I've also managed to get some good research time too.  This includes some software development, plus hardware development and conceptualizing.  Though, to be honest, it sounds bigger than it is.  But let me get a bit more meat with these potatoes.

About a month ago, I picked up an inexpensive System 7 board set on a whim.  At first, I figured I'd just repair it and sell it to make a couple bucks profit.  That plan fell apart rather quickly.  As it turns out the CPU board was out of a Hyperball machine.  Interestingly enough, it was a very early ROM revision that I've since uploaded to IPDB.  More importantly, it was already jumpered for the Hyperball memory map, which gives more usable space than a standard System 7 game.  I've been puttering around with a few software changes for my Black Knight, but needed the extra ROM space.  I could have always converted my existing board, but didn't want to do that for one reason or another.

Now that I have a board that's pre-configured, I had no excuse.  I burned a set of ROM's with a single small rules change on it, installed the board, and gave it a try. Somehow, it even worked!   It's a small victory, but my machine is now runnig what I've dubbed my 5.01 rom set.  What change did I make? Nothing huge, I made the pop bumper blink when you hit it. 

The important thing is that it means accessing the extra block of ROM space is viable, and I now have 5.02 ready to test in the next day or so. This one is more extensive.  I'm adding a single player "special" award, and a flasher lamp that will fire with a lit spinner shot.  Future updates include adding a credit knocker and an additional flasher when hitting a lit mystery ramp.  I think that will be the extent of the changes on this project.  If it all works out ok, I am considering bringing the machine to the York show in October.

Now, on to other topics.

I finally came up with a solution to a vexing problem I was having.  I've wanted to develop a display simulator that could work on the bench, but without being overly large or complicated.  Well, I'm going to be ordering the development kit for a possible solution, based on the Arduino series of microprocessors.  If it works out I will be able to build it for System 3-11 displays which will have updateable code.  To cover the full alphanumeric displays of System 11 it's going to take a hefty number of inputs and outputs.  So we shall see.  I'll start with System 3-6, and expand outward from there.

Oh, and I can't tell you what it is right now, but I just got an awesome new idea.

I've been considering a change machine for the game room, oh, since I started the game room.  Actually putting coins into the slots was something that's part of the mystique of arcade games to me.  It comes from all those years of plinking quarters into the machines at arcades, bars, and bowling alleys.  Of course, you had to get those quarters from somewhere, and it was almost always a Rowe change machine.  Usually the much wider BC-25/BC-35,  in that poop brown color. 

I knew I didn't have room for those particular models, but Rowe also had a taller/thinner model that I knew I could squeeze in. So I posted up on Rec.Games.Pinball to inquire what the going rate was on them.  A few folks replied with good info, and a local guy named Chuck e-mailed me to say he had a couple for sale at a good price.  Well, I couldn't turn it down, so I snagged a BC-12 that was advertised as tested and working.... only needed a new lock!

There are a lot of inexpensive change machines on the market these days as it turns out.  All because of the new style bills that the US Treasury has released over the past few years.  Older changers like this one can still accept $1 bills, but it's not compatible with the newer style $5 bills at all.  They can be upgraded to do this, but it's not a cheap upgrade, so many places opted for entire new machines instead.

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As it turns out, it did NOT work, but I am also not upset as it didn't really need much at all to get it running.  The CPU board was booting up properly, and giving me error codes.  I'm still fairly new to the machine, but it did come with a book to explain the various codes.  First one was a stuck money return switch.  This one was easy, it was just a matter of the microswitch lever being on the wrong side of the outside lever.  Aligning it correctly cleared that error code away.

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The other code was for a bad coin hopper opto.  It was not hard to see the problem, one of the #755 lamps was burned out.  The Rowe changers work by having a small pre-loaded bucket, and when you put in your dollar it just dumps that bucket.  It then proceeds to refill the bucket, and the optos count how many coins are going into it from the hoppers.  If the lamp burns out, the machine shuts down and gives an error code. 

