Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Part 7: 1977 Allied Leisure Getaway Pinball Project. IC Chips & Plunger fun!

Pinball Shenanigans·video·47m 9s·analyzed·May 5, 2026
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Allied Leisure Getaway restoration: power supply fixed, plunger working, MPU boot troubleshooting via IC chip reseating.

Summary

Mike Dus continues restoration of a 1977 Allied Leisure Getaway pinball machine, focusing on power supply repair and plunger assembly. He successfully replaces a potentiometer, stabilizes voltage output, and tests the MPU with mixed results showing signs of life (solenoids firing, LEDs lighting) but incomplete boot. He then tackles IC chip reseating on multiple boards to diagnose boot failures, discovering a missing 7414 chip and damaged 6530 ROM legs, leading him to consider professional board repair.

Key Claims

  • The potentiometer replacement holes on the Allied Leisure power supply board were marked 'alt' (alternate option) and fit the new potentiometer perfectly

    high confidence · Mike Dus directly observed and tested this during repair; visible on camera

  • Joe's Classic Video Games' power supply version used a rectangular square-style potentiometer instead of the original component, showing two different board revisions exist

    medium confidence · Mike Dus references comparing his board to Joe's video; visual comparison mentioned but not verified in this episode

  • John Ed Robertson's lamps and solenoids chart on flippers.com contains crucial diagnostic information for identifying solenoid coil numbers (e.g., 1000 point chime coil is Q36)

    high confidence · Mike Dus found and printed the resource; verified utility for his troubleshooting

  • AC ripple (unwanted AC voltage in DC lines) can cause MPU crashes and instability on vintage pinball machines

    medium confidence · Mike Dus references this as recommended troubleshooting step; tested and found no ripple on his machine

  • The 7414 IC chip is present on the working reference board but missing from the board Mike is trying to boot

    high confidence · Mike Dus visually compared two boards side-by-side on camera and confirmed 7414 presence on reference board

  • The three rare 6530 ROM chips must be installed in specific order (11 top, then 9, then 10) and cannot be interchanged

    high confidence · Mike Dus observed chip labeling and referenced this constraint directly; confirmed by visual inspection

  • The 6530 and 6520 chips are the rare/obsolete ones on Allied Leisure boards; John's Jukes makes replacement piggyback boards to substitute for three of them

    medium confidence · Mike Dus discusses John's Jukes products and holds up example board; secondhand knowledge of which chips are rare

  • One of the three reference boards had four to seven pins on a 6530 chip that were never installed at all, indicating poor original installation

Notable Quotes

  • “That is a perfect fit. Look at that. How lucky did I get?”

    Mike Dus@ 6:17 — Reaction to successfully installing the replacement potentiometer into the alternate holes on the power supply board

  • “So, notice how I didn't have the MPU connected because if that voltage somehow skyrocketed, uh, I could have blew up my MPU.”

    Mike Dus@ 8:25 — Demonstrates safe troubleshooting practice when testing unfamiliar power supplies

  • “Ooh, it's searching for a ball. That is a sign of life, I think.”

    Mike Dus@ 11:28 — First indication the machine is booting after plugging in the second MPU; key milestone in restoration

  • “I do have general illumination, but didn't I have general illumination on the playfield before? Can't recall now. Feel like I had more light bulbs before. I think this is a bad sign.”

    Mike Dus@ 40:27 — Recognition that regression in backbox lighting after reseating chips suggests the troubleshooting approach may be counterproductive

  • “I'm going to wrap it up here. I've got barbecue cooking some chicken happening right now. So, that is uh a little more exciting than dealing with this right now.”

    Mike Dus@ 46:50 — Humorous deflection showing frustration with diagnosis plateau; indicates considering next steps (professional repair) offline

  • “So there's something new that I learned. So there we go. The three 6530s in the proper order.”

