TNT Amusements demonstrates meter-free troubleshooting techniques for pinball repair at Pintastic Expo.
Summary
TNT Amusements presents practical electronic troubleshooting techniques for pinball machines at Pintastic Expo, demonstrating how to diagnose and repair common issues without specialized equipment like meters. Host Todd Tucky (Tartucky) and team show hands-on methods for testing lights, switches, and components on classic Williams/Bally games and modern WPC boards, including homemade diagnostic tools and real-world repair examples from Emily's Electromagnetic Pinball Museum machines.
Key Claims
Most pinball troubleshooting problems are not what you initially think they are; diagnostics require systematic testing rather than jumping to conclusions about specific parts
high confidence · Todd and Chuck discuss troubleshooting methodology; Chuck confirms learning this approach from working with Todd over 20+ years
Williams pinball machines use color-coded wiring (green/white) for switches and a matrix lighting system that works identically from 1977 through WPC era
high confidence · Todd demonstrates Williams matrix system on Cyclone; explains color coding during Addams Family troubleshooting
Addams Family machines have a known manufacturing defect where the kicker bracket welds break, requiring rewelding for permanent fix
high confidence · Todd states: 'if you owned an atom's family every atom's family on planet Earth that bracket breaks welds so we bought a welder just for that'
Williams shuffle bowling alleys use System 9 boards identical to games like Tom Cat and Whirlwind, making them valuable parts sources
high confidence · Todd explains shuffle alley board compatibility during instructional segment
WPC game failures from light bulb changes are often caused by accidentally touching switch lines during service, blowing the switch chip
high confidence · Emily's No Fear troubleshooting; Todd determines chip failure coincided with her bulb-changing work
Blown fuses on vintage systems can appear visually intact with only tiny internal breaks, requiring close inspection
high confidence · Todd recounts fuse diagnosis on Shack Attack with Jillian; tiny fuse break caused audio hum
You can diagnose pinball problems by carefully touching a stripped wire to transistors and ground to fire individual components without a meter or manual
high confidence · Todd demonstrates live on Hot Shots and Cyclone; explains this works on Bally, Williams, Stern, and WPC systems
A homemade diagnostic tool made from LED, diode, socket, and wire can efficiently test lamp driver lines and isolate interconnect board problems
Notable Quotes
“if one of your games stops working and you can't figure out why there's a problem with one of the lights all the other lights work um you first try shorting out the tab of the light to the light next to it and it lights up meaning the bulb and the ground is good but the signal is not getting to the bulb”
Todd Tucky @ Early segment — Core troubleshooting principle: systematic elimination of variables rather than replacing parts
“you have to look beyond what you think it would be even though it may not make sense... you just can't just look at one thing and then you put replace a part and then insist maybe that new parts bad”
Todd Tucky @ Late segment — Central philosophy of the troubleshooting approach: avoid confirmation bias in diagnosis
“every atom's family on planet Earth that bracket breaks welds so we bought a welder just for that we take the bracket out and reweld it which fixes it permanently”
Todd Tucky @ Mid-segment — Documents known manufacturing defect affecting all Addams Family machines
“if you are looking for a Williams board system system 11 and then some one Shuffle alley is system 9 you have a complete set of boards inside a shuffle alley... if you were able to purchase the shuffle alley for 4 or 500 from your neighbor you can take all the boards out and put them in a tom cat or a a whirlwind”
Todd Tucky @ Mid-segment — Practical parts sourcing tip leveraging Williams board compatibility
“I said to Emily Emily were you um changing light bulbs on this and she say well yeah about 10 minutes ago I was changing some bulbs I said well it sounds like whatever you did touched a switch line and blew the chip up because that's when the problem developed”
Todd Tucky @ Late segment — Demonstrates real-world diagnostic success connecting symptom to likely cause
“when you call Todd you are talking about your favorite menu items and he'll go on and on for probably 35 40 minutes and then I'll call Frank and he'll fix it in five”
Chuck @ Late segment — Humorous but insightful comment on communication styles between Todd (theory) and Frank (practical execution)
business_signal: TNT Amusements maintaining business model based on field service, education, and video content creation; diversified revenue across repair work, content, and operator relationships
medium · Extensive video production noted ('we film these things'); field service calls to operator locations (Emily's museum); YouTube channel referenced; sponsorships mentioned
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event_signal: Pintastic Pinball & Game Room Expo serves as major venue for industry education, operator networking, and hands-on troubleshooting demonstrations with expert practitioners
high · Multiple machines troubleshot on-site; Emily's Electromagnetic Pinball Museum operates exhibit; presentation draws community members; real-time problem-solving with audience
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community_signal: TNT Amusements actively providing educational content and hands-on troubleshooting support at major industry events; demonstrates commitment to operator and enthusiast education through practical demonstrations
high · Extensive presentation at Pintastic Expo with live demonstrations on multiple machines; creation of diagnostic tools and methodologies freely shared with community
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market_signal: Strong demand for pinball troubleshooting knowledge and practical skills within operator/owner community; educational content highly valued and widely attended
medium · Large audience attendance at technical presentation; Chuck notes 20+ years of using Todd as ongoing resource; community actively seeking diagnostic knowledge
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personnel_signal: TNT Amusements operates with clear division of labor: Todd provides theoretical/diagnostic expertise while Frank executes practical repairs; complementary skill sets noted by Chuck
Topics
