Hugh's Gaming

I fixed my locked on pop bumper, it was a dead resistor and cap on the switch.  I also fixed all of the other coils, I will have to post what the TIP122 for the ball release coil looked like… it was cracked like mad!  I put the apron and shooter gauge back on last night but they aren’t up to spec (Got to find some time to Vector that art in Illustrator).  I did half a flipper rebuild last night and then the game is 100% playable!

Pics to come.

I had a friend over last night and we were looking over the Firepower.   I installed some new LEDs and the game was on for around 30-40 minutes in attract mode.  We started to smell electronics burning (Yeah, THAT smell) and the game turned off.  I did some troubleshooting  and determined that the CPU, a Motorola 6808, fried.  OH NOES!  I don’t have any 6808s so I have to order a few.  Now I have to figure out why it died in the first place.

I guess while I am waiting I might as well start on the Earthshaker

I found the problem with Firepower.  The coin door lockout coil was measuring properly (Over 50 ohms) but it was bad.  I put in a higher slow blow fuse (4 amp versus the standard 2.5 amp) and immediately heard the coil buzz.  Just a FYI… you can safely substitute a higher amp fuse temporarily… and I mean temporarily!  I had the game on for 5-10 seconds until i found it.

I disconnected the coil and the game starts up but the bottom right pop bumper is locked on.  I didn’t notice the pop bumper for a minute or so though so the coil got a bit hot.  No biggie, no damage done   The ball release coil is dead.  I went to short the ground wire to ground to see if the coil was good and it doesn’t fire.  I did the same to the ball save coil and it sparked.  Something not good… now it doesn’t fire.  Looks like some more board work!

So to summarize I still need to fix:

1.  Bottom Right Pop Bumper
2.  Ball Release Coil
3.  Left Ball Saver Kicker
4.  Install Flipper Rebuild Kit

I have been sneaking in work here and there on my Firepower and last night I got sound!  I had to replace all of the capacitors and a bridge rectifier on the sound board and now I have perfect, clear sound.

Next up:  Fix the solenoids issue (none work) and this game is almost done!

Tonight I finished replacing the interconnect on my boards.  After completing this I thought what the heck, why not try them in the game!  I plugged them in and there were no signs of life.  The CPU status LEDs flashed so that’s a good sign.  I did a typical test, I pushed on all of the ROMS just to make sure they are seated properly.  Turned the game on again and I was in audit mode!    I replaced the battery holder and installed some batteries and now I have attract mode! YES!  Then… NO!  The game reset.  No biggie I knew I had more work anyways.

So I brought the CPU board back to my bench and after removing all 6 roms I noticed a nasty site on old boards.  SCANBE sockets!  They are the worst socket ever designed and my board has 6 of them!  Yup off I go to remove those sockets.  So now it is 1:15am and I have removed all six sockets and cleaned the through holes for the new sockets.

Is there a more beautiful site? Not right now.

I’m not installing the sockets until later… at least the holes are clean

I worked on the power supply tonight.  I replaced all of the header pins on the board, installed two new 6A4 diodes at positions D7 and D8.    I also replaced both of the bridge rectifiers in the head and tested all of the voltages.  So far so good!  Next up:  Bench testing the CPU board and replacing the 40 pin interconnect between the CPU and driver boards.

I’ve gotten a lot more work done on the Firepower this evening.  All of the metal parts that can fit in my tumbler have been tumbled and polished.  I have painted the interior of the cabinet and I have touched up the rest of the outside of the game.  The playfield is coming along nicely, I have touched up the black areas between the pop bumpers.  I have decided not to go overboard on the playfield restoration because new playfields will be coming out in the future, plus this game as it stands right now will end up just being a player and not a museum quality specimen.  My big parts order came in and now I have new black legs and cabinet buttons to install on the game!

Check it out… it’s coming together quite nicely:

Firepower Restore Pictures Update 10/25/99

In the pictures you can definitely see a difference in the blacks around the pop bumpers.  It shows up well in pictures but under normal playfield lighting it won’t stick out as bad.  I just laid down the Triple Thick on the playfield so I have to go back and sand it smooth in spots.

So my Firepower is pretty nasty.  It is not a nice game overall because of how it was stored.  Older games like this do not fare well in unregulated environments.  With all the moisture in the air this game has paid a price… but it won’t be nasty forever.  I started stripping the game down and currently the playfield is out of the game and stripped down.  One major issue is the cabinet on this game.  Due to the moisture in the air it has major paint quality issues.  A lot of the paint has flaked off and comes off easily if you attempt to put painters tape on it to mask it off for repainting.

For this to be nice I will need to re-stencil the cabinet.  I am not planning on putting that much work into this particular game (at the moment) so what do you do?  I decided to repaint the cabinet by hand using paintbrushes.  After spending the last couple of nights working on repainting the cabinet here are some before and after pictures:

Before - Left Side

Before - Front

Before - Right Side

After - Right Side

After - Front

After - Left

It looks 1000% better than it did.  It’s not perfect but it will do until I decide what to do with this game.