My first pinball pickup

tnglc79

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I am going to be picking up two pinball machines tonight and wanted to see what kind of responses I can get on these as I am not experienced with pinballs at all. I can fix a completely dead arcade machine so I have no problems with circuitry, cosmetic, or mechanical repairs, and am sure I am not getting in over my head, but I am looking for advice on potential costly mistakes with a pinball machine.

They are Space Shuttle and Space Station.
Both are complete, but I would give them a D on overall. The glass is good in both, the play-fields look like they are in great shape through dirty glass. All the rubber is ruined for sure. I just want to know if there is any information as to what not to do, what I should do that can help me through a successful repair on these guys.

Any info, links, websites, personal stories, any thing is much appreciated.

Thanks!
 
The first thing to do is check the batteries on the CPU boards. They can leak if not changed, and ruin the PCB. Get rid of the old pinballs and put new ones in - they can be had for $1 a piece.
 
Thanks! I just got home with them. The Space Shuttle is a little rougher than the Space Station, but both I believe are repairable. Time to see what the pinball world has to offer.
 
Thanks! I just got home with them. The Space Shuttle is a little rougher than the Space Station, but both I believe are repairable. Time to see what the pinball world has to offer.

all the pinball world has to offer is an empty wallet....

Congrats on the pickup!
 
Empty wallet........CHECK!

So I did a once over on Space Station when I got it sitting in my work area. The machine st or at least 15 years and it does have alkaline damage on the CPU. Even though it looked horrible at first I cleaned the junk off and am not too upset with the results. Looks like a few bad traces, but I believe I can repair them fairly well once I get the board on my bench.
 
I have a Space Shuttle and have done a lot of work to it to get it playing great. Feel free to ping me if you have specific questions or need anything! I'd definitely check the batteries, then replace the balls and rubber and start going through and seeing what needs adjusted and replaced switch and light wise. Both are real classics imo!
 
I have a space station and really like it. The batteries are a killer on both these games but worse on system 11 (station) because the board is rotated 180 and the battery is at the top of the main board. But you are lucky in that both system 9 (shuttle) and 11 are super similar.

A thing to watch out for on both are the special solenoids as they can lock on and burn up the coil and driver transistors and more. Don't listen to what people say about system 11b special solenoids being CPU controlled. Mine are not and will lock on if a switch gets stuck closed. The special solenoids are the 3 jet bumpers 2 slingshots and the right dock kickback (which is weird but they probably ran out of solenoid slots on the board)

The other thing on system 11b is that the first 16 solenoids and flashers share the same 8 circuits but are controlled by a relay which determines which fires. If the relay doesn't work you will get solenoids to fire when the test says it is a flasher. If the relay is stuck on you get the opposite. It took me a while to GROK this. I think this is not how shuttle works but can't remember.

A really cool thing on station is that the GI lights are 2 controlled circuits and when multi-ball starts (code green) the regular GI turns off and the green GI turns on. I don't like colored LEDs in GI because it makes every game look the same but green LEDs instead of the bulb condoms is an awesome mod. Also the chase lights in the backglass are great with LEDs also.

Kenny
 
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