Repairing a Customer's 1976 SPACE MISSION Pinball Machine! - Schematic Logic

[@LyonsArcade]

Check out our parts page on our website for some of the common tools and supplies we use for repairs, and some of our swag like T-Shirts and Mugs! www.LyonsArcade.com/parts.html

[@petertstanley]

I am not able to click on the links on the parts page.... what might I be doing wrong? ps. love the videos!

[@petertstanley]

just checked... works on chrome, not on firefox

[@tattmanndann]

glad you mentioned the same player shoots again light, it was driving me nuts.

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks for watching!

[@donmorton7282]

Great pinball, we had the Space Odyssey version back in the 80s and had have countless great memories playing that machine

[@tcb8295]

Ron, thanks for taking us along.

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks for watching TCB we appreciate it as always!

[@KC_justme1]

Once you showed the sticky relay, I backed up the video to when you were manually tripping the 5k relay and I watched it stick and could hear the 5k repetitions. Good find! Thank you for showing us how to diagnose those unique problems! Also, the flickering L.E.D. is another good reason to leave those factory bulbs in these older machines. Or maybe the owner can just swap back in the 47 lamps where there's flickering issues, since he likes LEDs

[@LyonsArcade]

It's one of those things where it's not supposed to do that but it's very minor... and the E.M.'s have little quirks that they're supposed to do that are minor too, like for instance sometimes if you hit a spinner it won't record every point because it goes so fast it can't move the score reel fast enough... so little minor things like that you have to just live with :) Thanks for watching Kevin, glad you enjoyed it!

[@carl5490]

It's a beautiful thing watching your process for sleuthing a problem using schematics. Thanks for another great instructional video.

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks Carl, we appreciate you watching!

[@seancurry2863]

I really like these diagnostic videos. And you are right - they are helping me with my 1954 Gottlieb Lady Luck. The principles are the same.

[@LyonsArcade]

Eventually when you work on them enough, you realize they're all just on and off switches. The entire machine, any of them, is just ons and offs, it's basically digital logic, 1's and 0's. So the more you mess with them the easier it gets to fix any of them, since they all work off of on and off!

[@Jeroen_a]

Yay! a new video! Pauses.... LIKES.....gets a cup of tea..... play... enjoy :)

[@LyonsArcade]

Glad you made it, Jeroen :)

[@toddament8035]

He's killing us with anticipation for Night Rider and Freedom!

[@DeadKoby]

That's a neat game! The swinging target was likely the selling point... and Space was still a BIG DEAL in that time.

[@LyonsArcade]

Yeah it's considered one of the classics :)

[@mrk717]

Why is there an upside down Darlek on the playfield Ron? Missed you Ron, we need your brill videos in these troubled times.

[@LyonsArcade]

I didn't know what a Darlek was, maybe they were ripping that off????? Thanks for watching Mr K!

[@davidg-m1768]

Glad you mentioned the same player shoots again light flickering - I had the same issue (and the last ball in play light on the back box) on my EM and spent time trying to track it down until I discovered it was the LED issue as you said. Another very useful video - thanks for recording.

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks for watching, glad you liked it!

[@miguelrios4602]

Well dang! No wonder Donnie let’s you mess with the leccy... Still can’t really read “schematic,” but thanks to you, I’m understanding it a bit better. Thanks!

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks for watching Miguel, we appreciate it!

[@MrKanejoe1]

Enjoyed watching this while wearing my "Play at Joe's" t-shirt!

[@LyonsArcade]

Very cool :)

[@frankgagliano9677]

Great Video, Great job in solving the the problem. Love the ideas of now to find the problems. Can not wait to see the next video. Keep those video coming Ronnie.

[@LyonsArcade]

Glad you enjoyed it Frank!

[@pcachu]

That Shoot Again LED issue reminded me of the time when we tried putting CFLs into the ceiling fan in our bedroom. Turns out, not enough juice to light an incandescent is enough to make a CFL do some weird things. Suffice it to say that experiment lasted exactly one night.

[@LyonsArcade]

I'm sure yes there is a way to stop it from doing that, I know lots of people put LED's in EM machines, there may be a different type of LED with a cap built into it too by this point.

[@MattMcIrvin]

I think I've said before, I think this one's cool because it depicts the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, which I remember from when I was a kid... and I'm pretty sure the backglass painting was a knockoff of a particular Robert McCall painting of the ASTP. The sort of cruciform sunburst in the background was something of a signature image of his, which is how I twigged to it being based on a McCall.

[@LyonsArcade]

I believe they definitely liked to nab other people's paintings, I've seen a few different games where they copied another artists' painting, that recent Freedom pinball apparently the backglass on it was a copy of something else too!

[@TheGnomestead]

If you work on cars ya work on them all same wisdom applies to all makes and models. Nice machine!

[@LyonsArcade]

That's a good point, you can't say you won't work on a Ford because you've only worked on Chevy's.... well, I guess you could, lol Thanks for watching Gnomie

[@richjacka1]

Ron, I love your pinball repair videos. I have just restored a zaccaria playfield and about to rebuild the electronics from a bunch of parts pcb's. I hope you post a repair of a zaccaria one day.

