WOZ power supply board defects

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This is one of those repairs that reveals something… in this case a manufacturing defect.

My WOZ started smoking one night and then stopped working. After examination, we found this..


What apparently happened was a choke/coil on the power supply board overheated and failed, taking out miscellaneous other components with it. This happened around the same time I did a new software update, so I was concerned it might have been triggered by software, but upon further investigation, this was not the case and just a coincidence.

Upon talking with the folks at JJP, they are aware of the problem and it’s a defect in the power supply board, using an under-powered choke.  Supposedly they fixed this but some games got out with the old choke.  It’s not a question of “if” it will fry, but “when.”  What’s worse is, if this goes out, it apparently has a tendency of taking out numerous other boards including the CPU and the display driver board.

New and old boards

You can see the difference in the size of the choke on the newer (left) power supply board verses the older one (on the right).

Unfortunately, for many of us, the game is likely to be out of warranty by the time you find out you have the old board.  You should check and see, and contact JJP before it costs you much more.  They may replace boards even if they’re out of warranty.

Why It’s Important To Replace Your Pinball Balls

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As work continues on the repair of a Game Plan Sharpshooter II pinball machine, I felt compelled to make a quick video to show what happens when you don’t properly maintain your game, specifically not routinely replacing the pinball with a new one. The previous owners of this machine illustrate this cautionary tale…

First Look: Game Plan Sharp Shooter II pinball

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Lately I have been adhering to a self-imposed moratorium on picking up any more pinball machines. Honestly, I’ve really been doing my best to avoid it, and the fact that so few show up in my area makes that easy, so when a friend-of-a-friend said they knew someone with a game in their garage they wanted to get rid of, it was worth a look… here’s the video and info on my acquisition of a relatively rare game, albeit in questionable condition…

Game Plan’s Sharp Shooter II is an interesting game… I have never owned a Game Plan game before so this is all new to me and the technology is different. Watch along with me as I fumble around seeing what the deal is with this crazy garage pickup…

Guns and Roses: Dealing with a bad design of the ball shooter lane

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Guns and Roses is one of Data East’s most desirable pinball machines, if not their most valuable.  It’s a great game with a ton going on, but there was a fundamental flaw in the initial design of the game which caused lots of problems.   Data East came out with a fix involving a replacement part that is now unobtainable.   So is there a work-around for this?   We try to find out…

Walk-thru: 2016 Houston Arcade Expo

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haagI am just getting back from the 2016 Houston Arcade Expo (known as HAAG). This is one of my favorite events of this type. It’s not as big as the Texas Pinball Festival or others, but that’s what’s cool about it. It’s intimate. Everybody knows everybody. This is the 15th year they’ve done this as far as I know, and it’s a fun, quirky festival in the Houston suburbs.

I was also on a panel discussion this year, which was a lot of fun. I usually prefer to be behind the scenes and not in front, but at the same time, it was good to call attention to my PinChurch and Mystic Krewe projects and very rewarding that people are becoming more and more aware of these things.

So enjoy this walk-thru… I don’t think I show the tournament area, but most of the main area….

Behind the Scenes: Designing the Dominos Pinball Machine

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I attended a seminar in Houston featuring some of the design team behind the Dominos Spectacular Pizza Adventure pinball machine. Yea, yea, I know. But I was there and I recorded the seminar, so if you’re interested here’s some info on the process which led to that machine…

I got a chance to play the game and I was not very impressed with it. But then again, I don’t honestly think this is a game for pinball enthusiasts. It’s a marketing thing for Dominos. Along those lines, it’s very cool. I absolutely love pinball machines being promoted and used for promotion. So that’s a good thing.

But as a pinball enthusiast, I thought the game was somewhat lackluster. The DMD animation was not on par with other games, the sound effects were invasive and chaotic. There were a lot of tight shots on the game – I think the designers added too many shots so those shots are more narrow – and that’s where I think the design fails. If you’re targeting this game to non-pinball-enthusiasts, it should be easier; it should be flashier, but this game is hard to play. In any case, they had most of the games sold before they even started production — such is the pre-order model. So there you have it.

However, if you’ve ever wondered what goes into licensing and approval to make a pinball machine, this panel discussion goes over the process and the design changes and challenges. Pretty interesting…