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Part 12: 1985 Pinstar Gamatron Project! Installing 7 digit LED displays & more!

Pinball Shenanigans·video·1h 2m·analyzed·Sep 23, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.026

TL;DR

Gamatron EP12: 7-digit LED display install & backbox wiring restoration work

Summary

Mike Dust (Pinball Shenanigans) continues restoration of a 1985 Pinstar Gamatron machine in episode 12, focusing on installing 7-digit LED displays and fixing backbox wiring. He traces and reconnects solenoid driver wires for flipper and diagnostic button functionality, sources replacement displays from a Canadian manufacturer (Zeb's Boards), and systematically unhacks the backbox general illumination wiring. He encounters some troubleshooting challenges with controlled lamp circuits but successfully gets GI lighting and the first display working.

Key Claims

  • The 1985 Gamatron does not have a speech board, unlike Flight 2000, because it lacks speech synthesis capability

    medium confidence · Mike discusses why he doesn't need the soundboard, comparing to Flight 2000 which has both soundboard and speech board

  • General illumination wires are typically the thickest wires and get very hot from incandescent bulbs running for hours, causing connector housing to burn

    high confidence · Mike explains burn damage on backbox connectors and refers to schematic evidence showing two separate GI strands to distribute load

  • Zeb's Boards (Canadian LED display manufacturer) ceased operations after 15 years

    high confidence · Mike finds business card showing Steve Ridgely as president; states 'all good things must come to an end. Thanks for an interesting 15 years, Zeb'

  • 7-digit LED displays cost approximately $300 delivered, sourced through Mitch Ades connection to Canadian manufacturer

    high confidence · Mike states 'I paid all in 300 bucks delivered to my front door' for displays including credit display

  • The Gamatron backbox had extensively hacked wiring with burned connectors and ad-hoc connections that deviated from original Bally design

    high confidence · Mike discovers multiple breaks in GI wire runs, extra hardwired connections, and uses Pinside photo gallery as reference to restore original routing

Notable Quotes

  • “Kevin cut these for a reason when he restored it... I traced the wires back and yeah, they needed to be um disconnectable.”

    Mike Dust @ ~7:30 — Explains why he opted for connectors rather than hard-soldering wires, noting the machine needs to separate at the neck

  • “Thanks for an interesting 15 years, Zeb... all good things must come to an end.”

    Mike Dust @ ~24:00 — Notes the closure of Zeb's Boards after locating a business card showing the manufacturer is no longer in operation

  • “You don't want a big giant gap in between [displays and backglass].”

    Mike Dust @ ~68:00 — Explains the use of spacers to properly position LED displays flush against the backglass for correct visual appearance

  • “I don't think I have any bulbs in the top section, but let's turn it on for starters and see.”

    Mike Dust @ ~48:00 — Shows iterative testing approach to verify wiring before installing components

  • “That is awesome. So, I don't know which bulb. Oh, look at that. Let's see. This should be on the same line. Boom.”

    Mike Dust @ ~52:00 — Captures satisfaction when first backbox GI lighting strand comes to life after rewiring work

Entities

Mike DustpersonPinball ShenanigansorganizationGamatrongameKevinpersonElliepersonMitch AdespersonSteve RidgelypersonZeb's BoardscompanyFlight 2000gamePinsideorganization

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Closure of Zeb's Boards, a niche Canadian LED display manufacturer for pinball machines, after 15 years of operation

    high · Mike discovers via business card that Zeb's Boards is no longer operating; states 'all good things must come to an end. Thanks for an interesting 15 years, Zeb'

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinside forum's photo gallery is actively used by restorers as a critical reference for original machine configurations and wiring routing

    high · Mike specifically demonstrates finding exact wiring photos in Pinside gallery and using them to guide backbox restoration to original specifications

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: Niche aftermarket suppliers (like Zeb's Boards) serve the vintage pinball restoration community with affordable replacement components

    high · 7-digit LED displays sourced through community referral at $300 total; Mitch Ades reports using 3-4 sets with no issues

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Systematic approach to unhacking previously modified/hacked wiring by cross-referencing schematics with community documentation of original machines

    high · Mike traces schematic pins, finds reference photos of original Bally machines on Pinside, identifies breaks in wiring runs, and restores proper routing

  • ?

    technology_signal: Migration from incandescent backbox lighting to LED displays and cool-white LED general illumination for vintage pinball machines

    high · Mike installs 7-digit LED displays to replace plasma displays; converts GI to cool white/natural white LEDs instead of warm white incandescent