Meter-free pinball troubleshooting methodologyprimaryWilliams matrix lighting and switch testing systemsprimaryHomemade diagnostic tools for pinball repairprimaryWPC board troubleshooting and chip failure diagnosisprimaryKnown manufacturing defects in classic machines (Addams Family bracket)secondaryWilliams board compatibility and parts sourcingsecondarySystematic troubleshooting approach vs. component replacementprimaryPinball operator education and community knowledge sharingsecondary
Sentiment
positive(0.85)— Educational content delivered with enthusiasm and humor; strong community spirit of knowledge-sharing; respect for operators and enthusiasts; light-hearted banter between presenters; some self-deprecating humor about past mistakes builds credibility
Transcript
youtube_auto_sub · $0.000
we decided to do something today for some of you out there probably half of you that don't own meters okay meter is your pretty much a very important thing but if you didn't have a meter or if you happen to be at a show like this and came across a repair you could do without using any equipment except possibly a soldering iron if a wire came off because I did just that in one one of the uh booths on Thursday night uh one of the um rooms Emily's uh setup at the end they were having trouble with an Adams Family and uh they the one of the trough switches didn't work so I showed her what to do without a meter and without a manual she didn't even have a manual because in this case if one of the troll switches didn't work and it had a white oh wait a minute we had to run the opening titles first I forgot the opening titles they so unlike you go go ahead [Music] and I should point out Scott pes's on the front afterno everyone and Greg and Terry are four rows back for some inexplicable reason they should be sitting in the front and yes they should they should be in the front but and this is John Franklin everybody knows and Chuck who's our humorous sidekick uh that replaces uh Matt Frank when Matt Frank's not present so what what am I doing here now then well you're going to provide some tips to oh gotcha yeah I'm used to it you notice the title said electronic troubleshooting Made Easy and that is what just what we're going to do today uh with some there's only one thing you'd have to make and Matt Frank is going to show that shortly but here you you're you're at your house you're in your basement and one of your games stops working and you can't figure out why there's a problem with one of the lights all the other lights work um you first try shorting out the tab of the light to the light next to it and it lights up meaning the bulb and the ground is good but the signal is not getting to the bulb I'm going to show you when I Hot Shots what we did a a goly game that's very common you can also use this trick with the older Bal Williams games I no yeah Bal uh Stern and Williams too for um uh troubleshooting lights and also the newer wpcs too this would work uh so we'll start by running that clip I'll finish the story with um because it may make more okay I am going to share with you it's a little hard to squeeze in here easy way now I have to test solid and this if I gave you a little room so you could squeeze your right belly in here young I'm all right Tony is filming now you're going to start with a piece of wire that you've stripped on each end now just so happens the Wonder and beauty of most of the board systems they all share a common ground in this case the metal because everything is grounded to Mr metal now I want to show you something if I touch this to this H H and I'm very careful and I touch this to a transistor I can fire the transistor I want you to look carefully Tony can you show that little bead of solder do John Youssi that little blob of solder that transistor has been on enough it's been locked on probably the B bad connection whatever where that transistor is not going to last much longer the bead of solder means it's heated up on the inside so we're going to put a new one in but let's see if it still works aha Tony what's it firing top Target on the right yeah so we're going to change that but I wanted you to see that this one is resetting the Red Bank yes it is this one is resetting the yellow Bank [Music] and this one down here is resetting the last one green the Frog now this other one is the AL hole yes it is okay now don't that's the knocker I see that this is probably a lamp we looked on the Playfield someplace we'd see a lamp light there's the knocker see the kner yes so this wonderful little thing can verify that things are working without removing the board which is very important now we happen to have this lamp right here out the problem is on this system I can't get to the transistor because of this first just put this to spray right frun you can't even get the stupid board out that's right so what we're going to do now is take take this board out so we can go in and see if we can figure out what's going on with Mr transistor now we know the light will light because I want to show you a trick if you put this in a safe place yeah okay now you have to be careful and not be clumsy with this yes John Youssi we know this not the bulb the solder is good and this wire is solder tight the light will not come on so very carefully I touch this tab don't try to sit on this tab and watch I did this earlier so uh we know what will happen there will not be an explosion I had to put the explosion in Tony I had to see I can do that in my effects laab see look the light is lit now yes it is so I have now ruled out the socket the bulb and the ground I know the problem is this wire on this specific game I know the transistor has to be damaged because we found a blob of solder on top of that light and they smelled something burning see it m so it must have damaged the transistor who cares one lousy transistor one B are the other 300 on it looks fantastic though by the way I should point this out uh Doctor Who has a switch too kill switch this kills the switch to Mr fan here can put your finger on that uh that wouldn't hurt as much as the Doctor Who yes cutting your finger off slices this that would bloody you up but I don't think you'd lose Mr finger but they did put a CAG it put plastic for good news for extra goodness I should just cut this out and throw it away want to put a plastic fan in my competitors would cut it off yes they would by the way remember please remember you have to reheat these connectors they're all ice fraking cold okay these connectors back here generally don't go ice cold okay these are are better the original Molex used on the original system 88 were horrific horrific by the way if you don't have a pie wire you can always use an alligator alligator clips but I wanted to show you the wire to show you how great I am and clever all