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  • 2 weeks later...

Some more progress - the lockdown bar, coin door surrounds and associated area were pretty grubby so I removed and cleaned them up with wire brush and wet and dry - they worked ok before and aren't really seen that much, but I knew they'd annoy me if I left them as is.

 

Before;

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_5257a.jpg

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_5795a.jpg

 

After;

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_5923a.jpg

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_5922a.jpg

 

the bottom of the cab was a bit patchy too. The rear panel of the cab is made from chip board and it gets busted up as the machine is moved around. I cut back to reasonably sound material, added a new edge strip and filled the gap with builders bog. I'll give it a lick of paint when I touch up the rest of the cab.

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_5908a.jpg

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_5910a.jpg

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_5915a.jpg

 

That's all for now

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Pretty much finished the lower part of the cab now and have reinstalled the wiring, coin door, shooter, lock down and so on. Polished the top glass guides and put new flipper buttons in. Have been working on the boards lately which has been a good chance to play with the ebay $10 combo de-soldering iron / sucker which works remarkably well - it fits fairly nicely over the nipple of solder on the back of the board and gets most of the solder removed in one shot. It's a fair bit easier than solder braid and the unheated sucker. Pretty good for cheap occasional use.

 

So far I have reconditioned the power supply with recommended mods and upgrades; replacing the electro caps, upgraded some of the resistors and dropped the display voltages to 92 V. Have also put a cap kit through the sound board and used the testing phase to put some sound files on my phone :D

 

Not really worth showing pictures of any of this except I like this one where the reflection of the end of the cap can be seen on the board - about as arty as I can get with a picture of a circuit board.

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_5957a.jpg

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When I first got Flash I didn't switch it on. At the time I figured this would be best as I didn't want to get the pin half going and then just start playing it. In retrospect it would have been better to power it up to see what was and wasn't working. Anyway because of this I wasn't sure of the state of the electronics - some work was needed as there was a bit of corrosion around the battery holder. I removed this and installed a memory cap and removed a corroded socket. Then I pretty much went though a systematic test of everything - reset and clock circuits, data and address buffers - ended up replacing a 6810 memory chip and a few sockets. I used a combination of Clay's and Mark (pinball.flippers.info) guides and the Leon test rom. The driver board had a few blown solenoid transistors and a failed pia. All up it's good feeling of relief and satisfaction when you get them to boot.

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_6040a.jpg

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_6027a.jpg

 

Moved onto the head next - basically it was really grotty, so lots of cleaning. The displays were all coming off the boards, so some careful removing the old glue and then some double sided tape to reattach

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_6025a.jpg

 

Stripped everything from the head insert board and scrubbed it up - I hope the cleaner white will reflect light better and make the back glass brighter and I plan to use leds here.

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_5976a.jpg

 

scrubbed up the aluminium shielding and washed all the harnesses

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_5999a.jpg

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_6009a.jpg

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_6056a.jpg

 

I installed the extra fuses on the inlet side of the bridges

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_6042a.jpg

 

reinstalled the boards and harnesses

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_6061a.jpg

 

and finally put some power to the head - and was happy to see it boot

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_6064a.jpg

 

getting pretty close now ...

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  • 4 weeks later...

Pretty much all done!

 

Well, I'm finally all done and really happy with the results.

 

Finished off a few play field details. Used a piece of welding wire to bend up a few wire form guides behind the five bank of drops and glued them in place. First polished with novus 1 and then flattened the plastics, to do this I just used a heat gun waved over the plastic until you could see it "relax" and then put a phone book on top of it on a flat surface. Polished the bumper caps and cleaned the acorn nuts. I used cotton wadding metal polish on all the play field metal bits, the ball gates and spinner hardware. Printed new instruction cards on cream coloured card and I put a coat of triple thick on the black glass.

 

I've installed leds through out which I think suit the game, it's hard to take good pictures of this, it looks better in the flesh. In the back box I mainly used cointaker super brights, in areas where the glass is a bit iffy I used frosted warm whites. Also used super brights in the bumpers and under the play field plastics and the larger inserts. Used frosted coloured warms under the coloured inserts and some blues under the lane guides. Under the plastic on the three drop targets I used frosted warm whites as otherwise it was too bright as the eyes look directly at the leds with the drops down. I like the look of it. I also ran a small dremel wire brush through all the lamp sockets.

 

I replaced lots of parts, some that arguably did not need to be replaced, but I'm glad I did, they really make it feel sharp and look sparkly. Things like flipper bats, bushes, sleeves, links and buttons, bumper mounts, bases, skirts, bodies and springs, shooter rod springs and sleeves, all the coil sleeves, rubbers and new ball. All up it probably took me well over a hundred hours to do this, I didn't work fast nor particularly hard but I probably did just about all that could be done except painting the cabinet. I got the machine about 10 months ago.

 

Cosmetically I've got to make a new play field plastic and I want to try and improve the back glass a bit, but I need to improve my photoshop skills for these activities.

 

I've now played a couple of hundred games on it and it's pretty cool - well worth the effort. It plays really well, the drops are very snappy, the bumpers fast and reactive. The play field decal that patches the centre of the Flash area doesn't seem to affect the ball travel. The electronics have all behaved and the sounds are cool - I still grin when the 2X bonus or eject hole sounds go off. My highest score is 770k on a five ball game. The only downside I can see is that it makes my other games seem pretty tired and sloppy, but it does look good next to Firepower.

 

Thanks for reading, some pictures to finish.

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_6077a.jpg

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_6102a.jpg

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_6085a.jpg

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_6103a.jpg

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_6114a.jpg

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_6111a.jpg

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_6119a.jpg

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Flash/IMG_6090a.jpg

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