connectors

All posts tagged connectors

This update took much longer than I expected it would, but finally the headbox has been patched and repainted. Outside of some cosmetic damage, the headbox is in good condition. While the artwork was faded in parts and there was some minor damage to the wood, it was at least strong and stable. Unlike the Fireball Classic I recently restored, the Pinbot cabinet artwork is painted on with the use of stencils. A full set are available at TwistedPins and Santa managed to deliver a set to me during the Xmas period and it was time to put them to use.

I’m going to break the process up into two parts. Firstly i’ll do the headbox, which will then be followed by the cabinet. To begin with, I removed the stencils from the packaging and flattened them out. There are two stencils per side – one for the red/orange colour and the second for the yellow. It also comes with a set of instructions which are not complicated – just common sense really.

Pinbot pinball
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It’s time to finish off my Fireball Classic restoration. When I started my Xmas / New Year holidays, I had the goal of finishing this off before I went back to work. Looks like I’ll get there with a day to spare. With the presentation of the machine completed in my last update, I wanted to address the last few operational issues with the machine. The first thing to look at is the MPU board. As mentioned a few times in earlier updates, the MPU board has suffered from corrosion. A battery left in way too long managed to spread damage all around the outer edges on three sides of the board and it had begun to work its way in at the components. Damage was also done to the J4 pins and even the female connector pins on this plug.

I was able to obtain a second hand original Bally MPU board in excellent condition with no corrosion damage at all. The male pins at J1, J2, J3 and J4 were all replaced, along with new 5101 RAM and a lithium battery to ensure there is no risk of battery damage in the future. This one came from a Baby Pacman machine I’m told. New game ROMs were also burned and installed.

Fireball Classic Pinball
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