I fixed it so that if the ball goes down without hitting anything, it will kick your ball back out. I'm not sure if that counts as ball save. You can absolutely program a ball save with whatever rules you wanted, though.

@@davesthinktank ball save is when you drain in like 10-15 seconds after you plunge the ball. A second chance at that turn.

@@snextime Now I'm thinking I might really like to write a ball save, with Princess Aura saying "Don't kill him yet, Father. I want him!"

@@davesthinktank I had someone write a ball save for my FG roms about 6 yrs ago and its a game changer especially for guests!(: He wrote it using that first switch you hit in the shooter lane and then test bank 20 in the admin has 1 to 15 to roughly account for up to 15 seconds of ball save time, so you can adjust it. So when you launch the ball the timer starts after you hit that first switch in shooter lane, it also lights the shoot again circle insert at the drain letting you know that it just popped another ball out into the shooter lane. Its an amazing feature and allows you to set the game to 3 balls vs the old school 5 balls.

Interesting question. I haven't heard of this, or read it in any manual, so i would have to say no. It's a good idea though. Maybe I'll look into how the arduino might achieve that.

I just checked an Alltek manual for their solenoid board, and it goes through a check for stuck coils as you suggest. So, the 70s/80s pinballs can be upgraded to do this.

@@davesthinktank Yes but only the Alltek replacement boards do this check for stuck coils. Its something in the boot sequence program loaded on the ROM chips but the 70s and 80s ROM chips don't have this check for stuck coils doing the boot up so the watch dog circuit on the Alltek boards are different also to check for the stuck coils it seems.

My pleasure! The more effort I have to put into solving pinball issues, the more I want to get this information out there for others.

Thanks, much appreciated!

What a surprising suggestion!

Thanks! It's been six months, and this fix has held without fail!

The sound in this video is from the original speaker. I wasn't happy with the sound, and so in a later video I replaced it with a huge speaker on top from an old surround sound system! It had great sound, but I eventually figured out the bad sound was actually on the sound file I was using, which was a clip from the movie, including electric buzzing and whizzing noises from a space battle. So currently, I am back to using the original speaker.

Yes, it makes a huge difference! I've been working with Geeteoh.com to make more sound files available.

I actually made it myself! I designed it using an online photo editing program (pixel.com). It was too big for regular paper, but I split it into two parts and printed them on 8 1/2 x 11 photo paper, then cut them out and joined them. I have a couple videos going over the details. See my videos "Make your Apron Pop", and "Introducing Flash Gordon". I should probably make some of my redesigned aprons and targets available on line.

I did eventually fix all the Vector's issues! It's been great since. I usually find the bigger the problem, the smaller the cause. I had things shorting out all over my Star Trek a couple years back, and finally tracked it down to a bit of solder that dripped from a repair I had been working on, to short a switch to a solenoid! I hope your new parts do the trick!

Dolly Parton, I assume? Good game. Not all the old ballys have a suitable spot for a video display. I was thinking maybe one of the card slots could be used. BTW, see my other video where I add a video display to the Flash Gordon. I give a lot more detail on the steps required.

Thanks! Wow, there's a lot on your channel. I'll try to check it out soon!

Hey, thanks! That was actually completely spontaneous. I put the camera up at the ceiling so you could see the whole machine, and when I turned around and looked at it, it made me think of Flash jumping at the camera in the final scene of the movie!

Thanks!

It really does! I have a replacement sound board, from Geeteoh Electronics. I made a video on installing it ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1wFn0PuC6MU.html , which added most of the sounds and music that you hear, and also one on how to customize it with your own sounds ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-G9YgYAGwlz0.html .

Good spotting! Yes, it has always been very insensitive when hit from above. Any other direction is fine, though. Maybe it's time I did something about that!

Thanks! I really love that it allows you to add your own sounds. If you watched my game at the end, every time i hit the drop targets down you can hear Kirk yell, Khaaan!

I actually had one for a while. It was mismatched with all the other bulbs, and bugged me more than the light in my eyes! I replaced all the gray spacers a while back with white, and this white cover looks really good among them 😀

Thanks! A lot of research went into this. I hope others can follow with their pinballs.

