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Part 5: 1977 Allied Leisure Getaway Pinball Project. Fighting the good fight!

Pinball Shenanigans·video·24m 37s·analyzed·Apr 25, 2026
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Analysis

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TL;DR

Mike Dimas methodically diagnoses transistor failure and tests replacement boards on Getaway restoration.

Summary

Mike Dimas continues troubleshooting a 1977 Allied Leisure Getaway pinball machine in Part 5 of his restoration series. He diagnoses a bad transistor on the main board, tests multiple replacement boards (2A, 2B variants), replaces capacitors, and attempts voltage adjustments, but struggles to get consistent boot behavior. Despite systematic testing and component replacement, the machine remains non-functional, and he plans further diagnostics for the next episode.

Key Claims

  • A TIP 3055 transistor was identified as defective on the bad board, showing a resistance reading of .003 ohms compared to normal .6-.678 ohms on good transistors

    high confidence · Mike Dimas directly measured and compared transistor readings multiple times with a multimeter

  • The 2B board variant (part number ending in H) is preferable to the 2A board variant (ending in E) because the 2B has protection diodes and is the better design

    high confidence · Mike Dimas examined and compared the two board types, noting physical and component differences

  • A Centaur machine brought to Kevin's shop required all balls to be in the trough before booting up

    high confidence · Mike Dimas mentioned Kevin texted him about the issue; the fix was confirmed when it worked

  • The factory modification (jumper wire hack) seen on Joe's Classic Video Games Getaway is a legitimate factory modification, not a repair hack

    medium confidence · Mike Dimas stated he saw the same modification on another machine and concluded it came from the factory

  • The power supply's potentiometer for voltage adjustment is faulty and fluctuating, making it difficult to maintain stable 5V

    high confidence · Mike Dimas observed voltage fluctuation when adjusting the potentiometer and noted it 'probably should change that at some point'

Notable Quotes

  • “I don't know what the emitter is. I don't know what the collector is. I don't do no emitting or collecting. I just do lepping.”

    Mike Dimas@ 0:07 — Self-deprecating humor about electronics knowledge while attempting transistor diagnostics

  • “You just do this a million times till you find something that's different.”

    Mike Dimas@ 4:57 — Describes his methodical transistor testing approach

  • “Tell me it's a 3055. Holy [***] can you believe that? Wow, I was joking. I am the winner.”

    Mike Dimas@ 7:26 — Relief and surprise at finding the correct replacement transistor in his parts stash

  • “If that doesn't work, then it's either three bad boards or some bad connections or a bad power supply or the ball needs to be in the trough.”

    Mike Dimas@ 15:34 — Summarizes the diagnostic possibilities he's narrowed down

  • “This is a factory modification. It's a factory lip. So, that is perfectly fine.”

    Mike Dimas@ 19:05 — Identifies and validates the legitimacy of a factory workaround on the board

Entities

Mike DimaspersonJohn Ed RobertsonpersonKevinpersonJoe's Classic Video GamesvenueAllied Leisure GetawaygameCentaurgameFathomgameGammatrongamePinball ShenanigansorganizationAcme Video Gamescompany

Signals

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Detailed methodology for identifying defective transistors using multimeter resistance testing across emitter-collector and other terminal combinations

    high · Mike systematically tested every transistor on multiple boards, comparing readings (.003 ohms vs. .6-.678 ohms) to isolate the bad component

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Capacitor replacement as standard maintenance for 1970s Allied Leisure boards, following recommendations from electronics experts

    high · John Ed Robertson recommended capacitor replacement; Mike replaced capacitors on multiple boards during troubleshooting

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Recognition of board design evolution: 2A boards lack protection diodes and are physically smaller; 2B boards (ending in H) are preferred due to added protection diodes despite larger footprint

    high · Mike compared 2A and 2B boards side-by-side, noting component differences and expressing preference for the 2B variant

  • ?

    product_concern: Faulty voltage potentiometer on Getaway power supply causes voltage fluctuation, making it difficult to maintain stable 5V output required for reliable MPU testing

    high · Mike observed voltage fluctuating between 4.75V and higher readings; potentiometer adjusted erratically when modified

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Defective transistor causing chime solenoid to lock on continuously; required disconnection of solenoid and chime circuits to isolate and diagnose the root cause

    high · Multiple board tests resulted in chime and knocker solenoids locking on; Mike disconnected solenoid connectors as a workaround