right now we're going to take this out okay Matt Frank's now here assisting see Matt Frank I got you on the video after all turn the camera just so people know it's you they'll know it's me from this listen now that we got the display out of the way we can show you that these tall these are U 45s these are a3s and if you do the same system now what I did is I unplugged the logic board so all the lights are out because see now by me touching the metal I can light various transistors you light the transistor your lighted transistors cool I don't see the transistor now over here is where my problem is see that one that is when I touch it look it's the bad one is lighting why is it lighting Todd because we're shoting it out we're bu passing the computer we're shorting The Collector out no or whatever who knows see no no meters needed thought you knew what you were doing I do well I I kind of play a guy who know what he's doing on YouTube right now look do John Youssi this that transistor we did change but it's still not working oh no so we think it went up to the next chip so when this one blew up with a blob of solder it took this out and we think it took this out till what e well you have figure this out because I'm done so it do John Youssi all the things you can do with this so without having to find the wire color color in this connector now you could do something like this too watch look at the Playfield when I do this let me show what you're doing up here first see you can light lots of things you can even fire coils so you can do a lot how come you're not doing anything then if you think do so much oh my make an appearance wait a minute Robbie one moment you back with the Whoppers yet or what what did you wasn't it Whopper Wednesday yes it's Whopper Wednesday I want a Whopper schmuck Matt Frank what do you want Whopper the extra triple sized no that's for your brother order my food first cuz once he get his lunch ready there'll be nothing left I'm hungry back I'll take an order and then I'll bring something else back how's that that's quite a piece of equipment isn't it can we wrap it around your neck this is where you store it when you using you store a lot of things in your mouth don't you anyway so now we'll proceed to repair this but now you know a little bit more about Go goly stuff people are afraid of it afraid of it goly people are afraid of goly stuff goly people are afraid the goes are most the most Dependable system they made as long as you're not when we took this display out we turned it off before we unplugged it get in show I want to blow all my chips out on the board yeah cuz then you walk away chewing your hand it'll be left for me to do it but I'm not doing nothing well you're going to have to fix this because this guy is screaming he personally come he can every bow I'll fix it this week maybe next week what's your time budget one month two months Matt Frank let's get back to you now the guy actually pointed that out when we sold it to him you know this bulb isn't working every bulb so if you do home sales uh even somebody that doesn't even know a pinol how they spotted this one bulb with 64 other ones blinking we'll never know will we but he did so we did fix it and it turned out to be the chip because that blob basada really did its Duty wasn't the chip you said it was well what was it the transistor below the one you were what nonsense liar for purposes of this conversation it was the chip it was the chip still fixed and it's fixed and the customer's happy this week but uh remember what I said yesterday about thinking it's always the chip it wasn't the chip well Matt Frank came up with an interesting um other item you can make with a couple pieces of wire a lamp socket a light bulb or LED and a diode and this is to assist or assist a Williams repair uh that uses a a sort of it's not really a similar system it's a m it's for Matrix matrixing work because the diode is needed to isolate um the bulb from all the other lines yeah the got LA and the early Bal games are the bulbs are driven individually so they're all fed power and then ground it individually through the transistor so that's all you're doing is just grounding that transistor which tells you that the bulb is good the wiring is good the sockets good now this is also a little tidbit if any of you ever see for sale a shuffle bowling alley in your neighborhood and it's cheap if you are looking for a Williams board system system 11 and then some one Shuffle alley is system 9 you have a complete set of boards inside a shuffle alley that you really don't have any intention of keeping but if you were able to purchase the shuffle alley for 4 or 500 from your neighbor you can take all the boards out and put them in a tom cat or a a whirlwind or anything else because he uses the same boards so Williams used that way only one shuffle all use system 9 which is great if you have a comet that has battery damage now this is the part that Matt Frank made in this next chunk of uh video that you can make so we run the next clip please so Matt Frank why don't you show us that connector that you made that everyone in the audience can make too so what this is I use an LED just a regular lay down socket and I have a diode in here with the banded side going to the red use red and wires it makes it easier when you're probing so this way you get the red to the yellow red to red yellow to Yellow and this is Handy cuz when you're trying to find a problem you have a string of lights that are out and I'm going to use this strike Master as an example cuz a lot of times these interconnect boards are a problem and you have the lamp lines that come down from the logic board and then it splits off you have one section going to the pin panel and you have another section go into a play field so if you're probing and you probe the connectors on the driver board and you probe all the lines and they're all good then you know that it's not a problem on the board and you can come further down you can say is there a broken wire or something maybe there's a break between here and here and then that would affect the pin panel and the play field lights so you can just and with it being red to Yellow you have the diode in here it won't affect anything negatively and you can just go down the line so it's very simple a little bit of wire socket an LED and a diode make your own handy you would put all the lights in a Flash test right you do a a lamp test and then you can just probe now what I did was I took some extra um capacitor leads and soldered them so this way you have nice instead of trying to leave the loose you know the strands of wire just way you can prob each one now this game's turned off obviously so