Firepower Pinball Fixed

Everything is working great now on the pinball machine. Pretty amazed with how complicated the play scenarios are. Quite impressive how the multi ball countdown works, and also the control of spelling F-I-R-E by using the right flipper.

Last remaining issue to fix was a previous repair that had been done to the driver board. After removing the wires that were connecting pins on IC5 and IC4, repairing the traces that had been cut, installing new transistors and replacing one of the 7408s chips controlling solenoid 7 everything is now working.

Glad the shield is working again, tough game without that.

Next I'll be buying some acrylic paint and touching up a few rough spots on the play field, will also try to find some new targets and order new stickers for them.

Shield or Solenoid 7 not working on Firepower Pinball

I have a 1980 Firepower Pinball machine, wouldn't go into attract mode but replaced IC19 RAM and resoldered the 40 PIN connector and everything works great now. There were a few issues with the playfield but mostly contact points. Couple transistors were also missing, but replacing these restored sound.

Only thing not working now is Solenoid 7, for the left shield. The driver board has been played with, not sure why someone would do this, but pin 6 of IC5 has been connected to pin 1 of IC4. Pin 1 of IC4 has been stripped so no longer connected to pin 17 of IC5. Could this be related or why would someone jumper pin6 of IC5 to pin 1 of IC4?

Testing Solenoid 7, it seems when I check the transistor in the diagnostics mode, it never gets a ground and just has a constant voltage, if i ground it the solenoid works fine. For the solenoids that work their transistors get an alternating ground.

Considering replacing the solenoid peripheral integration connector PIA IV (8620), or one of the 7408s chips that control solenoid 7. Not entirely sure if IC2 is the 7408s chip that controls solenoid 7.

Pinball Switch Testing

Pinball machine didn't want to come out of attract mode, some research on the internet suggested that the three switches that detect the pinballs in the ball trough are often the culprit.

Tested the switches and found that 2 of the 3 were not working. Cleaned them with some switch cleaner and now the game would start.

Tested everything out going through the diagnostics modes, see firepower pinball for a how to. Most of the game is now working, there are a couple of solenoids though that aren't firing. One unfortunately is the solenoid that kicks the ball onto the ramp, this one is pretty crucial, and the other is solenoid 7, that acts as a shield, and stops the ball from going out of play on the left side. Not sure how a player activates the shield, but it looks like the diode there is bad.

Will try replacing the diode on switch 7, and also the transisters for these two solenoids on the driver board.

Firepower IC19 RAM replaced

The RAM chip at IC19 has now been replaced, game boots into attract mode now and no longer gets stuck in audit mode. Not entirely sure if it was replacing this RAM that fixed things, or re soldering the 40 pin connector between the boards which is also frequently sited as an issue with these machines.

Game will display credits now when coins are inserted, but for some reason won't start. Pressing the start button seems to do nothing, suspect that the problem rests with the three switches that detect the balls in the trough. Have read that the machine must detect that all three balls are in the trough before starting, and that issues with these switches frequently cause the game to not start.

There is some test mode that will allow you to trouble shoot those switches, so next steps are to read up on how that diagnostic mode works, test the switches, and go from there.

Super Mario is more fun with the Retro Arcade Stick

Super Mario played great using the arcade controls. The games that ship with the Super Joy are definitely an odd lot, they are all pretty close to the originals but if you look at this title screen you can see a few of them are just ever so slightly different. Pretty sure royalties were never paid, and thus some of the names of the games in the title list are also quite strange, like Galaza instead of Galaga for example. Oh well nothing like a bootleg game controller.

Overall though pretty happy with the list of games, nice to have several times more than what shipped with the Retro Arcade Stick.

Testing the Super Joy/Retro Stick Combo

Installing the joystick back into the arcade was a bit of a pain, and required a couple of wires to be wired back on as they were pulled off during the installation.

Once everything was back together it was great seeing the 78 game list that came with the Super Joy up on the screen, all accessible and playable with the terrific controls that come with the Retro Arcade Stick.

Super Joy Mated to Retro Arcade Stick

Connecting the Super Joy to the Retro Arcade Stick did not prove to be too difficult. Hardest part was probably soldering to the connectors on the Super Joy board.

Here you can see the Super Joy on the left, and the inside of the Retro Arcade Stick on the right. The red plastic holds the 2 buttons of the retro arcade, and the white plastic is where the joystick rests, there were 4 connections required for the joystick portion with a common ground to all 4.

In addition to wiring the joystick and buttons up, I also wired the start button, and on/off switch from the Super Joy to the switch and coin button on the coin slot of the Retro Arcade Stick.

Now that the controllers are connected, they will be mounted into an 18 inch cabinet.

Connect Super Joy to Mini Arcade Joystick for 78 Games

This weekend I dismantled an old Super Joy I had that came with 78 games pre loaded on it. There are several old Atari games, and also many Nintendo and arcade titles. Few of my favorites on this joystick include Dig Dug, Galaga, Super Mario Bros, Contra, and Joust. Of course I have played them all yet, so imagine there are some gems on there I have yet to come across.

Purpose for dismantling the joystick was to see if I could connect it to one of the 12 in 1 game systems I use for my mini arcades. I like the joysticks on the mini arcades a lot, very good quality, and work great. There are only 12 games though, so I thought a little more variety would be good, and I hadn't touched the Super Joy in about 5 years since I hated the joystick and the short cable to connect to the TV, so figured I might as well see if I could get some use out of it.

Opening up the joystick was very easy, they aren't exactly the best quality things out there, and looking at the buttons and d pad it looked pretty easy to connect to the other controls. Essentially just a carbon pad that shorted out on the circuit board contacts when pushed down by a button or one of the directional controls.

March of the Mini Arcades

Spent a few hours and created a few more mini arcades this weekend. No differences to the design other than now also using a bezel for around the monitor which cleans them up a lot.