I just wanna say that I'm always impressed by people who can read and understand these manuals for EMs. It's all Greek to me! I've been restoring my WhiteWater for a month or so now (my first ever restoration!) and even that's a handful and a half! Never realized how steep the learning curve is lol
I used to do board level diagnosis at Digital Equipment Corp on their supercomputer circuit boards at their factory in Ottawa Ontario Canada in the 90's, this is exactly how you diagnose a solid state circuit, only this pinball machine is, believe it or not, way, way simpler, at least as far as the number of components and traces goes and you don't need an oscilloscope with live signals passing through to check stuff. Nice job explaining it in the way almost any layman can understand.
Thanks Andrew.... I keep trying to get across to people that it's actually a pretty simple circuit and all the logic is very simple but there's a big barrier to understanding it, once you figure out that it's literally just connecting one side to the other it's so simple to understand it makes you think 'I can't believe it took me this long to get it'. Like you said, it's even all using the same voltage, and there's really no signal, it's just on or off so it's a very simple circuit! Thanks for watching!
Here in the UK we are going into tighter Covid lockdowns now I now have seven Masquerade episodes to look forward to . Heaven . Better than any box set!! Thank you again for generously taking all the time and trouble to post these videos. I have learnt so much and it’s great viewing too. Can’t believe you get any negative comments at all but imho they ain’t worth a damn. Please keep up the great work and sharing
Kevin we're gonna end up with 9 episodes if you can believe it :) The 9th one is a Music video of the game we shot... hope the lockdown doesn't end up being too long!
I really like those, I don't have a ton of them in though but believe me everyone I get in I will definitely film. Lately we've been doing Bally after Bally after Bally the heads on them are interchangeable. Exactly the same inside. I've done about 6 in a row but I have a few Williams coming up for sure.... thanks for watching Mark!
Great video! I've always wondered as a computer guy how these EM machines work, and the answer is pretty much "it's like software but a lot harder to change".
@@LyonsArcade Close enough! The earliest "computers" (pre-1945) were EM machines, and literally had to be rewired to change their "program". Then ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) came along and changed everything. I'm still grateful that I was born *after* the invention of the Integrated Circuit. I very much prefer using a keyboard instead of punched cards to program a computer. I'm also grateful that my computer doesn't need 18,000 vacuum tubes like ENIAC... can you imagine how high my electric bill would be? That's roughly equivalent to some of the earliest 16-bit CPUs like the Zilog Z8000, which had 17,500 transistors. (Not to mention, it would be difficult to move. ENIAC weighed a total of 27 tons.) Just as an example of how far technology has advanced... in the 1980s, most home computers had a CPU with around 5,000 transistors (the 6502 was used in the Apple II, Atari 400/800, and all Commodore computers). 40 years later, the CPU of the computer sitting on my desktop has around 10 _billion_ transistors.
Wow you got a ton of stuff done you have the right disposition and much needed patience along with the right touch way to go as all the lights bells and spinners come back online for this wonderful old mechanical marvel it is just magical I really enjoyed watching, Thanks again!
Well this machine is certainly taking up a lot of your time, lol! Great that it's nearly done now...I bet at some point the more "needy" machines like this start to become a labor of love. As for the roto-target, I'll wager that it's parchment in those little windows. If you've ever seen the old AMF bowling pinsetters from the 60s-70s that had the big triangle on front that lit up the pins still to be knocked down (called "pindication"), those used a giant parchment in front of the bulbs with the pin numbers and strike "X" printed on them.
You'll rarely find an issue you can't track down now, once you start to 'get' it, you see how simple they all are. Now when you look at issues you'll just think 'oh that's neat how they thought to do it like that'.... instead of thinking 'what in the hell is this' ? LOL so now that you see how they work, there was this game called "Hot Line" where they had a grid in the playfield with buttons that lit up... it spelled letters.... so the "H" was lit up, once you got all those, the lights would re-light and it would say "O".... "t" "l" "i" "n" "e" .... they could actually SPELL with the game, using just relays and switches. Stuff like that was about as far as they could take it, very clever design.... here's a video of one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--5QxPw7Hd9s.html
The amount of time you put in, your time is worth a lot. These videos are so important so if anyone asks why these cost so much, you can point to these videos and show them how many days it takes to fix the problems.
I am trying so hard to find the time to get to all these videos. So appreciative. Can’t wait to be done with my Masquerade and get it back to the owner.