    Mike Dus@ 44:49 — Learned that the dot marking indicates pin 1 and proper orientation of ROM chips; important for correct installation

Entities

Mike DuspersonJohn Ed RobertsonpersonSteve RitchiepersonSteve YoungpersonCoreypersonJoepersonJohn's Jukesperson|companyAllied Leisurecompany

Signals

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Restoration of 1977 Allied Leisure Getaway involves complex power supply diagnosis, IC chip reseating, and potential need for professional repin service. Multiple boards with different component configurations (potentiometer types, missing chips) indicate manufacturing variations or field repairs over time.

    high · Mike discovered two versions of power supply boards with different potentiometer installations, missing 7414 chip on one board, and damaged 6530 ROM legs on multiple boards with varying installation quality

  • ?

    product_concern: Original plastic shooter housing is brittle and prone to cracking when over-tightened; plunger length and angle require precise adjustment with multiple potential solutions (dual springs, washer shims, extended tips, nut inserts). No single correct solution across machines.

    high · Mike's OG shooter housing cracked when he tightened the screw too much. He discovered that the machine he pulled a shooter from had dual springs to compensate for plunger depth issues, indicating field repair patterns.

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Community-created diagnostic resources (John Ed Robertson's lamps/solenoids chart on flippers.com) are critical for vintage pinball repair. Lack of original documentation or manufacturer schematics drives reliance on collector knowledge bases.

    high · Mike extensively praised John Ed Robertson's chart, noting it would have 'really narrowed it down' had he used it earlier. Chart provides specific solenoid coil identifications (1000 point chime = Q36, etc.)

  • ?

    restoration_signal: IC chip reseating is a standard troubleshooting step for boot failures on vintage solid-state pinball boards. Requires careful handling to avoid pin damage or socket displacement. Six 6530 ROM chips are particularly fragile and prone to leg breakage.

    high · Mike reseated all nine IC chips across two boards, discovered one 6530 had unstable and broken legs, and had to steal a replacement from a third non-functional board. Noted that improper installation (missing pins entirely) contributed to board failure history.

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

0:04
Okay, I'm back and I'm armed with a potentiometer. Oh, and also a Diet Coke. The Pinball Show has screaming goats. Beware, I have random belches. I'm Mike Dus and this is Pinball Shenanigans.
0:31
Okay, I also have a freshly crazy glued shooter housing. And uh, you know, feels pretty solid. In the last episode, I was talking about whether I should use this or not. I think I'm going to go ahead and use it. Keep it OG. And if it ever does break, it's easily replaced with a standard shooter housing. So, not a big deal. And I can replace this crappy barrel spring and keep the cool
1:11
AI. Actually, that's AI. Allied Leisure Industries with a spring for an eye dot. Very cute. I do enjoy that. greatly. So, I think we'll do that. Also, um Corey and I loaded up the Alaska today. Dad is headed for Allentown, and I found this in the playfield. We had to slide the glass down to get at it, but it was upside down, so I didn't know what it was, but it is Atari, which is awesome. Maybe that will go right there. And that will be my little momento of Recreativos Franco one player Alaska coming through my hands. And I think we are ready to rock and roll here. Oh yes, here's another thing. So, if you were savvy, you may have noticed that when I removed this potentiometer in the last video,
2:19
there's the three holes for it, there's a fourth hole. I don't know why, but if you look real close, there is some more printing on there that says alt and I'm guessing that stands for alternate option and it has three little holes there which may service this potentiometer perfectly. Let's see. I feel like those holes are not um

high confidence · Mike Dus visually inspected and counted missing pins on the damaged chip during close-up examination

  • “don't tell Jamie, but I may have cut a little bit of the plastic chair that I was using as my workhorse with my jigsaw”

    Mike Dus@ 22:08 — Humorous aside about workspace constraints and the sacrifices made for pinball restoration

  • “The ball was just kind of like plunging up to about here and then clunking back down, which explains why The shooter that I pulled out of the other machine had two springs on it because they thought that they would bridge the gap by going with two springs.”

    Mike Dus@ 24:33 — Reverse-engineering original machine repair logic; explains why dual springs were installed on some machines due to plunger depth issues

  • “All right, I am going back to the original housing. Got a screwdriver in here to cram the crack open just a little bit so I can jam some more crazy glue in there. And I'll just not tighten it as much as I did last time. I forgot I was dealing with plastic and I was just cranking on the screw.”

    Mike Dus@ 31:17 — Problem-solving and humorous self-correction after over-tightening plastic shooter housing and breaking it

  • “This m this board never did boot up whatsoever. It was just dead LEDs. Well, someone didn't uh install that chip very well. Four, five, six, seven pins are not installed at all.”

