Journalist Tool

Kineticist

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

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Part 14: 1985 Pinstar Gamatron Project! Sockets, SCR's and Lamps Oh My!

Pinball Shenanigans·video·19m 20s·analyzed·Sep 26, 2025
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.018

TL;DR

Gamatron restoration: lighting fixes, socket troubleshooting, and SCR component diagnostics

Summary

Mike Boon continues his restoration of a 1985 Gamatron pinball machine, focusing on electrical cleanup, LED lighting improvements, ball guide replacement, and systematic troubleshooting of non-working lamp sockets and SCR (thyristor) circuits. He documents the process of diagnosing lamp failures by tracing wiring, testing sockets, and identifying faulty components, while also learning proper SCR orientation from community help.

Key Claims

  • Half of the lamp sockets on the machine don't work initially

    high confidence · Mike Boon, directly observed during video

  • Three non-working lamps in a row suggest a wiring issue rather than individual socket failures

    high confidence · Mike Boon, diagnostic reasoning

  • SCR (thyristor) components can be installed backwards, with proper orientation determined by metal tab position matching the thicker silk screen side

    high confidence · Andrew Spitler via pinball repair help group, technical guidance

  • Moving lamp socket connections from the lug to the butt position resolved several non-working lamps

    high confidence · Mike Boon, repair technique documented

  • LED adapters are needed to replace incandescent bulbs without repeatedly removing and reinstalling connectors

    high confidence · Mike Boon, practical consideration

Notable Quotes

  • “I literally went through all that effort for one light bulb.”

    Mike Boon @ ~17:00 — Humorous reflection on the tedious nature of incremental lighting adjustments and fine-tuning during restoration

  • “So, I'm using this plastic so I don't dent the playfield. Just work it up nice and gently.”

    Mike Boon @ ~21:30 — Demonstrates careful restoration technique to avoid damaging playfield during component removal

  • “The metal tab side goes towards the thicker Marc Silk screen printed end.”

    Andrew Spitler @ ~51:00 — Technical guidance on proper SCR orientation, addressing a common installation error

  • “I never even noticed that in my life.”

    Mike Boon @ ~51:45 — Acknowledges learning a detail about component marking he had previously overlooked

  • “So, this is pretty precarious but slightly functional.”

    Mike Boon @ ~38:00 — Describes the physical challenge of working on lamps with the playfield in a limited-access position during restoration

Entities

Mike BoonpersonAndrew SpitlerpersonPez JohnsonpersonCoreypersonJayperson[name withheld pending review]personPinball ShenaniganscontentGamatrongameFlight 2000game[name withheld pending review]product

Signals

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Systematic troubleshooting approach to non-working lamps, including socket testing, wire repositioning, and SCR component replacement

    high · Multiple lamp fixes achieved by moving connections from lug to butt, and identifying three faulty SCRs through methodical tracing and testing

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Techniques for removing and reinstalling ball guides/lane guides with minimal playfield damage, using plastic protection and gentle leverage

    high · Documented process of extracting ball guides, straightening them with hammer, cleaning with green scrubby, and reinstalling with minimal surface damage

  • ?

    technology_signal: Transition from incandescent to LED adapters for lamp replacements in order to reduce connector manipulation and improve reliability

    high · Mike plans to install LED adapters to avoid repeatedly removing and reinstalling stubborn connectors on lamp sockets

  • ?

    community_signal: Active participation in pinball repair help groups for technical guidance on component-level troubleshooting and proper installation procedures

    high · Andrew Spitler provided specific technical guidance on SCR orientation via pinball repair help group, improving Mike's understanding of component marking

  • ?

    product_concern: Discovery of multiple faulty SCR (thyristor) components responsible for lamp control circuits, requiring replacement

    high · Three SCRs identified as needing replacement through jumper testing; at least one installed backwards initially

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

0:04
I'm Mike Dus and this is Pinball Shenanigans. All right, Pez Johnson says that the overunder on this series is 20 episodes. What do you all think? I think this is episode 14 and definitely getting close. So, I was predicting over, but we shall see. All right. On this episode, I am going to tidy up this electrical tape. We want to make things look nice for these controlled lights. Why can't I add an additional one here and here and here and have two lights for each thing? I'd like to pop in the back glass and actually see what these controlled lights look like through the back glass. Here they are. See, that's too wide. That's single. That's kind of We'll see if I can pop in some additional LEDs to illuminate that even more. Uh maybe I will turn some of the unused sockets into general illumination. and possibly swap out these rails.
1:34
See if I can pull them out without breaking anything. And other just little miscellaneous things. And then actually, you know what I think I'll do is work on all these lamps. Half of them don't work and I want to get them all to work. So, kind of glad I kept this on the rotisserie cuz then I can just flip it over and gain good access to all these uh lamp sockets and not have to break my back and neck trying to work under the hood of the playfield with it installed. And we'll start with that. That should be plenty for now to keep me busy. So, all right, let's gamutron it up. Okay, just a little summary of what I have done. So, these loose old chime box wires, I've zip tied and tidied them up. And then I got rid of the electrical tape off of this connector. I removed the wire, shrink tubed it. It was soldered, so it's fine. The splice was soldered. And um repinned it. And then I did the same for these two splices here. No more electrical tape. So, that's all happy. I did just add these two red wires to turn these four guys into general illumination. And I added two bulbs. I don't need all four. I added a second bulb here, a second bulb here, and a second bulb here. And I think that is all that I've basically done. So, let's throw on the back glass and see what it all looks like. Okay. So, technically I could add more GI lighting here and then there and there. But let's pop this in and see what it looks like as is. Okay, here we go. Come on, switch. There we go. Ooh, these don't look amazing.
  • ?