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

0:01
I don't know what the emitter is. I don't know what the collector is. I don't do no emitting or collecting. I just do lepping. I'm Mike Dimas [music] and this is Pinball Shenanigans.
0:28
All right, I am back in the basement for another episode of Getaway. Not that one. The good old so very popular Allied Leisure Getaway. So, just a brief summary. In the last episode, I tried this board and I tried this board and I could not get the game to boot up. Let's just turn it on and see if it magically works all of a sudden.
1:00
Uh we got light bulbs and that's about it. So, I did replace this blue capacitor right here that was recommended by John Robertson and that didn't change anything. So, what I think I'm going to do next is change this one. Well, maybe I'll test it first. But, the problem with this board is that one of these transistors is bad and it is locking on one of the chime coils. So, I think I'm just going to bite the bullet and test every single one of these and find the culprit. And then when I do, um I don't have one of these in stock, do I? I don't know. I'll have to check my stash. I don't really want to have to steal off another board if I don't have to. But, there's a slight chance I have a tip 3055.
1:57
Also, if none of that works, I do have another board in here. So, I could uh steal this one. I did have a look at it in another episode briefly.
  • ?

    restoration_signal: Edge connector cleaning methodology using rubbing alcohol, fine sandpaper, and cloth to ensure reliable board seating in cabinet

    high · Mike cleaned all edge connectors using rubbing alcohol and fine sandpaper before testing multiple boards

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Recognition that jumper wire hacks observed on Getaway machines are legitimate factory modifications, not field repairs

    medium · Mike identified a factory modification (jumper wire) matching one seen on Joe's Classic Video Games machine and validated it as factory original

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Non-populated pre-drive transistor positions on some board variants; Mike attempted populating missing MPS63 transistor using compatible 2N404401 substitute

    medium · Mike identified missing pre-drive transistor on 2B board and attempted installation of substitute component; attempt unsuccessful

  • ?

    operational_signal: Remote troubleshooting example: Kevin's machine (Centaur) required specific boot conditions (all balls in trough) to function, discovered via phone consultation

    high · Mike texted Kevin to reseat connectors; Kevin confirmed he had; Mike then suggested ball-in-trough requirement which solved the boot issue

  • ?

    technology_signal: Use of resistance/continuity testing via multimeter as primary diagnostic tool for transistor and circuit board fault isolation in 1970s pinball machines

    high · Mike used multimeter throughout episode to test transistor resistance readings, voltage levels, and circuit continuity

