Specializing in WPC/90’s games, I work on and perform board repair for all major solid state machines from the 80’s to moderns. You can find various posts about projects here on my website.
Based out of Arlington, TX, I perform house calls and take games in on request that need extensive work. I’m also a competitive tournament player, you can find me at major events throughout the greater DFW metroplex.
Contact me on Facebook to discuss your game project or service needs!
The Machine This Bally Twilight Zone (1993) came to me from Oklahoma City, where it had spent over two decades sitting in an outdoor shop. Years of red dust and grime had worked their way into every corner of the machine, and it needed serious attention before it could play again. Note the Oklahoma tax stamp from 1998 on the apron, and the owner said the game has essentially been kept in storage at his shop since. All the boards inside were numbers-matching original and had no work done prior which is pretty astonishing. ...
The Machine This Bally NBA Fastbreak (1997) came in purchased from a home owner who had kept it for over 20 years. The game was in great cosmetic condition, but had some gameplay and sound issues that needed solving. A good starting point, the cabinet and playfield were in great condition. Battery Corrosion The game had battery corrosion, though thankfully WPC-95 machines use a plastic battery tray instead of an open frame holder, so the damage was far more contained than what you’d typically see on an older WPC game. Corrosion was cleaned and abated before anything else was touched. Again people, check your batteries regularly! These had expired over 10 years ago! ...
The Machine This Williams High Speed 2: The Getaway (1992) came in with two issues — strings of GI lighting were dead or dim, and the game would occasionally refuse to boot. Both turned out to be related to the same issue — bad IDC connectors. The Problem The factory IDC (Insulation Displacement Connector) headers used on WPC games are notorious for failure over time where high current is involved, usually the GI strings and input power to the driver board. As they age, contacts loosen, get pitting or corrosion in the plating, the connection resistance increases, which generates heat. The heat degrades the connector further, which generates more heat — a cycle that eventually ends with a melted, burned connector and dead GI strings or boot/reset problems. ...
The Machine This Williams STTNG (1993) came in needing attention on all the classic STTNG things; trough optos, the left gun mech, the main opto board, and a poor prior LED swap all needed addressing. STTNG is probably the hardest WPC game to maintain is which is unfortunate, as the game is really fun to play (when it’s working well). Trough Opto Repair Trough opto failures are extremely common on WPC widebody machines. Over time the opto board connector solder joints crack and fail, or the opto pairs themselves just die and stop reliably detecting balls. All trough opto connectors were reflowed, which resolved most of the issues — but one opto pair was still reading marginal after the reflow and had to be replaced outright. It’s still worthwhile to repair these boards as a set of new widebody trough boards are still $100 for some reason. ...
The Machine This Stern Guardians of the Galaxy came in with a seized Groot jaw lock mechanism, with a $80 driver board that had paid the price for it. What Happened The Groot jaw mechanism uses two alignment rods and a motor with gearbox to open and close the jaw for ball locks. Both rods are retained by two e-clips, and on this machine, one of the upper e-clips had broken and allowed the rod to fall out of position. With only one rod in place, the jaw lost alignment, rotated some and eventually bound completely. ...
The Board This WPC-89 MPU came out of a Judge Dredd. The game had stopped booting entirely and was showing intermittent direct switch issues before it gave up — two classic symptoms that point straight to MPU corrosion damage. Diagnosis On WPC-89 MPUs, battery corrosion is one of the most common failure points. The onboard batteries leak if not replaced often, and the corrosion spreads across the board under the batteries, taking out the switch matrix components and traces underneath. In this case the corrosion had only reached U16, one of the LM339 comparator ICs responsible for the direct switch inputs, which explained the switch issues prior to the full boot failure. ...
The Call Got a call from a recently sold ToM that had started behaving strangely after delivery; the game would boot fine, play fine, but during gameplay the game would trigger the memory protect switch and cause the “COIN DOOR OPEN” warning continuously, making gameplay nearly impossible. Diagnosis On WPC games, the coin door interlock switch does double duty. It enables the service buttons, but in later games with the voltage interlock switch, the game will also flash a warning stating the 20 and 50v rails are disabled so the operator is aware. ...
The Game This Williams BSD (1993) came in completely untested to sort out, and ended up having a handful of common BSD issues — a non-functional mist magnet, no display, and various switch problems. BSD is a notoriously unreliable game when it comes to software and the mist magnet system. The original MPU had been completely destroyed by corrosion after sitting in storage for 20+ years in Houston (supposedly). MPU problems Upon receiving the game, the MPU was instantly thrown out as it was completely destroyed from battery corrosion. With replacement MPU installed, the front cabinet switches were MIA, and upon inspection of the harness at the MPU, corrosion had also gotten into J212, with one wire completely breaking off after pulling on each wire some. After cutting out the old J212 connector, repinning with a .100 Molex connector, all switches were back to registering. ...