*phew* what a ride it's been with Apollo 13, but I am ecstatic to report the moon is back in action and kicking butt.
We replaced the banged-up magnet, the shorted coil, and rebuilt the moon driver board. Then we replaced a bunch of stuff on the control board, which might have ended up being unnecessary. Why? Because we had the wrong transistor on the moon aux driver board! We used an IRF540 transistor, instead of the proper replacement IRL540. DANG. Huge thanks to Ottawa tech Sylvain for spotting our problem.
Either way, here it is in glorious action.
Glorious!
All that remains is fitting a new plastic above the moon standups so that the ball doesn't get stuck in there. I had tried re-glueing and reinforcing the broken old plastic, but that lasted less than a day with the ball getting whipped at it.
So the moon has issues. We know this.
And if you google "apollo 13 moon magnet" you'll discover that many people also have problems.
Sorry moon, you are the weakest link.
TIME TO BLOW UP THE MOON.
moon with the blue moon ramp removed.
Based on what I've read, common things going down when the moon isn't behaving:
fuse blown (located at the far back, underneath the playfield)
transistor wonky on the moon board (under the playfield, on the right hand side, partway near the front)
moon coil issue
moon magnet issue
So quick recap:
The fuse list at the front of the manual says 4A. The schematics say 3A, and apparently there was a service bulletin (can't find it, just mentions on forums) that it should indeed be 3A SB.
What did I find under the playfield? 6A.
The transistor on my board was probably bad, the fuse didn't blow, and the magnet stayed on for long periods of time, giving a slight melt to some of the nearby plastics, melting itself a bit, and making the coil toasty.
Old magnet vs new magnet:
TAKING APART THE MOON
There are small E-Clips on either side of the moon assembly, where it rotates. Get those out of there with whatever magic you can muster.
Then use a small screw driver to remove the screws going in to the moon on the right side.
You should then be able to force the moon out of the bracket holding it. Be careful not to stress the two wires going up inside the moon and connecting to the coil.
Then the moon opens like a Kinder Egg, revealing the glorious toys: a coil and a magnet.
The magnet has a threaded hole/bum and is sitting on a screw on an internal bracket. I had to use a wrench to loosen it, but then it screws off and it and the coil are ready to be stared at in horror.
your prize inside is a fried coil and a potpourri of burnt plastic smell!
to get started, you can grab this wonderful service bulletin (#80) which includes a "theory of operation" of some of the moon board logic, as well as a great quality schematic.
(I also found another service bulletin that reminds us to change F21 in the head from a 5A to a 3A, which I did)
Magnet was changed, as the old one was smashed. Coil was changed, as the old one was crispy and shorted. It read just 0.3 ohms, while the new coil read an appropriate 4.7 ohms. There was an internal break in one of the wires to the moon, and that was fixed, providing proper continuity. And after all that? We go in to solenoid test, run MOON GRAB, and still barely any effect. Something is happening, but certainly not enough to stop the ball as it is whipping around the ramp.
I initially had some confusion about the tiny board, but I found this excellent video showing a test on the board:
This illustrates how the board itself just creates an ON/OFF condition for the moon magnet.
It is the preceding logic (which is on a board with the 7-segment display, under the playfield, under the red subway,) which controls if the board get an ON signal (which is what GRAB is,) or a 10% duty cycle ON signal (which is what the HOLD is)
We figured something was wrong on the aux board, and rebuild it with all new components. This did not solve the issue.
But one thing to note: There are two components on the moon board that are not in the schematic. Based on what I can see from others on pinside, this is a common fix that must have been done at the factory line. There is a resistor from pin 1 to 5 and a diode from pin 5 to ground.
So that board was rebuild. The board that precedes it was looked over by a tech and some solder was reheated, but nothing obvious. Still no solution.
We ran a test to verify that the magnet + coil are indeed OK: We bypassed the moon board and put 50V to the coil and the magnet + moon kicked like a mule. It was unmistakable.