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

0:02
Ellie, what are you doing? Crawling all over all of my machines, huh? Trying to be a circus cat
0:15
or cats viper kitty. What are you trying to do? I'm Mike Dus and this is Pinball Shenanigans.
0:33
[Music] All right. What is this? Gameron episode 12. Well, let's just keep the ball rolling, as they say. So, I just went hunting for some sound ribbon cables and installed those into the MPU and the soundboard. just to get an idea of where approximately I want to mount this thing. Leave some space for a knock or if I want to go through the trouble of reinstalling that. I'm not sure that I will, but I'm going to leave that option open. I'm not going to like on I guess on flight 2000 maybe there is no knocker. There's definitely not one in the head. And on Flight 2000, you got your soundboard which goes right up here. And then you got the speech board which goes down there. So I'm guessing that's why they didn't put a knocker in uh Flight 2000. Unless it's in the cabinet. Yes, dear. You want to be the star of the show. I know. Why don't you just hang out in my chair for a bit while I work away? All right, you do your thing. So, I like Flight 2000 has speech. Gameron does not have speech. So, I guess that's why I don't need the soundboard. Although I heard about a custom ROM where instead like it adds the word gamatron into the game play instead of blastoff or something when you start multiball. So I'm not completely sure why I don't need the speech board, but I guess I don't. So, we're just going with the soundboard and also this connector that goes to the speaker and the sound pot. Where did that connector go? Here. This looks as though it might plug right into there just perfectly. Is that true? Yeah. I'm guessing that's where that goes. And then I got to figure out what connects to this uh connector. But and then I got to figure out a way to mount this cuz there's supposed to be a couple brackets on the side that have standoffs. So I got to figure that out. So that's just sort of temporarily hanging there. But then I got looking at these wires and I discovered something interesting. So, here are the schematics. Check this out. So, this red wire, I traced it back. Wait, no, this red wire. It's thick. Trace that back. It goes to J2 pin one. So, we look at solenoid driver J2 pin one. Uh, it says 1 Z, which is red. And look at this right flipper switch. And then this blue one goes to J two, pin two, left flipper switch. Then we've got, hope I'm not making you too dizzy. Maybe I should zoom out. Maybe that'll make it a little better. Red yellow wire. So red yellow is one three and or is it 31? 31 which is pin 7. Oh that's blurry. Check that out. Test switch return. So in the previous episode my flippers weren't working. My test switch was not working. Lookie here. Yellow, red. Oh, I said red. Yellow. That's why it's 31 and not 13. So, those three things should work once I tie these to here. And then the last thing, which is a straight up yellow white. Yellow white, which is in the very next pin. So, what is that? Eight. Pin eight. That is coin lock out 36 which is yellow brown. So I don't really care about the lockout switch which is this guy here. This solenoid. I think it means that how does it work again? It will not allow you to put in quarters if you're in the middle of a game. or something. I forget. At some point, this activates. Never used it. It just kind of rattles and makes noise. I usually disable it. So, I may not connect that. But I'm going to connect these three guys at the very least. And um that should get those things back up and running. So, I got to figure out the best way to do that. Probably want to make a little connector. And um I don't know the less wires that are hanging around the better. So maybe I will um connect this just so it just doesn't look so messy. And then I can disable it by cutting the yellow brown wire at this end. That'll look a little tidier. So I think I'm going to figure out something with that and then we'll give it a test. Okay. It's actually been a few days since the last little clip I took where I was working on these wires in the back box here. So, I just um addressed them. And this is how I did it. I added these style terminals. Couple females there and then a couple males on this end. And these are like what 9.3 or something. Some weird size. I could go get it. But um well I pulled them out of this bag actually. So whatever size this is. It's not labeled. I just acquired this bag at some point in time. And I do have those somewhere. What does this say? It's like three sizes that I have here. This is your N3. Look at that. I got that right. Then I think there's 084 which I think is inches right and 62. So these are the small guys. So I used big guys for the big wires and I used the small guy for the small wire. And like I mentioned in the last clip, this extra wire here I just zip tied because that's for the interlock coil apparently and I don't care for it and it's less connections to deal with in the back box. So, as you can see, I just added some shrink tube here and I'm going to need another hand. I haven't really tested this process yet to see how it works. So, let's connect it. Slide over my shrink tube and see if it looks like it's a good solution. Okay, the camera is kind of far away, but I got it zoomed in. So, I'll try and stay in the frame here. Let's see if this looks like it's going to be a good solution.
Bally
company
Pinstarcompany
  • ?

