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Part 5: 1978 Gottlieb Close Encounters of the Third Kind Project. Rebirth!

Pinball Shenanigans·video·17m 58s·analyzed·Oct 11, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.018

TL;DR

Gottlieb CETKK restoration progresses with MPU repair; drop target solenoid fuse issues remain.

Summary

Mike Dus continues restoration of a 1978 Gottlieb Close Encounters of the Third Kind pinball machine, focusing on diagnosing and repairing the MPU (main control board) and addressing solenoid/fuse issues. After repinning a corroded edge connector, he gets the MPU to boot, but discovers the drop target solenoid circuit is causing repeated fuse blowouts. He identifies several wiring and diode issues that need resolution, with the work ongoing.

Key Claims

  • If a connector's male side is rusted/corroded, the female side is also likely in bad condition

    high confidence · Mike states this as a rule of thumb learned from this project; confirmed by his finding multiple broken/corroded terminals in the female connector after the male side was visibly corroded

  • Repinning the corroded MPU edge connector got the 2005 NIW board to boot successfully

    high confidence · Direct observation: after replacing terminals and reinstalling the board, the alphanumeric displays light up and show player scores

  • Drop target solenoid circuit is blowing the fuse when the drop targets attempt to reset

    high confidence · Fuse blows immediately when drop targets are commanded to reset; tested with 2 amp fast-blow and observed multiple fuse failures under same conditions

  • A diode in the drop target circuit was soldered off and disconnected

    high confidence · Mike visually inspects wiring and finds a diode that is 'off' (disconnected) in the daisy-chain near the drop target solenoid

  • A wire near a lamp socket melted/lost solder connection due to heat buildup

    high confidence · Mike observed smoke and a crack sound near a lamp socket, then found the wire barely hanging on; suspects excessive heat from the bulb melted the solder joint

Notable Quotes

  • “If your connector on the back side of the board, the male side is rusted, tarnished, corroded, and nasty, then the other side of the connector, the female side, is also going to be in likely bad shape.”

    Mike Dus @ ~6:30 — Establishes diagnostic rule of thumb for connector corrosion that proves true in this restoration

  • “Wow. Did not work. Okay then. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I lied. It worked.”

    Mike Dus @ ~11:00 — Humorous moment when the repinned MPU unexpectedly boots after the initial false start

  • “So, what does that mean? I'm not exactly sure yet, but I'm going to replace the fuse and have the drop targets um already up.”

    Mike Dus @ ~18:30 — Shows troubleshooting methodology: isolating variables by pre-positioning drop targets to determine if reset logic is the culprit

  • “I found this diode is off. So maybe it's sort of daisy chained and potentially part of the problem.”

    Mike Dus @ ~22:00 — Discovery of disconnected diode in drop target circuit; potential root cause of solenoid short

  • “Very, very, very, very baby steps on this episode, but I don't know. Maybe I at least solved the MPU issue.”

    Mike Dus @ ~30:00 — Reflects on incremental progress; acknowledges MPU problem may be resolved but more work remains on solenoid circuit

Entities

Mike DuspersonPinball ShenanigansorganizationClose Encounters of the Third KindgameCoreypersonFork RivercompanyBrett ButlerpersonWMS Pins / Chris McKinleypersonGottliebcompanyNIW boardproduct

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Community member (WMS Pins/Chris McKinley) providing encouragement and support for restoration project

    high · Shout-out at beginning of episode thanking 'fellow OG shenanigander WMS Pins' for support; suggests ongoing community engagement with the project

  • ?

    operational_signal: Connector corrosion rule of thumb: if male connector side is corroded, female side is also likely damaged; repinning both sides necessary for reliable operation

    high · Mike's explicit articulation of this rule and validation through finding broken/corroded terminals in female connector; subsequent successful boot after repinning

  • ?

    product_concern: Aftermarket replacement boards (NIW 2005/2017) showing degradation and failures; original MPU with proper repair outperforms newer replacements

    high · 2005 NIW board working/stopping intermittently; 2017 NIW board glitching; original Gottlieb MPU boots reliably after connector repair, suggesting superior longevity of original designs

  • ?

    technology_signal: Systematic troubleshooting methodology applied to complex electrical issues: isolating variables, testing components individually, and tracing circuit paths

    high · Mike's approach of pre-positioning drop targets to test reset logic separately, clipping diode to test in isolation, and methodically tracing wire paths through circuit

