Could We Fix This Heavily Battery Damaged PCB? - 1987 Williams F-14 Tomcat Pinball Machine Repair 4

[@DiabloDeathPusher]

You never disappoint Ron.

[@richa9719]

That was a difficulty 10! I would have bet a paycheck it wouldn’t work. You must have some mad desoldering skills!

[@LyonsArcade]

We get there :) Usually they can be fixed if you keep working them, thanks for watching Rich!

[@Jeroen_a]

Focus Ron! Focus! hahaha..... a Tip for someone would be to take a photo of the silkscreen before scrubbing it from all sides :) and maybe even leave a picture of it behind in the cabinet for the next guy that wants to fix it :)

[@LyonsArcade]

They're labeled in the manual, there's a page showing what all the silkscreen says.

[@Jeroen_a]

@@LyonsArcade ah, that's right :-)

[@litz13]

This is one of those cases where a bench test rig is really essential .... all you need is +5, +12, and a LED display panel. For basic functional testing, you can power the lamp and coil supplies into the board off +12v.

[@LyonsArcade]

I don't feel like it's necessary in this instance, the board was already working and we have the machine as a test bench that has an expansive self test capable of sequencing all the lights, switches, coils, displays, and sounds....

[@williamsudbrink4187]

Oh no! The do-do-do-do scary music!

[@LyonsArcade]

To be continued Wednesday!

[@akgyrator]

Another great upload Ron. Thanks for the great entertainment 👍✈✈✈✈✈

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks AK-Gyrator we appreciate you watching!

[@robertlipsett2535]

good job on repairing the board. you might want to consider using an abrasive rubberized stick in medium grit about 1/4 inch wide for cleaning pads and traces. it is a lot more focused then sanding down large areas and removing the masking on nearby traces and is also good for last second pad touch ups on cleaned pads that have gone to long since you did the major cleaning and they get into tight areas easier. they look like very long pencil erasers

[@LyonsArcade]

I'll have to look for some of those Robert, thanks!

[@roblipsett5247]

@@LyonsArcade made a mistake not medium grit but fine grit on the abrasive stick. it is better then using fiberglass pencils. also good for cleaning sockets and lamp board traces with there sockets. my bad for saying medium grit. (hangs head in shame)

[@SpearM3064]

Very nice, Ron. Not sure what's up with the displays... the top two could be dead, but there were definitely more digits showing on the bottom two. Educated guess: It has something to do with the ominous music. 😉 But yeah... it's coming back. I already see a _huge_ improvement, and that annoying hum is gone too. I love how all the blueprints, manuals, and parts are still available. I'm sure you're grateful for all the people that are as dedicated to saving "the cool stuff" as you are, who put in all the hours scanning documentation into a digital format, figuring out what could be used to replace the parts that _aren't_ available anymore, and other odds-and-ends like that NVRAM replacement so you can get rid of the accursed batteries.

[@808zhu]

The F-14 TC I looked at yesterday didn't have any battery damage that I could see... The guy says "everything works except the flippers"... Saw a message on the display "INSTALL..." Put a few balls in, and now it works. LOL

[@LyonsArcade]

They always say that. "it lights up, the flippers just don't work"... well hell, I'd light up too if you stuck 120volts through me :)

[@pauz2175]

The irony is I got a text from someone while watching this video. “My dad has a pinball machine that lights up but the flipper don’t work. Can you look at it. Lol”

[@808zhu]

@@pauz2175 Haha.. That's awesome. Fixed? 😉

[@Paul-yk9uq]

@@LyonsArcade Sounds kinky. What you do on your own time is no one's business!

[@78razors]

I hope you will showcase more arcade games and gameplay instead of repair videos. I just love those videos! :-)

[@LyonsArcade]

We will have more of those in the future, but we only really do videos of games we haven't filmed before and we've filmed a lot of them :)

[@InMyHead]

A lot of work going into this one. Hopefully once you get past the backbox boards and the displays you won't have too many issues on the playfield.

[@LyonsArcade]

We're gonna see :)

[@thomasmickle7289]

Gettin closer and closer to 30k subs! Way to go man!

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks Thomas, we appreciate it!

[@simondempsey1]

Its comming back to life, looks like new.Well done Ron.

[@KC_justme1]

Just incredible, Ron. Good job. I'm rooting for you. And thanks for the many resources you've provided in this series to purchase parts, such as Great plains electronics, etc. I recently ordered from a place called action pinball in Utah. I'll compare electronic part prices now.

[@pcachu]

Foreshadowing music! Because the best problems are the ones you thought you fixed already.