    operational_signal: Controlled lamp circuits on vintage pinball machines present ongoing troubleshooting difficulties even after proper pin connections are made

    medium · Mike spends significant time troubleshooting tilt/game-over/shoot-again lights; posts to pinball repair help group; considers whether SCRs are faulty or wiring needs hardwiring

    • 8:42
    Oh man, I slid the insulation over the little burr. So now I got to squeeze the burrs back in.
    8:54
    Connect like so. Okay. And then slide that over. I think I'm going to like it. Need a little more slack on this guy. Connect and slide.
    9:25
    Let's uh bring the camera a little closer here. Show you how this looks.
    9:34
    Looks pretty damn tidy. I was trying to look at adding a couple little two pin connectors or a four pin connector and I just wasn't really feeling it. So I was thinking that oh you know what I can just hard wire these together and solder them and shrink tube them. But then I did follow the wires and I realized that I believe if I did that I wouldn't be able to actually separate the head and the body. Kevin cut these for a reason when he restored it. So, I traced the wires back and yeah, they needed to be um disconnectable. So, I like that solution. Nothing should short out. And, you know, for a future owner, it's pretty obvious how to reconnect everything. Just color code everything. So now we think we should have the flippers and the diagnostic button. So let's power everything on and test that. Hey fellow shenaniganders, if you are enjoying what you are seeing, why don't you click on these three dots at the bottom of any video and then find this heart. Click on that and hey, look at this. You can buy me a beer. You can use the slider to buy me 500 beers if you really like. But this is a way you can uh send thanks and I very much appreciate your support. If you do so, your comment will be highlighted and also I will give you a shout out. So, thank you for all your support. Okay, here we go. Oh, I'm always unplugging this just to be safe in case Allie's buzzing around in here and you know, just extra precaution. Why not? Okay, there we go. Now, I'm pretty sure I did not tighten these flipper bats yet. So,
    11:42
    they uh may flip, but they bats may uh start moving on me. Oh, also I ordered brand new blue pop bumper cap. This one's not horrible, but it's pretty bad actually. Really scratched. Could maybe throw that in the ultrasonic cleaner, but no, I don't think that'll clean up. So, I got a new blue cap coming. And uh blue flipper rubber is coming. I think that's it. Oh, you know what I didn't mention? Displays. Check it out. From my buddy Mitch Ays, I've got the box. Okay, so this is a Canadian guy, Steve Ridgely, who makes these displays in Canada. Cuz when I first looked them up, I was like, "Oh, yeah, these are uh this particular manufacturer. I forget what it was now, cuz they looked identical." I was like, "Okay, well, it looks like they got good reviews, so it should be good." Mitch said he's actually used three or four sets of these so far and had no trouble. But Oh, yeah. Look at that. That's pretty. So, I guess this is the Canadian version of the uh US manufacturer, which I could not find online. But see how sleek these are? you don't have the L-shaped um you know you got the board on the bottom, the display on the top. This literally just gonna flush mount and I can adjust the height. I can go left and right and I can really center these. It's got the foam which is nice and then just connect this right in the back. Bob's your uncle. So, got my displays in and is it What about the credit display? I wonder if that's seven digits as well or if that's a six-digit. Let me check on that. Okay, check it out. It is in fact a six-digit display for the uh credit display, which is perfect. And I paid all in 300 bucks delivered to my front door. Looks like we have some sort of spacers or something. I'm not sure what that is. Now, I don't know if this guy is still uh doing these boards or not, but this is the info. Steve Ridgely, president. And there is a website. I can't really read that. Let's zoom in a little bit more. zes [Music]
    14:47
    So, I'm going to have to check that out and uh see if this guy's still selling these cuz sounds like it is a very reasonable price. I don't know if Mitch took a hit on these or sold for exactly what he paid or made a couple bucks. I have no idea. But anyway, I've got displays. All right, I found it. It's actually Zeb's boards. I tried Z's boards at first and it wasn't available. Then I had to take the freaking magnifying glass to the uh card to see that that is a ZBS. But all good things must come to an end. Thanks for an interesting 15 years, Zeb. So, looks like he is no longer available. Quick side note, I got a frame for the uh diamond art thing my mother did. And uh looks pretty cool. It is, if you don't know, about 10 million little tiny frigin beads that my mother put together over the course of a thousand years. But there it is. It's framed. Good to go. All right, enough shenanigans. Let's hit the start button.
    16:07
