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Part 2: 1979 Bally Future Spa Garage Project! Dehackification!

Pinball Shenanigans·video·24m 33s·analyzed·Jul 7, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.020

TL;DR

Pinball restoration deep-dive: diagnosing and fixing power/display issues on 1979 Future Spa through connector repair and fuse replacement.

Summary

Mike Dimas documents the second phase of restoring a 1979 Bally Future Spa pinball machine, focusing on "dehackification"—removing non-original modifications and repairs. He addresses a non-functional diagnostic button by re-pinning J3 and J2 connectors, replaces a faulty alphanumeric display, and performs extensive work on the power supply transformer and rectifier board, including reflowing headers, replacing incorrectly-valued fuses, and cleaning corroded connectors. The work reveals significant previous damage from heat and improper repairs, requiring careful soldering and component replacement to restore the machine to a sellable condition.

Key Claims

  • The diagnostic button was non-functional due to incorrect pin connections (J3 pin 1 on MPU and J2 pin 7 on solenoid driver board)

    high confidence · Mike Dimas discovered and fixed this issue by re-pinning connectors with correct red and yellow wires

  • The display had a burned-out bottom left segment and required replacement

    high confidence · Mike observed dark spots and non-functional segments during display testing and subsequently replaced the display

  • Two of six fuses on the rectifier board were incorrect: a 20-amp fuse instead of 3/4-amp in position 2, and a 25-amp instead of 20-amp in position 3

    high confidence · Mike tested fuses during rectifier board work and identified the incorrect values, suspecting the 20-amp fuse may have caused past display problems

  • The male header connectors on the rectifier board showed signs of heat damage and poor soldering, requiring replacement and reflowing

    high confidence · Mike observed burned pins and evidence of previous heating on connectors, particularly on J3 connector

  • Jumpering the diagnostic button pins together successfully activated lamp test, indicating the issue was with the connector rather than the button itself

    high confidence · Mike tested the jumper technique and confirmed lamp test functioned when pins were directly connected

  • A previous owner (John Terrestre) had performed work on the machine including new spinner decals, drop targets, and bumper caps

    high confidence · John Terrestre messaged Mike and identified the modifications he had made to the machine

  • The alphanumeric display tested okay in a seven-digit slot but ghosted the last digit, suggesting the display repair was successful

    medium confidence · Mike tested the display in a Viper machine and observed ghosting behavior, which he interpreted as a successful repair result

  • Reflowing headers alone did not resolve the display digit issue; the problem required full header replacement and fuse correction

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm not going to hang out here too long, because it is hot AF, and I want to go into the air conditioning world so much nicer.”

    Mike Dimas@ 0:17 — Sets tone for the episode's hot working conditions and motivates quick diagnosis

  • “I just couldn't sell this thing like this. You know you just can't do it.”

    Mike Dimas@ 10:06 — Reflects his commitment to quality restoration and unwillingness to sell machines in poor condition, despite sloppiness in his own work style

  • “Red and yellow. People know what they're talking about.”

    Mike Dimas@ 1:31 — Validates the wiring schematic he consulted when troubleshooting the diagnostic button

  • “Isn't that awesome? That is about the most over fused uh over amped fuse i've ever found.”

    Mike Dimas@ 21:18 — Expresses surprise at discovering a 20-amp fuse where a 3/4-amp fuse should be, indicating significant previous damage or poor repair work

  • “For the cost of 10 cents worth of headers and a couple bucks worth of fuses, that this was the way to go.”

    Mike Dimas@ 24:02 — Summarizes the cost-benefit analysis of his repair strategy (reflowing and replacing headers rather than buying a new rectifier board)

  • “Two out of six fuses were good.”