we can possibly turn it on just a second we should I mean these people are screaming wait a minute look at the credit you're the director and the producer and the writer and you didn't direct this well I expected you Franklin nope that wasn't in the contract was it in the contract for you to step over that y you now of course Matt Frank you can also now right now we have all the lights flashing on the Playfield say see so that's good let me check all the lines here so he's basically checking all the red lines and then you can basically move it and check all the yellow lines last so all the reds are good skip over the key this helps isolate where the problem could be because your problem could be very I don't know whether I should rate you in greatness or what or you can also check here and we can make sure now we know everything is good everything on the driver board is good everything coming into this interconnector board is good and you're it so if John Youssi a line that's not working then you can troubleshoot I've had problems with these boards you might have to go in the back and then do some continuity checks you might have to run a jumper while these traces are just it was more with switches but the switches will work the same way too you can actually put it into a switch test and make a little thing and then use a button put a diode in there and I've done that before too now there is another way um you can test switches if you have it in a switch test and Matt Frank that what I would do is actually you could you can't do it up here cuz the two wires are in but you can actually unplug it oh boy that's in tight no you're just and then put it inside no know you can't do this no you would have there would have to be no no no okay so here's what'll do if I'm just going to cut it after that I'm not going to say it now you know there's another way to test and that's with Matt Frank a that little bit of light is hurting your eyes it looks white my face Matt Frank I've spent millions of dollars on this equipment to make this episode why do your videos still suck I'm going to stop making these videos for good promises promise people love your sarcasm well Matt Frank why don't we look at a Williams game and see yeah the Scott leag game is different the test I was talking about with the switches and I'll continue with uh the uh room that we were in at the very end of the hall that has a no fear and an Adam's Family um that is um Emily's room from El electromagnetic pinbal Museum mhm and when I walked in and boy was that room hot um and it got even hotter after you walked in right that's why the Emily had her head inside the atams family because she wasn't sure why the switch didn't work and she was thinking the switch was bad and if all of you even have the least bit of knowledge Williams uses uh green and white so there's a green wire and a white wire and that particular switch didn't work the other three 12 switches did but they didn't share any common we didn't have a book so I said our smartest move is to see what may have broken off before the end of the line which was that switch so all you have to do is and this is if you do not have a book book makes it real easy is look at the two colors you have green and let's say red and white and brown and then start looking at all the switches is starting with anything that's a drop Target or a stand up Target the standup targets get beat so the switch is HD on the top and it Wiggles the wires below okay and number two check anything on a coil uh a switch that's mounted on a coil plate where the coil bangs and then the switch is attached to that and that could happen so we found this real fast turned out to be the kicker that kicks the ball from thing goes down a ramp and kicks it back to the Playfield it's also if you owned an atom's family every atom's family on planet Earth that bracket breaks welds so we bought a welder just for that we take the bracket out and reweld it which fixes it permanently and sure enough the switch was dangling a white I think it was white gray now comes to think of it one of the white Grays broke so that mean all the white gray after that switch would not work that was a quick fix she presented me with a no fear that had no trough switches and then uh also you know what it was it was the left ramp the left shot all in the left lower part the slingshots both slingshots and the two left uh ball drain ball drain and the left flipper feet I think that's what it was she had a book uh actually it was the chart they used to staple to the bottom of the machine and that sure enough one wire shared all the common wires for that and here's what happened uh we first looked at the logic board and I looked for battery damage because wpcs had the batteries and they leak and somebody had uh changed the batteries recently but they had no sign of leak AG so I wiggled the connectors while they held down the switch on the left out lane the kickback Lane I guess you could say we got no sounds nothing then we noticed that also in sharing is the cabinet switch which runs the uh extra ball that didn't work either that's a separate connector so that told me since that switch didn't work and the Playfield switches didn't work that there are two separate cables going to the logic board so it really points at the logic board because of the fact that we had two separate uh cabling and it probably removed the uh possible chance of it being on the Playfield like a wire dangling sometimes you don't get lucky like that because there's only a few switches on the front door that don't share but in this case we went right to the LOD board and by unplugging the Playfield switch for the white and by moving the connector over a pin or turning the plug cockeyed and plugging the plug back in so that one wire was now plugged into another pin on that connector none of the other connector made we push the switch on the Playfield it worked now we know absolutely one 100% without a doubt the problems on the logic board so we took the battery housing off and there's a chip there I call the fuse the only part that blows up on the WPC boards and it was already in a socket so somebody obviously had changed it before when we sell a WPC game we put that switch that uh chip in a fuse all the time no we put thatt we put it in a fuse yeah in a fuse we put that exact correct so I said to Emily Emily were you um changing light bulbs on this and she say well yeah about 10 minutes ago I was changing some bulbs I said well it sounds like whatever you did touched a switch line and blew the chip up because that's when the problem developed it's always neat when you go out and do a service call has anybody been in the machine oh no nobody's