    We're alive. All right. Okay. Here we go. Zoom out so we can see. Left flipper in three, two, one. Yeah. Hey, I don't remember aligning these, but they look pretty darn aligned, don't they? And um flipper's not drifting on me either. Okay. Sweet. Now, right flipper in three, two, one. Yeah. Feels really good. Are they aligned? Fairly aligned. So, what I haven't done yet is uh replace these lane guides. Now, I noticed that there is some tool marks on these rails here and over here as well. See that? So, I think someone very intentionally tried to manipulate these to do whatever they wanted them to do. If you're trying to reduce ball hop, I wouldn't think adding a ramp in the middle would help solve that. So, I don't know what they were doing, but I'm going to be stealing these guys, which are perfect.
    17:35
    And look at that. No biggie. I can pop that out, clean them up, do the swap. All right. Next thing we want to test is diagnostic button. Uh-oh. What happened? Did some wire touch something? I just lost my number one display. Did this Oh, I have the soundboard also plugged in. I don't know if that's causing a problem, but I literally just lost my player one display.
    18:17
    So, I need to um probably Oh, let's power it off and on. That's the thing about having all these wires hanging everywhere.
    18:33
    Now the MPU is not booting. Oopsies. What did I do? Do I smell any smoke? Smell any electronics? Okay. What the f happened? I have to investigate. I'll be back. Okay. So, for whatever reason, my um 4 amp fuse blew the 12vt line. So, did my BR2 go bad spontaneously? That is a F3 fuse right here. Can see 4 amp underneath it. So, I have replaced it and see if that uh gets us back in action. and we'll keep an eye on it and see if it blows again. All right, looks like we might be back in business.
    19:31
    Oh, because the ball is not here. Just going to be looking for it. Okay. All right. It did appear as though me kind of closing the door here caused that. So, um, let's not do that this time. Okay, let's try this again. Diagnostic button. Ready? And look, our displays are happy again, too. Okay. Hey. Oh, that's the everything test. Let's hit it again. This should just be lamp test. All right. Diagnostic button works. So now I can really isolate all my bulbs and solenoids and switches. Got a whole lot of bulbs not working. Like why are these guys not working? This guy.
    20:28
    We got three of these not working and one little flaky. This lock. Two blue lights. this red light. Uh, this light here. So, I'm hoping for the most part it's just flaky sockets, which I can fix. Pop bumper light looks good. And general illumination. Oh, wait. We got one guy right here.
    21:03
    But the rest appear to be pretty good. Maybe just one GI bulb not working. Oh Don't do that. Okay, that's good stuff. What's the next test? Displays. So, I've got two good displays and one with two digits out, which I should be able to fix. Next test. Solo noise.
    21:45
    Oh, that dropped target uh fell back down. Don't love that. Okay, let's move on. I more or less just wanted to test the diagnostic button and check out the lights. But now, let's uh head back to the back box. And I think the next thing I want to do is try and address backbox lighting. Okay, I've done a little research. I went to the Bobby or Power Play Club on Pinside and then I clicked on um this is a really valuable resource. If you don't use this, then you should. Let me show you how I get there. So, you go to your machine that you're researching and then click on view topic image gallery and then you can see all the photos that people have posted in the thread. And if you're lucky, you'll find exactly what you're looking for. Let's try and zoom in on this. Yeah, this is perfect. So, my backbox is a Bobby or and my wiring is completely hacked. So, I can use this as a reference to unhackify things. So, let's take you over to the schematics. Okay, so this is that backbox connector on the power supply, the big one, J3. And you can see here that pin one is general illumination return, pin two is general illumination return. And then pin 10 is general illumination bus and pin 11 is general illumination bus. So there are basically four wires coming out of this connector. Well, one's going out and one's coming back. One's going out, one's coming back. So, we got those four wires to uh go into the back box. And also, you can uh check the color on them by using the color code here. So, 1 Z is where's the color code chart? Oh, might be on a different page.
    24:23
    But anyway, we know that the colors are I believe red, green, orange, but yeah, that's how you find out what colors they are as well. So, you can get that information that way. Okay, I'll show you here. The general illumination wires are usually the thickest ones. So have a look right about here. That is two of them, the orange and the red. At the very end, pin one and two, you got the green and white. And they often um get very hot with all the incandescent bulbs being on for hours at a time. And that's why the housing is burnt there. And that's why this red wire, if you saw in the previous video, was very burnt and was literally just kind of falling out of the connector. I'm guessing that is why this red wire exists potentially because that wire wasn't making good contact. They added this wire to add to the fuse and then brought this all the way around and tapped in over here. And then this is the return. So the idea is to get rid of all that. So now we got to find out where those wires come onto this Bobby back box. And I can see that there's a red wire there, I believe. And on the other side of that socket is the other wire. And then here we go. We've got the orange and green, I believe, coming in on this socket. So, right above this bottom display. And right above this credit display is where we got to be looking. Okay. So, on my back box, you can see the red and white wires here. They're coming in from up here, but they are connected. And then this general illumination starts at this socket. It goes to this socket and then it's cut. That's it. Don't go anywhere else. So, we can uh go check the photo. And we can see that yes, it is supposed to connect to these sockets and then go up. So yeah, I got a break here and here. And then looks like they added these wires. So this should technically be responsible for all of these lights up here