[@LyonsArcade]

That's a good way to put it :)

[@TreadwellJay]

I love the dramatic music cues, especially this extra long one and the fact it's foreshadowing the reveal of the problem for a FUTURE video! :) I've only done a teeny tiny bit of extremely basic electronics stuff, and even then didn't really have a grasp of what I was doing, so I gain so much insight from these videos if only through repetition and osmosis. I really appreciate the "you don't have to understand the entire thing all at once, just take it one piece at a time" approach. So, coming from this place of ignorance, may I ask why you filled the old battery pin holes with fresh solder if they weren't going to be used? I thought maybe they still needed to pass the signal through the area (batteries or no) but I didn't see any jumpers. Thanks! (I'm a couple months behind, I know, sorry...)

[@LyonsArcade]

The only reason I filled them with solder was because it made them look cleaner, lol If I left the holes, it looks like something's been removed or ripped off, if I fill them with solder it looks like either it was made that way or that somebody has worked on it, and doesn't look like anything's missing. So no real reason, I just thought it looked nicer. Thanks for watching Jay, we appreciate it!

[@memyopinionsche6610]

Looking good. Do need some LEDs just to make the colors more brite and richer. But a lot better than I thought.

[@LyonsArcade]

No LED's in this one!

[@jussikuusela7345]

LEDs can give vibrant colors but they don't always mix with filters. If the native wavelength is off the filter's passband, it can look dull. Depending on their quality, white LEDs might neither render all filter colors well.

[@jussikuusela7345]

@@nrdesign1991 for red-yellow range, why not, maybe cold white for green-blue range. This is something that had to be tried out to see if it works. Depends so much on the filters too.

[@chaddentandt9868]

Excellent , I knew you could get it going. Such a fun game.

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks Chad!

[@AppliedCryogenics]

"LOOK! It's Christine-ing itself!" LOLOL

[@LyonsArcade]

It wants to live!

[@waldogtv5486]

Yeah when he said it, I was like... That's why I like this channel. :D

[@therealrockstargamer]

​@@LyonsArcade 24:26 a pinball machine telling you to die That's hardcore

[@wolfweb]

Really interesting and I know nothing about any of it!

[@dansledepot107]

Mysterious music! Uh-oh..something is going to happen! I'm working on a Taxi where someone installed a resistor pack backwards. Man didn that screw up the switches royally!

[@LyonsArcade]

Those Resistor Packs are tricky!

[@EsotericArctos]

If the copper has been cleaned, sometimes adding some RA Flux onto the board can help the folder flow nicer. Then just clean it off with some isopropyl, or a mild paint thinner, once your done if needed .

[@TheGnomestead]

Man you would love Friged North the electronics warehouse we have in Anchorage. From tiny transistors to commercial radio towers! You can touch stuff and stuff not just your googley didgitts!

[@72chargerse72]

Ron when subbing transistors make sure they have the same pinout, cause they say they are the same but sometimes you have to switch the pins around.

[@LyonsArcade]

I always check

[@ItsaRomethingeveryday]

I bet Todd probably has a few of these boards I. His bargain basement, Liked the vid

[@LyonsArcade]

Todd has a huge warehouse, with lots of boxes full of stuff like this in it, sometimes he'll pull one out and sell off like 10 or 15 of the same thing that he's been saving all these years, pretty cool :)

[@pauz2175]

Awesome job man. I didn’t want to deal with putting in a socket for the nvram so I just ran an off board Bayern pack on mine. I may order some of those watch battery sockets and put that in. Not sure.

[@LyonsArcade]

The watch battery thing is pretty cool, I do that on Bally's now.

[@jussikuusela7345]

Technically the resistor pack has a "common" pin to all the resistors, but it is not necessarily ground. Very often it goes to +5V when certain open collector logic circuits need pullup resistors.

[@LyonsArcade]

Jussi there is a concept called a Distinction without a Difference. Your Distinction is noted but if you're trying to correct everything i'm wrong about you're gonna be here quite awhile...

[@jussikuusela7345]

@@LyonsArcade Neither that, nor offense, is my intention. Great work, I might not have the tenacity needed. It has been noted to me often that I am too analytical and theoretical. It is all right for people to say so, and I will try to fix my ways, but this pretty much goes with my native wiring, LOL!

[@Shamino0]

Resistors are not polarized. The common pin may connect to power or to ground. It won't change how the resistor works. This is different from components like electrolytic capacitors and diodes, where backwards installation either won't work or will result in a blown component.

[@mike4330]

you don't see alot of jumpscares in electronics repair videos ;-)

[@theatomicpunkkid]

Looks like the person who sent you the pinball machine knew a good deal of what went bang but absolutely nothing of what to do about it with that manual in there from the similar machine that they were able to find. Or maybe they had no idea where to find the parts to fix it. I've seen another tomcat machine that's up and running it's pretty damn cool.

[@frankgagliano9677]

Great video, F-14 does have a great light show. Great job in soldering all those small parts. When I solder on my I always burn myself, did it happen to you? I thought 7 videos on this one but I might be off. Do you use 60/40 solder? ?Thanks Ron See you on video 5.

