Surf Champ postlude

2 weeks ago a man drove all the way from Thunder Bay and grabbed Surf Champ.  He had errands on the way, but think:  Thunder Bay is 17 hours away from Ottawa by car.  He definitely wanted this game!

It was one of those special pinball moments:  You could tell from first contact that this pin was important to him.  And when he arrived he appreciated everything about it.  From the way it played, to the way it looked, to the way I had documented it's revival back to fully functional.

He related a story that a family member had an arcade that he grew up around, and had played Surf Champ back when it was new.  First time playing it, when just 6 or 7, he was playing against an adult.  First time on it, first ball, and he apparently wrapped it to 100k+.  Pinball wizard indeed.

I am super happy to know that it has gone to a very appreciative home.  Such is the magic of pinball.

Surf Champ: DID SOMEONE ORDER A PERFECT GAME?

FFFFFIIIIIXXXXXEEEEEDDDDDD!!!!!

Yessssss, just in time to hopefully sell it, Surf Champ is playing 100%.

Without a tilt, you forget sometimes how MUCH a tilt bob adds to the game.  The drama of each shake!  The trepidation of each potential save!

I used alligator clips to wire in the tilt bob.  I like this method, similar to how I set it to free play, because it is easily disabled when need be.

I was also not happy with the final ball performance, ye olde BX relay.  Final balls means double bonus automatically, so this was important!  But it turns out the BX was fine, and it was other sub relays controlling the double bonus.  I cleaned them, and also cleaned the player unit in the head, and now it is running A-OK.
The player unit position was the main component in the circuit for those sub relays, so by far the most obvious part to approach.  Sanded it down, cleaned it with rubbing alcohol...

then used some fabbo PBR grease on the contacts:

Surf Champ is an awesome game.  Now, it is also perfect.

Surf Champ: flipper fixed, plastic fixed

Surf Champ is coming together nicely!

Finally got an A-5141 coil and soldered it in as a replacement for this on the left flipper:

Check that out on the Pinball Medic Coil Chart:  A-20095 is referred to as a Gottlieb Super Flipper.  Pull in ohms of 1.55, but HOLD ohms of 35.5!

A-5141, the factory default, has a 1.7 pull ohms and a hold ohms of just 6 ohms.

So this 20095 is NOT for this kind of machine.  I wonder if it was put in just because of the slang name for it?
Since the 20095 coil had a 6x higher ohms, it couldn't hold the ball, so when it tried to catch it, the flipper would depress until the EOS switch opened up, activating the PULL ohms, with strong strength, thus causing an annoying flutter.  And a total inability to hold the ball.

Now it plays great!  Yaaaay!


The game also had one broken plastic, up near the drops.  I took it out and it was quite warped, so I flattened it using my oven technique.  I then superglued it together, then coated the back with a low-tack plastic sheet.
When putting it back on I also used lexan washers on all posts to minimize future ball impact.

looking good!

All that's left?  Well I was just reminded there is no tilt attached in the game.  Like, not even a snipped wire as you might normally find.  So I should probably try and rewire that up.
Also the final ball (BX) relay does not seem to be snapping on right now, so I will look to clean/adjust that soon.

Surf Champ: BONUS!

Surf Champ is coming together nicely!

I took care of a few big things in a flurry of activity.

I have been slowly swapping all of the bulbs in the game to LEDs.  I do a bit here and there, each time allowing a period where I can marvel at the new levels of GLOW and make sure it's the right bulb in there.
And it is finally all done!  Wow, the game really shines.  The only bulbs I don't do are the 10 match # bulbs, because, why, really?
And I try and follow some simple guidelines.  Coloured LEDs should be sparsely employed.  If the playfield bulb can be seen directly, use a warm white.  If it's fully shield, use a natural white.

the bonus lights are all on one convenient bracket, thank god.

I've come up with my new favourite method for working under the playfield:  Rip it out, and lay it down!
I don't have room for a playfield rotisserie (but omg those are awesome,) so I am settling for stretching is across my couch and table, propped with pillows on either end.
Classy, I know, but it gets the job done.

EMs come apart in to primary parts mercifully easy

The left rollover wasn't properly awarding the double bonus.  quick inspection:  Both contacts were not aligned to be activated at the same time, so when a ball quickly went through (or as a slight airball,) it could happen that only the switch with the smaller gap was being hit.  Corrected that quickly.

I then spent a lot of time on the KS relay, which is a small stepper unit mounted to a relay bracket.  I had done some preliminary cleaning before, but it still was not progressing properly.  I wish I had the skill and confidence to take it apart fully, because I think it will need that attention eventually, but I did the best I could from the outside.
It appeared old grease in it had solidified, so I did what I could to get it out of there and get the movement back in full.  I used Q-tips and 99% rubbing alcohol and started advancing it manually, cleaning each part of the cam and gears I could get to.
I also cleaned the external contact discs again, as the active bonus light was wavering sometimes during game play.
I was a bit discouraged while doing this, but after I got it playing again?  I had done it!  The KS relay was stepping perfectly, and with each spinner spin the bonus light was cycling.