    Mike Dimas@ 22:08 — Highlights the extent of previous poor repairs and incorrect component replacements on the machine

Entities

Mike DimaspersonJohn TerrestrepersonBallycompanyFuture SpagamePinball ShenanigansorganizationSupersonicgameVipergame

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball Shenanigans represents ongoing technical documentation and educational content for the restoration community, preserving knowledge of vintage machine repair techniques

    medium · Multi-part video series documenting detailed board-level repair, connector diagnosis, and component replacement methodology

  • ?

    product_concern: 1979 Bally Future Spa exhibits evidence of multiple poor historical repairs, including incorrect fuse ratings (20A instead of 0.75A), heat-damaged connectors, and improper solder work

    high · Discovery of 20-amp fuse in position requiring 3/4-amp; burned pins on J3 connector; evidence of previous reflowing by unknown technician; connector heat damage suggesting prior electrical faults

  • ?

    technology_signal: Conversion from incandescent bulbs to LED lighting on rectifier board reduces heat generation, potentially allowing previously over-rated components to function without failure

    medium · Mike notes that J3 pin 11 (general illumination) previously heated up from incandescent bulbs but now runs cooler with LED retrofit

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.074

0:00
I'm Mike Dimas, and this is Pinball Shenanigans. Back to the future, spa, for round two. I'm not going to hang out here too long, because it is hot AF, and I want to go into the air conditioning world so much nicer. it like the humidex i think feels like 40 degrees celsius right now so it's sweaty um this is my plan of attack okay got i'm going to do a couple minor things firstly i discovered in the last episode that the diagnostic button was not working because I thought I was just going to throw it into lamp test quickly and check on the bulbs but it ain't working so I threw that on the to-do list and I'm pretty sure and I've got the solution.
1:14
I've got my to-do list here. I'm going to re-pin J3 pin 1 on the MPU and J2 pin 7 on the solenoid driver board. It says it's supposed to be a red and yellow wire coming off that switch.
1:30
Ah, what do you know? Red and yellow. People know what they're talking about. So I'm going to do that because that's quick and easy. and also I brought a new display. Let's throw it in display test. No, we can't do that, big dum-dum. We can shortly. I've got to repin those connectors and hope that is the solution. But yeah, you know what? Look at that.
1:55
That bottom left segment is toast all the way through that display. And then there's these black measles in other locations. especially those guys. So yeah, that board, that display needs to be replaced. So I'll do that. And then here's my plan for the power supply. I was thinking about it, what to do,

medium confidence · Mike reflowed headers but later determined other factors (fuses, connectors) were the actual root causes

