Will's Gaming Projects

Done??

I'd say it's almost perfect. It could use a little paint, and the left side t-molding needs replacing, but wow, what a difference.

Here's an updated photoset, complete with captions describing each step.

Soon I'll do some kind of concluding writeup.

Audio Done

Not much time to work on MAME between holiday trips and work, but the audio is now done.

The design of this cabinet (an Atari Tempest you'll recall) is ingenius.

I made a slight modification to the drawer insert and installed a Cambridge Soundworks system. These are a little dated, but quite affordable, and they provide great sound for their price and size. I've had a few sets of these over the years.

There's a series of photos illustrating the audio setup starting here.

Oh yeah: I also replaced the screws holding the trackball in place with proper carriage bolts from Happ.

This Rules!

Continuing progress...

Installed control panel buttons and trackball and stuff
Got old monitor out (didn't die trying)
Got PC monitor in, found clever mounting approach
Removed old Mat Mania boards
Installed PC and interface boards, wired 'em all pretty
Hauled it upstairs!
Lots of playtesting, naturally
Figured out how to print and affix control panel artwork (Kinko's print and laminating was imperfect, size was off a tad resulting in visible template markings, and the color registration could use improvement. Maybe after everything else is done I'll try again. Contact cement worked good.) Here's the 300dpi original.
Made an online help screen.

Still to do:

Design and print a Marquee
Create a monitor bezel
Figure out audio (here's a hint)
See if existing backlight fixture works on 110VAC
Paint cabinet, replace T-molding
Consider reprinting control panel artwork

Making Progress!

The story so far:

Got me a kick-ass cabinet. Turns out it's a converted Tempest!
Old control panel stripped off.
New control panel designed and validated (visio)
Control panel artwork designed and validated (tif, tif without template, gimp version)
Metal control panel: new holes drilled, old holes patched

To do:

Install control panel buttons and trackball and stuff
Get old monitor out (don't die trying)
Get PC monitor in (how how how?)
Remove and eBay old Mat Mania boards
Install PC and interface boards
Test test test!
Figure out how to print and affix control panel artwork (decoupage?)
Design and print a Marquee
Create a monitor bezel
Figure out audio
Paint cabinet, replace T-molding
Haul it upstairs!

Mame Project Underway

With the TZ in good shape, work starts on this year's MAME box. (The last one didn't make it with us to Portland.)

I blogged about this yesterday. What's on my mind at the moment is the control panel.

Here's what it looks like now.
Here's the original Tempest layout. I need an overall design on which to superimpose as many of these images as possible without it becoming a chaotic, amateurish collage.
Here's my amateurish collage of a first stab.

How to play Twilight Zone

I took Sigma's TZ guide, imported it into MS Word, made a few small edits, added a table of contents, and annotated it with lots of photos. It's designed to be printed double-sided.

You can download a zipped copy of this file here.

Update: Here's a PDF, thanks to Kevin Steele at www.retroblast.com.

I am willing to have this printed, coil-bound and FedEx'd to you, at my cost. It's not cheap: Kinko's charges $44 for printing, $8 for ground shipping, and tax varies. So if you send me $58 that should cover it. Please don't flame me: I'm not charging for the content, I am offering to have Kinko's/Fedex perform this service, and I am passing the cost directly to you.

If you are interested, Click here to use Paypal to send money. Don't forget to enter your shipping address.

Finished (almost)

It's ready to party. It's not perfect: the jet bumpers aren't as sensitive as I'd like them to be, but that's not surprising since I never took them apart to service them.

Click for captioned photos.

Back to work!

It's been nine months and 1000 miles since I worked on the Twilight Zone. But today much progress was made after I decided it was a bad idea to strip the playfield absolutely bare:

Waxed the playfield, 2 coats
Disassembled, cleaned, reassembled gumball machine
Cleaned miscellaneous plastics
Polished miscellaneous metals
Replaced lots of rubber
Applied rear panel decal
Replaced a bunch more 44 bulbs with 47's
Basic gumball test: still works!

Safe and sound in our new home, progress made!

Just a few parts to get back, in the right order!

So now it's on to the home stretch, hopefully soon:

Replace gumball machine
Replace assorted plastics near gumball machine
Clean and reinstall rubber I don't have/need replacements for
Replace ramps
Replace mini-playfield
Try to reconnect all the cables
Take it all apart again because something's wrong
Reassemble everything, again
Install five brand new balls and the powerball
PLAY IT!

RBS Project Starts

Eight months later, no change to the status of the Twilight Zone (aside from moving it 1000 miles). And rather than finish one project, I'm (typically) off to another. I've re-ignited my interest in making my own "Rolling Ball Sculpture", or RBS. Here's the result so far. Although I had some soldering experience before, it was purely electronics, mod chip stuff. So there's lots of messy joints. But I'm learning!

See pictures and video!

Disassembly and cleaning continues...

The gumball machine is out. Removal required disassembly of both ramps, a ton of plastic, and I also had to unplug a bunch of stuff under the playfield too. While I was at it, I removed, disassembled and polished the power playfield. Tomorrow I'll go out for some nevr-dull to clean the metal bits.

It's going to be awhile before I'll be able to put this back together. Among other things, I have to replenish my #47 bulbs, plus if I do this right I'll need to keep disassembling down to the bare playfield. And as long as I've got it disassembled this far, why not add the third magnet?

Ack, what was I thinking?

Let the Cleaning Begin!

