Bally Home Model replacement boards

For a Series 1, why not hack in a Peter Chou video game power supply for just the +5 and +12 volt sections to the gameboard?
 
Well, I finally had a chance to look at my fireball, and it is a series 1, so I guess I'm stuck fixing what got for now. Let me know if I can help out on you getting a series 1 power board replacement together.

Perhaps an adapter board so that only one power board for both models or are voltages different?

Input voltages from the transformer are different, and the Series 1 has a 12v that the Series 2 doesn't have.

Similar enough though that I don't think it would be a long design process to follow up with a series 1 power board after I do the series 2 version. But will still need a different layout.

-Hans
 
For a Series 1, why not hack in a Peter Chou video game power supply for just the +5 and +12 volt sections to the gameboard?

The thing is, it's either my 18v or 22v section that keeps burning tracesnoff of the board. I haven't had a chance to actually work on it, but a Peter Chou won't help me out with this.
 
The thing is, it's either my 18v or 22v section that keeps burning tracesnoff of the board. I haven't had a chance to actually work on it, but a Peter Chou won't help me out with this.

You should put a fuse on that circuit while you're at it. If you're burning traces I assume that there is either no fuse or an overrated fuse.
 
The series 1 power supply had NO FUSES at all on the secondaries of the transformer. So all it takes is one shorted component on the power supply board or one shorted coil on the playfield to smoke the power supply!

The series 2 board I worked on had no fuse in the 18 vac winding. It had burnt traces on the board due to shorted diodes. In essence, the burnt traces became the "fuse" so to speak. Series 2 has circuit breakers mounted on the transformer box assembly. These breakers cover everything but the 18 VAC winding.
 
Well I got power to the CPU board and it is done too it seems... If playfield connections we're the same between series 1 and series 2, I'm ready to convert. I also have an interest in designing the CPUboard if you don't mind. Looking for a project for a little while now (as if I don't have enough) and I'm curious to get my game runni.
 
Well I got power to the CPU board and it is done too it seems... If playfield connections we're the same between series 1 and series 2, I'm ready to convert. I also have an interest in designing the CPUboard if you don't mind. Looking for a project for a little while now (as if I don't have enough) and I'm curious to get my game runni.

Not much really to a design on the CPU board, it's a brutally simple layout compared to any other pinball machine. I was just going to duplicate the original for the most part, with only the LED displays needing any actual design work that I can find so far.

As to the power supply, here's what I've got for the Series 2 schematic. Moving on to the layout now.

http://www.siegecraft.us/pinball/images/bally s2 psu.bmp

-Hans
 
Huh, thought I had responded to this one already.... guess it didn't go through.

Like Lindsey said, there's a few things making it tough to consider an exact replacement. The big three are the nearly impossible to find processor, the size of the board, and the third being the need to re-engineer the LED displays. Series II boards are a lot more simple, and if I can find a source of piggyback processors the rest can all be worked around. Series 1 would likely have to be re-engineered, and again is dependent on finding those processors.

Not even looking into that at all until the power supplies are already rolling, which I am mostly over-complicating on my own end. However, here's the current schematic that I'm working with on them. The main thing holding me up is the capacitor values..... never did a power supply design before, and switchers are more finicky on capacitor choices. But it saves massive amounts of board area in just heatsinks as compared to linear supplies, plus all the usual benefits of less heat and power use.

http://www.siegecraft.us/pinball/images/bally s2 psu.bmp

If this works out, moving to a Series I power supply will be easy..... just add a 12v circuit. But will have to be a different board due to the voltage inputs and outputs being different.

-Hans
 
Perhaps you could consult with Rottendog on this design? They've got pretty good design on their products. Plus, they have a large distribution network of dealers to get the completed products sold.
 
Sorry guys, I just haven't had squat for time to work on this at all. Been way too busy with a lot of things over this summer.

I've still got my notes and some preliminary designs, but right now I'm going to officially say that I've shelved the project for the time being for a couple of reasons. I've got some other things I need to get done first that are more in line with what people have been asking me about, and that the market is bigger for.

I'll try to get back to the power supplies over the winter, but honestly the CPU boards just aren't going to happen any time soon.

-Hans
 
Been dabbling with it, but haven't got anything solid just yet.

Given the size of the market, I'm actually considering sticking with linear regulators just for the sake of keeping the layout simple and easy.

I may also run it separately with the PSU and a separate fuse card, so that people can add a fuse card to existing units if they don't want to spring for a full power supply.

And if I can, I'd like to have a single board layout for the series I and series II, just stuff them as needed. That would be a huge cost savings for me in the long run.

Right now though all my funding is tied up in the Firepower EPROM adapters, once I get those kicked out the door I should be able to get moving on other ideas.

-Hans
 
I've added even more to the Bally Home Model pinball repair page at pinwiki today. Also edited it to be neater looking.
 
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