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

0:02
All right, I just wanted to give a shout out for a super thanks from fellow OG shenanigander WM Spins. Just kidding. That's WMS Pins, which is uh Chris McKinley, who says, "Crap Encounters of the Turd kind. This deserves a diet coke or a beer or two." And uh I certainly concur. Thanks, brother. Much appreciated. I'm Mike Dus and this is Pinball Shenanigans.
0:38
[Music] Okay, back at this Close Encounters of the Third Kind machine and um the last episode I had a couple boards that uh were not working very well. Kind of the one was sort of working then it stopped working. So these two nywump boards I have set aside. The one Oh, I got a sneeze coming.
1:16
Uh is from 2005. So even though it's a newer replacement board, it's still 20 years old. And this other one that is not working very well either if at all. I mean there is sort of signs of life but and then this one kind of will live and then it'll die. This one just kind of glitches. This is like from 2017 and that one is no good. Here's the original MPU. And you know, in the last episode, I kind of went over the condition of it and the fact that this connector here, um, these pads are really bad condition. I mean, they all are on the bottom where the battery uh, leaked. This side here where the displays are, the corrosion never made it to that area. But because it did make it to this side, I think I really need to repin that connector. I didn't repin it. I just kind of cleaned it. This is the edge connector. So, I think that's going to help overall. And I also pulled out of my stash another original MPU that says checkin pin. Looks good. Logic probe. logic probes. Good. It's not my notes, but then at the bottom it says bad U5, which I think might be a this spider chip possibly. So, I'm going to pop that in just for fun. But Cory hooked me up at Fork River. And I have a freshly chopped up from Brett Butler original MPU that should be 100%. And I also have yet another replacement Nyewump board from 2017 that was also recently serviced. I don't know if that was by Nywump or by Brent Butler, but Cory says this should be 100% as well. So, between these two boards, I'm hoping that we uh bring this machine to life. Like I said, I'm going to repin this guy here because I never did. I just cleaned it up. And I think uh I just have to repin it to be certain that it's getting good connection. I repin this, repin this side. So, I'm going to do this side. You know, maybe I'll repin these guys as well, but for now, I'm going to focus on this. So, I'm going to start with that. I brought a different connector with me, and I pre- removed the pins out of the housing just to make sure I could. And I was able to successfully do it. I wasn't sure if I was going to have the same amount of success with pins that were intact because um the ones that were corroded and all broken in half came out easily, but I wasn't sure if these guys were going to come out as easily, but they did. So, I can either repin this guy or repin the other one or both. Um I'll probably end up repinning both sides of this and having it as a nice spare. So, that's where I'm going to start. And hopefully we can get this thing working 100%. It's basically the MPU and the spinny wheel and the drop targets and then we're in business. Okay, so this is the rule of thumb and I should have implemented this right from the very start. If your connector on the back side of the board, the male side is rusted, tarnished, corroded, and nasty, then the other side of the connector, the female side, is also going to be in likely bad shape. And sure enough, here are the terminals I pulled out. And you can see those two are broken. That one's broken. That one's intact, but look at that. That is not in good shape at all. The other one just went flying somewhere. So, yeah, that could be a significant portion of my problem with the first nw board that was working and then it wasn't. So, there we go. Brand new terminals installed. So, now I'm curious if that first uh MPU is going to boot up. So, I think I'll install this and go back to that uh 2005 NIW and see what happens. All right, back to this drawing board here. And uh there we go. 2005 NW. So, with the newly repinned connector, what do you think? It's going to work or not going to work. I'm going to say it's going to work. So, let's find out. Wait, I already made that mistake once. I remembered. Here we go. Give it a second.
Deadpool
game
7:13
Wow. Did not work. Okay then. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I lied. It worked. So, also a note, player four display looks just as nice. Oh, I've got this light on. No, I don't. I got some glare on the player one display, but Oh, it's actually my camera. Here we go. Now, let's look at the displays.
7:45
Eh, and not much better on player four. just slightly dull. Now we're all beautiful. Okay, so next thing is I need to um mount this so I don't short anything out. Oh, check this out. There's a whole another bank of wires and stuff. I guess that's uh for lighting or displays and over here as well. That look to be fine. Okay, so I need to uh throw in a couple standoffs. I've got these different kinds that should be better than the last ones I were trying to use. I just have two of them, though. Mount this board and then uh see if we can fire up a game. Okay, that looks good. Put the uh standoffs in the top two positions. And that's sitting there nicely. You know, at some point I do got to start thinking about ground modifications slashimprovements. Oh, I also did bring some electrical tape cuz I knew that this painters tape would not hold up. Sometimes these displays lose their stickiness and you need to give them a little helping hand. So that is on the list. Close this up. And got to clean up my mess here. Be very gentle with these boards. They also don't like static. So got to be extra careful. I want to make sure I return these boards. And the same condition that I got them. And is there a ball in here? Where' the ball go?