    Mike Dus@ 43:34 — Discovery that historical poor installation (missing pins on ROM chip) contributed to one board's persistent failure

    • Getaway
    game
    Alaskagame
    Highspeedgame
    Getaway Secret Servicegame
    Nine Ball Wizardgame
    flippers.comwebsite
    Pinball Resourcecompany
    Ellieperson
    Jamieperson
    Gold Ballsperson
    Pinball Shenaniganscontent|organization
    The Pinball Showcontent|organization
  • ?

    technology_signal: AC ripple in DC voltage supplies is a known cause of MPU instability on vintage solid-state pinball machines. Multimeter testing methodology is simple (AC voltage setting on DC power supply terminals) and can eliminate a class of problems.

    medium · Mike performed AC ripple test and confirmed zero ripple on his power supply, removing it as a diagnosis variable. Described it as 'recommended troubleshooting' but sourcing was unclear.

  • ?

    product_concern: Allied Leisure Getaway boards exist in at least two distinct versions with different potentiometer types and component placements. Evidence of field modifications and poor original installations (missing pins on chips) across machines.

    high · Mike compared his board to Joe's board and found different potentiometer installations. One reference board had 6530 chip with 4-7 missing pins from original installation.

  • ?

    restoration_signal: 6530 ROM chips have orientation markings (dot for pin 1, notch direction) that must be correctly observed during reinstallation. Misalignment will result in non-function.

    high · Mike discovered the dot indicates pin 1 and determines correct chip orientation; noted this was something 'new that I learned' during the restoration

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Potentiometer adjustment on power supply can stabilize voltage output, reducing fluctuation from jumpy 5V readings. Replacement of original component with modern equivalent via alternate footprint holes is feasible on Allied Leisure boards.

    high · Mike installed replacement potentiometer via alternate holes, adjusted it to stable 5.06V initially and 5.04V after MPU installation. Previously had unstable/jumping readings.

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Getaway plunger requires high-speed launch to properly feed ball around rail curve (similar to Highspeed design). Insufficient plunger extension/spring tension results in ball clunking back, explaining field modifications with dual springs or extended tips.

    high · Mike noted ball was 'plunging up to about here and then clunking back down.' Discovered the shooter he pulled from another machine had dual springs as compensation. Added rubber tip to extend plunger reach.

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball repair expertise is distributed across YouTube creators (Joe's Classic Video Games, Steve Young at Pinball Resource, John's Jukes) and community forums. Specific repair techniques are shared informally (nut insertion in shooter tip, careful IC chip removal tools, contact cleaner protocols).

    high · Mike learned nut-in-shooter-tip trick from Steve Young at Pinball Resource, consulted Joe's video for power supply comparison, referenced John's Jukes for chip replacement options, and used techniques shared in community forums

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Complex board repairs (full repin with specialty amp pins and double-sided edge connectors) may require professional service from specialists like John's Jukes. Cost and time investment creates decision point in restoration workflow.

    high · Mike acknowledged that 'full repin of the entire machine' at John's Jukes is 'probably the next step' but would be 'expensive and timeconsuming.' He noted specialty pins are required that he doesn't have in stock.