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Now, I could just get a box of 755 lamps and change them as they burn out.  But you guys know me at this point, I just can't stop myself from trying to improve things.  Later machines operate with led's instead of incandescent bulbs, and there are update sets available to put red led's into the older changers that are compatible with the existing optos.

This means, of course, that all I need is a red led. Gee, I know a FEW things about led's. So I ordered a couple of red 90 degree #44 LED's from Cointaker.  I moved the wire leads from the old burned out bulb to the new LED's, and since the machine is designed to accept bayonet based bulbs of this size, they fit right in.  Actually, the lens style on the LED's seems to fit even better than the old incandesent bulbs.  I couldn't be more pleased.  $1.38 plus shipping for two of these, as opposed to $15 each that some of the parts suppliers charge for 'changer specific' parts.

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The machine is now happily accepting dollars, distributing quarters, and making me all sorts of cheerful.  I'm slowly going through it all to make sure the hoppers are cleaned and lubricated, and that cosmetic issues are taken care of, but otherwise this was a quick and easy addition to the game room. 

Future plans are to pick up a good supply of tokens, and get the appropriate mechanisms for my games of course.  I'm also going to wire up an external switch so that I can just push a button to get those tokens without always having to feed in dollars. 

This one just arrived today, so it's not actually fixed yet, but was just plain odd.  A System 4 board, with the later rom set for Lucky-7.  Now, a system 4 board had an additional socket added for a 2716 EPROM named IC14, with the correct addressing already done.  A good idea really, just plug the chip in!  

But, on this board set, things got odd. See how the chip on the LEFT is marked IC14? Well, the socket that's designed to take that chip is actually the one all the way on the RIGHT..... the empty one.  But yet, the board was working until a different issue came up.

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So, how did they do it?  Lets take a look at the back side of the board.  The traces were cut and jumpered to re-address the old IC21 socket, originally intended for a 512 byte bipolar ROM, to take a 2k 2716 EPROM.  Just plain strange, when all they had to do was plug the chip into an already empty, and already properly addressed, socket.

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Now, here's a couple of fun little burned boards.  Theses were damaged, but still saveable.  I only snapped a couple photos of these unfortunately, so I don't have the finished repairs to show you.   First one is going to be a burned up TIP102 transistor, which had been replaced but still wasn't working properly.  With all that heat, I immediately suspected a bad pre-driver transistor and the associated resistors are probably damaged to some extent too.  So they all had to get pulled out and replaced.  I was quite happy at how well the board actually cleaned up once I got in there to take care of it.  Unfortunately, I didn't photograph it, so you only get to see the burned look.   The cause of this?  Probably a fuse was getting blown, and a higher amp rated fuse was likely put in to try and 'fix' it.   Always use 2.5A slow blow fuses for the solenoid circuits on Williams 3-7 machines, any more than that risks burning up board components.

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Lastly, a well known design flaw.  System 7 GI lighting connectors on a power supply.  In this case it got so hot, for so long, that the solder actually melted and started running down the backside of the board.  The fuse clip literally fell out, completely desoldered by the heat.  Both fuse clips were replaced, as were both the input and output connectors,  with eyelets to restore the thru-holes of the input connector and the input side of the fuse clip.   Cause of this?  Far too much power flowing through this connector, about 50% over it's rating.  Always use #47 lamps or LED's on a System 7 machine,  or upgrade to a system-11 style input connector.

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I've had a coin door from a Space Shuttle sitting here for, well, a long time.  Why? Space Shuttle may have looked the same on the outside, but was different on the inside.  It used a bit different bracketry in order to utilize microswitches, instead of leaf switches, for the coin slots.  I've always hated the old style leaf switches in these coin doors. 

So, it finally got disassembled and sent of to be bead blasted and powdercoated.

Wait.

Powdercoated? 

A stainless Williams coin door?

