Using Schematics to troubleshoot a 1969 Gottlieb E.M. Pinball Machine! Tricky stuff.....

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[@LyonsArcade]

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[@markjackson1444]

Great work Ron. I love how you tracked down the wrong wiring. Very excellent pinball detective.

[@enceladusfox2247]

They can be fun to trace and figure out..... but when someone wires something up wrong and it all goes haywire.. You need Joe's Classic Arcade to fix it right !! It looks so much easier when you do it lol ..i worked on a friends pinball machine way back when , he asked me to fix it for him . It was doing absolutely nothing , turned out it had a bad Diode that took forever to find, had no schematic at all to go by, it was just a meter and tracing everything to find the issue. After the diode was replaced it worked like a charm ... A big smile showed up on my face when after all your hard searching you found the issues in this one .. saved another beautiful old pin ball machine .. To bad they don't like their schematics floating around so that people like me can actually find the issues and keep these beautiful works of art working for many many years and generations to come . I'm very glad that your saving them my friend , Congrats on your hard work.. I'm sure you love the feeling you get after you find the fault as you did here and it comes back to life ... Just feels sooo good !! .. accomplished :) Thank you again so much for bringing us along for the systematic tracing and repair process for it . Can't wait to see you take it for a test drive..

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks for the kind words, we'll get it flippin' on the next video!

[@dnbreyen]

Some day we will see Ron’s happy dance after figuring out the problem!

[@LyonsArcade]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/jIDNkKupmJJ4eK8

[@tjgiraulo2087]

That last fix kinda shook me. I've done a little bit of home fixing/troubleshooting EM's. Finding broken wires, maladjusted switches or bad solders are one thing...but that last fix makes me shudder having an old shuffle bowler waiting in the wings to be resurrected. Great video!

[@LyonsArcade]

TJ I can honestly say I've rarely ran into that problem but like you said it's a doozy to figure out. Wait till you hear how long it took to find :)

[@pezjohnson]

That's a heck of a soundtrack for an EM....oh wait. (great troubleshooting)

[@LyonsArcade]

www.BenSound.com !

[@agentriptide]

Love the fist-pumping success music! Yes!

[@LyonsArcade]

Just the reaction I was going for :)

[@melanatedprose9134]

Great job as usual. I've yet to see a repair challenge you haven't figured out.

[@LyonsArcade]

We don't upload those, LOL

[@RalonsoF1]

Phenomenal research and repair work on a stunning and historical pinball machine, this is just so interesting to watch! Thank you!!!

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks Ralonso, glad you liked it!

[@saskia6750]

thanks joe for the video :) x

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks for watching you Viking Patriots you :)

[@bubblyjuice6234]

Loving the music at the end with the did!

[@danijelcar5184]

That was a hard rock 😂 👍

[@LyonsArcade]

Yes but we busted it :)

[@rodchartrand8843]

excellent trouble-shooting

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks Rod!

[@LiSkyFox]

Dang

[@martywolfman]

Haha. 'I'm trying to figure out why the F is it turning on' Great video as usual, i really enjoy these EM trouble shooters.

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks Marty, glad you enjoyed the extra spice :)

[@jaylasky5589]

Very informative!!!

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks Jay, glad you enjoyed it.

[@thomasmickle7289]

Love these vids. I have a couple EM's that I need to get working still. Seems my other games take priority and I rarely get to them.

[@LyonsArcade]

That's how it goes, we have tons of them not working, but we stick to working on 1 at a time and they get finished that way...

[@jussikuusela7345]

These things already get complicated with very little stuff going on, so you have to pay attention to details. Then two very similar wire colors on the same switch is almost a bit of a design flaw.

[@LyonsArcade]

It happens!

[@KevBoneT]

We call this a "Buddy Bug." Who broke it? Who's your buddy? Another great Job Ron and Joe!

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks Kev, I've never heard that one before, LOL

[@rgeller56]

Cool joe.l this one's going to be fun

[@LyonsArcade]

Yup, it was!

[@PinBallReviewerRepairs]

I thought the Gottlieb Manuals and ROMs were not on the pinball database is from the current License holder did not want that stuff up. He wanted every one to get the parts off his website. I could be wrong there though. It makes it a pain in the butt to service the Solid State Gottlieb pinballs. :| Gotta hope the manual is in the cab for the Solid State pins the EMs I feel are easier as most EMs were similar to Williams and Bally and so on.

[@LyonsArcade]

That's correct, they don't want copies of their stuff floating around for free without buying it from them.

[@guitargearreviewsanddemos878]

You're left handed! Now I know why I like you.

[@LyonsArcade]

That's probably just one of the reasons, LOL

[@stevencampbell1502]

do you have a video that shows you cleaning switches , steppers...etc?