I'm just going to pretend this is a meaningful picture to include.

Last but not least?  The big project I started discussing in the last post:  fixing the switch on the drop target bank that should close when all 5 drops are down.
After consulting with a fellow pinballer that had a Surf Champ, and taking notes from a shot of a Spirit of 1976 drop bank which also has the same feature, I knew I needed a plastic spacer.
It probably used the kind of spacer they separate leafs in the switch stacks, but I had no spares.  I even checked the bottom of the cabinet to see if it had fallen down there.

Next step?  Check for shit around my house that is just the right size.  Light, sturdy, plastic.
Bingo:

ZIP TIES TO THE RESCUE!

Yes, I snipped the head off a medium sized zip-tie and it was perfect.
Using the peak of my manual dexterity (my god be grateful I never tried to be a doctor,) and some super glue, I managed to get it in place!  I originally glued the top and bottom, but the top came loose, so I tried to press it on the bottom plate.  Then in the end it stuck best to the leaf, somehow!  So, fine, it's on the leaf.
I sanded excess hardened glue from the plate.  I then had to adjust the switch spacing so that the "natural" position, with no pressure on it, has the switch closed.  Then when any of the drops are up (reset position,) the spacer is opening gap.

This is far more epic than the picture lets on.

I ran a test and HOLY SHIT IT WORKS!  5000 points awarded, drops are reset, and the outlanes are both lit for an extra ball.


So what's left?  Only 2 things I can think of:
The left flipper still needs fixing.  I think the coil is too strong, and it can't provide proper voltage on the HOLD when a ball comes at it.  Ordering a new A-5141 coil.
The plastic behind the drops is broken.  I was thinking of getting a new set, as they are still available from Pinball Resource, but I will leave that decision up to the next owner.  For now I think I will try and repair them with crazy glue or epoxy.

Surf Champ: fixing the bonus reset issue

When I got Surf Champ the past owner had two main problems with it that caused him much frustration:  Sometimes the playfield wouldn't reset, and the 2nd player score would never roll the ten thousands.
The HUGE problem, as it turned out, was the 6B relay popping the 10A illumination circuit fuse.  That was a big investigation, and finally solved, and I have no idea if he was aware that the rollover switch was bent away, effectively hiding that wasp's nest.
The score reel issue was simple, cleaned and adjusted the contacts.

So the next big issue for me to tackle was the non-reset issue. 
I quickly observed that when the bonus was too large and the ball went in to the outhole, the game shot the ball to the shooter lane before reseting the relay banks and drops, effectively "saving" your ball.  i.e. you would keep your rollover and drops target process.

To get started, I inspected the relays list:

A few key ones:
K:  Bonus Score Relay.  Seems straightforward.
Q:  Game Over Relay.  I wanted to inspect this one because the game also ends prematurely due to this issue, even though the bonus fully countsdown.  (although not scoring entirely)
O: Ball Return Relay.  The issue starts when the ball hits the out hole, and the cycle ends with the ball getting kicked in to the shooter lane.

click to make bigger

My eyes went to the subtract bonus unit solenoid.  It is activated by the AX relay as part of the reset cycle.  Below that, it is entirely controlled by the K relay.  I thought this part was fine since even though weird stuff was happening, the bonus was being fully subtracted to zero each time.

CLICK TO MAKE BIGGEST

OK first let me gripe about these terrible reproduction schematics being sold at places like Marco.  The print quality is shit.  You can barely make out letters, especially not O vs Q.  Not because they are small, but because the printing is fuzzy.
And where there are fold lines, all the print has disappeared.  Gah. 

Remember with these schematics:  the switches are all in the state of ball 1 player 1, ball in the shooter lane.  so that means zero bonus.   To the left of the "Ball Return Switch" (the out hole) is a make/break switch for the zero position of the bonus unit. 
If there is bonus?  Activate K.
When there is no bonus?  Activate O.

Check the bonus unit switches:

This was our obvious culprit:  incorrect gapping at the top make/break switch.  Both side are making contact.  Thus when the ball hits the outhole, K is energized, and locks itself on until the bonus is at zero.

But O is also energized so when the motor is advancing the ball gets kicked out prematurely before the full after-ball reset cycle has been able to happen. 
K is locked on and not tied to a motor position, but much of the reset cycle is.

I cleaned and gab this make/break, and voila, the bonus is now counted properly.