    • 2:55
    I think I have to suck out the solder to get at them. But in the um Joe's classic video games video when he was rebuilding his power supply, I noticed that his version was a little bit different. I'll maybe pull up a photo, but his already had the rectangular square style potentiometer in his version. And also this uh part here, the 723 HC789 transistor with all the spider legs or I guess that's like an old version of an IC chip. So, I have this and on um the other board, it actually had like a an IC chip in place of this with the same part number. So, there are definitely two different versions of this power supply. And I think uh this should just work fine and dandy. If that's the case, then we can finally power on this machine. and uh maybe get some life other than light bulbs. So that would be nice. So I will install this and report back. I forgot to mention that I also found this great information page on the flippers.com johnsjukes John Robertson's website and it is a lamps solenoids a lamps and solenoids chart look at this it has everything I've been looking for look th00and point chime coil is Q36. The 10 point 100 point or Q 24 and 22. That would have really narrowed it down for me if I just did my due diligence ahead of time. I did eventually find the bad transistor, but this would have been handy. So, printed it off and it's got all kinds of good information here. So, thank you John Robertson for making this. That is amazing. I hear someone meowing in the other room. Let's go see if we can get a get a visual. Ellie
    5:35
    I don't know where she is. She might have ran back upstairs, but I'm sure we'll see her on this episode eventually. Okay, so soldering iron is ready to go. Okay, I was able to clear out the three holes.
    5:55
    And uh that looks like it's going to work. This is exciting stuff. Let's see if I can sort of install this onehanded here. I don't know. It's probably only going to fit in one way, I imagine.
    6:17
    That is a perfect fit. Look at that. How lucky did I get? That is great. Okay, I'll solder that up and reinstall the power supply. All right, got the power supply reassembled and installed. So, this whole heat sink plate connects to this plate here by this screw. And it's kind of like floating in place. There was a screw in the bottom before. And yeah, maybe I should stick that back in there. Where did that go? I think it was this guy here. So, we'll cram that back in. You can see the old hole right there. Uh, I got this wire soldered back on the transformer, this wire soldered back on the fuse, and then all of these connectors screwed back on, hopefully in the right place. So, I've got my screwdriver in case we need to adjust the potentiometer. So, first things first, we'll power on the machine, see if anything blows up, and then if not, we will test and adjust the voltage. So, we'll put that on DC volts and let's hope that fuse doesn't blow in three, two, one. Okay, I think I got my leads on backwards again.
    8:01
    since it says negative 5 volts doesn't really matter so much. But look at that. Not only do we have the proper voltage and things didn't blow up, um the voltage isn't jumping like it was before, which is a very, very good sign. So, notice how I didn't have the MPU connected because if that voltage somehow skyrocketed, uh, I could have blew up my MPU. So, got nothing plugged in other than this. And see if we can dial this down to five.
    8:53
    06. I like that. And it works. The potentiometer. Can you believe that? That is amazing. This is very promising. I'm thinking because of my jumpy voltages, that's why my MPU is crashing. So, I think it's time to plug in the MPU. Don't think it really matters all that much which one goes in here.
    9:21
    This is the one that was originally in the machine. So, we'll stick with this one for now. And maybe I will
    9:50
    and measure the 5 volts there. But honestly, like if the machine just powers on and boots up, then we don't really need to worry about that voltage. It's very ambitious, I know, but this is the moment of truth. So, can we get away in 3 2 1
    10:21
    4.97 volts. LEDs. Not sure they're doing what they're supposed to.
    10:30
    Don't really have any different behavior. We don't have these lights like we get on the other board. and no displays. So really nothing has changed.
    10:53
    So let's um pop in the other MPU and see what happens. All right. Get away. Take two with the second MPU. 3 2 1. Oh, I heard uh solenoid. Let's turn it off just to make sure nothing's locking on.
    11:16
    Okay, something different is happening. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. Let's turn it back on. Ooh, it's searching for a ball. That is a sign of life, I think. Going to have to put the playfield down.
    11:43
    and see what happens here. But no displays yet, but we do have these LEDs. So, I don't know. That's the most life we've seen out of this thing so far. So, maybe I need to put a ball in the out hole or something. Uh, I'll be right back. Okay, let's throw in a ball. Turn it back on and see if we can figure out what is going on. What is that clanking noise? Oh, it's the diverters. They diverted.
    12:23
    Got that's just general illumination. Finally seeing the playfield with some lights. That is exciting.
    12:32