Yep!  I've decided that since this is my machine, and I don't really feel too concerned with what other people think, I'm going to be making a few cosmetic changes.  In my mind, it will be nothing gaudy and will hopefully look good, but it will not be as per originally shipped.  I'm not going to tell you the colors until the parts return.

Also, I have a replacement backbox on the way finally.  My current backbox is essentially falling to pieces.  Williams tried a different style of jointery which didn't turn out so well. I had to screw a couple of boards across the back to keep the whole thing from falling forward when I open up the light board.  The replacement will be an older System 6 style box, which I will refinish appropriately for Black Knight. I expect them to be arriving here in about two weeks, and am really looking forward to it. 

I'm also in the market now for a change machine too.  I have a couple of solid leads on them locally, but haven't committed to anything yet.  I keep talking about converting over to tokens/quarters, but not having Black Knight able to take coins always kills that idea.  With the new coin door, there's no reason not to do it.

No response.

Later in the day, I check to see if the ad is still there.  Now it lists the town, has a few poor photos attached, and the price is now $500.

Jerk.

Anyway, now to the cool stuff.  A couple weeks back I ran into a guy at a local club meeting. He had a Pinscore Jolt power supply for Williams System 7-11 that he needed to have tested out, as it was giving him some issues with the GI lighting.  Conveniently, if you haven't heard, I do this kind of stuff.  Turns out there was nothing wrong it it, was an issue inside his machine actually.  He also wanted to make sure it was ok, as he wanted to keep the original power supply and sell this one.  Well, just so happnens that I've been looking for this particular model from Pinscore, which they've since discontinued.

A couple e-mails were exchanged, as was some money, and now I have a fancy new switching power supply in my Black Knight!  What's neat about this one is that the high voltage section is in a removable card.  I plan on going with LED displays eventually, and I can then remove the HV section that I no longer need.  Between this, and the low draw switching 5v supply, it should be a good chunk of power reduction.

But that's not all!  It's also designed to be LED friendly for the GI section as well.  It's fully rectified, and thus provides DC power to the GI lighting (no more flicker issues).  It also has an integrated dimmer, to control brightness as desired.  There used to be a remote cable available to put the dimmer control in the lower cabinet, I have to track that down.  Oh, and it's also set up with dual inputs for the GI input power, and has connectors for both the System 7 style roast-master in addition to the later System 11 style pigtail.   My input wiring was always a hair too short, and putting strain on the connector, so I converted over to the pigtail instead.

Eventually I'll update the main page with all this fun info, and run a power draw test to check my current power use plus temperatures inside the backbox.  Time permitting of course. 

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NOW, lets go on to an unexpected electronics repair I had to make on my own stuff.   I won't say how it happened, as I don't feel like embarassing the innocent person that did it, but my sony A/V receiver had a bit of an issue occur.   A knob got broken off.  For most people, this means either some kludgy repair, or replacing the whole unit.  I have no need to replace the unit, as it still works fine, and dammit what is it I do on this website, and on my expensive new workbench?  That's right, electronics repair!  After 5 seconds of angry, my brain immediately went into "I can fix that" mode.  It's an interesting crainial tangent to make.

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Notice that it's not a simple case that it fell off, but the shaft on the encoder was busted clean off.  Turns out this is still a current part number from Alps, not that I remember what that part number is anymore.  But trust me, I was able to track it down.  12mm encoder, 24 detent, with bushing, 25mm ( if my memory isn't totally gone)

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Only one problem, nobody had the part in stock.  I either had to wait a month for a restock, or order it from the UK and pay $20 shipping on a $1.50 part.  This is where it comes in handy to actually read datasheets and understand the parts in question.  I was able to get them quickly if I went without the threaded bushing.  In fact, I got it in about 2 days.

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No problems fitting it into place at all, as everything was the same compared to the old part, except for not having those threads present.

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I know what your asking, what kind of problems will I have without the threads there for the retaining nut?  I don't really think there will be any.  The board is still held on by the retaining nut on the other knob, plus 5 screws, and 5 plastic clips.  It's more than sturdy enough for my needs. 