    restoration_signal: Addition of general illumination LEDs and adjustment of backlighting intensity through bezel removal and bulb configuration changes

    high · Added two red wires to convert unused sockets to GI, added multiple bulbs, adjusted brightness by removing one bulb after testing, removed bezels to optimize light output

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Documentation of incremental restoration approach using rotisserie positioning, careful component handling, and methodical troubleshooting to minimize damage and downtime

    high · Use of rotisserie for playfield access, plastic protection during component removal, clamping strategy for stability, and systematic diagnostic approach to lamp failures

  • ?

    operational_signal: Acquisition of LED adapters and components from local sources during restoration process

    medium · Plans to pick up Siegecraft or generic LED adapters from Corey; reliance on available inventory for same-day or next-day parts needs

    • 3:51
    I'm going to have to um remove the bezels. Ooh, look at that though. Game over. Oops. Ooh, that was really looking at that. That looks nice.
    4:05
    All in all, I like it. But going to remove those bezels and let's hit lamp test and see the other lights here. Okay, not bad. Not bad. I like same player shoots again. That's nice. Tilt looks like kind of almost too much light. Maybe I got to remove that bezel, too. Wonder if that would look better. I'm going to mess with that for a little bit. And, you know, could possibly use some of this extra light here and even maybe there and there. So, it's a bit of a pain in the butt, but maybe I'll add a little bit more lighting. Oh, I hear my little helper. Well, hello there, Ellie. Glad you're making an appearance.
    5:02
    Everybody loves you. They'll click on my videos just to watch you. You are the true star of the show. Whoa. Are you going to go uh do your thing? All right. Do it. Ice. All my laundry is in your way. Get my Don't worry. Clean underwear out of the way. And um you do your thing, right, Ellie? Yeah. Well, it ain't pretty, Well, it ain't pretty, but it should look a little better. Okay, let's see if that bottom left Okay, let's see if that bottom left corner looks any better now. Way better. Still a little bright,
    5:53
    but not too obnoxious. Maybe I'll remove one of the bulbs. It's a lot of effort for one little freaking bulb. So, on that note, I'm probably not going to bother with any of the other ones because it's a bit of a pain in the butt. If I deem that I feel the need later, then I will. But right now, I'm pretty happy with how it all looks. Okay, I did remove one bulb and I think that looks better. So, I literally went through all that effort for one light bulb. Okay, I had success removing the one ball guide. Look how torquked that is. Why would anybody do that? I'll try and like flatten it out a little bit before I install it in the other gamutron. But here's my strategy. Oh, now you're in my way to reach around you. I know you like the reachounds. So, I'm using this plastic
    6:59
    so I don't dent the playfield. Just work it up nice and gently. Now it's popped out. Make sure it doesn't scratch the playfield. And well, there's a little bit of damage there. It's the same damage that caused on the other side. Just like when removing any screw, pretty much a little bit of whammo there. And you see the whammo on the other side. No. Oh, that's because I touched it up. So, you'll never notice I went even more gentle this time and it still happened. So, it's just nature of the game. So now my strategy is to just gently go back and forth. See this hole? No damage. That's cuz I was able to just slowly work it up.
    8:06
    Feel it coming. Just don't you don't got to rush. Less damage the better. And make sure this end is not scratching on things.
    8:31
    Come on now. Yay. No damage. Okay, how's this guy? Yep. Whamo. Okay, I'm going to swap now. Okay, here are the old ball guides. was actually able to straighten them out pretty good with a hammer. That's my way of finessing things into uh place. And here are the new ones from the other playfield. So, they're a little crusty. Nothing some green scrubby can't resolve. So, polish them up and install them. Okay, these lane guides are reinstalled into the old playfield much more straight and more importantly they fit in the same holes. So here are the cleaned up and nice and straight. See how that just hugs the artwork just almost perfectly. Same on this side.
    9:39
    So, they may potentially require some adjustment for ball hop, but uh we'll deal with that once we get to play testing. And then there's the damage. Can hardly tell. So, no worries there. But that looks good. I like it. All right, it's time to deal with the non-working lights. You know what? Oh, I was going to say there's not flicker, but I lied. There is. It's weird though. It doesn't flicker every time. Anyway, I'll get me some LED adapters. But this is the part where I can spend another 4 hours fixing 10 light bulbs. So, these three being out in a row makes me think wiring. The rest are probably just flaky lamp sockets. possibly an SCR on the lamp driver, but I'll go through everyone individually until I've got them all working. And don't forget, there's one general illumination bulb here I've got to do as well. So, I'll see you in a few hours. Well, Houston, it's a little bit of an