    So, the diverter supposed to be diverting. Are they all locked on?
    12:42
    Oh, weird. So, I'm wondering if these diverters just all locked on or if they're supposed to be like that. But why did the ball just kick out into the shooter lane when I just turned it on and off?
    13:12
    I don't know. Let's add a credit. See if anything happens. Hit a start button. Yeah, I didn't think so. Okay, let's turn it off and on one more time
    13:29
    and see what happens. diverters doing their thing. Is that good or bad? I don't know if that's locked on. I don't know that I trust that
    13:43
    H. It's kind of cool though. But I don't know. I am a a long way away from where I want to be right now. I was hoping for some more life, but I don't know, maybe I'll receat all the connectors on the displays or disconnect all but one just in case one of the displays is bad. I heard that can cause some problems. So, I'll do some troubleshooting. See what more trouble I can get myself into. All right. I tried disconnecting some displays. All but one. That didn't work. I tried to leave a good one plugged in, like one that had the least crustiest connector. That did nothing. I tried disconnecting this spinny wheel connector. That did nothing. So, I've moved on. Actually, I also turned up the voltage just a little bit. So, the MPU is getting 5.04 volts right now. So, it's definitely happy. So, I thought I would move on to these connectors here, which are not easy to disconnect. To use the channel locks and a flathead screwdriver to kind of pry them apart like so, you know, squeeze the tabs and then just kind of pry and wiggle. That worked. Now, this connector here on this side looks pretty good. This guy, not so much. Let's see if we can see what the female side looks like here.
    15:30
    Yeah, pretty crusty. So, I'll have to clean those up a bit. And the one time I did power on the machine, I did notice one of the pop bumpers kind of just turned on for a second. Definitely some glitchy behavior. This is probably connector related, I'm guessing, or MPU. But I really hope I don't have to repin everything cuz that would be a nightmare. I'll start with cleaning these guys up and see if that makes any difference. Okay, I used my contact cleaner and brushes to clean up these guys. It's probably u you know as good as it's going to get from working with what I got. I tried to start removing these things so I could really get at them. But uh connector's kind of in the way and I started like popping the connector out of the housing. So I just said screw it. Sprayed in some contact cleaner and the females got the males. It's a uh just a basically a quick job and I don't expect that that will make any difference, but let's find out.
    17:10
    so the top LED according to John's Jukes should come on and off and same with the bottom two, but then the bottom two should blink intermittently. Did I miss that? The top LED is dim. Okay. Yeah, very dim. He also said you could replace this resistor here and that would brighten it up a bit. Actually, I got to turn that off. Let's see if these bottom two LEDs decide to blink. If they do, then that's a good sign. I've not seen that happen yet. I would imagine they would have blunk by now. So, I don't know. They're diverter relays are not locked on at least. Let's try and add a credit.
    18:07
    Chimes are disconnected, so we wouldn't hear that. There's no solid state sound, but we would potentially see this change. And we are not seeing that. So, let's check our voltage on the MPU. 5.03. It's perfect. So, I'm gonna have to do a deeper dive before um I proceed. So, not sure what to make of it just yet, but me and Gold Balls are going to go to the slots and do some gambling and have some nachos. So, I'll be back after that. Okay, I'm back. It's been a few days. I think where I left off is I mentioned I was heading out to the casino with gold balls. Here's a little snippet of that action. Slotting it up with gold balls in a bonus here. Just need like two more red things to get the grand of almost 600 bucks. >> Two more uh purples to get the mega
    19:25
    Two more uh purples to get the mega
    19:25
    Two more uh purples to get the mega 12 grand, but down to two spins. So, $120 >> bonus so far. Oh, there's a mega.
    19:36
    bonus so far. Oh, there's a mega.
    19:36
    bonus so far. Oh, there's a mega. Literally one more away from the mega. >> Hold on. Mega, mega.
    19:41
    Hold on. Mega, mega.
    19:41
    Hold on. Mega, mega. >> Oh, all right. This is Oh, that was it. Uh, it was a tease. 120 bucks, though. Not horrible. And then the following day, Jamie and I went to my first MLB game, Toronto Blue Jays against Boston Red Sox, and Blue Jays kicked ass like 8 to one. Here's a little snippet of that action. Our seats are up in the nose bleeds, but doesn't stop me from going right to the front to at least check out the action up close and personal. Let's
    20:30
    check out the dugout. I already tried to steal a seat. I got accosted pretty immediately.
    20:37
    And I wouldn't be surprised if I get tackled at any moment, but I'm going to at least uh take a quick video of the action here. Check it out. about as close as you can get.
    21:01