touched it not at all no but and then when you find the problem you know that and well I did make that adjustment and and that's when the game stopped working said but a few minutes ago you said you were never in it happens a lot doesn't it never mess with anything with the power so she was supposed to get a chip I I didn't follow up with her but it was the switch chip was positively her problem but all the other switches worked and she should have been happy with that she anyway she was happy she was very happy and she's lucky that you were there with your knowledge and years and years of experience and greatness okay let's not get carried away anyway our last clip uh is with brother Rob showing a Williams uh a cyclone and this is a diagnosing what were we diagnosing the light bulbs oh yes we we film these things and kind of forget so we'll run our last clip well we try to forget them I'm going to show you something about to that's GI lighting and also is a great crossover to the switches now I don't know if you're aware of this my brother this is Brother rob you recognize him don't you where oh he's my big brother almost useless but I still love the man well he takes my ey P see I got one in I got one Pok in anyway backs aren't happy they're never they're never happy R now listen there's something in this system all the William systems uh do what they call a matrix this will work for any Williams pinball from 1977 until the oh through the WPC system because you can also cheat and it's cheating to figure out where your problem is on the Playfield or on the board now first I'm going to do we're going to do the switch test first Robbie so I put it into into a a switch test that's the lamp test oh no no I'm sorry we'll do the lamp test first since that's first now notice it says here all lamps now there's a couple that aren't flashing cuz we haven't serviced the and flashing Clark you're right it was earlier I'm going to write a letter to the manufacturer of this oh you know what you know why it's not Robbie it's cold the board has not been serviced so there's an ice cold connection on this board fix well Jesse done done the die is cast deal okay so what we want to do is we're going to try to figure out where the problems are notice all the lights are blinking so that means Robbie that it's sending a signal through these two the yellow and the red right and these eight transistors and these eight transistors these 16 allow because there's a diode on each um light bulb to create 64 different individual light uh commands so the computer these eoms here can tell that light to go on all by itself and it sends a command over to these These are called P okay and they in turn run the switches which is here so this is probably the Pia we have a solenoids and lamp Pia the processors are over here I'm not sure exactly which is which but I can tell you that it's very easy to figure things out now watch if I unplug this plug all the lights go out now every Williams game has color codes so this is red but then there's a little color in there blue green whatever now if this was and there's a key so you can't boob it up Robbie have you ever plugged a plugin wrong no I never and not blown anything up never I don't know it's possibly hasn't probably but if I move this now watch if I move this here eight lights are flashing okay and that is in fact the pin sending the signal then I move the connector over one ater still flashing ater still flashing when I plug it in here and so on so if I move this plug all the way down mhm I have proven that every single pin has an output an output and it's flashing that means all of these transistors are good now suppose I did that and this one didn't work that's the fourth I would I think it's Fourth I think it starts here that's the bottom second I would then look at this transistor right because it's not flashing now it is because the transistor is good now the nice thing about this you can do the exact same thing with this one you move it one by one see all those and the same lights will flash when I move it because I'm sending the signal m to the same light bulbs the computer doesn't know this and it it would probably be upset too if it knew I was doing this but John Youssi it doesn't so I I can do anything I want with this now some people say well suppose you're halfway down and you're not sure then all you really need to do you can bend the pin down so you remember you can take the board out and then change the transistor now here's the beauty of this Robbie what I just showed you mhm you you don't have to have a meter because I could figure out in a Flash which is bad I need to see these videos before we do these presentations can I make that request because just like the audience is seeing it for the first time so am I and that's why I'm sitting here were you watching oh you were watching I'm watching there yes I didn't see the mod it's right in front you're now senior editor it's right in front of you well it's called a talent monitor so you have to have talent but there's two one's pointed at me spoken like a learned individual see he knows you Todd now uh Chuck yes thought had had an idea when you were working with your games Chuck own some games too he's actually not an employee he just likes to hang out at TNT no I wouldn't say I like it oh I so I bought my first game from TNT 20 years ago um you got overcharge I got overcharged overcharged wayway overcharged Tri the market probably correct and Matt Frank and I were talking about this a little bit earlier um the first time I owned the pinball machine you know I opened up the the back boxer I pulled up the Playfield and I went what in the world is all this like what is this stuff um and over the years I've Had The Good Fortune of of working and having Todd as a resource so when I have a problem with my machines I mean he's making it look easy and obviously how many years of experience do you have doing this two three I was going to say maybe four I mean he makes this stuff look easy and I know an awful lot having been around Todd for the last 20 some odd years um but it's still overbearing and it's still difficult I I I can call Todd anytime I need something and say hey Todd what's the answer to my problem and he'll go on and on for probably 35 40 minutes and then I'll call Matt Frank and he'll fix it in five uh but but it's nice to talk to no more phone help for you you know what yeah but when you call Todd you are talking about your favorite menu items and no more coming in and working on the week for you but anyway putting that aside um you know the the most interesting thing that I've learned over the years and and you and I were talking about this yesterday and