issue here. can't rotate my playfield because of the fact that I connected it up through the neck and I don't want to disconnect everything. So, I have about this much room to work with and I had to put a clamp here to hold the playfield in place because it wants to tilt like about that. So, this is pretty precarious but slightly functional. So, that's my workspace for the next few hours. Okay, I have remedied a couple bulbs. I managed to fix two or three by just switching the wire over from the tab to the uh socket butt. I fixed that one. I tried this one. That did not resolve that, but I think that worked on one or two others. Uh but for this one, so I just I don't know if I can rely on the schematics for flight 2000, but maybe I will show you. But right now, I'm just tracing wire colors. This bulb doesn't work. So I jumper on a new socket to the wires to find out whether it lights or not. Well, it did not light. So then we know it's not the socket or the bulb. So then I trace that gray wire all the way back to this gray wire. And then I go, "Oh, that's J2 pin 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11." Then I go to the schematics and find out what transistor uh J2 pin 11 uh is on and then I ground it to find out that it does f all. Then I go find that. Oh, there's another gray wire on J1. H. I don't know if you can see. This is bad videography right here. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 J1 pin nine. Then we go over to the actually this is Bobby or schematics J1. So, I don't even know if I I should be using flight 2000 schematics. J1 pin 9 says it's 6k bonus, which
    13:31
    that blue light is actually the 6k bonus. So, that's handy. So, then we know that the SCR responsible for that is Q27. So then go back to the back box. I'm in switch test right now just so that playfield is alive but not all lights are going crazy. So Q27 jumper the right leg. Okay. And then look at that. Hey, wait. That's the wrong blue light. I did something wrong. Oh, I was on Q28. I got to be on Q27, I think it was. Right. And there we go. So, I guess that means my SCR is in fact bad. So, I'll mark that one as needing to be changed. But uh that's what I'm going through to resolve one bulb at a time. So fun. You should try it. Okay. I said I'd be back in a few hours. It's not that far off. It's about 2 and 1/2 hours. But Jay, the neighbor showed up with a circuit board for a uh hot tub and asked me to change a few relays for his work. And uh that was about half an hour or so. And uh it went okay except for the fact that there's some stupid coating on the back side of that board and uh made life a little more challenging. Otherwise, it would have been like half the time. But check it out.
    15:25
    I don't know how well this is going to show in the camera, but
    15:32
    Oh, I forgot the general illumination bulb. There are still three bulbs that I got to address, but those are three bad SCRs, including the one I already replaced. So, maybe I put it on backwards. But there's You can see a little piece of tape there and there and there. Those are literally the last three controlled lamps. Look how nice this looks. That's all lit up. So, for a bunch of these, I just moved that wire from the lug to the butt. And there's more just uh more time just like tracing which bulb goes to which SCR. So, I am getting close. I got to pull the board now and then finish the job. Let me do that GI first. Okay, I got the board pulled and the new SCRs just loosely in there. I don't even remember which ones they are now. And I'm learning things. I didn't know if I had installed this backwards, but I assumed I did. So, I made a post in the pinball repair help group to say which way does it go? And Andrew Spitler says the metal tab side goes towards the thicker silk screen printed end. I never even noticed that in my life. There is a thin kind of white print there and a thicker uh white side that denotes I guess the tab side. And then he says you can look at the printing near Q49 and this pin out picture. K and C are interchangeable. Sorry, it's just going back and forth like crazy. So then I noticed look C A G. So that is like your cathode, anode and ground. So you can take your STR and go. Okay. So one is cathode. All right. So that is the say front right leg C. So then you put the front right leg in the C position and voila, I in fact had it backwards. So always learning and thanks Andrew Spitler. He is a wealth of information. Okay, I got these guys installed. I just reversed my SCR on Q56 and see if that works. These connectors are really stubborn to get off. So, don't think I'm going to install this just yet or install the connectors anyway until I have my Siegecraft or generic LED adapters. And that way there's less of a chance. I mean, that way I don't have to like remove the connectors again and put them back on again. The less removing and reinstalling those stubborn connectors, the better. So, I'll see if I can maybe pick those up off Corey tomorrow. So, we're not going to see the grand finale of all the lights working just yet. I did get that general illumination bulb working. It just wasn't really in the socket. And I just had to squeeze the tabs together so it locked into place better. And I'm starting to run out of gas. It's been a long time working on light bulbs. So, I'm going to wrap it up at this point and um come back with some energy tomorrow or whenever. So, we'll see you next