    • 2:20
    It's a darker looking board. Oh, that cap looks like it has been replaced already.
    2:30
    But, I don't know. It doesn't look like a lot of those um logic chips. They look all original. So, that might be a good sign. So, yeah. Maybe I'll just pop in this board and try that as well. Eventually, I might be able to get something to happen. So, first thing I'm going to do is uh
    2:56
    check all of these transistors. Kevin just texted me um our buddy dropped off a couple machines at his place for him to uh shop up and one is a Fathom and he's asking if I have a spare Alltec board because it's not booting up. And it should be booting up. So, I said, "Did you reseat all the connectors in the back box?" And he just texted right now saying, "Yes, five times." So, I guess it's that is not going to solve the problem. Anyway, I'll lend him uh an Alltec MPU and uh see if he can figure out what's going on over there. Maybe I'll pop in tomorrow and give him a hand. But, tomorrow I got to go to Sarnia and drop off Gammatron and uh will be tied up for part of the day. But, anyway, let me dig into these transistors and see if I can find the bad one. All right. I don't know what the emitter is. I don't know what the collector is. I don't do no emitting or collecting. I just do lepping. But, nonetheless, I think I found the culprit. So, this is the bad board. But, just cuz this one is closer, I just compared all of the transistors every single which way possible. That's open.
    4:28
    There. Don't scare me like that. I thought I had everything all figured out. So, if they all test the same, I tried every single which way, 603, 610, 607.
    4:54
    See? They all test the same. So, you just do this a million times till you find something that's different. Look, 502, 508, 509.
    5:11
    So, look what I discovered. Now, let's see which way Let's put this here. Be a little easier. Okay, so, what does this do? Anything? No. This way?
    5:30
    That says .645, .668, .649, and voila, .003.
    5:46
    So, black in the middle, red on the bottom. Just for shits and giggles, we'll compare the exact same transistor on this other board. And
    6:03
    give me my reading, please. Point .6. Why are you doing this to me? .635. Okay?
    6:17
    .003. [clears throat] So, this guy is the bad guy. So, next thing I got to do is see if I have one in my stash. One of you fellow Shenaniganders was asking me, I don't know who. I just don't remember. But, we're asking me about these pop bumper bases for early Stern pop bumpers. So, I literally just listed two of them two s- partial Stern Electronics pop bumper assemblies in my eBay store and you can find that at Acme Video Games. So, if you want to grab some pop bumper bases, you'll find them there. Sorry, I forget who was asking me, but there you have it. All right. Let the fun begin. If I find it in 5 seconds, I am the winner. Oh, what is this? Tell me it's a 3055. Hold on. Got to zoom in. Holy [ __ ] can you believe that?
    7:35
    Wow, I was joking. I am the winner. 3055 in 5 seconds. All right. Good news on two fronts. I got the transistor changed and I suggested to Kevin that for Centaur, is it Did I say Fathom or Centaur? Cuz he got both machines. I I think I might have said Fathom, but it's actually Centaur. So, I said for Centaur, you might need all the balls in the trough for the machine to boot up. And guess what? Sure enough, that's what it was. So, Centaur is now booting up and good to go except now it doesn't have sound. But, I think he just discovered a cut wire. So, should be So, check this out. Here is the suspect bad transistor and here is the reading we were getting. Point .003. Now, here is a different transistor on the board. .627 and here's the new one.
    8:40
    Point .6. I can't hold it steady. .678. Give or take. So, that I think will resolve our locked-on solenoid issue. Big question is, will the game boot up with this particular MPU installed? So, let's find out. All right. Got the MPU installed. Let's see if anything happens. Listen for the solenoid or the chime.
    9:21
    No chime. Now, our LEDs. Think we want them to turn off down there. But, I'm not 100% sure that I trust that because I've gotten all kinds of different behavior from these different boards
    9:42
    before installing the cap on the one after installing the cap. Never have I had it do the sort of blinking on and off intermittently. >> [snorts]
    9:53
    [snorts]
    9:53
    [snorts] >> So, we've got general illumination. What we don't have are these LEDs, which I did have with the other board. So, not really sure this is forward progress.
    10:16
    So, I think the next thing I probably should do is change the cap on this guy here and see if that makes any difference. Okay, I got the new capacitor installed. See if that makes any difference.
    10:44
    turn this off and on and see if this LED flickers at all. Uh very dimly.
    10:52
    But, there's zero change in anything. Okay, so maybe I'm going to turn up the 5 volts just a little bit because it was at 4.75 last I checked. And maybe it wants just a little bit more juice. So, I'm going to turn up the potentiometer on the power supply and see if that helps. Okay, I removed the MPU. So, I don't want to accidentally turn up the voltage too much and blow it up. So, I've got my multimeter hooked up here. I'm going to go to DC voltage and let's see what we got. It looks like I got it hooked up kind of backwards. It's negative. That's low. What happened? All right, just to satisfy it everybody. Let's go the other way.
    12:01
    Hey. That's weird. Didn't think that would matter. Okay, 4.86 is pretty good. But, let's make it better.
    12:29
    It's 4. This is not the right tool for the job. Uh-oh. Bad things are happening. I can't really see. What is uh Okay, I need more like a Phillips, I guess.
    12:53
    Maybe at least a wider slotted screwdriver. That looks better. Okay, here we go. Oh, yeah. Here we go. Here we go.
    13:13
    What? The hell just happened there? That's probably a shitty potentiometer. And I probably should change that at some point, but as long as that stays Look at that. Is that just my connections? What the hell? >> [snorts]