Up next?  Well after solving the 6B issue, I have been enjoying the fine gameplay of Surf Champ.  Getting all rollovers hit to light the spinner and left/right rollovers is a big task, but a few things still weren't happening:
On the playfield itself it says:

When the rollovers are lit and the drops are down?  No reset on the drops.  No 5000.  And the bottom outlanes are not lit for Extra Ball & Special.

That would be relay 7B.  Not something that would have been used much, what with 6B being a trap to pop your fuses.
I did a quick trace on the schematics, and besides relay 6B being active, relay 7B needs a switch for all targets being down.   A quick glance under the playfield and I found this:

like an alien landscape

Like the relay 6B bar, this is another mechanical switch.  A bar goes across all 5 drops and when they are all down the little dark "T" shaped piece of metal recedes a tiny amount. 
The switch goes from open to... open?
I've never seen this style before, but you can see tiny drops of glue on either side of the "T" and one on the switch.  Obviously something had been there before and worn off.  A prior makeshift fix that didn't last?

I'm going to investigate that a bit.  Soon, I will have you, my extra ball!!!

Surf Champ: score reels

Quick update:  One of the problems with this machine was that the 2nd player 1000s rollover was not advancing the 10000s reel, thus meaning that after 9990 the score would reset to zero on a 10 point hit.
I did a quick inspection (and golly gee whiz is this machine clean, it must have been totally redone at some point,) and cleaned the contacts with a flextstone file.

After that, the 10000s reel advanced properly when the 1000s rolled over past 9000 to 10k.  But suddenly, the game started getting stalled in the reset sequence, with the motor running continuously.
I had seen this problem before, no?  Back with Royal Flush!
So first thing I did was using a chopstick and test the "zero position" contacts in the player 2 score reel, since that was the one I had fiddled with.  I had surely just misaligned something, but that did not fix the situation.

I was still able to play a game:  With the score motor chugging, I manually advanced the player unit solenoid to continue the reset sequence.

So I tried a 3 player game:  The test would be to see if it was actually a player 2 issue.  Players 1 and 2 are controlled by the Z1 relay.  If 1 or 2 were having a problem with their zero switches, it'd be stuck on the Z1.
But all 3 players reset before the motor got stuck in its loop.

So I did a 4 player game, got score on all reels, then reset.  The game then reset perfectly.

What this insinuates for me is that perhaps some dirt got in to the zeros contacts of the player 4 switches, and that caused the snag.  After a few 4 player games, the problem did not return so the contaminant seems to have dislodged itself.

Surf Champ: blowing the GI fuse: investigation!

It has been a long time since I've talked about my little Surf Champ.  It is still here, but has been out of commission.  Why?  I started with an easy problem.  Then quickly got stuck.
On my "list of things to do," a big one was noting that the final rollover wasn't being hit.  A quick inspection and the switch was obviously bent away, so no way it could register.  I bent it back to a proper gap, went back to playing, hit all of the rollovers and... ..  FIZZLE ... POP.  Lights go out.

The switch was bent away for a reason:  When all 5 rollovers are collected, the 10A illumination circuit blows.
Wait, what?

OK so underneath the playfield, right at the back, is a bank of relays of the various scoring game states.  There are 5 relays, one for each rollover.  And a 6th nestled in amongst them, called 6B.  When all 5 other relays are down, 6B goes down and lights the spinner and the left and right rollover lanes.
But 6B isn't a coil, it is a special coilless relay.  It has a single spring and a long metal bar that spans it and the 5 other relay coils.  It pushes on them with a bit of tension, and when all 5 relays are down, that bar can be pulled in as well.

First up though, I checked all of the wiring under the PF.  If this was only occurring when 6B was active, I inspected for shorts amongst the relays, shorts and loose wires under the playfield in the areas where 6B lights things up, etc.

one of the few lights activated by 6B

All of the components connected and activated by 6B seemed to be A-OK.


While I had the playfield up I came on a critical discovery:  6B was not blowing the circuit when the playfield was up!  Ooooo that's a big clue.
It could be fine up, but then once lowered, when almost down flat, it would blow again.


The first thing I intuited was that the spinner changes position as the angle gets lower, maybe something was up with that?  6B does light the spinner for 100 points.  The spinner and associated relay all seemed to check out, but I was able to also give them some loving adjustments.

Then I checked for any dangling or loose wires under the playfield that would shift as the playfield descended, but that checked out.
so with the playfield seemingly fine, I focused on the relay itself.



This is no small thing, as the stack of relays at the back of the game are a touch imposing and rather difficult to get deep in to.  I took the playfield out and laid it suspended between a table and a loveseat, and was able to open up the rack bank and inspect things more closely.

notice the slight leaf alignment on the left

Not really knowing if a slight mis-alignment or weak connection could cause a power transfer issue (I've been astounded by less obscure things before,) I loosened the leaf stack, straightened it out, and tightened it agian.  This did not fix the problem.