you actually brought it up to your seminar yesterday is most of the time it's not what you think the problem is I mean you know you've got to you've got a switch out and you immediately go well the switch must be bad let me pull the switch out and and and put a new switch in and it turns out that you know you pull your switch out you put the new switch in sometimes it works for a little while sometimes itn't doesn't work at all you just spend 25 minutes putting a switch in and now you're like what is this and so you know we've all been there we we've all just sort of jumped to the conclusion of it's got to be this I'm going to focus on the switch it must be must be this issue and you and I we talked about the fact that you need a much broader approach to this you you want to do the switch test you you you want to start with your connections on your board you want to do the easy stuff first before you you focus solely on what the problem is yeah and when I point that stuff out I don't say that to criticize like don't do this I've done it how many mistakes have I made I've made all of them how many mistakes am I going to continue to make yeah a hell of a lot more I don't you've made never mind how old do you your dad made a mistakes ago I'm sorry never mind John how many mistakes have I made today oh that's not fair today I've been the last 38 minutes none but I'm not always uh watching thank you that's a good answer but sometimes when you're look you have to look beyond what you think it would be even though it may not make sense it's not always the case but sometimes it is so you just can't you can't just look at one thing and then you put repl place a part and then insist maybe that new parts bad I've seen people do that too so you just have to really kind of look out a little bit and expand and think about it logically what's it doing what's supposed to be doing what's it not doing it I mean how how many how many times do you think it's one thing and it turns out it's a fuse and you're like that was so simple why didn't I think of that why didn't I start there oh I got a funny story about that we had this was a system 3 got Le game and I didn't work on it and it had a hum it had a hum in the sound so somebody changed the whole Transformer panel put another one in fixed the hum and then the game went out the door well inevitably we needed that Transformer panel for the game that the other one was taken out of and I spent so many hours trying to figure out why this Transformer was causing a hum and there were no blown fuses well you didn't think there was a blown fuse but there was actually Jillian do you remember we we had that situation on a shack attack when you were down at the shop a year or two ago yeah and I showed you that and the fuse was blown but it was blown underneath so when you when you looked at it it looked fine and the audio amplifier gets two lines of AC sent to it and one line was out and was causing the hum so this is one of those times you're sitting there thinking it's one thing and it's not and I didn't you look at the fuse usually when a fuse was blown it looks blown and it wasn't it was just a tiny little break and when Jil and when I were looking at the shack I think it was the same thing it was humming she this thing's making a hum I said I know exactly what it is and we looked at the fuse I pulled it out it was a tiny tiny little break and that was caused because the diode went bad on the on the amplifier board so you put you also had where the fuse block BL itself went bad yeah but that on those games that's pretty rare they're the beefy fuse box there's not that current going through them but yeah I mean it can get a little bit of corrosion on it we actually had an Atlantis I think it was was it your Atlantis the one that has the red and blue or I'm sorry the red part of the GI there's red and then there's white or something and the one section was out and there's a fuse block so if the play Field's lifted up that's on the right side about the middle I'm looking over it I'm looking over it and I see oh the wi's off so I solder the wire back on everything's fine I'm wandering around and look things lights are at again what the hell's going on here there was corrosion on the fuse holder and on the fuse and was getting so hot from the resistance that it was melting the solder and the wire was just falling off so sometimes you could you could have such a simple the the answer can be right in front of you and you don't even realize it I myself I take lots of pictures a couple years ago um I replaced a flipper coil I took all these pictures you know so so I didn't uh mess up the wiring or anything I changed the coil I turn the game on um and blow a fuse right away blow a fuse right away put another fuse and blow it and I sent these pictures to Matt Frank I'm like what's going on here and after few moments he said you know look at your pictures you actually when you when you changed the coil you soldered the you flipped the two wires around backwards and he saw that just because I had before and after pictures I sent him and it was right in front of me and I didn't didn't even notice it I I can't even tell you how many times I've done things like that and I've gotten to the point now where when I'm taking something apart in addition to pictures I take a little piece of tape and I Mark everything because I I've done that so many times and spent hours trying to figure out what is it that I reversed and you know you're going to see it immediately I had gotten frustrated I wasn't even taking close attention to the documentation I did for myself but there's another problem with that if you're changing a flipper coil it's got three tabs on it and you do left center right you can't always put them back left center right do you know why why can't you just do that you can't just blindly do that why can't you do that Todd well they manufacturer the coil could have reversed the diodes right soldered across the tabs that's exactly so you have to check the positive and negative of the diode and that just happened the banded side of the diode goes to the banded side of the diode on the new coil so it might go left center right and right center left man changed his pinbot uh uh coils and called me hysterical because he hooked them up exactly the same and I said are you sure the banded di oh yes yes and roll on the phone back and forth I'm going through the manual I finally went back and referenced uh it wasn't it was a Joker's which had the same color wire solder to it took a picture of them compared it to his picture I said you reverse the two wires I did not and he did so if you've hit the left or right flip request so I said do it just