[@billwilliams6338]

JOES CLASSIC VIDEO GAMES, I have watch many of your pinball repairs. What I'm still confused about is how do you know which coils are suppose to be Turned ON which you call them PULLED. It seems like you know how the matrix is suppose to turn which coil ON pulled which the schematic doesn't tell you. The schematic just shows a bunch of coils and contact switches, but it doesn't tell you which coils is supposed to be pulled turned on at what time. The rotating system matrix does that but you seem to know how the pinball games is suppose to work but from someone that doesn't know how would we know which coils are suppose to be pulled turned on and when they are suppose to be turned off without knowing the matrix or how the pinball games works?

[@LyonsArcade]

I see what you're saying. I'll have to think about a better way to explain it... essentially, all of the relays should be turned off when the game is turned off, of course, but then when you turn it on only a few come on. Then others come on to complete certain tasks. So when you turn the game on, a relay needs to come on, to actually turn the game lights and everything on, they call that the Hold relay, it holds power to everything. This turns on all the lights, etc. and now it's sitting there waiting for somebody to interact with the switches (the start button, or the coin switches). If you hit the start button, the start button relay comes on, and then that turns on other relays to make the game work... so for instance, it needs to reset the last game (since the old scores are on there) so it turns on the reset relay. When all of that resets, the reset relay turns off. Then the Start relay has to kick the ball out to the shooter lane, and it may turn on a couple relays to do that. Then it has to decide which player gets the points, so it turns on a 1 player relay instead of the three player relay, etc. Essentially everything should be OFF, and if anything's ON, you look at the schematics and figure out why it's on... and if it should be on.

[@billwilliams6338]

@@LyonsArcade, Thanks I will have to watch your video again and see if this helps because it gets confusing how you know which coil is supposed to be turned on or it should be turned on that is why its doing that problem error and that is how you know which relay switch is shorted all the time or is left open all the time. Its hard when one or more of those relay switches are closed or left open by a failure but you know where to look on the schematic because you know how the matrix is suppose to do and how the pinball game works. So its hard for me to understand when watching your videos because some coils have multiple closed and open contacts but when there is a failure some of those contacts are connected closed or open when they aren't suppose to be but I wouldn't know that because I don't know how the system matrix is programmed or how the game works.

[@johnbednarski2169]

Your troubleshooting skills are phenomenal. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. Is the Gottlieb company still in business and selling schematics? Is this why they would care if someone showed the whole schematic? Just trying to understand what their concern is. Sorry if dumb question.

[@LyonsArcade]

Yes Gottlieb is still owned by a certain family who licenses all of their Intellectual Property and copyrights, etc. to the Pinball Resource, who makes nice copies of the schematics, etc. for a pretty fair price. I think that schematic we're looking at was $11 or so. On one hand it'd be nice to be able to download them but on the other hand I can understand where they're coming from... they gave us free manuals with the games when they were made :)

[@johnbednarski2169]

Makes sense. Thanks for taking the time to give the added detail.

[@LyonsArcade]

No problem John, see you on the next video!

[@OneSwitch]

Have you ever been beaten by a game you couldn't fix?

[@LyonsArcade]

15 Years ago I had a pinball I couldn't fix, but it was because at the time I didn't know what I was doing. To this day I still get arcade games I can't fix, because the board level component repair stuff is tough, very hard to track down unless you really have some advanced level understanding of circuit design and software programming, and every game has a different design on the PCB. If it's a game you can buy a working PCB for or send it off it still ends up working though. From time to time though you get one that you can't even get a working board for so it's done. I've probably had 10 arcade games I couldn't fix, but really only that 1 pinball machine, it was an old E.M. I think a "NOW".

[@LyonsArcade]

It was pretty crazy, somebody had sanded all the paint off of the cabinet so it was stained plywood!

[@AiMR]

Do you test all the relays for continuity as part of the initial maintenance?

[@LyonsArcade]

Not usually, do you mean each switch or the actual relay coil?

[@AiMR]

@@LyonsArcade The individual relays. I would do that, but I am very methodical and occasionally prone to getting in over my head 🙄 I can see though for you it doesn't make sense. Time is money, right? I had a Stern Dracula machine 35 years ago, that was my first experience with electronics. Really enjoyed working on that. I'm looking for a project machine to work on over the winter. TMI. I know 😂

[@LyonsArcade]

I'd like to get one of those Dracula's, it looks cool!

[@AiMR]

@@LyonsArcade Oh yeah, it was a greatly designed game. That's all I care about really.

[@davidmorgan4821]

A dime to make a dollar.

[@ezequielmedrano6598]

Hi do you have any tekken arcades?

[@LyonsArcade]

Not right now but we get them all the time. usually Tekken 1, 2, 3, or Tag.

[@ezequielmedrano6598]

@@LyonsArcade Do you sell them.

[@LyonsArcade]

Yes, you can see all our games for sale at www.LyonsArcade.com .