    There's the dugout. How cool is this? And then yesterday, I did come down for like half an hour. I didn't record anything cuz I knew I didn't have much time. I can't remember what I was doing last night. Grocery shopping or something dumb. And um Oh, before I forget, also check this out. Nineball wizard. That's one thing I did yesterday, too. Uh I cut out this guy out of the playfield. And um some people might think that is very sad, but you know what? I don't have space for a full playfield and it was definitely a beater, but I do have space to put this cool guy somewhere. And this is just leftovers, but I'll put that up there somewhere else. And um don't tell Jamie, but I may have cut a little bit of the plastic chair that I was using as my workh horses
    22:23
    with my jigsaw. I don't really have room for a whole playfield, but I do have room for a nineball wizard. This could be like a giant wooden playfield puzzle.
    22:46
    And there is like a 3-in cut into the armrest of that chair. And uh I was wondering why that one section was being so difficult. I thought it was a knot in the wood, but it was not a knot. So did that yesterday. And then like I said, I was down here for about half an hour and I thought, you know what? I'm going to use my OG shooter housing that I had crazy glued and it was looking solid. I cleaned up my plunger here. Check this out. Look how nice that came. Uh the camera does not want to show that very well compared to this is the before. Can actually read the logo better that way though. So, I put this all together and installed it. And um I didn't really tighten down the screws too much cuz I knew there would be a little bit of adjusting, you know, up, down, left, right. And I got it nice and centered to the ball like so. But, uh, this tip was sitting back like about this far, which was no bueno. So, I got a shorter barrel spring so that the plunger could stick out a little bit more. But, uh, the ball was just kind of like plunging up to about here and then clunking back down, which explains why The shooter that I pulled out of the other machine had two springs on it because they thought that they would bridge the gap by going with two springs. I don't know if that would have worked or not cuz the ball needs to make it all the way around here. Kind of kind of high-speedish like the other um Steve Richie games. Get away. Well, maybe not so much like Getaway, but Highspeed for sure. Maybe Getaway Secret Service, which is a complete ripoff of Highspeed. So, anyway, once I thought I had it centered nicely, I was going to um just tighten it up and see if I could figure out a good plunge. And then I heard a crack. So, that's the trick. Don't tighten these up too much. or else they break. So, I decided I'm going to not use that after all. I'm going to just go with tested, tried, true, and proven. Good old I think this is Gotautle and clean this guy up and use this. Most of the other Allied Leisures online have the housing replaced cuz it's crap. So, next thing I have to do is remove this spring. And how do you do that? Well, this tip is a little bit mushroomed. So, that's why this whole thing is still intact, cuz they just removed the whole thing. I'm going to need to file down the plunger and then I can get at this housing, clean that up. then install it. And if I still need a little more length, then what I'll do is add a actual rubber shooter tip instead of using this nylon one. And if that's not enough, this is a trick I learned from Steve Young at Pinball Resource. You can stick a little small nut in the inside of your shooter tip to get yourself an extra little bit of length. So, I'm going to do all that now and then I'll address the circuit board stuff and see if I can actually get the thing to boot. Like I'm not 100% sure I'm going to be able to without sending the board out, but you know, I'm not gonna kind of just quit. I will even clean up and do the entire playfield without even knowing if I can get this thing to work or not for sure. Um because I'm going to get it as absolutely as far as I can go and hopefully that is 100%. But if I have to uh divert for a bit and deal with playfield stuff like that, then I will. So, I've got stuff to keep me entertained. I want to change out this apron at some point for the other one. But, let's see if I can get a shooter housing installed and plunging properly. All right. So, I busted out my Dremel.
    28:20
    It's the washer that's going to be the tricky part. Needs to be like perfectly flush. No, that's not coming out yet. So, a little bit more to go, but I am close. All right, check it out.
    28:42
    We are free. Okay, now I can clean this up. Okay, got this cleaned up. Now, if you notice, there's a bit of an angle to the shaft. Okay. Reminds you of the gutter. And I'm thinking that the reason they had a nut on this right here is cuz they potentially angled the shaft the wrong way. I think we need erect side up. Don't you think? Like that. And then that should sit properly. If I put it this way then, no. See, they're trying to angle it down a little bit by forcing it. So maybe either either way, we've got to orient it correctly. See, look. It says goly right on there. So yeah, be mindful when installing your shooter housings. They have to go on a certain way. How can something so simple be going so wrong? So, erect side up,
    30:02
