I occasionally like to refer back to this reference I made awhile back and I don’t think I had it posted on my site, but when working on WPC driver boards, it’s very easy to damage traces that connect opposites sides of the circuit board. Here’s a handy diagram of those traces and recommended jumpers to make the board more reliable.
When diagnosing power problems on the WPC driver board, it’s a good idea to check for continuity between these marked traces. This can indicate a blown thru-hole.
I was having weird things happen with my Twilight Zone… what was causing the problem? Optos? Switch Matrix problems? Connectors? LOL… nope
You turn on your game and… “BLECH!” that’s what you get? That’s not good. Let’s try to figure out what exactly is happening:
Armed with more information, later on I have some time to pull the driver board and diagnose things further:
I’ve had this game sitting around for awhile and finally got around to looking at it. I shot a few videos awhile back and forgot to publish them, so here’s a useful short video on how to access the DMD in Slugfest. It’s nowhere near as easy as you’d expect as it is in a regular pinball machine.
This is one of those pinball pickups that we all dream about. It took me awhile but I finally had one of those experiences. A top-5 grail game, in HUO condition? Way below market value? Sign me up!!
This is also one of those games I’ve toyed with selling on and off because it’s so beautiful and desirable, but so far, we’ve kept it.
Here are some pictures of the game showing its condition:
In this video series, I am working on a client’s “Dr. Who” pinball machine that wouldn’t boot up. It was just dead. None of the diagnostic LED blinks would blink on the WPC-89 MPU board, so I go over the process of how to identify and isolate the problem, then I upgrade the board with NVRAM (non-volatile memory) so that it will never need batteries again.
This is an unedited series of videos showcasing some experiments I have been doing trying to repair damaged pinball ramps for which there are no replacements available at the present time. In this case, I’m working on a Bally Party Zone ramp, using different types of epoxies, plastics and adhesives. See work works and what doesn’t. In the end, I figured a creative approach using laser cut plexiglass tabs which were attached to ramps using two different types of adhesives.