to the one and put a new fuse in fuse didn't blow the coil worked how could I done that I said my co oh that's always a good one you got theer and right and last person put the coil in wrong so you take the coil out you no it's supposed to be this way you put it in and then you put well the red wire was on the top must be there again wired backward yep the last and 99% of the time if you wire a coil back would you blew the diet just put a new di yeah you have to change the diet again so he Harvest so here's a little tidbit this guy Pin bodies at Michigan and his new replacement coil just had one diode on each flipper and he blew the diodes out on both so I said you can get the Williams packed into every pinball machine spare diodes and they're both happen to be one's on the slam switch so you have to cut that off there and one is on the Tilt switch on the Playfield this pendulum that you're never going to need and that's what he did he unsoldered those uh diodes and put them on his flippers and fixed his problem without having to send them any more parts now the pinb guy I dealt with matches up to a forword important lesson for all of you when you're stuck on something sometimes you need another set of eyes that was my case Matt Frank and to look at absolutely you can you all know it you can look at it a thousand times it's right it's right it's right somebody looks at it and says no it's not and you're like ah I can't believe I and I've done that and called both of these gentlemen and said hey what I and they just they know it but it's it's a good thing another set of eyes and if you don't have a set of eyes take a break for a day or two and come back to it or have your wife look at it if you don't mind being screamed up because you broke a game it was working you this Awards what's wrong with you idiot something like that um now our are we're running into an issue now of finding people that want to actually work on games uh you guys have to learn how to do your own stuff or hire somebody outside which and they're few and far between and uh uh we now have Greg that I pointed out earlier he now comes he moonlights at TNT two days a week and Terry my daughter who's next to Greg there she moonlights too they have real job jobs but they Moonlight and have to learn and I never got a chance to run this clip I have a 45 second clip of Terry when she started working for me when she was 14 years old and this is a piece of an old video I made of her uh remember when Transformers came out brand new so that gives you an idea how long ago this was filmed but uh we wanted to show people that even a 14-year-old could put the machine together and we just used a this is a 45 second clip from the video but I I said I got to get her in this tonight so we'll run this little clip next this is so unusual we never have technical difficulties when we do live for those of you who watch the live presentations you know we never have problems the videos on YouTube are always professionally shot and done they're always in Focus sorry I make for do you know I'm making I get thousands more views on Tik Tok now so Tik Tock is replaced and and they're filmed in I call it wretched Vision so so we go up and down y connect and Facebook is up and down do you know if I try to go on YouTube live it defaults you on up and down you have to go way into the menu to turn it to horizontal cuz I still like horizontal videos but today's kids do not like horizontal videos they like to go Flip Flip Flip Flip Flip you watch 5 Seconds of your video so if you do Tik Tok you have to make sure the first five or six seconds can grab them and make them sit and watch now I did a video last night on Tik Tok uploaded it was a midnight and I put it up today or or I put it up immediately I'm going to actually I haven't looked but um you ready yeah let me just finish this it's l um so my mother does this too by the way it's up and down yes but that hopefully gets them so I shot the the video it's gotten 594 views and four shares so forth so I'm trying everything to bring in new new faces people interested in fixing stuff and even people like my daughter you're ready now Terry here's your 45 seconds of claim of Fame actually I think you've got this on for like eight minutes hi I'm Terry and I'm going to show you how to unbox a brand new Transformer up see how easy this is well I'm holding all the weight and now we're going to lift the head up so precious so fuzzy too with those old cameras but see that back then we were just making the videos for fun and such but uh yeah CU now they're serious business that was to show as you can see I did one opening a brand new Tron pinball and that was Tammy that unboxed it she somehow found it online and deleted it forever so I can't show that anymore Tammy could Terry could you find some of the videos and delete them as well please I'll give you a list anyway she wasting all the movies she's destroying them she went she did not want her to be seen my my Tammy has kind of uh uh it has very little interest in pinball unfortunately but uh just like my wife but but thank goodness Terry is here that's right Terry likes she actually enjoys meeting all of you and talking to you and wandering about it's just like I guess you noticed at this show uh this one in particular uh it it seems to be much closer because you're not walking a mile from your room to the the hall everything's carpeted it's intimate and this is very nice hotel very nice I agreed so it's worked out very nicely so far Gabe has done a wonderful job fantastic amazing right there in the front and our two AV experts that's you I'm just the he's the side I used to travel in the side you used to travel I thought you were still in the side uh it's always a carnival with Todd it is and we have time we have the space until when well I was going to say we have about eight minutes questions that would be a fabulous idea Jillian does anybody have any questions or comments uh so Matt Frank you made that uh the test light with just uh using some capacitor leads now back in the day when radio was all over the place you could buy test prob yeah like and you can get stuff on Amazon too if you want around uh would you want to do that do John Youssi any disadvantage I mean it's nice 4 inch long insulation just hold it well you're not I mean you're not going to get as long as you're not uh sloppy you're not going to get hurt but this is more in reference to just something you have Ling around you can whip something together but yeah you can get and it might only even be 12 15 bucks like a whole test lead kit from Amazon cuz I bought some extra ones for my meter and they have the Nic long leads and you can actually just cut them but