1979 Stern Magic

elfyhead

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anything to watch out for on these machines? one came up locally for fairly cheap.
 
Same stuff you'd see on an early Bally - acid damage on the MPU primarily, lots of cold solder joints, solenoid driver board cap kit, and the rectifier board probably will need some care as well.

All pretty much the same, except the sound board.
 
so i went and looked at it earlier.

they are asking $300. boston pinball lists the average at ~$600. i offered $200, but they haven't responded yet. we'll see.

anyway, the report. tell me if i'm crazy for offering $200 :).

some backglass flaking. i assume this is common for this era game (i haven't looked at anything earlier than the early 90's until now!)? is there a repro backglass for this pin?

game works - my kids played a couple of games. all the coils and switches work, as far as i could tell from them playing. it's missing the rollover down by the flippers in the middle of the playfield. i assume this is an easy replace?

a few missing or burned out bulbs. less than i expected, actually. and the rubbers are in decent shape - looks like it was "shopped" at some point in the not-too-distant past, at least for bulbs and rubbers.

playfield is not in terrible shape. plenty of wear, and dirty, but not excessive, at least to my eye, though i'm not experienced with this era games. there were lots of those little cracks, and a few deeper and longer ones, but none of them affected the ball roll at all while my kids were playing.

cabinet not in bad shape (again, assuming for this era). a few nicks and cuts here and there, and some flipper button wear. one corner gouged out of the backbox (but not excessive).

opened up the backbox - things look very clean there. there are no batteries, it must predate that, so no acid damage. the electronics look good.

lifted the playfield, and it also looks very clean underneath. only one home-fix electrical tape job, and it looks to me like original bally/stern coils etc.

possible alphanumeric display oddities - when it's started up, all 4 displays start up with a nice bright "00". after playing for a bit, display 4 blacked out, and display 2 started ghosting on the third digit from the right. not sure if this is serious, or a simple electronics fix.
 
so i went and looked at it earlier.

they are asking $300. boston pinball lists the average at ~$600. i offered $200, but they haven't responded yet. we'll see.

anyway, the report. tell me if i'm crazy for offering $200 :).

Doesn't seem crazy to me (I did read the rest of the post).

some backglass flaking. i assume this is common for this era game (i haven't looked at anything earlier than the early 90's until now!)? is there a repro backglass for this pin?

Backglass flaking is extremely common with that game. There is no reproduction and probably never will be.

game works - my kids played a couple of games. all the coils and switches work, as far as i could tell from them playing. it's missing the rollover down by the flippers in the middle of the playfield. i assume this is an easy replace?

Should be an easy fix.

playfield is not in terrible shape. plenty of wear, and dirty, but not excessive, at least to my eye, though i'm not experienced with this era games. there were lots of those little cracks, and a few deeper and longer ones, but none of them affected the ball roll at all while my kids were playing.

Playfield wear is common too. I've seen that game a few times with bad playfield wear. The planking and ball swirl might clean up with magic eraser but don't go crazy.

opened up the backbox - things look very clean there. there are no batteries, it must predate that, so no acid damage. the electronics look good.

Batteries were invented over 3000 years ago :p

There would have been a battery originally. Fortunately someone removed it before it leaked all over the MPU. You'll want to either install a remote battery pack or an NVRAM adapter (assuming you want scores and adjustments saved).

possible alphanumeric display oddities - when it's started up, all 4 displays start up with a nice bright "00". after playing for a bit, display 4 blacked out, and display 2 started ghosting on the third digit from the right. not sure if this is serious, or a simple electronics fix.

Some will suggest replacing all the headers and connector pins on the displays right off the bat. Those pins don't carry a lot of current and typically don't need to be replaced every time (IMO). Re-flow the solder on the header and the display glass, clean up the pins with alcohol and it should solve the ghosting and flickering (just did this on a Stingray and have done it many times in the past). If that doesn't solve the problem it's time to look at replacing connectors and "rebuilding" displays.

Just my $.02
 
thanks much, lindsey.

they haven't responded to my offer yet - we'll see. i won't be crestfallen if they find someone to give them $300.

on the battery, i'm confused. looking at the pic at: http://www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=1509&picno=41950 i don't see one. that pic is just what the inside of the backbox looks on the machine i looked at last night. the m-100 is the board on the top left, right? but where is the battery?



