Jungle Lord came home... first pin.. need help

Malice95

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So I picked up a Williams Jungle Lord pin. Its in rough condition. Missing a
few plastics near the flippers, some playfield wear in the middle, backglass paint is cracking
near the bulbs. Cabinet is in okay condition. I got it for free.. so cant
expect a lot for free:)

The original owner says it has board problems, in fact he actually had a
rottendog replacement board in it and the game was working when I first saw
it, but he didnt want to part with the rottendog board so he put the original
boards back in. Even with the rottendog board in it had display issues. All the
displays worked but the numbers dont display right. He indicated it was
probably a problem with the display driver board.

Bunch of questions...

1. Where can I get a better or replacement backglass?

2. Where can I get the plastics I need to replace?

3. The legs are rough. Who sells replacements for this machine?

4. How do you repair wear on the playfield?

5. Technical... So powering it up.. everything lights up and the main
board has a little LED "0" on it and two small LED's lit. Any idea
what this means? The game is dead otherwise. (pic below)

Where should I start getting it running?
Does anyone repair these boards?

Thanks for ANY help you can offer. I'd love to get this thing going.

Thanks,
Mike

(Sorry about the crappy cell phone pics)

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I'm not aware of any artwork having been reproduced for Jungle Lord, so you're stuck with the used market for any plastics or the backglass. There's numerous guides online for repairing the playfield wear. For the most part, it's all about painting it, but lets get it running first and then we'll deal with the playfield wear.

Unfortunately, you've got a good and proper locked up board set. Generally tough to diagnose, but easy to repair once you've ID'd the problem. Generally though it's an issue with connectors, particularly that interboard connector, or sockets. The 6821 chips on the driver board are also pretty commonly dead too, which causes this. Got a chip burner? As there's a great diagnostic EPROM out there, commonly called a LEON test rom.

Here's a link that goes significantly in-depth on that boardset, which is a Williams System 7.

http://pinball.flippers.info/system6repairpart1.asp

Now, do the LED's on the board blink first, and then stay on? Or they just stay on, with no blink? Also, try removing that lower board and watching the LED, sometimes that can help isolate which board the problem is on.

-Hans
 
For a free pin, it looks pretty good - including the playfield! I've got a friend who has one, with a few extra plastics - if you can specify which ones you're looking for, I'll see what he's got available, and what kind of shape they're in.

As for the backglass - typical. Rare to find one of these where the backglass isn't flaking/missing paint in my experience; do what you can to stabilize it (IE clearcoat it), but it's pretty rare for these backglasses to come up for sale from what I've seen.

Legs are commonly available from most pinball parts sources - cost of shipping is typically what eats you up, so if you can wait to buy a pair at a show (assuming you have any in your area), that may save you a few bucks.

For the booting issues - could be any number of things, but start by making sure your sockets are good, address any corrosion issues, and make sure the interconnect section is solid between the CPU board and driver board (common to see fatigued/broken pins in the female housing on the driver board) - those are all common sources for a no-boot situation.
 
The original owner says it has board problems, in fact he actually had a rottendog replacement board in it and the game was working when I first saw it, but he didnt want to part with the rottendog board so he put the original boards back in. Even with the rottendog board in it had display issues. All the displays worked but the numbers dont display right. He indicated it was probably a problem with the display driver board.

Very likely it does have board problems, the System 7 boards are notorious for issues. The good thing is that when you fix the boards, it should work, since it was working with the Rottendog boards.


1. Where can I get a better or replacement backglass?
Ebay, and good luck. You can also put a part wanted post on Mr Pinball Classifieds, be be prepared to pay $200-$300 for a backglass in good condition, as they are very rare for this machine. Personally I would coat the back with Krylon Triple Thick to seal it and not worry about replacing it, it looks better than most I have seen.

2. Where can I get the plastics I need to replace?
Ebay, and lots of luck. You can also put a part wanted post on Mr Pinball Classifieds. Alternatively if you can find someone who has scanned those plastics, you can print them out and laminate them between two pieces of lexan (from your local hardware store) and use those, not the best solution, but it works.

3. The legs are rough. Who sells replacements for this machine?
You can clean up the legs unless they are really deeply pitted from rust. I have used a wire wheel, and then waxed them to seal them. I have heard of people using various rust removers or even electrolysis (google for more information). Legs are heavy and expensive to ship. Also check with your local pin collectors, someone probably has a set they will sell you.

4. How do you repair wear on the playfield?
Very carefully. I use Testors Enamel paint, then several coats of wax. I didn't see any major issues with the pictures, so it was in better shape than mine. It probaly can use a very good cleaning, using Novus 2, magic eraser (very carefully) for the dirt in the cracks, and then a good waxing to seal the playfield. Again, search this forum for ideas and suggestions

5. Technical... So powering it up.. everything lights up and the main
board has a little LED "0" on it and two small LED's lit. Any idea
what this means? The game is dead otherwise. (pic below)
I would have to look at the manual for this, and I sold mine years ago. (Also see next answer)

6. Where should I start getting it running?
Does anyone repair these boards?
yes there are several people who repair boards. Clive at Coin Op Cauldron, is one, search here and at RGP. You can also repair your own boards. PinWiki has some information, and Mark's Guide is here:
http://pinball.flippers.info/system6resources.asp
There are two main issues with these old System 7 machines. The first is the 4 pin interconnect connector from the CPU to the driver board (must be replaced for reliability), and the other are the low quality PROM sockets on the CPU board, (replace these too). Once these two issues are fixed, then you can start troubleshooting the boards. As for the displays, you coud also have issues with the displays themselves. there are also replacements for these as well.