    the shaft is way too high. And erect side down, shaft is way too low. Can't even get in there. So maybe the Gotautle shooter housing isn't the ideal option here cuz I don't really want to have to do the uh the washer hack. So they had it up like that and then put in the washer to angle it down. That is not ideal. So I'll see if there's some other option. Well, a stern beehive, if you fight it hard enough, will fit in there, but it's so far out that that ain't going to work. But the angle seems good, though. But nope, that ain't going to cut it. All right, I am going back to the original housing. Got a screwdriver in here to cram the crack open just a little bit so I can jam some more crazy glue in there. And I'll just not tighten it as much as I did last time. I forgot I was dealing with plastic and I was just cranking on the screw. So this time I won't do that. But at the moment this appears to be the best option. All right. Cosmetically everything is looking good. I just have that, you know, not tightened all crazy. Got to let that crazy glue set. But that seems to work good. But now the true test. We'll lower the playfield and see if we get good contact. But before we do our test, I hear someone meowing. Hello, Ellie. got to make your appearance. We'll let you go and um chill out in your window. It is um May 1st and the temperature is like 9° today, but feels like 4, so it's darn near winter again. I was wearing my full-on winter coat all day, so you're not getting your window open there, silly. It is way too cold. But we got to check out this plunge here. Let's take the plunge and see. But the addition of the shooter tip made a real significant difference. You couldn't see anything protr protruding out from the shooter housing before. And that is pretty darn near centered, too. So things are looking up. Let's see. this actually works. It's a bit of a clunky plunge. I mean, it's almost 90° into this rail here. So, I mean, if you're hitting this flat edge, it's going to be hard for it to go around. So, you kind of almost got to catch it right at the curve. So, it might require some fine tuning, but let's see what happens. Oh, sweet. First time. Let's try that one more time. Sounds horrible. Well, maybe it's just the sound of the gate. Ellie didn't like it. She just belined it upstairs. All right, let's try one more try here. That is great. Okay, so I'm going to leave that alone. Let the crazy glue dry up here and move on. I think the next thing I'm going to do, uh, there's a couple things I want to do. I want to check the AC ripple because apparently that's a thing. If you have any AC voltage in your DC line going to the MPU, then that's going to cause problems. So, uh, seems fairly easy to check. So, maybe I'll do that next. Okay, time to check the AC ripple. So, John Juke says that in order to check if your multimeter can read AC ripple to hook it up to a 9volt battery, set it to AC voltage. And you should see 0.00. Let's start with DC voltage and see if we have 9 volts. Yes, we do. Now, let's see if this is uh 0.00. Okay, good. So now I just put these on the terminals on the power supply and repeat. All right, I am connected to the power supply. Let's turn on the machine. I'm on DC volts here. So 5.1 volts. That's good. Now for the big test.
    35:16
    All right, we do not have AC ripple. So, we can remove that from the equation. All right. The next thing that is recommended, and I don't remember where I read this, but it is to remove all of the IC chips, clean them up if needed, and receat them. So, we got 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9. So, that's what I'm going to do next. So far, I've done these four chips. They're in there very good. So, you got to be very careful when prying them up as to not pry the socket up as well. And are these the rare chips? 6530s or are these the rare chips? 6520s? I forget. But some of these are just obsolete. And
    36:17
    uh you can't really get them except John's Jukes does make like a some sort of board. Is that it? Yeah. If you look at this, you can see this one sort of piggyback board um replaces I think these three chips. So I think it's these three that are the uh the rare ones. 6530 6530 6530 6520. So it must be these guys. Anyway, got to be extra careful, very slow and meticulous. I just sort of use uh it's like a gotly circuit board removal tool and I use a little bit of leverage to pry the chip up. And then I slowly kind of just work my way in there and really try not to bend the pins. I do have a chip puller, but I don't know if I trust it, especially how, you know, tight that these guys are in here. So, once I get it out, I just give them the legs a tiniest little bit of sanding here. You can see this sandpaper has nothing left to it, but just enough to try and get off some grit. Maybe like that is smooth. This that is not sandpaper anymore. It's pretty much just paper. But that's about all I want to do to these legs. So, I've got uh 1 2 3 4 five more to go. I really don't think this is going to do anything, but at least I can check it off the list. All right, I am done receing all the ROMs. And I was just looking over the board. I found a potential problem.
    38:15