There would have been a battery originally. Fortunately someone removed it before it leaked all over the MPU. You'll want to either install a remote battery pack or an NVRAM adapter (assuming you want scores and adjustments saved).
 
ahh, never mind. found some pictures. it'd be at the bottom of the board, to the right and under the lowest IC. yes, some smart person must have removed the battery previously - there was no damage around that part of the board.


on the battery, i'm confused. looking at the pic at: http://www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=1509&picno=41950 i don't see one. that pic is just what the inside of the backbox looks on the machine i looked at last night. the m-100 is the board on the top left, right? but where is the battery?
 
ahh, never mind. found some pictures. it'd be at the bottom of the board, to the right and under the lowest IC. yes, some smart person must have removed the battery previously - there was no damage around that part of the board.

Yeah, the original battery will be on the bottom of the MPU basically in the middle. The MPU is the board on the upper left of the backbox (just stating the obvious). It would look like a white AA battery. No damage there is a very good thing. Corrosion damage is not necessarily difficult to repair just very time consuming.
 
possible alphanumeric display oddities - when it's started up, all 4 displays start up with a nice bright "00". after playing for a bit, display 4 blacked out, and display 2 started ghosting on the third digit from the right. not sure if this is serious, or a simple electronics fix.

The use of the words "nice bright" displays has me worried. I would not play any more games on this machine until you confirm that the High Voltage section of the solenoid driver board is functioning properly. The displays should be at 170 volts, but if the HV circuit isn't working it puts 230 V (ish) to the displays and can burn them up in a hurry.
 
yes, some smart person must have removed the battery previously - there was no damage around that part of the board.

i lied. well, for the first part. the battery was still there. but i got lucky - there was no battery damage to the board.

picked it up today. pics attached. first set shows the backbox - you can see the battery. clipped it out first thing when i got it home tonight.
 

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as i said, the backglass is flaking pretty badly. will have to learn how to triple-thick it...
 

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the cabinet needs a bit of work, but is not in terrible shape...
 

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and the playfield is pretty worn, with a few real fixes to be had. but, hell, for the era, i'm not displeased.
 

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couple of playfield details...
 

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OK, first repair post for this new (to me) machine.

i have two display problems:

1 - the credits/ball in play display doesn't work at all. i'm thinking this is a connection problem, but haven't checked closely enough yet. i'll check it as soon as i get some quality time to spend on the machine - i assume the first thing to do is swap one of the working displays into that spot to check if it's the display itself or the supply electronics?

2 - the player 4 display starts up fine, but fairly quickly goes out. about 20 seconds after starting up the machine, it starts to get sort of, well, "wavy" is the best word i can come up with to describe it. then about 10 seconds later it just blacks out entirely.

video:



any ideas what's going on with that?
 
Nice pickup - That playfield is a LOT better than most I've seen (mine included).

Looks like you did well.

When I got mine I found the connectors on most of the displays had cold or cracked solder joints. I touched them all up and it came good.

I'll replace them when I get to restoring it later on but it's the first place I'd look.
 
you were right, TnP, at least for the player 4 display. after reading the entry at pinwiki, i reflowed all the connectors and player 4 is now happy! :).

but, the credit/ball in play display is still not. dark as dark can be. i'll probably swap one of the other displays over there next. or is there something else to check first?

next problem was that the GI is all dead. completely. i figured it was a fuse. so i lifted the p/f and had a look for that. the fuse is fine, and it gets about 6.8 V at the fuse, so that's not the problem. but the GI sockets definitely get no voltage. not having a schematic is limiting me a bit (i have one on order - should arrive next week some time).

but, when looking at the fuse, i saw the horror that is the power board. pic attached. ugh. hack-a-thon. i'll have to fix it at some point, but i'm not looking forward to it :/...
 

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but, the credit/ball in play display is still not. dark as dark can be. i'll probably swap one of the other displays over there next. or is there something else to check first?


moved the displays around, and looks like that one display is dead. it's sitting in player 4 now, since we won't often have 4 of us playing.

how do i check the 4543 chip to see if it's the culprit on the dead one? pinwiki is pretty vague on that (just says "A quick check with a logic probe will help you decide if the decoder is function properly.").
 
moved the displays around, and looks like that one display is dead. it's sitting in player 4 now, since we won't often have 4 of us playing.

well, my son was playing this morning, and after a while, the player 4 display started to show signs of life. pics attached. segments are missing or dimmer/brighter, but this seems like a good thing, as it means the glass is probably OK, and it's just electronic (which i can fix myself), right?
 

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