[@LyonsArcade]

The solder i'm using is old it doesn't have a label on it anymore so I'm not sure what it's consistency is.... I have burnt myself many times :) Thanks for watching Frank, we appreciate it!

[@dazamad]

Great work on the battery damage repair. How does one find replacement parts that are obsolete? You mentioned about the row of transistors you used 30volt i think. Is there a website that tells you? Also like christine reference you have to be a certain age to get the joke! Fun watching

[@LyonsArcade]

Some of them you just have to google the part number and see what's similar, sometimes you'll see where somebody has put this part instead of that part, and you can google and compare the specs and see if that's suitable, etc. A lot of it was figured out long ago by previous techs when they worked on this stuff all day long. Thanks for watching Darren!

[@xuolihp]

Hi, i really love your channel is awesome 😎 did you ever think to put new conformal coating on the pcb after the fix to protector them. I use uv one to fix mine.

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

the CVSD audio chips are no longer available and it just happens that a certain Young Lady recreated the CVSD audio chips as a FPGA.

[@jussikuusela7345]

J.E. perhaps?

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

@@jussikuusela7345 That's your lady and maybe she has more CVSD modules than she can use reach out to her and she might let you have a few.

[@Joentje-fv9ho]

Hi Ron, Thank you for these interesting video's. I've seen you put a lot of time in pinballmachines to repair them. I'm wondering how high your labour costs per hour are.

[@LyonsArcade]

We don't charge per hour, we just charge per job because i'm pretty slow at working on them.... so for instance, we charge a certain amount to get one running again, a certain amount to do the playfield, a certain amount per job. It differs from machine to machine, kind of depends on how many parts we need and how longish we think it'll take.

[@Wrathgir]

So awesome! It's getting there for sure.

[@sjgreaves]

Where yo end up with hard to solder traces, have you tried adding some liquid flux? I find it makes a huge difference. Obviously make sure to not get a corrosive/active flux, I use Topnik RF800 but anything like that is cheap and worth a try.

[@Ebinsugewa]

Do you have a list of common parts you should have on hand for repair? You seem to have all sorts of resistors and caps and such. Is there some sort of BOM or kit that you could link to to get them all in one shot instead of getting nickel and dimed on shipping when having to buy individual components multiple times?

[@colossalsky]

Been watching the videos for a bit but I maybe missed the whole freeze frame with the x-files music in the background, is that a running gag?

[@LyonsArcade]

You have to go back and watch all the videos now 😀

[@arcomile1488]

I didnt notice. Did you cover the traces with some kind of protectant like solder mask?

[@LyonsArcade]

No we don't. Thanks for watching Arcomile!

[@gspugh]

I didn’t hear the ground loop feedback hum anymore after you repaired the main board and fired the machine up to test it. Did your fixes solve that problem already?

[@LyonsArcade]

The ground loop thing is actually a very simple problem that has a simple solution, it comes and goes but we'll talk specifically about that in a video coming up soon on this machine and show what causes it and what the fix is.

[@gspugh]

@@LyonsArcade Thanks for doing this series. I know it's time consuming to record and edit video (on top of your regular work) but it's been fascinating learning how to do these repairs. It makes it less intimidating! I'm finally considering repairing my original power supply and removing the Rottendog

[@adrianmewis8479]

very cool great job. whats with the knight rider machine i keep seeing lol teasing me

[@LyonsArcade]

It's coming up, eventually!

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

What about having the battery holder where it will not cause problems close to the place where you clear out the machine every so often, it is just a shame that there is not a replacement module using 4x FPGAs and 4x CPLDs to replace what had been damaged.

[@pauz2175]

The nvram is soo much nicer if you’re talented enough to replace sockets like Ron is. If I lived close by I think I’d be in the shop daily learning.

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

@@pauz2175 I was watching your videos as I could not get into the IOM video streams

[@pauz2175]

@@DAVIDGREGORYKERR watching my videos??? God I hope not. Lol. The only videos I’ve ever posted were from years ago when I need help with one machine and I had no where to post videos for the people helping me to see them. Definitely not intended as recommended viewing. Lol

[@Jeroen_a]

If you do not need batteries why put them back in? the Nvram saves highscores, settings bookmaking etc without the need of the batteries (it's really cool!). Maybe if you want to keep it really original you can. You can buy the battery holders for a few cents too... but i would suggest to just solder 2 wires and screw the holder to the bottom of the backbox. IF you have leakage of batteries again it can still travel back up those wires if you are unlucky... takes a bit longer but this board already had the time to corrode this far. You can consider the nvram as a USB stick that saves the data. Once the USB stick does not get power it still retains the data when you put power back on it. Sometimes the old fashioned way is just obsolete. And hey! if you had gotten the highscore in 1990 it keeps it forever! that is a plus too! :)

[@LyonsArcade]

You can definitely mount the battery down in a part of the cabinet where it won't leak all over the board, that's how we used to do Bally boards all the time. Thank you for watching David Gregory Kerr!