    27:21
    and to the end. So in theory, if I take remove this and this, remove this and this, connect this and this, or I could move these from here over to there, then that one complete strand should work. And then here's the other thing I found. The uh terms of the orange and green, they start here, they come here, they go down. Um, I think they end up in this connector. Yeah. Then they come up here and then you can see them start to peek their head out around this corner here. Orange and green. They come up around. Here's orange and green here. And they are supposed to go to this socket, right? Well, look what I found here.
    28:16
    There's the end of the orange wire. And there's the end of the green wire. So that is kind of good news that uh I found that and it exists and feel confident that I can um remedy that. So got some unhacking to be doing and I'll start with that. Okay, here's a little progress update. I extended the green and orange wires. I soldered them, shrink tubed them, and then I connected them where they belong. And then this strand of general illumination goes around up and down. And then these wires were here. I cut them and I reconnected these guys. And then it goes to here. So that is the bottom strand. And I'll work on the top strand after. But I'm guessing the reason there are two strands is that so there's not so many bulbs on the same line which makes the line very hot. Connectors burn up, housings burn up. So I'm guessing that's why they did that. And possibly the way that they tried to, I don't know, perhaps tie all the general illumination into one strand. Maybe that's why they had some, you know, burned up connectors and fuse clips and all this crap, you know. So, maybe they overloaded the general illumination line. So, I am going to uh try and bring that all back to original. So now that we have one line
    29:58
    resolved, let's turn on the machine and see if uh we got some bulbs. Oh yeah, this connector here uh doesn't use it's got like what nine pins and on some machines they don't use the ninth pin. So you can see that one pin hanging out the right there. That is okay for this. Um I've struggled with that the first time I encountered like why is this happening? I've got a connector but my got too many header pins. So I've learned that lesson already. All right, let's turn on the machine and see what happens here. Okay. I don't know if Hey, look at that. First signs of backbox lighting life. That is awesome. So, I don't know which bulb. Oh, look at that.
    31:04
    Let's see. This should be on the same line. Boom. All right. Cool. We got Hey, ball walker. Will you just chill out? Thank you. We got one line resolved. That is awesome. I'll move on to the next. All right. I hear the star of the show. Hey, there you are, Ellie. How are you?
    31:37
    Just uh doing your rounds. You like the new mat, don't you? Yeah. Thought so. Yeah. Thought so. Okay. Well, you have yourself a good day. We'll see you later. You going to go under your perch? All right. Sounds like it's raining outside. So, uh, you go watch the rain, Ellie.
    32:04
    Okay. So, I've got strand number two connected. It comes in here. And then I just reconnected this. And that goes around like this. Everything else appears to be intact. And then if this works, I can snip these two guys. Get rid of this and this and this, which is hardwired to the back lug of the transformer. I don't think I have any bulbs in the top section, but let's turn it on for starters and see. Okay. Yeah, I don't have any bulbs in there. This is kind of tricky to do. Oh, I don't want to close the door. We know what happened last time. I need bulbs. Let's go to my bulb bin. I've got a few here. I sold like five three lb bags of used bulbs. I had a lot over the years I've accumulated. All right, let's see if I just push it in. Get that. Oh, is that on the lower section? This is really awkward to do. I think I'm going to just put you on hold for a second. All right, check it out. We have light. That's very satisfying. Um, these sockets are garbage, though. Like, you just touch the bulb. And so I'm going to take my Dremel to every single one of these and uh then I'm going to LED them. Are you having fun watching the rain, Ellie?
    33:55
    All right, this part's going to be satisfying. So, I thought that you might want to come along for the ride here. Get rid of these hacks once and for all. Let's snip this guy.
    34:25
    Be careful where I'm dropping my tools. I'm going to break my speaker.
    34:34
