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Tri Zone - WMS 1979


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Tri Zone - WMS 1979 - System 6

 

In my ongoing quest to own every early WMS solid state pin I grabbed a Tri Zone the other day, it's a fun game with different approaches to scoring which came out in 1979 on system 6 boards. It was released at a time when pin was doing ok but arcades starting to gain momentum. It's a space theme with girls in tight pink costumes - seems plausible! It was released before Time Warp and was reasonably popular for games of this time.

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4285_zps4miuuw5a.jpg

 

 

The machine I got was playable but a bit rough and would benefit from some cleaning up - I generally aim for a clean player level machine. I don't mind putting some time into this work.

 

I didn't really take any pics as I got it, but started work on the cab first, it had a bit of delamination on the front, the rear is chip board as is typical for these pins and was suffering from being moved around.

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4288_zpsns6nhfl1.jpg

 

 

I glued and weighed down the loose bits

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4290_zps2cnh0blc.jpg

 

 

When that's dry I fill with builders bog

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4307_zpsaofzqdl5.jpg

 

 

and a lick of paint after sanding to make the problem less obvious, it's not perfect but better and in keeping with the rest of the cab :)

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4417_zpsbnnwwm4i.jpg

 

 

Here's the rear of the cab that gets hacked away as the pin is moved around

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4291_zpsqwvoan4q.jpg

 

 

I level it off and install a filler piece of wood which is glued and nailed in position

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4305_zpscqxge83x.jpg

 

 

and then fill the gaps with builders bog

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4306_zpsbivd7anj.jpg

 

 

If the power cord is damaged or aged I replace it with a new one. I normally buy theses as made up extension cords from Bunnings as they are cheap and then cut the tail off. It means I've got a few tails so I thought this time I'd use it as a service outlet - never really been convinced these are much use, but I thought why not, maybe handy to a future owner?

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4418_zpsvhumklmv.jpg

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Tri Zone - WMS 1979 - System 6

 

In my ongoing quest to own every early WMS solid state pin I grabbed a Tri Zone the other day, it's a fun game with different approaches to scoring which came out in 1979 on system 6 boards. It was released at a time when pin was doing ok but arcades starting to gain momentum. It's a space theme with girls in tight pink costumes - seems plausible! It was released before Time Warp and was reasonably popular for games of this time.

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4285_zps4miuuw5a.jpg

 

 

The machine I got was playable but a bit rough and would benefit from some cleaning up - I generally aim for a clean player level machine. I don't mind putting some time into this work.

 

I didn't really take any pics as I got it, but started work on the cab first, it had a bit of delamination on the front, the rear is chip board as is typical for these pins and was suffering from being moved around.

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4288_zpsns6nhfl1.jpg

 

 

I glued and weighed down the loose bits

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4290_zps2cnh0blc.jpg

 

 

When that's dry I fill with builders bog

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4307_zpsaofzqdl5.jpg

 

 

and a lick of paint after sanding to make the problem less obvious, it's not perfect but better and in keeping with the rest of the cab :)

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4417_zpsbnnwwm4i.jpg

 

 

Here's the rear of the cab that gets hacked away as the pin is moved around

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4291_zpsqwvoan4q.jpg

 

 

I level it off and install a filler piece of wood which is glued and nailed in position

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4305_zpscqxge83x.jpg

 

 

and then fill the gaps with builders bog

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4306_zpsbivd7anj.jpg

 

 

If the power cord is damaged or aged I replace it with a new one. I normally buy theses as made up extension cords from Bunnings as they are cheap and then cut the tail off. It means I've got a few tails so I thought this time I'd use it as a service outlet - never really been convinced these are much use, but I thought why not, maybe handy to a future owner?

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4418_zpsvhumklmv.jpg

Wow great job!