9:45
All right. So, now we're hoping that uh the transistor that I changed actually gets this uh spinny wheel to to work and the drop target. So soon as I hit start, we're assuming the drop target's going to pop up. The question is, will it blow the fuse in doing so? If so, I might actually suspect the drop target diode. I forgot to check that. Maybe I'm going to check that real quick. One moment. Here's the diode for the drop target um solenoid. And actually, I do remember I did test it, but I really need to clip a leg in order to test it properly. So, should I do that or should I just I think I'm just going to start the game and see what happens. We'll press our luck here. Oh, I just realized why I didn't notice the machine had booted up cuz my soundboard is gone. It didn't get didn't give me the the startup melody. I did pass that over to Corey at forked and hope to get a uh refurbed one later this week. So, we're not going to have any tunes. See what happens here. Three, two, one.
11:09
Okay, drop targets popped up. That's good. We need to the ball back in. question is, is my fuse blown? So, the first tell we're gonna have is when I plunge this ball and it goes into A, B, or C, it should spin the roto. It might only spin it once before it blows the fuse. So, here goes nothing.
11:41
We got a spin. Uh-oh. Let's not short out anything. I need uh some rubbers. Okay. See if the drop targets reset.
12:01
All right. Moment of truth here. Oh no. Are they supposed to reset?
12:11
Let's see if the roto spins. Nope, it does not. Boo. I guess I got to go digging deeper to figure out. Oops. WTF. No more spinny. Boo. Okay, so I clipped this diode, measured it, and it tested fine. So, I installed a new um 2 amp fuse. I just have like fast blow. It's supposed to be slow blow, so I don't know if that's my problem. And then I just powered on the game, hit the start button, and as soon as the drop targets reset, the fuse blue. So, what does that mean? I'm not exactly sure yet, but I'm going to replace the fuse and have the drop targets um already up. So, hopefully it doesn't try and reset them. And then um see if the active the uh spinny wheel blows the fuse as well. Okay, this clip's going to be in the dark so we can pay attention to the fuse. So the drop targets are up now. I don't know if it's going to try and reset them or not when I hit the start button. I might just be programmed to do that just to make sure they're up. And if it tries to fire it, then the fuse is definitely going to blow. I'm hoping it doesn't try to fire it. So, three, two, one. Okay. Oh, yeah. It fired it and blew it. Okay. So, I not so sure that this roto wheel is to blame anymore. I feel like um I might have to be looking in the direction of the drop target. So, something must be shorted. And I got to figure out what that is. Okay. Kind of grasping at straws here. Just trying to figure out where to look. So, I'm just tracing these wires. Red, yellow, and the orange, black. And the red, yellow ends up at the fuse, which makes sense. comes out this brown black which ends up at the Q relay and then um
14:41
this red yellow ends up you know tied into this solenoid here for the roto wheel. Oh, and look, this is orange, black, white is tied in. I guess that's just a short stretch of wire, but just kind of looking at the other solenoids. And here is um yeah, see this brown and black wire that is sort of part of the equation. Well, look at this. I found this diode is off. So maybe it's sort of daisy chained and potentially part of the problem. It's definitely um I mean the pop bumper is working but definitely need to resolve that. I don't know if that's going to fix the issue but you know it's worth a shot. Okay, got the diode soldered back on and got the machine powered on. So let's hit the start button. See what happens. Three, two, one, and it blew. Okay. Okay. I was just kind of messing with light bulbs. I was just kind of moving on for now, trying to get them all working. And I stuck my finger in this vicinity and I heard a tiny little crack and then a little wisp of smoke. And I'm investigating the area and I don't really understand what that could have been, but that was kind of weird. And I did notice that this socket here, that wire is just hanging on by a thread. It's not even soldered anymore.
16:38
Believe it is wired up fine. I think that's correct. But maybe that bulb just got so hot that it melted the solder. [Music] Look at this. This green wire here is That scared the out of me. This wire here, which has the wrong diode on it. So, yeah, I definitely got to replace that diode and resolder this guy. Okay, I got that soldered back up. But I think my diodes are at home and I actually have to take off because I am selling my Deadpool, my first Deadpool. I bought a second one and uh I don't need two. So, that's happening tonight. So, I got to get home and uh get ready for that. So, very, very, very, very baby steps on this episode, but I don't know. Maybe I at least solved the MPU issue. I'll have to play like 50 games before I trust that MPU if I can get this to work. But I guess we'll have to save that for another