    Get rid of this. Bye-bye. And the grand finale hardwired wired transformer. Bye-bye. Much better. By the way, I don't know that I mentioned this, but this was kind of a surprise. I went with the cool white/natural white for general illumination. And I think it looks real good instead of the warm white. And we have success. All general illumination is working in the back box. So going to have to figure out the controlled lamps, the game over, the tilt, the shoot again, etc. Oh, hi Ellie. Are you done up there? Wow, you're really vocal. I What can I do for you? We're not going outside, you silly. She did just get a new harness today. And we're going to try and like, you know, put a steak in the ground and then tie her to it and let her run around without escaping cuz she's a little escape artist. But yeah, so let's check out where is all of the game over and stuff. Here we go. Okay, so game over. Tilt and same player shoot again. So, we just have three controlled lamps. So, I have to figure out. Okay, but wait, what is all of this stuff here?
    36:38
    Is that Oh, that's just art. It kind of looked like kind of looked like a window.
    36:47
    Yeah. Okay. So, I just have to figure out three controlled lamps, it looks like. So, that shouldn't be too difficult. I think um maybe I should just take care of that now. Maybe it's already already done. Um cuz there's definitely been some stuff going on here. And then I noticed another wire. Where was it? Right here.
    37:19
    So there would have been some controlled lamps for Bobby or here.
    37:28
    I don't see much of anything connected down here except this guy and this guy and this guy. And this looks like this was uh after the fact. So maybe those guys actually work. So, I'll put a bulb in those three sockets and then we'll do a lamp test. Okay, I popped in a few bulbs. Oh, I got my head lampamp on. There was still four incandescent bulbs in there. Remove those. So, let's go into a lamp test here next.
    38:11
    So, those are not working. I guess I will have to dig a little deeper. Also, it's probably safe to go ahead remove these sockets because I think the next thing I want to do, and that will probably be a good way to end this episode, is to install the displays. So, uh, I'll see what's going on with those controlled lamps first and see if I can figure that out. Okay, so I've been working on these controlled lamps for a bit and um, well, it was throwing me for a loop because they were definitely not working in lamp test. So, I did find the instructions. Where are they again? One moment. Okay, here it was. I mean, at first, I don't know if you remember, but there was some wires coming out of here and some wires hanging out of the connector. So, I was just like, "Okay, well, should just plug them in and they should work." But, uh, they didn't. But the instructions say, "Find the loose wires that have the following colors: gray, white, gray, black. gray red. Then go to the lamp driver assembly connector J2. Find the following wires. The wire at pin 11, 10, and pin 21. Remove each wire with the pins one at a time and plug them into the loose wires as follows. So, it tells you how to do it. And then it says, disregard the remaining two wires. So now I know that uh don't need to worry about these guys. So I plugged them in I think properly. And so I turned the game off and back on. And check it out. You cannot see that it is extremely dim and flickery. That light is working.
    40:34
    It is the game over light right there. But yeah, so these lights don't work in uh the uh lamp test for whatever reason. So maybe I'll start a game and uh try and tilt it. Let's do that. And we can test the tilt light. All right, here we go. Am
    41:03
    I in tilt? Hey, I got 500 points. Some switch is loose. Oh, wait. Uh, these are very barely ghosting my own tilt, though.
    41:22
    Okay. Well, doesn't really look like that worked. And then um got to figure out how to get an extra ball to test the other one. So I don't know. I'm think I'm making progress, but I don't really know. Okay, so nothing I am trying is working. I snug these in as tight as I could go. I tried to swap to incandescent bulbs. I tried to um well with an incandescent bulb. Oh, can't start a game now. What happened? Oh, I'm in lamp test.
    42:16
    Okay, back in attract mode. So, start again. And then I tilt
    42:27
    I get the faintest bit of light. I can't get the game over light to work anymore. And I tried to figure out how to light the shoot again, but uh cannot figure that out either. So, I am going to um take a break, grab some food, and then um come back and reassess. Okay, I'm back from dinner break and I made a post on the pinball repair help group to see if anybody has any suggestions on how to get this thing running. Do I need to hardwire these or make better connections? Do I need to repin this? I can't imagine it's three bad SCRs on the lamp driver. So, something just ain't adding up. In the meanwhile, I am going to um work on displays. I did deem that this one display is in fact dead. So that is basically good for parts and I will mark these two as good and this one as missing two digits and I am going to proceed to uh install one of these displays and see what it looks like. Okay, so I have the uh original plasma displays removed. Then I removed these uh lamp sockets to light up the false zero. Removed the display bracket and then um went to plug in the display to find that there is an extra space there on the original connector with a red wire. goes to pin one, but you can see on the display board there, it says pin one, and then there's like a white dot. So, I'm just guessing it's not used. I kind of looked at the schematic and just very inconclusive cuz I don't really know what I'm doing. So, if this works, then uh I will continue on. This is a six-digit game, so if it works, only six digits will work. Oh, and I did remove the fuse on the solenoid driver for the high voltage. So, this uh is exciting. Let's see what happens.