Manuals and schematics, and reference pictures are here:
http://ipdb.org/search.pl?any=jungle+lord&searchtype=quick

Good luck, the Jungle lord is a good fun playing game.

Nice score for free!
 
Funny that earlier this year was a string of Gorgar's coming back to life, and I've seen an unusual number of Jungle Lord's the past week or so. Kinda cool how these machines seem to come up in batches.

Geese is right, it shouldn't take much to fix, that machine is in great condition for the most part. Though I've found in the past more boards locked up due to a bad PIA chips on the driver boards than anything else. The 40-pin interonnects tend to make things more into intermittent problems. By the time System 7 came around, Williams had stopped using those awful Scanbe brand sockets, so not a huge issue there.

-Hans
 
Generally though it's an issue with connectors, particularly that interboard connector, or sockets. The 6821 chips on the driver board are also pretty commonly dead too, which causes this. Got a chip burner? As there's a great diagnostic EPROM out there, commonly called a LEON test rom.

Here's a link that goes significantly in-depth on that boardset, which is a Williams System 7.

http://pinball.flippers.info/system6repairpart1.asp

Now, do the LED's on the board blink first, and then stay on? Or they just stay on, with no blink? Also, try removing that lower board and watching the LED, sometimes that can help isolate which board the problem is on.

They just stay on solid when I power up.. no blink. What does that mean?
 
For a free pin, it looks pretty good - including the playfield! I've got a friend who has one, with a few extra plastics - if you can specify which ones you're looking for, I'll see what he's got available, and what kind of shape they're in.

If you look at the first picture in my original post.. I believe I am missing the
plastics that cover both of the metal rails that lead into the flippers on the left and right. All the other plastics look good. Just missing a couple screw caps here and there.
 
I dont think that Jungle Lord had plastics over the metal rails. I know Black Knight did not (until the repro proto ones were made).

I have all the System 7 boards from My Black Knight machine. They were giving me issues intermittently, so I replaced them with the Rottendog boards. Not sure if they would help you out or not, but if you think they would, PM me and I can see if I can dig them out.

Chris
 
They just stay on solid when I power up.. no blink. What does that mean?

If they blinked first, then lit up, it usually indicates a problem with the ROM chips. No blink means it's a board hardware problem.

If you pull the driver board, and they still don't blink... chances are the problem is in the CPU board. If you pull the driver board, and they DO blink first, the problem is likely in the driver board.

Not tremendously difficult to repair those boards in this condition, just a matter of being systematic and tracing things step by step. (usually). Does take a few diagnostic tools though, most importantly a test ROM and a test LED at minimum, and certain parts can be tricky to replace if you don't have a good desoldering rig.... especially that switch matrix PIA, usually baked pretty bad.

-Hans
 
Silverunicorn;1832538 I have all the System 7 boards from My Black Knight machine. They were giving me issues intermittently said:
That would be a big help if I could snag your driver and mpu board. At
minimum they could help me isolate which board has the issue in my set.
 
If you pull the driver board, and they still don't blink... chances are the problem is in the CPU board. If you pull the driver board, and they DO blink first, the problem is likely in the driver board.

I pulled the driver board from the MPU, reseated all the connections
and powered up. Still no blink and the machine started ringing a bell solid? I
powered down immediatly.

Not tremendously difficult to repair those boards in this condition, just a matter of being systematic and tracing things step by step. (usually). Does take a few diagnostic tools though, most importantly a test ROM and a test LED at minimum, and certain parts can be tricky to replace if you don't have a good desoldering rig.... especially that switch matrix PIA, usually baked pretty bad.

So if I assume its the MPU at this point. What would you test fisrt? Got a
link to this test rom?

Redo all the solder joints?

What are the areas/chips that tend to go bad on the MPU?

I have a decent desoldering rig (blackjack 4000). How should I go about
isolating the issue?
 
If you look at the first picture in my original post.. I believe I am missing the
plastics that cover both of the metal rails that lead into the flippers on the left and right. All the other plastics look good. Just missing a couple screw caps here and there.

Jungle Lord did not have plastics to cover those metal rails that seperate the inlanes from the outlanes.

http://ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=1338&picno=7073
 
JL plastics

I too have a jungle lord and have alot of extra plastics for it as well as some rare prototype plastics. all are in good used condition. pm me for more details thanks
 
Hope you get it all fixed up. I love the art on this machine. One of the early run ones with the red cabinet keeps popping up on CL here and ive been tempted to adk about it.
 
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