    13:55
    Okay.
    13:55
    Okay. I do not like what I am seeing here. and the voltage changes. Is this going to steadily drop?
    14:25
    Okay, it's kind of fluctuating. Um definitely think I need to replace that potentiometer. But, as long as it stays in the 5-V range then should be able to test the MPU. All right, let's plug it back in. [snorts]
    14:46
    Okay, this time I have my leads hooked up to the capacitor on the MPU. And that needs to be 5 volts. So, let's see what happens.
    15:08
    nothing is happening anything different. Not getting anything to boot up. So,
    15:23
    in the other cabinet. And if that doesn't work, then it's either three bad boards or some bad connections or a bad power supply or the ball needs to be in the trough
    15:45
    Before I test the third board, I'm going to go back to this board and see if now that I turned up the voltage that if this board behaves any differently. Let's see what we got. Ooh.
    16:01
    Uh what happened to my voltage? Oh, here we go.
    16:11
    We got it hooked up backwards again, but almost 5 volts. LED staying on, though. Which I thought it was supposed to turn off according to John's Jukes. And look, we've got these lights. So, this board is one baby step better than the other board. All right, I think I got to go plug in the third board and see what happens. Okay, pulled out the board out of the other cabinet and turns out this is the um 2A board. This is the 2B board. And there's a few differences. Well, first of all, they're a different size. That's because this one doesn't have all those protection diodes. And this one does, so they made the board longer so they could fit all of this extra crap. So, this one is not necessarily ideal and that's the one that ends in E.
    17:22
    Part number that ends in H is the good one. All in all, though, the board looks okay. Someone did change the cap already. I did not do that. What does this say?
    17:38
    I don't know what that says. The only sort of suspect thing is this transistor appears to be missing uh something there possibly.
    18:03
    But, you know what? Oh, yeah, here's the other thing. That's the um edge connector that's not used and also this is another connector that's not used. All this is not used. They didn't use that or put that on the 2B board. So, there's some of your differences. So, let's pop it in and see what happens. Oh, I forgot to mention well, one, I did clean all the edge connectors, so that's been done. Rubbing alcohol, sandpaper with no sand left on the paper and a cloth, basically. But, this giant hack here is the exact same hack I saw on Joe's Classic Arcades. Actually, it's called Joe's Classic Video Games. And it is from the factory. This is a factory modification. It's a factory lip. So, that is perfectly fine. So, let's pop it in and see what happens. All right. This board also has I don't know if you can see it, but a bit of a bow in it.
    19:25
    That's fine. I've got my leads connected to the cap so we can see if there's good voltage. Let's just hope there's no locked on solenoids. So, here we go. 3 2 1. Ah, you bugger. That's a different chime. So, I can't leave that locked on. So, I need to maybe just remove the transistor altogether and then retest it. Okay, I spent a good deal of time testing every one of these transistors
    20:05
    multiple times. I just noticed something else. There's another component missing there.
    20:21
    the information I needed was right here all along. Tip 3055 E on the left, C in the middle and B on the right. Emitter, collector, base. So, it looks like I need to be testing the emitter to the collector, I believe. And I don't know, I did every variation. I couldn't find anything wrong. So, I thought maybe I need to populate this pre-driver transistor.
    20:58
    There are two different ones. Uh MPS63 I looked and the closest I have is 2N 404401.
    21:22
    I don't know if it's compatible. Too lazy to look on the internet. So, I'm just going to pop it in and see what happens because the worst that's going to happen is that it just doesn't work. So, I will do that and then I don't know if that missing resistor is going to cause me trouble or not. Where did that go? But, uh you know, it's worth a shot. Okay, pre-driver transistor installed and I'm not actually missing a resistor. The resistor goes in front. Resistor in front, resistor in front. This is a non-populated transistor. So, my resistor is not actually missing. Okay, don't have much confidence that that worked. But, let's just turn on the machine and find out. Get ready for it. Yeah. Didn't think so. So, I guess I just have to do some better testing on these transistors or there's something weird going on beyond that that I am not aware of, but >> [snorts]
    22:32
    [snorts]
    22:32
    [snorts] >> either way, that was a fail.
    22:35
    either way, that was a fail.
    22:35
    either way, that was a fail. Okay, I found a little workaround. I disconnected the chimes altogether, which is not easy. I had to remove this um bracket, which they use some pretty beefy screws. I want to make sure that connector never budged. Uh they're a little bit corrody, so I'll have to clean that up. But now, the solenoid for the chime should not lock on. And maybe we can see if this board boots up. So, let's try it once again. Oh. Got no lights at all.
    23:22
    No LEDs on the board. Let's try that again. Oh, I think I heard something locking on somewhere else.
    23:33
    Oh. It is the knocker. Well, that ain't good. Okay, how about this? I think this is the solenoid connector. Let's just do that. Probably could have did that all along. So, now let's see.
    23:54
    Yeah, no uh knocker locking on. But, no life really whatsoever on this board. So, I think this board is a bust. Okay, well, my time has come to an end. It is close to 11:00 and I've got some more Doritos calling my name of the spicy nacho variety and uh I'm going to have to be doing some more homework before I can really you know, figure out what to do next on this. So, I'm going to wrap it up and uh you know, we'll keep plugging away. I'm not going to give up on this. Not just yet, anyway. So, stay tuned for the next episode.