    44:58
    Got to let the machine boot up. Looks like it's doing things. Give me a track mode. And hey, it worked. That is awesome. Oh, it's a little uh flickery on the display, but in real life, it really looks beautiful. And there's an adjustment there for brightness, which is a bonus. So, all right. That is awesome. I'm going to just screw this in. And then um maybe we'll throw in the back glass just to see what it looks like. Plus, I'm going to have to do that to make sure all the displays are properly aligned. So, all right, let's do that. Okay, this is a bit of a momentous occasion sticking in the back glass with GI working and one display. So, thought I would share this moment with y'all.
    46:12
    It fits kind of flimsily. Let's turn off this light. And maybe turn off this light. Yeah. All right. For the first time. And let's turn off this light. We're going to see what this thing looks like with some lights and a display.
    46:46
    It's looking pretty good. And there's the display. I wonder if I even really need the red um red film, you know, like maybe it will look just as good, if not better, without it, but it's definitely uh not aligned very well. needs to go down.
    47:22
    And uh yeah, I do require these little blackouts which are missing on the other displays. So that is part of the uh part of the steps required for seven digits. But yeah, that's looking pretty good. I may possibly add some more lighting for general illumination. It does say to turn all the unused controlled lamps into GI and I might just do that. But that is looking pretty darn good. So I'll uh continue on that with the displays and uh try and get them all going. Okay, I've got all these dry fit. I installed three of them and then I remembered that there are these spacers. You got short spacers and tall spacers. So, just to bring the displays a little closer to the back glass. And it does look better cuz this was the first one I added the spacers to. And it's definitely a little more snug. And it does look better. You don't want a big giant gap in between. So, I've got spacer just dry fit there, but not here. Um, I'm going to have to align everything, of course, and then I'm going to have to add a wire to the four displays that are seven digit to get them to uh actually work. But let's just pop in the back glass and see what it kind of looks like for now. Okay, here we go. So, I think things are going to be very not aligned. But look at that. They all work, though.
    49:13
    That's not too bad. Just a few adjustments. They all seem a little high, but I can just drill new holes, lower these displays, center them. The reason I didn't start centering things yet is because I need four of these blackouts and I need to put them all in the exact same spot on each display and then I can center from there. I don't want to just go based off of that and then, you know, add on different blackouts and then they might be a little bit wider or not aligned exactly the same. So, I think I got to install the blackouts first and then do the left and right alignment. For now, I can do up and down. And let's check out the difference here. Uh, which one had the spacers? This one did, right?
    50:11
    I guess it's hard to tell. This one did not have the spacer.
    50:19
    So, it's a little further away from the plexi. Honestly, can't really tell, but I'm going to use the uh the spacers anyway. Okay, here is a progress update. So, I lowered all the displays only to find that I had lowered them too much. So, now I'm raising the displays. Hi, Ellie. back up just a 16th. So, player one is done and that is aligned beautifully. Player two, same thing. That is perfect. Credit display. I'm happy with that. And what I just realized is that the credit display is actually missing the red film. So, if you look here, you can see this is not aligned and needs to go up. And there's a bit of a buckle in the red film at the top there. And I don't like that. But I don't mind this at all. This clear window. There's like some dust in between, I think, as well. So, I think there's all kinds of crud back there. I think that's in between the windows, you know, the back glass and the film. I think I'm going to go ahead and tear off all of the red film. And if I find that it is intolerable, then I actually believe maybe somewhere I have some new film that I could apply. Oh, what do we got here? No, but I do think I have some somewhere and get rid of all this crusty film. So, two more displays to go and then um I'll have to do my left and right alignment. One of these displays is not like the other.
    52:35
    This one's real cockeyed, but the others are like perfect. Okay, vertical display alignment is finished and I am very happy with how that turned out and with the spacers things are looking good. So I think I am going to go ahead and remove
    53:05
    the red films. But I have to be very careful to not lose any uh artwork.
    53:19
    And then I think I have some of these blackouts on the secondary back glass that I can use.