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And with everything happily re-assembled, it's only been a half hour work and $1.50 in parts. 

Some days, this business of mine really pays off.

In the meantime I think I'll give my 1st quarter 2012 business report.  Not that I have any stockholders or investors to please, but I honestly am enjoying this business so much that I want to share some insight with my loyal readers. 

Business is going well, I have to say.  Sales continue to grow, as does repair work income. Though as you've probably figured out, I'm putting any profit I make back into the business.  Building up a base infrastructure, if that's the correct term, is an expensive process if you are aiming for longevity. I could buy less expensive tools and materials, but then I run the risk of needing replacements in the short term. Spend the money on quality, and you won't have to spend it twice.  Cheap stuff is expensive, in the long term. Take this workbench for instance, as it's my single largest capital expenditure to date.

96" x 30"  ESD laminate worktop, with three Rousseau cabinet pedestals. It ran me about $1700 + $200 in shipping costs, and I'll likely be spending more in the future to accessorize it.  I probably could have spent a lot less money and ended up with a bench of similar size and capability,but of lesser quality.  Spending the extra money gave me good quality cabinets that will likely last for decades. Solid drawers on ball bearing runners, the ability to hold a lot of weight, very stable, expandable and modular.  The ESD work top is very important when dealing with electronics, with no more being restricted to a small ESD safe pad on top of my old wood bench.  I know that in the long term my business will benefit from having this bench, and that it will actually save me money as time goes on.  Though it does hurt having to lay out the money, I won't lie about that, it was still worth it. And I so badly needed it too.

In the meantime I actually have enough room for multiple boardsets on the bench at the same time, without resorting to working on top of my Black Knight.  Yet I'll still have room to actually have my oscilliscope on top of the bench, WITH a laptop for my logic analyzer, PLUS my power supplies, AND my fume extractor and soldering station.  Lets put it this way.  With all that stuff on top of the bench, I still had room to put my Sony A/V receiver on there for repair after the selector knob was broken off.  It's a wonderful thing.

As I look at the state of the business, I'm actually pretty happy with how I've positioned myself.  I don't see any other large expenses coming up, and have a good pile of inventory and products now.  My reputation is slowly building, which is critical for this kind of work. I'm also building up my network of contacts and associates. But I've also spent a lot of money in the process.  So after a very expensive 1st quarter of 2012, I'm going to spend the 2nd quarter in a period of fiscal consolidation.  I'll be building finished goods from the pile of components and boards that I have for my existing product line, but likely will not be introducing much in the way of new products for now.  Don't get me wrong, I'll be developing them for sure, but won't be jumping on any quickie ideas like I've done the past couple of months.  I've got some great ideas that take me in directions I haven't seen anybody else go down yet,  but it will take time to develop them.  In the meantime, I have a lot of inventory and a fairly big workbench to pay off.

I think I also have all the parts I need now for a speaker upgrade on White Water.  I've been wanting to do this one for quite some time, and am pretty excited about it.  But I need to get my current pile of repairs done first.  Not too bad of a backlog now, thank goodness, only one system 6 board pair, one system 7 board pair, and a slot machine.  So, I'm going to declare that I am open for more repair work again. 

But man, I need more room to work.  As it's looking, I think I'll be ordering a new workbench toward the end of this month.  I'll be splurging for sure, with an 8 foot long ESD surface to work on.  Plus some nice cabinets for storage too.  It's going to be awesome. 

Lastly, in the next few days I'll be putting up a "clearance" page on the main site.  I keep ending up with parts I don't need, so I think I'll just try and clear them out.

First, lets first start with the 'why' of these things.  Every commercial pinball machine out there has a non-volatile block of memory, meaning that it's memory which holds information even if the machine is turned off and unplugged.  This is what maintains your settings,  stores your high scores, but more importantly from an operator standpoint it also maintains the audit information.  The audit information is stuff such as the number of coins coming in,  free games awarded, extra balls awarded, game and ball times, and other various bits of gameplay statistics.  These are used to tweak the game settings and features to maximize the money coming in. 