[@johnmichael1979]

Thanks Ron! EMs even sound nice without the chimes.

[@LyonsArcade]

They sound a lot better with the glass on, they sound like things are breaking with the glass off, haha

[@nerdoutandcrave6757]

Thank You and love learning from you ! Working on this game myself! I am having trouble with the game starts up but the flippers wont move or nothing will not score.

[@LyonsArcade]

Sounds like it's going about halfway through the reset sequence...

[@melanatedprose9134]

Ron, I'm callin' it another informative and successful repair video! Thanks for the explanation on Lyons. It's nice to see the different types of merch available.

[@Inf7cted]

love how old school this pinball machine is.. Classy!

[@1976aztec]

Great video Joe thanks for sharing learn something everytime I watch your video's

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks for watching Michael, glad you enjoyed it!

[@markjackson1444]

Another great video Ron. ... even the name ‘electro-mechanical’ is a clue. .... if it ain’t the electrical, then it must be the mechanical. Fantastic work as usual.

[@Jetrulez15]

30:52 I think "MB" means "Make/Break" switch, which is exactly what it is: one switch gets activated and the other disconnects and vice versa. I've only ever seen them in EMs, but I could be wrong there. Either way, they look annoying to work on. I tried my hand at fixing a Chicago Coin Jukebox pin once and I couldn't do anything with it. Guess I'll stick to solid state and later lol

[@LyonsArcade]

That makes sense, I hadn't thought about that :) Thanks for watching Jetrulez!

[@MarchosArcade]

Wow Joe this looks sooo nice wow , nice table you did a wonderful job m8

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks Marcho, glad you enjoyed it!

[@victorsvarietychannel2459]

Beautiful condition and a really great game to play

[@LyonsArcade]

Yes this one is in very nice shape!

[@dennistowne457]

Get rid of the led in the same player shoots again if it has one. Very annoying flickering during game play. Another great job!

[@waynegram8907]

JOE CLASSIC, When looking at an EM schematic how can you tell that the stepper motor relay will have to pull in and release before it will Advance/step the stepper unit? because I can't tell when looking at the schematic. You never have shown the EOS switch on Stepper Motors, I never seen an EOS switch on stepper motors or even knew they had an EOS on stepper motors. What are the differences between a DRUM Unit compared to a Stepper motor? I don't know what a drum unit is or how it works.

[@LyonsArcade]

So pinball machines have some common contraptions in them, stepper units, score motors, relays, and score drum units. There's sometimes other things but most games have all four of those. A relay is just a single coil that when it pulls in, it connects and disconnects the switches connected to it. A Stepper Unit is a printed circuit board with a group of contacts arranged in a pattern that slide over the board, so that each time a coil pulls in, it moves the stepper unit up one position or down one position or whatever, so that it moves all the contacts to a different point on the stepper unit. So this is used to make multiplayer games work for instance, all the contacts move one step and now it's on player two, or player three, etc. A Score motor is the main motor in the bottom of the cabinet, instead of a relay it has a motor that moves, which causes a lot of switches to connect or disconnect depending on what position the motor moves into. So this is what gives the machine it's motion, or it's ability to count, or whatever. As a relay pulls in on the machine, it turns on the score motor so that other switches on the score motor can connect or disconnect and make the relay accomplish whatever it's trying to accomplish. A score drum unit is similar to a stepper unit, except instead of having a pcb with contacts that move, it usually has a plastic drum connected to it with a number on it, they're commonly used to display the score on the backglass. They run with 1 coil like a stepper unit or a relay but not a motor, like the score motor. The End of Stroke switch is something that's connected, physically, everytime the coil on a stepper unit or score drum unit is extended, the actual metal linkage touches a switch and either closes or opens it, so it's used for things like the credit knocker, when the credit stepper moves up one credit, an end of stroke switch is hit, which makes the knocker make a loud sound. You can't tell by the schematics that the machine has to pull a coil in, and then release it, for the stepper or drum unit to actually move, the only way to tell is to actually look at it in action and see how it works. Thanks for watching as always hope you enjoyed the video!

[@WreckDiver99]

...and another pinball machine I liked. Wish i could afford these things...I can't believe the prices people are asking for these around me (some are $8K+ in fair condition). Got some wiring issues..."Same Player Shoots Again" constantly strobing anytime a target is hit, or the score increases...In a car I'd be looking at a grounding issue for that...not sure here. Yes, I commented before watching the entire vidjayo.

[@LyonsArcade]

It's like that all over, a machine like this (an E.M.) would be more around $1000-$1500 though.

[@a68k_de]

33:50 - may also be magnetized with time... let it fall couple times to the ground, should help or a demagnetizer You can test it, by holting something to it that normaly would be atracted by a magnet (screw, srewdriver,...) I had this problem long time ago in a very old telephone central machine (or how you call this in English)

[@LyonsArcade]

I think in English they called them "Switchboards" in kind of general language, I don't know what the technicians called them.... I have had things magnetized before like you're mentioning, on one of our videos I demagnetized it by beating it with a hammer :) Thanks for watching!