Thanks! It really was a massive project. Hopefully I save someone a month of trial and error!

Good to know, thanks!

Thanks for the views!

Thanks. I usually live by "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", but this hadn't broken in 40 years and was starting to worry me!

Good questions, and I'm probably not the guy to answer them! But I'll try: Once an SCR has power to the gate, it allows power to flow from the anode to the cathode, but the power to both gate and anode are needed to keep the circuit open and current flowing. I assume then that low voltage to the anode can then cause the circuit to fail, or at least cause it to fluctuate. This appears to be a problem only for a small number of (40-year-old) SCRs, so it may be more of an issue of wear. As to why SCRs rather than FETs, I couldn't tell you. I can say, though, that the lamp driver board is the most dependable item in the backbox. MPU, regulator, sound and rectifier boards need lots of maintenance, and are more and more frequently replaced, but most machines still have the original lamp driver boards working away. So, using SCRs seems to have been a reasonable choice. Only the unpredictable switch from incandescent to LED has caused any issue.

@@davesthinktank The SCR is turning on/off the power supply voltage to the lamps/lights on the pinball playfield. The SCR is in "parallel" with the Lamp bulb or LED. When the LED is in parallel with the SCR its causing the SCR to self oscillate or fluctuate the SCR gate voltage or anode voltage causing intermittent on/off which I'm not sure why. The datasheets to SCR's doesn't say anything about the SCR's Load impedance.

​​@@waynegram8907you have to consider the difference between electronic components in a schematic, and in the real world. In a schematic, everything works perfectly. In the real world, things deteriorate and sometimes fail. What may have worked perfectly with an LED 40 years ago may not be up to the task any more.

Thanks! Definitely a fun little project.

Nice! I checked it out and yes, they do have a $50 LED substitute, in addition to their $150 version of the original with a flash.

The hole is three inches, and the strobe is very slightly less than that. Lucky for me, especially as I had no idea how big it would be!

That will work! But really, desoldering is not as difficult as I made it look 😅

@@davesthinktank it didn't look bad , it just saves a little time. Thanks for taking the time to share.

That's a good suggestion. I haven't had that problem, as I always use a light spray, and wipe the drips first from the bottom up. But, spraying on the cloth would be safer.

Thanks for letting me know!

Maybe not a "great"source, but they are a source, true!

Excellent point! There are so many interconnected parts in a pinball machine, it takes a lot of ingenuity to think through how one part can make a completely unrelated part fail. Good job figuring that one out!

@@davesthinktankHoly crap! Thanks for this! This issue has been driving me friggin crazy, until I watched your vid! I was all over the usual websites for weeks trying to figure it out, until I searched “Flash Gordon single drop target behavior”, and I watched your tutorial. We’re all good now, thank you!! Whew!!

@@Kolohetom hey, really glad I could help! BTW, mine has been working for a couple months with this fix, no problem!

Glad you found us! This was a fun episode to do!

The original bridge rectifiers used in these games were only 8A, and (I think) 200 V, and were seriously under-powered. I replaced the one in my machine with a 35A, 400V bridge rectifier, which is heavy-duty enough to handle anything that might come through the power supply. The part number is GBPC3504W, manufactured by GeneSIC. I bought it from Mouser Electronics, for about $7. The heat sink was around $3, part number 532-6222B. The specs say the part has a heat sink built in, but I added one anyway.

Sorry, I'm more of an early-80s Bally guy. But I watched a video on your machine and it looks amazing! Whenever I get an issue like that, I try to isolate exactly what happens to cause it. Is it some simultaneous hit? Does something open up during multi ball that is unavailable or rare otherwise? Then try to reproduce it, without having to play all the way to multi ball! At that point you can begin looking closely at the switches or solenoids involved. Tracing the schematics at that point may help. The Pinside community often has solutions to problems already, or join and post your problem there. I always find that, when something goes wrong, I get a hopeless feeling in my stomach that says this may be it. But I've always been able to ultimately find a solution!

Another thought; go over any changes or fixes you've made recently, and make sure they are working as expected. Any solder spills on anything? I keep a journal of all repairs for that reason.

Here's a Pinside conversation on a related topic, with some ideas for tests. I hope it helps pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/testing-de-ball-trough-switches