Next theory was that when vertical, the gravity gives the 6B spring extra bull to bring that bar down.  When the playfield is in it's normal horizontal position, there might not be enough pull, bringing it to a poor connection.  Maybe?  Nope.
I struck down that quick little theory by having the playfield up, but then unhinging the relay bank, thus the relays would be aligned in the same manner as if the playfield was normally down.  With the playfield up and the relays down, 6B didn't blow anything, thus effectively ruling out the relay bank.

I did some testing with the alignment of the playfield, figuring how far it has to go down before the circuit goes wonky.  I even took the playfield out and lowered it mostly flat, juts away from the back of the machine, and it seemed to work then.  (that turns out to have been a fluke, and acted as a red herring in my investigations)

What was left?  Well when the playfield slides in to place there was one odd thing near the back: a big black block stuck to the wall.  Turns out this is an isolation transformer.

oh hello there, mystery box.

The power cord goes in, and the main transformer is plugged in to this one.  Turns out they were required by Ontario Hydro, back in the day, to separate machines from the central ground.  This would ensure that if something shorted internally, and someone touched this and another game, they wouldn't get high voltage through them.
This also meant that they also sucked power continuously when plugged in, even if the game (and thus main transformer) aren't turned on.  And almost nobody operates EMs outside of personal collections, so totally unneccesary.

115 in, 115 out???   stupid transformer!

My brain gurgled up a theory that HEY, maybe this transformer had an electromagnetic field, and that the 6B bar, being 6 relays wide, might be blowing the circuit when the playfield is lowered down towards this!  This theory was quickly corrected and dismissed by people that Know What They Are Talking About, but my research revealed that this still had to go.

I had to wait a while to get help taking the head of Surf Champ off to get access.  I used to think I was Ok strong since I can help move furniture around the house, but I am not Pinball Strong.  I can't lift an awkward 4-player EM head solo.  Or at least not safely.

This has got to be one of the densest things I have ever lifted!

Extracting it was fairly easy, and I spliced the external heavy duty line cord in to the meh weak one inside the machine, going in to the transformer.  Spliced, soldered, and capped.
When I sell Surf Champ, I will be happy to report the dead weight of the isolation transformer is no longer involved in the move.


But let's not forget why I was there in the first place:  No, this didn't fix this issue.
On some advice to do so, I went back to the harness with renewed vigor.  Then, 5 minutes later, I found the issue.  The issue I had spent weeks hypothesizing and spinning my wheels on.  The issue that had taken me to repair and fix a bunch of other stuff on the machine in pursuit of MAYBE THIS IS IT???

This was it:

Look at the leftmost black wire.  The shielding has rubbed through against the light bracket.  Very very very hard to see, since it's dark gray coated by black, but that is what was doing it.

Wrapped it in electrical tape, problem solved.  Played some Surf Champ.  On to a new challenge!

Introducing... Surf Champ!

It was the perfect scenario:  I was done working on Out Of Sight and itching for something new.  I got in touch with a man who had a Surf Champ that needed fixing, but he was a bit far out of town.  He proposed a trade:  His not-so-working Surf Champ for my massaged + shopped Out Of Sight.  He gets a fully working game, and I get a great project.

Looks like a pretty sweet game, and its definitely one of the more popular 70s Gottliebs.
That juicy center spinner looks wonderful, but all of the action is on the drops and rollovers.  At 10 points a spin, that spinner is just luring you to the pop which can send it SDTM.  Wait until it's lit...

I did a quick clean with Novus 2 and it's already looking better.  This game has great colours, but a bunch of dirt visible if you zoom above.
I will tabulate an order of LEDs of course.  All basic stuff.  What's wrong though?

The prior owner outlined 2 major sources of frustration:
1) the game was sometimes not resetting the drop targets
2) a score reel would advance to zero after 9990.

After playing a round of games, I came up with a more extensive list of issues:
- Left flipper is wonky and flutters
- Right flipper is weak
- top rollover lights never advance
- player 2 score reel does not increment the ten thousands when rolling over the thousands
- 4th rollover light switch is unresponsive
- game gets stuck at certain times, not resetting anything, and serving an additional ball.  Then later randomly advances
- slings need much alignment
- there is one cracked plastic

These are all things I can look in to!  I will have to take a break for about 2 weeks, but I am looking forward to getting in to these issues.
I will also do all of the regular maintenance:   cleaning the steppers, cleaning contacts, waxing, getting LEDs, etc.
I can't wait to play this game at full force!

Speaking of which, I did notice the manual suggesting a 3.5 degree incline.  Nuts to that, 6.5 all the way!!!