Time to make the dirty stuff clean. Today I took apart anything that the ball touches under the playfield. That includes the skill shot scoop, piano, camera, slot machine, and all the plastic causeways under there. Put it all in the dishwasher, scrubbed off some dust, and reinstalled. The difference is amazing. (Click to enlarge any photo.)

Here's underneath the playfield with all the stuff off.

Yes, it all really went in the dishwasher.

Wildcat RC-88 really works. These are rubber stops that appear here and there in the game.

Super-clean ramps!

They were pretty cruddy before, remember?

Next: cleaning all the dust from the innards of the gumball machine.

Crisis Over

I have a happy Twilight Zone again.

Received and and installed a replacement for the fried LN2803 at U20. Getting the old one out was no picnic--after an hour of patiently trying to desolder it I went medieval and cut the two pins that just wouldn't desolder. Another 20 minutes of messing around and the old one was out, and as a bonus I managed not to wreck any traces or solder points. Five minutes later the new chip was in. Five minutes after that I was testing all the switches, and five minutes after that Enzo is doing some playtesting and I'm writing this very relieved entry.

Phew!

Fixing the damage

So here's what seems to have happened.

A few weeks ago I was messing around with the ramp diverter. When reinstalling the coil that drives the diverter, I left the wires in a state where there was considerable physical load on them, sort of wrapped around the coil.

It took some time to take its toll, but what ultimately happened is the power source driving the ramp diverter coil got shorted and 68VDC found its way to the ramp diverter itself and everything electrically connected to it. I discovered this while messing around with the mini playfield: trying to figure out what on earth was going on, I received a shock from the side rail on the cabinet. Probing around led to the discovery of this serious (and for that matter dangerous) problem. If I had a full comprehension of the way this game is designed and wired, I might have been able to figure out what might have been zapped, but I don't, so I cried for help.

It's a big world out there. How big? Well it turns out that I'm not the first person to have his TZ's ramp diverter coil short to the diverter itself, causing 68VDC to go places it shouldn't and blow stuff up. Not only has it happened to Kevin Ramsey, he was reading rec.games.pinball at around the time I cried for help, and told me of his experience.

So you can click that link above for more gory detail, but enough's enough. Present status: I found some spare parts from several years ago and replaced the optos at the lower exit of the power playfield (their failure got this whole thread started with me wondering why the flippers were firing when the ball entered the powerfield) and they work again. Every switch in column 4 still causes its row to close (which is very very bad), and I have ordered some new chips to replace U14 and U20 on the CPU board (picture above), a slightly scary prospect. With any luck those new chips will make the game happy again.

Now to figure out why the lights won't turn on in my office...

Something's shorted!

Out of nowhere, there's a new problem. When the ball is sent up to the mini playfield to "battle the power", normally the flippers are supposed to be disabled and you can bang on the flipper buttons to silently activate the magnets in the mini playfield. Now the magnets and the flippers are actuating. But it's worse than that.

Test report says "Check switch 76 Mini P.F. exit". The machine thinks it has no way of knowing when the ball leaves the playfield, so it's only fair to leave the flippers on.

Checking switch edges. Good heavens! ground short on switch rows 4, 5, and 6!!

Row 4:

Plumb bob tilt OK

Left slingshot OK

Mini PF Enter: triggers ground short message

Left ramp: OK

Upper right 5 mil: OK

Gumball popper opto: OK

Center lock opto: OK

Clock 30 minutes: OK

Left flipper opto: OK

Row 5:

Right trough: OK

Far left trough: OK

Right slingshot: OK

Mini PF left: triggers short message

Gumball geneva: OK

Power payoff: OK

Mini PF top opto: OK

Upper lock: OK

Clock 1 hour: OK

Upper right EOS: OK

Row 6:

Center trough: OK

Trough prox: OK

Left outlane: OK

Mini PF right: ground short

Gumball exit: OK

Mid right 5 mil: OK

Mini PF exit: no response

Clock hour 2: OK

Upper right flipper opto: OK

Wait a minute. It's column 4! Check it out:

Dead end: row 1 ground short

Camera: ditto row 2

Player piano: ditto row 3

Mini PF enter: ditto row 4

Mini PF left: ditto row 5

Mini PF right: ditto row 6

Clock millions: ditto row 7

Lower left 5 mil: ditto row 8

Also not working: 76 Mini PF Exit, where all this started.

Column 4 is on J206-4 on the CPU board. Unplugged and replugged a couple times, no change. Have to leave this for now. What next?

Update
Stranger and stranger: completely disconnecting the mini playfield doesn't change things. Disconnecting the opto board mounted to the playfield (mini PF still unplugged) also didn't change things.

Holy crap. Serious ground problem. I thought the game was shocking me while I was removing the playfield, and sure enough there's 42V DC across the side rail and the power ramp, both metal objects which should be totally grounded. This is with the game off.

(Discussion under way at rec.games.pinball)

New Clock Boards Installed

Wow, that was way easier than the last time I tore into the clock. Unplug connectors, remove clock assembly, note position of hands, remove hands, pull the clock apart (leave gears undisturbed), remove old boards, install new boards, reassemble, test. Took less than an hour and what a massive improvement. As with the LEDs in my gumball machine, the color of the lighting is much whiter than the warm incandescents that fill the game otherwise. But I don't mind a bit. In fact, when there's a kit to replace all the bulbs and flashers in the game with LEDs, I might just consider it.