, and sure enough someone had cut the white wire. Have no idea why. My Farfalla coin door wires also had multiple wires cut or disconnected. Have not had the chance to reconnect but will do so this weekend and report back.

Reconnected "white" wire and can now enter setup and 06 appears on display. New issue is credit button is not working so cannot adjust values. I have continuity from the MPU to the credit button, MPU is booting properly. I did fine another cut wire "orange white" but that goes to cabinet tilt and do not see where that would affect the coin door button.

Now have credit switch working. Entered setup and loaded values. Reboot game and the alert still goes off but all displays show "0" - not alternating between 666666 and 999999.

Tried diagnostic and skips over 2 and 3 - goes from 1 to 4, then 5. Driver board?

Still goes from 1 to 4 in diagnostics, but can start a game. Switches score properly, but no controlled lamps or solenoids.

Not sure about gen 1 Zaccs but on my gen 2 Pinball Champ there were 2 fuses on the underside of the playfield. One for solenoids and one for lamps. The fuse holders for both went bad and had to be replaced.

Pinrepair website has a picture of a fuse under a Shooting the Rapids pf and two relays. I have two relays but no fuse.

Quick confirmation question. CN5 off power board, pin 1 is ground and 2 5vdc. Connect to CN12 on interface where pin 2 is ground and 1 is 5vdc.

I confirmed in schematics. Still no coils or controlled lamps. A few controlled lamps are now on at power up but do not cycle.

Not sure if this is the best place to post this question, or if I should start a new thread. Please let me know if it should be a new thread. Have a Devil Riders which will boot up, but is showing 10.7 volts output on the 12 volt circuit, tested in a couple of places, including C7 on the power board. And, both flippers fire whether right or left button pushed. Playfield coils including, pops, slings, etc, will only fire when when the pop or sling switch is closed AND either flipper button is held in (and both flippers are in the up position). Just replaced two of the three capacitors on the power board, as one had failed.

Any ideas how to diagnose this would be very welcome.

Hello
unfortunately I haven't understood your description of the problem, can you better explain what's the problem?
Is the game running?
Have you got information on the displays?

The 12 volts are not used for the CPU, neither the driver board nor the coils.
12v are only needed for the sound board.
On the other hand, 12v come from the same bridge rectifier used for the 5v therefore you must verify if you have the 5,6V going to the driver and CPU board.

Changing the rectifier could solve your 12v problem

gianfri: Sorry I wasn't more clear. Being an EM guy, kind of feeling my way through working on this game. The sound board comment makes sense, since the game is making no sound.

The game is booting up. But acting strangely in a number of ways:

There is no sound.

When a single flipper button is pushed - both lower play field flippers fire.

None of the play field coils fire when a switch is engaged - unless a flipper button is pushed and held. Then pop bumpers and sling shots will work when a ball, or finger, triggers the switch.

I had a friend helping, so don't remember exactly which test point on the power board is for testing 12 volts. But at the test point, and on one side of the C7 capacitor (small blue rectangle on the power board) the reading is 10.7 volts, and should be 12 volts.

I am pretty sure, that the 5 volt test points were reading 4.9 volts.

Hope that makes the problem more clear. I will try to test again and this time write down voltage readings.

It may be the rectifier. But it "feels" like there is a voltage leakage, or stuck switch somewhere causing at least some of the problems.

There are also a couple of small female plugs in the back box that are not plugged in to anything. They are not labeled and there is no obvious corresponding male connector in the vicinity. I will take pictures and post as soon as I can.

Thanks for any help.

Oh, forgot. The score displays are working. The game will "credit up" when the coin switches are engaged and add credits.

Looks like you have several problems on this machine
Please send pictures of the plugs

you may have wiring problems + power board problems.

For sure I would replace P2 because 4.9v is not good.

Pics of boards and plugs: Voltage readings with game on and a game started, ball 1, not plunged: Note: - are dashes not minus signs unless in parenthesis.

Test Points: TP 1 - 159.7, TP 2 - 11.0, TP 3 - 5.6, TP 4 - 5.0, TP 5 - 39.4, TP 6 - (-4.7), TP 7 - 4.8, TP 8 - 0

C 7 - 11.1

Fuses: F2 - 4.8, F3 - 2.5, F4 - (-6.2), F5 - 19.6

Thanks again for any guidance / ideas.

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I just bought a 1976 Zaccaria Ten Stars pinball machine. I am going to replace a lot of the rubber bumpers around the machine and generally do some maintenance. My questions are:
1) I have the schematics, does anyone have a manual for it.
2) one of the 3 round bumpers at the top is "dead", when the ball hits it is does nothing, Any idea what to do with this?

This is my first pinball machine...so I know I may be asking dumb questions.

Frank

Frank,

Congrats on your machine. Others will weigh in with much better answers and corrections, but here are mine for now:

(1) Because it's a Zaccaria, for this particular title, it's possible that there was never a manual available--just the schematics.

(2) To address the pop bumper issue, start with the physical mechanics and forget the ball. With the GAME OFF, see if you can move the pop bumper up and down like the others by pressing down on the silver ring to make it go up and down. If so, it's working mechanically and you'll need to look under the playfield to check to see if the related switch is being properly closed by the shaft and the spoon relationship (if not, you'll have to adjust the switch gap)--carefully adjusting the switch gap solves most pop bumper problems if the overall mechanism is intact. And make sure the wires running to the pop bumper are secure and haven't broken off. The bottom line is that most pop bumpers work the same way mechanically and electronically, regardless of the game, and you'll have to study up on pop bumper mechanics and look at the guts of the bumper from underneath the playfield to address the problem.

There's a great video on YouTube (ignore the fact that it's for Jersey Jack pop bumpers--the basics of what you need are illustrated beautifully) that will walk you through (2) much better than my clumsy explanation.

Good luck!

Joe