    53:30
    Like I said, if I really find that I need to put these the films back in, I will go with uh new stuff cuz these are warped and it kind of messes with the look of the displays. Then I'll clean up these windows. Then we'll put it back in and see what it looks like. Actually, I'll probably have these blackouts installed, too, by then. Well, I had to remove this bezel, by the way. Did it very elegantly with these channel locks that were handy. Mashed it into many pieces. And I got sawdust everywhere from drilling holes. So, I finally spent some time to clean the cabinet and get rid of all the tools. This was becoming my tool box, and I couldn't take it anymore. So cleaned all that up and the deed is done. All this is now garbage. Blackout has bit of scratching on it, but I'll go check the other um back glass. Let's see. It's right here. So I'm going to steal those guys. They look like much better shape. Maybe original. Maybe these guys are just I don't know what the heck these are from. But um yeah. So I'm going to clean up these windows. Look at all this. This is going to look so much better. I think I think I've seen a Gamatron with blue LED displays, too, which meant or means that they would have also had to remove these. So I I don't feel too sad about it. So I'm going to carry on. Okay, back glass is installed without the red film. Let's take a close look here. That looks really good to me. I cleaned the windows with some Windex. So, now I know exactly where I need to install the blackouts. I've lined all of the the foam just like about an eighth of an inch. Uh you can see just an eighth of an inch of it. And that is looking beautiful. That guy moved over a little bit to the left. And this guy I had to adjust a little bit too, but looks real nice. Oh, the other thing I did was just the way the back box is sitting. The foam here was actually touching the back glass. So, I took out the uh long spacers and I put in the short spacers just on that window. And it is like
    56:30
    perfectly comfortable now. They all are. Okay, let's turn it on. See what it looks like without the red film. I think I ain't going to hate it.
    56:50
    I think I actually like it better. The red film kind of just dulled the displays a bit. Look how beautifully aligned and nice these LEDs are. It's just good job me. I'm patting myself on the back on this one. So now I have to install some blackouts. Do I need any more left to right adjustment? No, I think I'm good. And then I've got to add in a wire to enable the last or first digit, the millionth digit. So, the millions digit, that's the one. Um, and then that is probably going to be where I'm going to end because this is probably like an hourong episode and you're used to these half an hour episodes. So, but I've been down here in the basement for probably 7 hours. So, I'm trying to condense it all into u a reasonably timed episode. So, almost there. Okay, time to do the wiring for the 7th digit. It's pretty straightforward. I did it on my quicks, so got some experience. So, this is what J1 connector on the MPU. And it even says right on the Weebly board here, pin 7 is digit 7. So, just got to add a wire. We got a spot right here for it. That's pin seven. And then I've got two loop around
    58:44
    and looks like I probably am going to go up then pop it into I believe it goes right here beside the orange and then loop it around
    59:03
    to this same spot here. can skip the credit display and go to here and then back over and finish off on player three. These are all the single wires. So that's seems to be the terminal point. These guys are doubles. These guys are doubles. These guys are doubles. So that's it. Wire from there to here to here to here to here. Okay. The old back's getting a little cranky. So, going to wrap this up pretty shortly. But I have installed my blackout windows, aka electrical tape, and it works great. And I have also installed my wiring for my seventh digit. It is that orange blue wire starting in pin seven. Did a very nice and tidy job. Comes down here. Used a bunch of zip ties. And it goes there and around into here. And I think that's where the color changes to orange green, but whatever. Close enough. Well, goes down to here and then back out. into here. So, in theory, we should be in business. So, let's pop in the back glass, turn this bad boy on. Okay, for starters, you can see uh my blackouts. Let's see if I turn that off if that helps.
    61:02
    I tried to align it so that it's a quarter inch of foam on either side of the uh display.
    61:13
    So, looks good. Looks good. Now, see if we have seven digits.
    61:28
    Might have to go into Display test. Whoa, look at that.
    61:39
    That is a beautiful thing. Hope it shows in the camera as nice as it shows in real life. This is a thing of beauty. These displays are just pristine. They look gorgeous. You're never going to have the like imperfections of the plasma digits with the little measles and just worn out and burned in lines and segments and whatnot. So, I think this is a good uh spot to end. I'm so very happy how this turned out. I probably will turn some of the unused controlled lamp sockets into general illumination just to light up the backbox a little bit more. But that was a good uh dentour dent in Gamatron. And probably next episode I'll be mainly focusing on trying to get sound. So that'll be exciting.