Brian Hanifin

My wife and I are now the proud owner of one of the grail games of pinball collectors: Medieval Madness. We bought it from a game room store on September 3rd, and it ended up having some issues when we got it home. I have been gaining a lot of confidence repairing this machine as all of the issues have been pinpointed withing a couple of hours. So, I am enjoying my time repairing this machine. On the plus side, the machines warranty includes all the parts I need for 90 days.

ISSUES

1. Left Flipper Malfunctions:
   • Flipper stays up for about a second after release.
   • In Switch Edge test mode there is a hum/buzz that occurs as the lights on the switch matrix display are finally turning off. (This sound emanates from playfield, not the speakers.)
   • Lane Change: At one point I saw the “R” and “E” alternate back and forth after the left flipper button is released. (I assume all four of the letters to spell “FIRE” do this, but I haven’t watched closely enough to verify.)
2. End of Ball / Multiball.
3. Flash Lamp Shorts.
4. Catapult Kicker Power.
5. Right Troll Inconsistency.
6. Castle Gate Inconsistency

Read the latest updates on my progress on CoinOpSpace.com »

Comet is one of two non functional pinball machines I picked up for at a Garage Sale about two months ago. The other is Space Station (whose repair log is here).

ISSUES

1. Battery corrosion — but no leaks.
2. All displays are dead.
3. Display Power Supply voltage problem.
4. All ramps are damaged to some degree. The middle ramp needs repair.

Read the latest updates on my progress on CoinOpSpace.com »

When I bought my above average Pac-Man cabinet, I wondered if there was a way to choose between playing Pac-Man or Ms. Pac-Man. My wife said she wanted to play Ms. Pac-Man with the fast mode enabled.

Of course I first ran across the 96-in-1 Multipac. But why in the world would you want to have 500 variations on Pac-Man (plus Pengo)??? Ok, Pengo would be cool, but I don’t want to play “Pac Electric Cowboy”, or “Pac Mr. Roboto”!

Thankfully I found Jason Souza’s 4-in-1 Pac Hack. WOW! This is exactly what I wanted. No more, no less.

Before I could install the 4-in-1 Pac-Man multigame, I had to get the Pac-Man operational. (Note to self: make sure daughter boards are not upside down on day 1!) Since I was already ordering parts from Bob Roberts, I asked him to include the supplies to install this hack. Not including shipping, it cost me $26.50 for the two ROMs, ROM programming, ROM sockets, and wire. So, after flipping the Z80 Buss Sync Controller, replacing 2 RAM chips, and replacing the sound transistor, we were ready for the hack.

Two months pass… while I am waiting on parts for my Space Station Pinball repair I decide it is time to hack my pac.

It was very tedious, and at times difficult to solder the tiny wires to the chip legs. And then there was the worry that I would connect things up wrong, so I quadruple checked every wire. I even used a continuity checker to ensure none of the legs I soldered were accidentally shorted to the leg next to it (there were a couple of those that needed to be corrected).

I am almost embarrassed to share this with you… it looks like my pac board got attacked by a spaghetti monster. But the end result was worth it.

Space Station is one of two non functional pinball machines I picked up for at a Garage Sale about two months ago (the other is Comet). I decided to start with this one because it is at least partially playable.

Read the latest updates on my progress on CoinOpSpace.com »

This is a long overdue post considering on April 18th I said “I put my Pac-Man in my house today!” on Twitter.

Its final resting place is all the way up against that back wall. But I like this picture with Grandson and Grandpa playing side by side.

When I got it, it had garbage on the screen. Here is a list of repairs.

• Replaced Fuse Block + fresh fuses.
• Flipped the Z80 Sync Bus Controller card so it would stop blowing fuses!
• Replaced multiple RAM chips to clear up screen garbage.
• Replaced sound transistor to restore sound to the game.
• Reattached heat sinks to overheating chips on the lower portion of the board, to solve overheating color and behavioral problems. (Used thermal grease… I haven’t checked to see if that’s holding or not yet.)

So there is an arcade collector I know and his name is Jeff Rothe. Recently he planned a very full weekend of picking up and delivering arcade games spanning from his home in Indiana to St Louis to Chicago and home.

Apparently it was one of those trips where anything and everything went wrong… and then some! Well, short of destroying the games. So much happened over this weekend, that his story took 5 posts to complete!

This is my attempt to summarize Jeff’s odyssey into a list of events.

Read more…

After my success with bringing a Galaga 3 (Gaplus) cocktail back to life, last month I have been on the hunt for another good deal on a project game. Well, that hunt ended today with the purchase of a Pac-Man (PM) upright. The seller also had a Space Invaders Deluxe that he wanted to get rid of. I didn’t especially want it, but I got it cheap and ended up paying $180 for both. And to top it off, he delivered them to my garage for me!

The seller said neither game has worked in about 4 years. I tried powering on the Pac-Man and it did nothing. But it was missing a fuse so I expected as much. I haven’t tried powering up the Space Invaders Deluxe yet, but by the seller’s description it may just play blind.

Upon further inspection, I found an interesting small board hanging inside the cabinet and a bag of parts in the cabinet. As it turns out I got a bonus ABC Diagnostic and Repair Kit from TwoBits.com! This is a $100 kit!! The way I figure it, if the kit fixes Pac-Man I essentially got the Pac-Man for $50.

Assuming I can get the Space Invaders Deluxe working I am going to need a bezel/marquee glass. If anyone has a source for one, let me know.

The first name on the TwoBits’ receipt is different than the seller’s. And since the seller said the games were at his mom’s house made me think the games were his dad’s. So I won’t get any more answers out of him about their repair history.

The batteries on my camera died, so I will have to take pictures to share tomorrow. Here are links to the photos.

Album: Pac-Man
Album: Space Invaders Deluxe