A baby is RE-born: BABY PAC restoration project

[zapposh]

Ok, so I studied Ully's post that Etienne brought to my attention about changing voltage. After that I found some additional info, so we're making progress.
Here a shot of the corresponding schematic. While not as simple as in the other case, where the jumper cable can simply be switched, this is not complicated either. The jumper need to be changed in the main molex connector to input 240V.


Here is the molex to be modified:


I saw that to remove pins from recent molex plugs, there are sort of tiny little metal bits on the pins to press inwards, then the pins fall out. But here I cannot find such little metal strips, so I'm looking out how to remove the jumpers to adapt the to the schematic above. Brute force is not an option just yet. ;-)

[zapposh]

I forgot about the post above.
I also have a 3 amp slow blow fuse in at the moment. Nowhere in the manual or schematics to the y mention changing it to a 1,5A slow blow fuse once I'm inputing 240V. Should I change it anyway, or leave it be, as they don't specify this change?

Then there is another issue, still about this whole power stuff:
The power cable the has the US plug and arrives at the power board is not only rotten, but broken open at where the back door closes (must have been caught in the door many times). So I'm going to change the wire.
Here is the shot of where it arrives:


Here it is cleaned up: (one of the only parts of the game I have not de-oxydated and polished)


And here the close-up.

What do I do with this lovely little red circle thingy (resistance?)? Leave it on, or get rid of it?

It says:V130l A10A

[Etienne MacGyver]

Leave it out, or replace with a varistor that can handle 240 Volts
this is for 130 volts, and will blow, like Ully's

I know there is a molex tool for extracting those pins.

When you modify your jumper, be sure to mark it as 230 Volts to avoid future confusion.

[zapposh]

Ooops, ok, just read the post, thanks. :-)
Is it safe if I leave it out?

[Etienne MacGyver]

I think it can left out.

passage from the same post as before

Read the complete post for various reasons:

1. there is alot of info there
2. Its a wonderfull restauration of our famous restaurator Ully  

About your fuse, i think you will be fine to leave that as well
I mean if there is a major short, a 3 amp will blow also 

[zapposh]

Two cups of coffee later...
Excellent post! Lots of useful info. Ok, I'll just leave out the varistor.

What about the part for removing 30 year old molex pins? Any "trick" for doing that? I would like to avoid cutting the wires and making new pins, as I would have to order all the stuff and that will set back planning by a couple of days...

Next question coming up...

[Etienne MacGyver]

You can try to use the smallest screwdriver from this set for example to press the little hook inside and "wiggle" the pin out



I have been succesfull with that on PC molex connectors like these:



Or if you have a piece of pipe that has the inner diameter of the pin, and outer diameter that fits inside the molex connector you can use that..
(thats basicly what a molex tool is   )

[zapposh]

Faster than lightning answers. :-) Great. I'll give it a try with the tiny screwdriver.

[zapposh]

Ok, my next point is rather more important, as it concerns gameplay, and I would like the game to play the way it way meant to initially.
It's about the angle of the flippers.

This is what my board looked like when I got it just over a week ago. The coils were blown, both of different powers (what were they thinking?), and the springs went to hell, so I have no reference here. Both angles are different on top of it:


What you often see on the internet are shots like this (this is NOT my table):

In this case the flippers match two metal bars that lead down to the chute, that are hidden by the covering plastics. With this setting I suppose it is very easy to aim for the side lanes and holes. The hard point is that you cannot "catch and control" a ball as the angle of the flipper does not go high enough.

Then there is an example here that I think makes sense, at least "visually":

The angle exactly fits the the angle of the plastics, which sort of looks cool and maybe was meant to be that way?

Shot of the same table, built in:

To me it looks good.

After completely stripping my table, sanding it down to the bone, renewing, sanding, polishing and de-oxydating every screw, part, fuse, resoldering cold solders and wiring on all bulbs, changing all coils & bulbs and rebuilding the flipper mechanics from scratch, I am now at this stage:

Looks veeeeeery differents from one week ago. :-)

By the way, of all methods I tried, rolls (soft and hard), sponges, pads and so on, my new very best friend for applying decals is a silicone cake/cream topping spatula, used for baking. It has exactly the right pressure, does not scratch, and is amazing for spreading out the decals and removing air bubbles.

Here you see the metal chute bars that some people adjust angle to that I mentioned above:


And here is the way I did it to match the angle of the plastics, that I just overlayed for taking the pic, they are not yet fitted:


The worst thing is that when you watch youtube gameplay vids or other pics on the internet here and there, the is NO consistent angle!!! I cannot find this info anywhere.
Does someone either have this info, know where I can find it, or just sharing his "feeling" about what would be correct, before I tighten the whole thing for good. :-)

[zapposh]

Just found a scan of the inside of the Baby Pac flyer. Not that easy to tell, but it seems they matched the angle to the metal chute bars, and not to the plastics. Not sure though.

[Etienne MacGyver]

Found this Pic, looks like you are right about the alignment of the flippers with the metal bars:

[zapposh]

Ah yes, that shows it all! You're right, I have some extreme re-adaptation to do now. :-)

[Superully]

that looks amazing, fabulous work on the playfield!

i have one question: what is de-oxydating?

[zapposh]

So, as the whole thing just seemed unusable and could not even be tested since the fuses just kept blowing on startup, I decided to go with the visual side of things first.
First, out came the very poor looking playfield of the pinball portion of Baby Pacman.
Flaking paint and chipped wood, rust and oxydation everywhere, desintegrated bits from the rubbers sort of intertwined with other parts...Blown coils and springs, cold solders everywhere, well , this looked like it was going to be fun for a first job. :-)

So out comes the playfield:


I was sure I took many pictures from the underneath of the playfield, but I cannot access them now. Flickr limits you to 200 pics in a standard account so not all the pics are displayed. Anyway, what must be noted is that underneath it is full of light holders, wires, coils and other stuff, all delicately fitted.
So you cannot just take out the playfield and place it on the floor or the table. You need to build a "servicing structure" for it.

Also, all these electronics underneath go practically to the edge of the table, so you need to build the structure with very thin planks of wood, not to damage anything. Then cut out what stil is in the way and would damage the electronics. Finally, the box looks like this:



Then you place the playfield on top, and start stripping everything off:



Remove the mylar from the bumper areas, for it not to get mixed up while sanding and create a gooey mess:



The black frame around the board is held with these. Now these are hell to remove. Some people just cut them and leave them in the board, but I did not want that.
With a very thin spatula I went under the frame planks and very slowly started lifting little by little. After about 20 minutes, and the plants were loose enough to be pulled off. Then I hammered these pins down, and removed  them with pliers from the other side of the board.



All protruding elements had to be removed too:


Then comes the sanding.

[zapposh]

that looks amazing, fabulous work on the playfield!

i have one question: what is de-oxydating?

Thanks. I clean every part that has oxydation spots with WD-40, and then bathe it for a night in vinagre. In the morning it looks like new.