Then with the board in we tested the voltage drop across the magnet: It was going 76V to 66V, so only 10V across the magnet, which is why the grab was so gosh darn weak.
(while the schematic shows +50V, I was told seeing 76V isn't out of the ordinary for the high power. An initial guess was that the transistor was out of spec at 76V, but I guess not)
At this point I am wondering if the control signal that comes in from the computer?
Or something else that is causing the voltage drop to be so inadequately small?
Dirt dirt dirt dirt dirt. Apollo 13 was dirt all the way down. The playfield and ramps had an almost greasy buildup, and clear plastics were rendered opaque. I had dealt with Baywatch before, and while Apollo 13's teardown wasn't quite as convoluted, it had many more parts. Lots of pictures, lots of bins. And only a few washers left over at the (almost) end. Ooops. Critical mission: replace all lights with LEDs. this game is DARK and the shroud of filth wasn't helping. Neither were all of the blackened bulbs that had not been changed in 2 decades.
Exhibit A: this lighting board from beneath the playfield:
ewwwwww
For future reference, let's review the steps in tearing down the playfield:
Stage 1 Remove the clear protector on the bottom right, including the lander toy, whose connector has to be detached beneath the playfield. Heck, while you're at it label the connectors of, and unplug, all of the flashers. Remove the left and right return wireforms. Detach 2 connectors (switch and lights) beneath playfield, and remove the plastic moon ramp. Then remove the small plastic to the right of the moon ramp, to get access to a screw there. You can then remove right wireform that is few via the left orbit/ramp
Stage 2 Then remove all of the plastic from the left hand side and around the rocket. Then remove plastic around the right hand side, and around the moon.
At this point you will have full access to the moon assembly, if need be. And yeah we need that.
Stage 3 But I wanted to clean EVERY surface of this game, so teardown continued. The butyrate plastics around the moon were trouble, melted in to the screw posts as the moon was malfunctioning and getting wildly overheated. A mess, but with careful applications of force I was able to separate them.
The upper right orbit is covered by a metal ramp and instead of removing it I decided to remove the metal edge plate and get in and clean the playfield there from the side.
by lifting that metal plate, I could clean the orbit shot without remove the lifting ramp.
This is what I consider the bare minimum of removal to clean ALL of the playfield. And it's looking gooood
The diverter that feeds the 8-ball storage had 3 big screws connecting it to the back, and could be easily separated from the controlling solenoid.
3 bolts hold this on to the back
I added tape to this lone solenoid so that the sleeve would stay put.
I was very paranoid about the upper left corner. 8 balls are stored there, and the membrane they sit on costs $200 USD to replace. Detached the connector (CAREFUL CAREFUL) beneath the playfield. The gunk was bad on it, but I used q-tips and rubbing alcohol to clean as much as I could off of it.
The back left and right corners are grand achievements to reach. Oh so happy to remove the GI bubs from back there, get it shining, and then install LEDs.
this corner = my nemesis
Oh and can never forget under the apron!
before!
after!
Quirks! A tragic little operator hack, which I believe led to the smashing of the plastic above the moon target... Seems an operator was missing a half-height rubber for a post, and instead installed a metal spring. And affixed it via inserting a screw in to the playfield.
I was having frustration with ball rejects on the far right "mode start" hole. It's a hard enough shot to hit, but a ball going up and popping out was too much. So look what I found in there: Little bits of a smashed plastic post from the shot's entrance.
A quick glance at what cleaning the pop bumper caps can do:
Oh hey, we are STARTING TO GLOW!
I know lots of people on pinball sites have LOTS OF OPINIONS about what a shop job should include, but I reject a bunch of what they keep on their lists. All new targets? All new plastic posts? Tumble the screws shiny? Not for me. My shopping goals: - Get all targets and switches working - make sure flippers are awesome - clean all surfaces - LEDs everywhere - all new rubbers Get it working and playing 100%, get it clean, get it shiny. And preferably for a minimal cost.