2:23
all the different options. And what I'm going to do is cut all these wires, because if you watched the first video, this connector is okay. But the other connectors are like super glued to the frigging board and do not come off. So maybe I'll like crank on them just a little bit harder just to see because now I don't care if I break things.
2:54
And then with all the connectors cut, I will take home the transformer and rectifier board. and then replace all of the male headers.
3:08
Any fuse clips if necessary. But everything else is working fine. You know, maybe I can quickly test the voltages just to make sure everything is outputting the right voltages. But we know the machine works fine.
3:24
So instead of, you know, ordering a new board, and then there's like the new boards you can get from weebly and you can assemble them yourself so you know i would do that it's cheap enough 30 bucks us plus shipping but by the time it gets to me call it 100 bucks and then like an hour to assemble it and then you got to wire it up to the transformer which is the trickiest part of them all but if i just rebuild this then i can pop it off the bracket here and I don't have to deal with any of that it's just the headers that are a problem and I don't really want to sell the game like this because that's just very very leppy I'm leppy but not quite that leppy so that's my strategy and I am hot so I gotta get out of here sooner than later anyway that's the plan and we'll see what happens. Okay I replaced the display. This is the one that came out of my supersonic that had a digit out but I replaced that resistor. I think it was R7 maybe and she's back up and running so repurposing that. That J3 pin 1, that guy there, and this yellow guy right here pin 7 on J2. Those guys are done. So hopefully we can go into diagnostics and check the display. The other thing you can do is jumper these two pins together. Oh, it's my new favorite tune. I can jumper these two pins together and see if that works. I can kind of rule out whether this button is the issue or not. I believe I have more of these buttons at home though. Okay, here goes nothing. Three, two one nope nothing okay well let's try this jumping trick to see what happens
5:47
oh son of a that actually worked okay so my suspicion then is that this connector the male headers may need to be reflowed because this is on the end Those pins get the most stress when removing the connectors So I think if I reflow these headers that might be the trick because jump ring the switch seems to work so I think the switch is not at fault. So this is lamp test. So this lamp is in fact out and this lamp here. just make a mental note if there's any others out while I'm here.
6:35
It all appears to be good. And John Terrestre, he messaged me and told me a few things that he did to this machine. He did, in fact, put on new spinner decals. He said they were all new drop targets, I think, except for that one. In fact, all new pop bumper caps and
7:00
I think you mentioned another thing or two, but forget at the moment But let's jumper this and get into display test and see what that looks like
7:11
What is that is that display test here we go Every display, oh, wait a minute shite bottom left display is missing a digit and it's got like a portion of it showing up so that it's a little sus not sure if that's repairable or not but at the very least I'll reflow those headers I'll take that home with me see if that helps but okay so a little bit of success but maybe I'll just take this board home with me because I don't have my fine solder tip it's got the big wedge my portable soldering iron take that home take this home and take this home I think that'll be my plan okay I got the display removed mpu removed and check this out the bottom two connectors, which is J3, it's really supposed to be one, actually came out. There's just a little bit of a, a little bit of a force. This guy, on the other hand,
8:33
is being stubborn, but I'm more stubborn. Look at this. With a lot of prying and prodding, might be doing some damage oh yeah definitely doing some damage look at that i don't know what the f what's the deal with that oh maybe no it's not like welded on it's seen some freaking heat though hasn't it but we managed to get it off so i didn't have to cut everything much happier about that but let's see did I do any damage to this I kind of feel like probably should replace yeah I'm gonna have to because those pins are burned and you know it's just no bueno whoa where am I going hello here we are yeah once your connectors get heated up like that then basically it's bad for male and females alike so at least didn't have to cut everything off makes things a little bit easier I'll replace some headers so take this home and I'll work on the bench in the AC that'll be nice free pin all this shit and then I will be you know much happier to sell it after all that's said and done. I just couldn't sell this thing like this. You know you just can't do it but it's impressive that I managed to actually get that off. Alright got it out. A bunch of screws, some standoffs. You got the like heat sink plate and these screws. Don't want to lose that. They go right through these bridges right there. I have a feeling that removing all this going to be a bit of a problem. It looks like someone... yeah I do believe these bottom left to our replacements but they're once again no good and I think this is gonna think it's going to be a challenge it's gonna fight me but we'll see what I can do anyway time to get out of this heat and get into the AC all right I'm back in the basement and two things are wonderful about that air conditioning, which is nice, very nice, especially in the basement. It's even cooler than the main floor. And sitting on my ass. It's awesome. So I got everything ready to go here. Let's inspect this header together. This guy here was J3, wasn't it? Pin 1. Let's Check out this situation here. Hopefully it's just bad solder. Let's see if I can get zoomed in there properly. Come on there. It looks okay. Looks fine. I don't see any problem with that. Or is there? On closer inspection. Whoa I so zoomed in I sorry slight movement and we going all over the place I don know It still hard to tell But I hoping that reflowing that is going to be my solution to the menu test button. Oh, hold on. Getting called. Yes. Oh, everything's fine over here. Nothing to see over here. All right. Thank you. Ellie the inspector. She's back.
12:49