Nice! these last 2 video's are always the top of the series. You also matched on the 2nd player if i saw correct :) the unmasking that seems to be hanging... it's not a bug.... it's just a mod :P
Lol I fixed that the coil needed a new sleeve so it was a little smoother 😎 the weight of the veil was keeping it from going back up if there was any resistance 😎
The best repair and fault finding videos on RU-vid. Really enjoying the way you refer to the schematics and then apply it to the actual machine. I show a few similar type of repairs for mechanical slots on my channel but nothing as in depth as you. Now subscribed and looking forward to checking out your back catalog of videos during lockdown. Thank you.
I love the care you've lavished on this old trooper. Shame you are on the other side of the "pond" and that our houses aren't really suited to pinball machines.
Gargoyles for original Gameboy used to be my favorite. I see it there in the case when you're working on the 1pt bell. I only started looking in the case because I was trying to figure out why there's a watch in there. Thanks for the videos. Love this stuff. I had to watch it again so I could concentrate on the schematics. Multitasking wasn't cutting it.
We're in Rock Hill, and while things were locked down to some degree for awhile it's astonishing to me that people are still stuck inside, everything is pretty much back to normal around here for the last several months. I hope it gets straightened out and safe for you folks soon!
I would have run for the hills when I saw the wires all hanging loose. How's he gonna fix this mess? And you did! Your confidence has definitely inspired me to tackle my ems small issues by comparison.
Marshall I didn't film these but I did some a few weeks ago on a different machine.... thank you for watching! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-N_B70-yA9aY.html
A great video on using schematics to help track down problems and issues. Really great. .... Do you use a different soldering iron for ems and solid state boards? ... just curious.
Good show old chap ! with this 'walkthrough' I get the schematics now, they can be thought of as 'gates' 'And' 'Or' ect ...I look forward to the gameplay vid...cheers.
Ron, you really need to stop being so disrespectful to people. Having said that, though... Izzy, with a name like Izzynutz _Restorations,_ I'm sure you know how to rebuild a score reel. Ron has shown (at least part of) the process several times. All the score reels in these old EM machines are similar, if not identical. "If you've seen it once, you've seen it a dozen times."
I'm confused about the purpose of the 3-5 ball adjust. It seems to switch the sense of 1 or 10 points when lit for the pop bumpers. Why would you do that? EDIT: At least the lights also get reversed so that the scoring matches the "when lit". But it seems like a lot of unnecessary trouble to reverse the bumper lighting order just because you changed the number of balls for the game.
It's hard to understand by looking at the schematics but remember what we were looking at in the machine. There are 3 positions... so as of right now, the green is lit up once, and off twice... the red is lit up once, and off twice. The scoring matches that. It's set on 5 ball... so when it's on 5 ball, you have less opportunity to score 10 points because they're only lit up once every three positions. When you set the game on 3 ball, it reverses the lighting and scoring because you move the plug... which means, the lights are on two out of every three positions, and off every third position. So you have twice as much opportunity to score 10 points, but since it's on 3 balls you don't get to play as long. So they often would adjust the odds of scoring certain things like that to be higher on a 3 ball game than a 5 ball game. Since we're demonstrating it on the 5 ball side it seems 'normal' but really what they're doing is crippling the scoring for a 5 ball game to make it a little harder to score tons of points.
@@LyonsArcade I want to add, my comment was in no way a reflection of your work on this machine. It was an observation of the machine. If I got a reply, I expected it to be along one of two lines. Maybe the machine doesn't have enough value for those kinds of repairs, or possibly an explanation of how the solenoids weaken over time. Weak coils, bad liners, loose linkages? I don't know and that is why I watch, subscribe and like the videos. What I did not expect was you responding with such disrespect. Not a good look.
I'm a little surprised that, since a player can score several hundred points with a single lucky shot, that they didn't include a fourth score reel for each player. I know it would've made the mechanisms even more complex (obviously), but it seems strange that the maximum score that can be displayed is 1,999 when you can (theoretically) score more than that with a few hits of the center standup target.
You have to build it up to the 100X multiplier though to get that kind of score, and then it only lasts for 1 hit... so while you can score 500 points with one shot, you then have to set everything back up just perfectly to do it again, not as easy as it seems.
I've only watched the first 14 minutes of this, but it seems to me you are approaching the first problem the wrong way around and wasting time in the process. If you have a 10 point score that doesn't operate when it should, start at the 10 point relay and trace the path back from there to the problem component, in this case the pop bumper relay, and consider all the switches on that path. The first part of the troubleshooting discussion in this video was about the switches that make the pop bumper "pop" - but there was no fault there, it was popping fine It's also a pain to look for individual switches on a schematic (ie when looking for the "I" switches) - it's much quicker and less prone to error to trace paths backward. I usually copy the relevant portion of the schematic, and then use a highlighter to show all the possible paths