[@a68k_de]

​@@LyonsArcade yes switch boards sounds good. That big thing with all these hundreds relays ;-) okay 👍👍

[@808zhu]

Looks beautiful!!

[@LyonsArcade]

It's very nice!

[@Foxonian]

Used to play this game at our old Zayre dept.store when I was a kid.

[@LyonsArcade]

Very cool! Thank you for watching.

[@jumpingeneral]

I’m learning from the best here 👍👍👍

[@flatfingertuning727]

Getting an extra ball for a special instead of a free game might be satisfying if you'd always *get* an extra ball, but decidedly unsatisfying if you don't. Would it be practical to overcome the "one extra ball per ball in play" limitation by wiring the advance-to-next-ball signal through the replay counter unit so that if the replay counter is zero it advances the player/ball counter as normal, but otherwise it would decrement the replay counter? That would seem like an improvement if the replay counter wasn't needed to start new games.

[@LyonsArcade]

If it's that important to you, you could just buy Add A Ball games, they let you win more than 1 ball per ball in play.

[@flatfingertuning727]

@@LyonsArcade If a game was designed to award replays, changing it to maybe award an extra ball as you seem to favor doesn't seem like an improvement to me. Many machines aren't available in add-a-ball configurations, but it would seem like many would be relatively easy to augment with add-a-ball functionality, and I would think that would enhance many customers' enjoyment of them.

[@Jeroen_a]

I thought the band was called "Limp Bizkit" not " Limp Flipper" :P Anyhow... I enjoyed it greatly (as per usual). i always enjoy trying to figure out what's wrong and follow along.... figuring out where this issue could be. This time i was wrong (again as per usual ofc, just because i try to find it like in the first 10-15 min and without seeing the schematics) ... but was not far off. i thought it had something to do with the score motor...somehow i do not think a switch goes defective easily i usually rule that one out since that would be way to easy (ofc this can be the issue) :P

[@Jeroen_a]

I'm learning stuff!... Cool! Oh and really like this machine... it's nice and vibrant. Nice and open playfield. with not too little and not too much targets/spinners etc... the middle divide is more at the back so you have a more open field in front of the flippers so the ball can curve or make an more wider angle... really cool game :) would defiantly get when i had the chance.

[@LyonsArcade]

You're getting there, yeah it would be hard to do by just watching the video because you don't have the schematics to check out :) Thanks for watching Jeroen!

[@TheGnomestead]

Is that the moving target making that motor noise? That obnoxious during game play. Holy cow! Ronnie you my friend do great trouble shoot videos. What's it doing and why in plain speak! 👍👍👍👈🙃✌️

[@LyonsArcade]

Yes that's the moving target motor, I'll have to look into getting a whisper quiet one :)

[@TheGnomestead]

@@LyonsArcade maybe if the bells were on would not be so noticable. My machine Is say fix that damn thing will ya! Lol

[@thejunkman7581]

The play field is nice.

[@LyonsArcade]

I honestly thought it was an overlay when I saw it!

[@cliffburridge]

Good find!! 😎

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks Cliff!

[@samgovea8404]

Awesome video Thanks Joe ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[@MrVectrex]

Awesome as always Ron. You are a master to fix things, so are Donnie. Where you guys born with a screwdriver in your hands? 1000+1 Thumbs up.

[@LyonsArcade]

We were not, we just are very stubborn and don't believe we can't do something :) Thanks for watching MrVectrex, we appreciate it!

[@izzynutz2000]

Your player shoots again light down at your dump is flickering as well.. I think I see what it is it's a stuck contact or Miss adjusted for the I think swing Target 5000?

[@justmanny9275]

"100 perthent." Dusty reference? Haha I see you

[@LyonsArcade]

He was the man!

[@justmanny9275]

@@LyonsArcade No doubt dadd-eh!

[@phillip5245]

23:05 The reel only makes that noise 'cause it doesn't know the words!

[@mikequenzer9100]

The Apollo Soyuz mission!

[@RetroGamingWithHopper]

Every EM machine I put LED's in does the twinkle when you are playing. It always boils down to a switch.

[@MrRTVtech]

If you solder a resistor (with the same resistance as the original lightbulb) parallel over the ledbulb contactpoints, it will react as a normal lightbulb, then the twinkling will not occur. The resistor will absorb the current which will light a led light, but is to low to light a normal lightbulb.

[@RetroGamingWithHopper]

@@MrRTVtech I will try that.

[@HalianTheProtogen]

4:30 Soyuz; Suez is the canal in Egypt.

[@1976aztec]

My Bally Night Rider did the same thing with the double bonus light switches removed led it stopped

[@LyonsArcade]

I'm not a big fan of the led's on EM's but no harm the bulbs are easy enough to remove :)

[@thejunkman7581]

Love this game we would destroy this game and play for hours back in the day.😜

[@LyonsArcade]

It's one of the really cool EM's!

[@Reality_Checkmate]

👍

[@craigcoffman69]

Sky Lab theme