    We are missing an IC chip, a 7414. It is definitely populated on my other board. And I'm not sure what this is responsible for, but just for SMGs, I'm going to try out this board again with the ROMs receeded just to see what happens. And then uh if nothing, then I'm going to see if I can muster up one of these chips. Uh it's a bit of a long shot if I have one or not, but if I don't, Cory does. but he's at Allentown right now. So, we'll see how far I can get with this. This other board here has the chip in place. I could borrow it if really needed. You can see 7 SN7414. It's too bad these socketed chips were not 7414s. So, I could just pop one out of there. pop a socket into my board. But, uh, it's never that easy, right? I guess the other thing I could do is receat all of these chips and try this board again. But I had so much fun doing that on this board that I'm not sure I want to double my fun. We'll see. Maybe I'll steal a 7414 off the third board, which is currently not working. We'll see. I might have one in my stash. You never know. So, let's just try this. See if anything happens. All right, let's give this a try.
    39:57
    I don't even think I seen the LEDs come on this time. Might have went backwards. Uh-oh. It's my favorite direction in pinball repair. Okay, thank goodness LEDs are still doing their thing. I do have general illumination, but didn't I have general illumination on the playfield before? Can't recall now. Feel like I had more light bulbs before. I think this is a bad sign. I'm pretty sure I did
    40:38
    turn it off and on and expect a different result. H. Well, not all that surprised, but I do feel like I might have went backwards, sadly. I popped in this second board just for fun and really no change. Except that with enough fidgeting, I got more light bulbs to work. Moving forward, baby steps. I also discovered that if you just ever so gently touch these wires back here that like tie all the bulbs together,
    41:23
    they will uh shut off. So, I literally was messing with one bulb and a whole bunch turned on. So, we have most of our backbox general elimination working. Now I got to figure out the play field. Okay, so I've moved on to the other board and I thought I would receat all of its chips and see if I get anything different out of this board after doing so. I've run into some problems already. The first rare 6530 chip that I pulled out has some pretty unstable legs and even one broken one. And if I breathe on this too hard, more legs are going to fall off. So, I stole that chip out of the third board that wasn't booting up. Now, each of these have a designated number. There's a 10. Zoom in a bit here. 10, 9, and 11. And they need to be in a certain order. 11 up top, then 9, then 10. Can't just interchange them. So, I did this one and this one because the second chip, all its legs are pretty intact, but the one corner leg is definitely ready to fall off. So, now I moved on to chip 10 here. And it's pretty gunky. I don't know why. So, it's just trying to like see if it cleans up. But look at this. Actually, someone asked me in a comment if one of the chips was cracked or if it was just gunk. But look at this. That actually looks like a major malfunction.
    43:32
    But on top of that, this m this board never did boot up whatsoever. It was just dead LEDs. Well,
    43:43
    someone didn't uh install that chip very well. Four, five, six, seven pins are not installed at all. I was going to steal this chip, but now that I see that hole in the middle of it, uh, I don't think I will, but fortunately, my number 10 chip here might just be salvageable. So, I'm going to very, very, very carefully stick this one back in. Then I've got one chip left to go, and we'll see if anything changes. Okay, that third chip, it was a little precarious, but I was able to get it in there, I think, successfully. These chips just seem like the legs are worse on them. And I thought I installed it wrong cuz I didn't know which side the notch was on. But I guess this dot indicates the notch. And this dot indicates pin number one. So there's something new that I learned. So there we go. The three 6530s in the proper order. And this one is not missing that 7414 chip. So, let's see if anything different happens.
    45:15
    Oh, I heard uh solenoid fire. That was this pop pumper. It triggered for a second and then released. What it all means, I'm not sure. We have less general illumination. I only have this display plugged in. We've got nothing there. And the LED is on when I think it should be off. So, really no further ahead. But I had to try. And I guess the next thing I'll do is try and locate a 7414 chip for the other board. Install that. Try that. see if that changes anything. Uh, I'm not really sure. Like I feel like I could end up sending one or both of these boards to John's Jukes and repinning the entire machine. That's probably the next step, but um, that's going to be expensive and timeconuming. And these are special pins, too. I think all these Well, I mean, we got the double-sided edge connectors and and these pins, they're they're called something like amp pins. So, I don't even think they're your standard pins that I have in stock. So, this is a whole world that I wasn't necessarily hoping to have to go down, but that's where I'm at. So, uh I'm going to wrap it up here. I've got uh barbecue cooking some chicken happening right now. So, that is uh a little more exciting than dealing with this right now. So, I'll be back though. We'll see you later. Oh, and I just powered off the machine and heard the plunger for the knocker drop back down. So, that was locked on the whole time. Yay.