Some more before and after:
dirty
dirty!!!
AHHH SO CLEAN!
You might have noticed the moon has fallen to pieces... More on that in a separate post!
At this point in the cleaning, I just now have to face my nemesis: THE UNDER PLAYFIELD SUBWAY!
Yep, 2 swaps in one week. First up Eight Ball Deluxe was swapped by it's owner for Alien Poker, and now someone else took their Raven out and dropped in a little APOLLO 13!
Definitely a welcome upgrade!
After playing a few games the day after we got it down, suddenly the ball drained and the game started to act confused.
Turned it off then back on, game said 4 balls were missing? hmmm?
Slide the playfield glass off and then *SNIFF* a huge whiff of the far too familiar burning smell. Something's smouldering. Slide to the back, unplug it right away.
OK OK OK OK, what's burning? I immediately feel the heat radiating from the MOON. Darn this is HOT.
I accidentally touch the magnet and OMFG the thing is intense. The magnet is as hot as a soldering iron.
I tend to my finger burn and come back with some ice, press a piece against the magnet and it SIZZLED.
Yes, after a few minutes of being unplugged the magnet was still hot enough to turn ice in to steam instantly. I went through a few ice cubes and the hot magnet just ate right through them. Ridiculous.
I AM THE MOLTEN MAGNET FROM HELL. FEAR MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Remarkable that the moon itself didn't liquify. Some damage, but hardly visible from the front.
So what happened?
First thing I checked was the fuse under the playfield at the back, it's supposed to be a 4A slow blow, but in there was a 6.3 (?) fast blow. Ooops.
There is a small board that helps control the moon under the playfield on the right hand side and the transistor on that had an issue.
The moon got hot, the fuse failed to blow, then F21 blew on the driver board.
The game failed to properly advance the balls in the trough, so they were between the trough switches, and that gave us the 4 balls missing error message when the game was turned back on.
I am leaving the moon fuse disconnected, disabling it in the adjustments menu, ordering a replacement transistor for the small moon control board, and replaced fuse F21. Back in business!
Next up, the right flipper was not returning to it's proper position so we went in to change the coil sleeve. In doing so we found that one of the screws holding the flipper assembly to the playfield was clean snapped off. The coil stops were also heavily mushroomed.
So with the playfield up, coil sleeves on both sides were replaced and the coil stops were sanded. A proper screw will be secured next week.
One thing that bugged me about the game was when a ball was shot in to the shooter lane, it made SUCH A BIG BANG. Very unpleasant, so I used my adhesive padding and now it's not like a knocker hitting every time a ball is loaded.
Without that padding, it sounds like a replay knocker each time a ball is loaded.
In the solenoid tests I noticed not much happening on the ramp up/down, which is the ramp at the back of the playfield. Shoot the left orbit, and if the ramp is down, it loads to the ramp, and if up, a full orbit.
The solenoid plunger was very very dirty and binding, so it got cleaned with a magic eraser and alcohol, and I put a new sleeve in there as well.
Now the ramp is lowering and raising just fine.
The game was in pretty good shape overall, but intensely dirty. Exhibit A: the wireforms.
The bottom wire I had cleaned and is what they are supposed to look like. The other black wireforms? Those are the same but covered in crud.
With rubber kit in hand, I started with the easy stuff: All the rubbers from the outlanes and down, cleaning as I went.
I also started switching to LED GI. You can see the difference with the coverage, as the 8 LEDs are in the lower portion:
This game needs lots of lighting, stat!
Most of the bulbs in the game are black with soot. I think it will really be suited to a full LED conversion, especially the dim inserts.
And one last point of note: The right inlane plastics were swapped by a prior owner to hide the fact the clear plastic, which is supposed to be on top, was damaged. I put it back where it belonged.