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Aussie Arcade mobile app

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The playfield was ok but would benefit from a strip and clean and a lot of the plastics needed flattening

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4318_zpse9exwqoi.jpg

 

 

cleanup with magic eraser and alcohol, this improves a lot of ball swirl particularly in the yellows

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4358_zpskboeh1y1.jpg

 

 

There was mylar on the lower half of the pf in pretty good condition so it was just cleaned and polished

 

 

I strip the under apron metalwork because it always seems filthy

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4370_zpsh1pevjlr.jpg

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4377_zpsnoichsb2.jpg

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4380_zpsmmlvzrxo.jpg

 

 

the apron before had stickers and left lots of sticker residue which is a pain to remove

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4297_zpspzmjjap7.jpg

 

a citrus solvent gets most of it off and you have to be a bit careful to not go to hard or you loose paint. This is how it finished up, so it's a lot better

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4387_zpshfdeoz5e.jpg

 

 

I give all the metal work a polish as it looks better and will be easier on the ball

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4390_zpsw47tnd3l.jpg

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4374_zpsxtg2tgch.jpg

 

 

the drops were pretty sad

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4395_zpsxnbvxyt1.jpg

 

so new water slide decals with a wrap of mylar

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4401_zpspbqvi3qo.jpg

 

 

and some plastic flattening, before

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4408_zpsnanj1uuq.jpg

 

and after a few minutes work with the heat gun. I warm them gently and you can see them relax and flatten.

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4409_zpspil6qicf.jpg

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Nice work so far! That playfield looks pretty sweet!!

 

I like the repair on the back panel of the cab where it was chipping away, i did pretty much the same thing just a few days ago on a Flash that i'm currently doing up to sell (as i recall i did that to another Flash i sold about a year ago too!)

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  • 1 month later...

A bit of an update for Tri Zone;

 

I washed the harnesses as best I could and cleaned and adjusted the switches and cleaned and the lamp sockets - for a few that were dodgy I solder the inner nipple to the wiring lug to get a reliable connection.

 

Did a bit of board work, the standard psu stuff of dropping the display voltage, checking fuse values and diodes and a renewal of the large 5V filter cap. I added the extra inlet fuses to the solenoid and lamp bridges. The mpu that came with the game was a Rottendog combo board but because I'm a retro nong I prefer original boards if possible so I reconditioned a sys6 board I had around and skybeaux was able to burn me a rom. Basically renew the inlet power filter and blanking circuit caps, reflow the headers and add a super cap for the battery. The driver board got new 40 pin connector, filter cap, installed links in place of the switch col drive resistors and replaced the lamp drive transistors with mosfets.

 

While the boards were out I give the metal shielding in the head a clean and polish up and removed the extra wiring, bodges, links and spurious additions that always seems to have found its' way into these old pins.

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4445_zpshegkzitp.jpg

 

 

Every thing booted up which is always nice to see :)

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4446_zpsdidx4jhd.jpg

 

 

When I connected the pf for some testing you could see there was something wrong with the lamp matrix. A few lamps were lighting in pairs. The lamp test on these games is not very sophisticated - it just flashes all lamps on and off so reveals little except for blown globes or entire row or col problems. Sometimes a lamp socket diode has failed but they all tested ok. At this stage it's handy to work out if the fault is play field side or coming from the mpu / driver. I have a little tester that I use mostly on the bench but it can be used on the pin too.

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4453_zpspzzhqbts.jpg

 

 

This, when examined in conjunction with the game manual, showed the mpu / driver were behaving correctly.

 

The next step is to inject voltages into the play field and observe lamp behaviour. A bit hard to see in the picture but there are a few alligator leads grabbing 5V from the mpu test points that are used to power a row and then step across each column - this, together with the game manual should reveal more.

 

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/Pinball_pictures/Tri%20Zone/IMG_4454_zpsua26osze.jpg

 

 

Two of the bumper lamps were lighting together which is not correct. It was handy to watch utube vids to verify this. What should happen is the lit bumper scores 1000 and the unlit ones score 100 - only one is lit at a time and each rotation of the spinner rolls the bumper lighting around. Looks really cool when you hammer the spinner. With attention directed towards the bumper I found someone had previously bodged in some extra wiring - I'd speculate maybe they thought the bumper should all be lit together or maybe a dodgy lamp socket? Anyway I removed the non standard wiring and all was good.

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  • 8 months later...

Because photobucket no longer allows remote linking all the pictures are broken. As a temporary fix

 

If you go to http://s1134.photobucket.com/user/Pinball_pictures/library/Tri Zone you can still see the thumbnails.

 

http://s1134.photobucket.com/user/Pinball_pictures/library/Tri Zone

Edited by Fire_Power
fixed links?
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