[@andymouse]

Getting there, a nice meaty one !...cheers.

[@theatomicpunkkid]

Hey nice all The nasty buzzing is gone.

[@franktedeschi5331]

Somebody give Ronnie a engineering degree already so he could stop saying he’s not an engineer. I think he deserves it after this board repair.

[@LyonsArcade]

Engineers create things, I don't create anything, I just put it back how it originally was designed by an engineer!

[@newleafpropertymaintenance8235]

Is all of this stuff directional?

[@randycarter2001]

It's not about the parts. It's about the smarts.

[@Jimgat83]

Hay Ron I need to repopulate a gorgar play filled what can I use to see we're all the parts go

[@Jimgat83]

Is there a schematic for the playfield

[@LyonsArcade]

In the manual it shows kind of how it's layed out but it doesn't really show where each post goes, you kind of have to have a video or some pictures of the tear down to know for sure... I haven't done the playfield on a Gorgar but if you run into any trouble email me or something because I have a Gorgar here in the shop we're working on. You can see pics and get the manual at www.IPDB.org

[@Jimgat83]

@@LyonsArcade thanks Ron can't wait for the gorgar videos to come👌👍

[@NivagSwerdna]

@0:00 I'm going to bet you can't fix it and save myself the trouble of watching the video... @24:05... ok I watched it all. Good job with your protrusions.

[@Jeroen_a]

Yay, just in time :) cuppa tea time :D

[@LyonsArcade]

Tea Time! Tea Time!

[@NivagSwerdna]

@Jeroen If you make the tea; I'll make the cucumber sandwitches

[@Jeroen_a]

@@NivagSwerdna Great! :D

[@t.c.bowling1934]

Phew, l tried a failed attempt to replace caps. Nothing work. I probably broke a trace. I replaced with a rotten dog board with success in the past. But did not work well when I contacted them they said I need a new ribbon cable I think the board was bad.

[@JohnEricBooth]

Lololol "It's Christine-ing itself"

[@TheHeadlessHorseman]

24:26 huuugh!! 27:46 Huuggg!!! Man thats scary

[@TheGnomestead]

OH Snap! Or Slow snap? @9:54 and it took til 11:15? You think we got all freakin' night to wait on parts?...... In my best Donnie voice.... Hmm Dramatic pause...... Hmm

[@bhuff123]

How about a whole replacement board

[@pauz2175]

Very expensive. Looking at probably $400 us.

[@Jeroen_a]

It will take time to fix it all but i think you can safely say that buying all the parts for that board (excluding the shipping ofc) separate and replacing it would cost less then just replacing the entire board. Since some parts only cost a few cents and you generally do not need to replace them all :)

[@LyonsArcade]

You can get one, but the board is up over $400 plus shipping, and then we don't get to do this great video.

[@danijelcar5184]

Its going there soon it will be fine😎👍

[@808zhu]

Please show some soldering sometimes. 🙏

[@LyonsArcade]

Look @ all the complaints I get for the work I DO show and you'll understand why I don't show soldering. I don't need an army of nerds telling me I'm doing it wrong anymore than they already are :)

[@808zhu]

@@LyonsArcade Hahaha. I hear ya'. 😂

[@andymouse]

@@LyonsArcade Lol !

[@RS2000XPACK]

ITs Alive (ish) :)

[@marinkagreen9415]

It’s kind of weird to think the cheap batteries that powered all of our crap Christmas toys, from our childhood, could do so much damage to toys we really wanted to play with. Boo!

[@TheGnomestead]

Down Da Bottum! People! 👇👇👇

[@katilynnschwab2485]

Let's turn off the lights. Says Joe Classic arcade

[@808zhu]

Ronnie face reveal video at 100k subs

[@LyonsArcade]

All you have to do is stop by the shop and meet me like 100's of people have already :)

[@808zhu]

@@LyonsArcade If I'm in the neighborhood, I'd be delighted. For now I'm about 5,000 miles away, literally.

[@andymouse]

@@LyonsArcade It's on my bucket list !

[@jeffo881]

the "MUSIC OF DOOM" bwhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha yes...............

[@LyonsArcade]

A preview of next video :)

[@viscountalpha]

I do enjoy seeing you bringing it back to life. I saw someone remaking some boards on facebook. facebook.com/basementpinball They might have a spare pcb that might be hard to get otherwise.

[@LyonsArcade]

You can buy new boards but what fun would that be? We could buy a new machine too

[@viscountalpha]

@@LyonsArcade They look reasonably priced. But the tables needing it seem limited. Again, last resort kind of stuff when repairs are impossible.