I like using the red and the yellow wires just so when you're probing it you're staying on the red on theed because the diode matters yeah you I guess you could put some tape but still you could maybe put some yellow tape on the one for the yellow side you know cut the lead back if they're cheap enough you could by the way there's a tip speaking of the tape that he mentioned you can buy heat shrink for like dirt next to nothing big rolls 100 foot rolls on Amazon for under $10 so we have five different sizes you can get different colors too if you want to do it that way get different colors we usually just buy the black but they're perfect if you're adding lights to your surface I was when I was underneath the U Adams Family I saw I I call an alligator clip aogo with all the things added with alligator clips and nothing goes out of our shop with alligator clips uh for the um extra lighting and things we solder everything we cut the alligator clip off that the um person who sells you the toy includes and if you say oh I might want to take the toy off you can put a Molex connector on so you can buy a male and female Molex we have drawers of all different sizes so in fact if we want to take Uncle Fester or they call him Uncle Lester off the seat you can unplug them rather than uh unsolder it since you cut the alligator clips off alligator clips will short stuff out because one's going to fall off when you lift the play field up on theth time it'll fall off and then swing and touch the magnet um transistor or something or even you're just moving your game around to different location in your game room you buy a game from someone that has that mod clipped on there transport at home or just vibration from play y absolutely cut them off and slauter it anybody else oh go ahead what if you was when to use a regular bulb what if you don't have an LED I understand you had a regular it doesn't hurt anything it's you can see it works fine I mean that would be like saying we'll just take all the diodes out of your lamp Matrix if you're going to put in LEDs I don't know I never experimented with it enough to see if that makes a difference or not could try it now the LEDs draw about a third of the power that the in candescent bulbs do that's why you don't burn up your connectors anymore when you switch to LEDs you can actually lower your fuses too which I recommend doing yes that's true Matt Frank uh uh you know the Williams had 5 a fuses for the four l l or five in the case of WPC but if you change it all to LEDs you can drop it down to two two and a half to three it depends you could I mean you could put a meter across and measure it and see what the draw is and just keep it as close to that as possible you got to buy take it down to threes is fine you should don't Tinker with a pinball machine if you don't have a meter sorry that's one of my questions do you down I guess it depends on what what you're really finding I was kind asking you when do you put down a piece of Jumper wire and well I'm never going to use I don't I don't meter I don't meter anything when I'm fixing lights or switches until I have to measure the transistors on the board so you can just do the jumper wire thing um if that doesn't work then you isolate it back to the board then you have to you need a meter to measure the transistors logic probe I only do that when I'm fixing dead boards I'm checking address and data signals and stuff like that so and my I have a scope which has been out of the box three times I never used the scope for any kind of trouble I haven't needed it so I mean a logic probe will work fine um I actually did do a video using my scope demonstrating how the 6803 lamp circuit works that's on my YouTube Channel showing how because you have one transistor that controls two different bulbs independently and I show how the two different AC phases how the game will alternate between if it wants the a lamp on or the B lamp on so you can check that video out it goes in a little bit more detail on how that works cuz if you have a transistor blend you can lose two bulbs not just one No Quarters needed No Quarters arcade my YouTu qu arcade.com that too no wonder people don't find your site any other questions I have blank stairs thank you thanks guys thank you and can you run can you please run my end credits it's only 10 seconds okay maybe 20 everybody stick around for the next 10 seconds see the end credits well that's all we have I don't think anybody Lear a single what do you think Z yes about what H about how to fix their stupid games what do you think not even close not even close Robbie what did you learn something shut up anyway and I want you all out there in the audience to thank the idiots sitting on the the folks sitting up front including me all of I'm working well and now you could run the end credits I forgot I filmed that too good night we're all so much better having seen that that's 10 seconds of your life you'll never get back you're a mean me thanks for coming folks thanks everyone thank you [Applause]
high confidence · Frank demonstrates custom tool construction with color-coded red/yellow wiring for probing lamp matrices
“the diode is needed to isolate um the bulb from all the other lines... you're just grounding that transistor which tells you that the bulb is good the wiring is good the sockets good”
Frank @ Mid-segment — Explains the engineering principle behind the homemade diagnostic tool design
“I spent so many hours trying to figure out why this Transformer was causing a hum and there were no blown fuses well you didn't think there was a blown fuse but there was actually”
Todd Tucky @ Late segment — Personal anecdote reinforcing the lesson that obvious solutions are often overlooked
high · Chuck notes Todd talks 35-40 minutes while Frank 'fixes it in five'; Frank demonstrates tool construction while Todd explains principles
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product_concern: Addams Family pinball machines have systemic kicker bracket welding failure requiring aftermarket repair via rewelding; indicates manufacturing defect affecting entire production run
high · Todd states: 'every atom's family on planet Earth that bracket breaks welds'; TNT purchased welder specifically for this repair; described as permanent fix when executed
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technology_signal: Evolution of pinball diagnostic approaches from meter-dependent to systematic visual/tactile troubleshooting using homemade tools; demonstrates adaptive problem-solving culture
high · Todd emphasizes working without meters; Frank creates simple LED/diode diagnostic tool; multiple examples of successful diagnosis without specialized equipment