Okay, then I'm going to reflow. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. It's loose. Got to tape that back on. Reflow these headers. I don't know. That does look kind of sketch. I don't know if that'll solve that digit. But it's worth a shot. Which shows this last digit here. Maybe I should reflow this side to the glass side. Looks like some weird area there. It's like some pins. Let's zoom in a little bit more. Some pins that are coming through but there's nothing nothing to solder to on this side it's probably normal it's kind of weird though another lots of pins that don't get soldered I guess maybe are they soldered on the top side anyway we'll reflow that see what happens and then the ultimate fun finale trying to remove these without destroying everything
14:06
so wish me luck this is also very filthy so i'm going to clean that up a little bit too so there's your before all right okay i reflowed some connectors and i looked real close with my magnifying glass and honestly they looked fine but i did them anyways so i don't think that's going to be my resolution i think there's a connector on the coin door there i think that might be where i need to uh look for a solution and then i just lightly sanded all the headers
14:50
and i inspected closely the back side and I don't love reflowing these tiny connectors because I'm always afraid I'm gonna like bridge two together but it looks like someone else may have already reflowed this one yeah I think it's okay and then I did the same for the display those guys actually I should probably uh clean that up
15:32
my flux yeah I'll clean up my flux on this side too I hadn't done that yet but so I did the glass and I did the headers so I can plug this into like viper and see if that worked but in the meanwhile I'm gonna bust out this transformer all right so I think I'm done with this MPU I did put a piece of tape over this e-prom there so light doesn't erase it got me a couple pieces of electrical tape on the back side here to hold the frame on and I did test this in my Viper, but I tested it in a seven digit slot. And when you do that, it does a weird thing, I have learned. It ghosts the last digit. So when it wasn't ghosting and it was showing a zero, it looked like it was good. So I think we're resolved. So we'll pop that in and see. So these guys are good to go for now. And now it's transformer time. Okay, I gave this a little bit of a brush, so it's slightly less crusty. So whoever replaced these headers used two different kinds. And I like this kind better, especially for removing, because my strategy is to clip each one of these break them right apart basically remove the entirety of the plastic then it makes removing these pins a lot easier you can just do them one at a time yeah that'll be much easier to do than this one I might be able to remove the housing I should be able to so alright wish me luck alright I got all the headers out I did take a via with one of them sadly but oh well what you gonna do must have been this one right here so I kind of cleaned things up so I could see what's going on it's a bit of a mess I mean looks like a mess still but better than it was then I cleaned up the front scraped off some stuff so I could see where all the traces go make sure nothing was bridged and then I like triple checked that on the schematics to make sure the solenoid bus wasn touching any of the general illumination bus headers so i think we're in good shape took a little while to you know kind of scrape it all away and make sure everything is good but i think um yeah shit I may have to do all of them.
18:53
Those ones aren't too bad. That one, guys, a little toasty. I don't know. Maybe this one's okay. We'll see. At the very least, I'm going to do that guy, but...
19:11
Hmm. That one pin. What is that? That's J3. pin 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. J3 pin 11 is general illumination. Okay, well, we know general illumination all works. So, and that makes sense too. Those are the hottest lines with all the incandescent bulbs. But now that it's LED, it's not going to heat up as much. So I may just get away with cleaning up the rest of these guys, but we'll get some new headers busted out here. And then also check on all the fuses, make sure they're the correct values.
19:59
Double check the bridges, make sure they're testing good. They should be. And yeah, should be in good shape. All right. I got my connector installed. Oh yeah, that reminds me, I've got to clean up these guys. Where is my little bit of sandpaper? Let's put this right front and center so I don't forget. And I reflowed all the other headers. And now I'm checking on the fuses. So we've got two winners and four losers. So in door number two, supposed to be three quarter amp fuse, we have, let's do this.
20:49
We have a 20 amp fuse. Isn't that awesome? That, is that a F2, is this for like display stuff? Yes. 190 volts so that might explain any display problems that may have happened in the past but yeah that is about the most over fused uh over amped fuse i've ever found all right and in door number three this one i just couldn't get a reading on it it's just worn right off so i know what the hell that is this 20 amp fuse is actually 25 so that's no good and the last fuse is supposed to be three amp slow blow and it is actually it looks like a fast flow and it looks
21:57
like the glass is a bit foggy It's kind of weird, but we're going to change that one too. So two out of six fuses were good. Okay, I think I'm done with this guy. I replaced the fuses that were incorrect, tested the bridges, they were fine. I cleaned up all the headers, just the finest, finest sandpaper, and they cleaned up nicely. I didn't have to clean these, these are too new. And I added a little bit of, I don't know whatchamacallit, heat sink compound. I'm out. Thermal paste. I need some more of that. And I think that because these two connectors on the bottom, like this connector on the left isn't 100% flat, so there's almost like a little bit of a V shape like that on the connectors. little bit arched like that I think and if I were to put on one giant connector like you know the way that it is originally done may not just fit on there all that wonderfully so I think I may actually keep it as two separate connectors now this side is fine because you got the key there this side gonna have to just be a little more conscious of I'll put like this side up all the Although this connector doesn't get removed, really ever, when you're transporting a machine. Only when you're working on it. So it shouldn't be a problem. But I think that, you know, for the cost of 10 cents worth of headers and a couple bucks worth of fuses, that this was the way to go. So, and I think this should just be fine and dandy.
24:21
So that's going to wrap up this episode of Future Spa. And then the next episode, we'll go install everything and see what happens.