Historically, machines maintained this memory via low power draw memory chips that were supplied by battery power.  Bally and Gottlieb use board mounted rechargable batteries, which are automatically recharged any time the game is turned on.  Williams used replaceable, and non-rechargable, AA sized batteries that need to be occasionally swapped with new ones.  Both concepts have their strong and weak points.  However, both styles can also result in some kind of battery corrosion that has the potential to permanently destroy your circuit boards. 

The common solution for most people is to install remotely mounted AA battery pack,  which is perfectly acceptable.  Some machines replace the memory chip with one that does not require external power,  which is a great solution, though somewhat expensive.   Personally, I've been favoring using a purpose designed capacitor.  This acts in the same manner as a rechargable battery, but without the potential to puke corrosive juices all over the place like a ni-cad is prone to do. No need to replace AA's every year or so either.  I've been using 5-volt 1.5-farad rated memory capacitors, which are avaialble from my favorite supply house at Great Plains Electronics. ALMOST any machine can use a capacitor too, but it will not work well with WPC generation Williams machines,  the real-time clock draws too much power.

Now, first thing first, you need to remove the original batteries.  As it's my usual boards to work on, this is a Williams System 6 with a removed battery pack.  Make sure to note where the original positive and negative of the battery pack come from.  Also, on these system 6 boards, make sure that you have good continuity between the front and back sides of the board at the negative connection here,  it can be easy to strip out the thru-hole connection when removing the battery pack.  (Actually, I've started to just cut the legs, but leave the stubs soldered in).

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This shows the back side of the board now, down at the positive side of the battery connection.  You're going to have to drill at least one hole here,  I drill two since I mount eyelets in here for the capacitor.  But you can also use the existing hole for the positive side, and only have to drill one for the negative side.

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As mentioned, I then install a pair of eyelets in here.  This gives me a solid mounting point both physically and electrically for the capacitor.   I forgot to snap a photo, but the eyelet on the right will need a jumper wire to connect it to a convenient ground source.  I use the original battery pack ground point, just for the sake of keeping things consistent.  Basically, you're just replacing the batteries with the capacitor.  A different component, but schematic otherwise unchanged at this point.

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Returning to the front side of the board, I've now soldered the capacitor in place, as shown in the red circle. As I mentioned, I forgot to take a photo of the jumper wire I've also installed.  The white markings on the capacitor are important, they tell you which side is the negative side,  so make sure to match them up properly or it won't do anything.

Inside the green circle is the original blocking diode.  This is in place to prevent the game from attempting to charge the AA batteries,  which would rapidly pop.  Unfortunately it also prevents the capacitor from charging.

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So, I remove the blocking diode and replace it with a 0-ohm resistor.  You could also use a length of wire, but I think these look a bit cleaner and more professional.  You could also install it in the two holes just above the diode, and leave the diode in place.  There are a lot of ways to skin this cat. Remember that this is how thing works out for a System 6 williams board.  Any other machine, things will end up in different locations.  Classic bally, classic stern, and gottlieb machines that originally had a nicad battery will not need the diode removed, as they are already set up to charge their memory power battery.

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And, well, you're done!   You're, of course, going to lose all your settings and audits in the process.  So you will need to re-do them all.   At the same time, your capacitor is going to need to be charged up.  So the first time you power on the machine, make sure to leave it running for about a half hour or so.  Then just forget the whole thing, as you no longer have to worry about batteries ever again.  As long as you power up the machine for about 20 minutes each month, it will maintain all your settings without a hitch.

Some of them will be moderate and drastic tangents away from the pinball pinball pinball that's been going on lately.  Some of them will be more of the pinball repairs.  But I think you're going to enjoy most of them.