Pinball 2000 Repair

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1 Introduction

Pinball 2000 (P2K) was the answer to a failing pinball industry. This was the last system used in a pinball machine before Williams ceased production of pinball machines. The reasons for why Williams ceased production is highly debated and more information can be found here.

This system was a hybrid of conventional pinball with a video aspect. Using a 19" arcade monitor and special playfield glass that is coated to reflect the image, it created the illusion of holographic images on the playfield. This is known as the Pepper's Ghost effect. To be able to handle both the pinball and video aspects of the game, the designers of Pinball 2000 used a commercial off the shelf PC based on a unique graphics and CPU processor, the Cyrix MediaGX. There are two proprietary components, the PRISM card, which contains the roms and booted the PC without a hard disk, and an audio amp. Unfortunately, the software requires the Cyrix MediaGX CPU for its display. The MediaGX did not sell well, and the boards and chips are now hard to find.

Only two games were released using the P2K platform, with 2 or 3 in development when Williams ceased production.

2 Games

• Revenge From Mars
• Star Wars Episode 1
• Wizard Blocks *
• Playboy *

* Denotes a game that was never produced

3 Technical Info

Pinball 2000 was run using a commercial PC with the Cyrix Media GX CPU. The software depends on the integrated graphics in the Media GX CPU to operate. The PRISM card is a PCI card that carried the ROMs, and ran the basic boot process of the PC to run Pinball 2000. Along with the PRISM card, the PC contained a custom audio amp to drive the stereo speakers and subwoofer. Optional pieces of hardware available for the Pinball 2000 system would be the XXX ethernet card and a barcode reader. These worked to be able to access bookkeeping info over the internet and also host tournaments involving barcode based "login" to the system. Currently working on this, including adding pictures

Note that there is a complete drop-in replacement solution if your P2K needs repairs beyond what is covered here. See NuCore for information.

EXAMPLE MOTHERBOARD SPECIFICATIONS
586 GXM-AV
Manufacturer	AVT INDUSTRIAL, LTD
Device Type	Motherboard
Processor	CX GX
Processor Speed	166/180/200/233MHz
Chip Set	Cyrix
Maximum Onboard Memory	128MB DIMM Slots (2)
Cache	None
BIOS	Award
Dimensions	220mm x 170mm
I/O Options	32-bit PCI slots (2), floppy drive interface, game interface, green PC connector, IDE interfaces (2), parallel port, PS/2 mouse interface, serial ports (2), VGA interface, USB connector, audio in – CD-ROMs (2)
NPU Options	No Optional Numeric Processor

586 GXM-AV Motherboard Connections
Purpose	Location	Purpose	Location
Floppy drive interface	CN1	Serial port 1 (COM1)	P1
IDE interface 2	CN2	Serial port 2 (COM2)	P2
IDE interface 1	CN3	Parallel port (LPT)	P3
Reset switch	J1	Game interface	P4
Power LED & keylock	J2	PS/2 mouse interface	P5
IDE interface LED	J3	VGA interface	P6
Chassis fan power	J4	USB connector	P7
CPU fan power	J5	VGA interface	P8
Green PC connector	J6	Audio connector	P10
Audio in – CD-ROM	J7	32-bit PCI slots	PC1 – PC2
Note: The location of P4 - P10 is unidentified.

An example 586 GX Motherboard Layout (your actual board layout may differ)

4 Problems and Solutions

4.1 Entering and Viewing Bookkeeping and Diagnostics

++++Discuss how to enter bk and diags via the door, and how to view the "reversed" monitor.+++

Bookkeeping and diagnostics can be handled in 2 different ways. The more traditional method is to use the 4 coin door buttons, the other method is through the use of a keyboard.

4.1.1 Traditional Coin Door Method

The four buttons inside the coin door

Main operator menu

The first step to this is obviously opening the coin door. Once opened, you will see 4 buttons. From left to right they are: "escape", "minus", "plus", and "enter". The basic function of the buttons are relatively simple. Enter will let you enter a menu or option that you want to change, escape allows you to go back, and the plus and minus are used for navigation, as well as changing any adjustments you select. To enter the menu, start by pressing the enter button. This will bring you to the screen shown to the side.

From here you have many different things you can do. Tasks include viewing the test report, diagnostics, bookkeeping, utilities, printouts, and language.

A sample test report

The test report offers a good general summary of items that commonly decrease earnings on location, or other major system errors. Things like burnt out lamps, switch errors, disabled features, and hardware failures. This area can be seen in the picture on the side.

Diagnostics menu

The diagnostics menu will allow you to run switch tests, lamp tests, solenoid tests, audio tests, video tests, device tests, fuse checks, dip switch viewing, and checksum the roms. The switch test will allow you to view switches that are currently active, as well as map the location of each switch on the playfield. Lamp test will allow you to trigger lamps, one at a time, each row or column, all at once, or the flashers. This is a great tool to see which lamps are working as the onscreen menu will tell you which ones are having issues (shorted or burnt out) as well as telling you where the bulb is with the onscreen map. The solenoid test menu will cycle through all the solenoids and flashers in the cabinet. If you press the enter button you can select repeat, and press it again to stop. Using the plus and minus buttons will let you select which coil to fire. Audio tests will allow you to drive a test tone to each of the 3 channels in the pinball machine as well as testing the "knocker" sound. Video tests provide screens for displaying different patterns that are useful for adjusting the monitor.

4.2 Power Problems

Pinball 2000 PC inside the head

The AT power supply in the PC case is a common failure. If your power supply fails, you have 2 options: 1) find another AT power supply, or 2) Put an ATX power supply into your machine. The first option is becoming extremely hard because of how old the AT power supplies are, so you may not be able to find one. Option 2 involves grounding the green wire in the molex connector of an ATX PSU to any of the next door black wires to force the motherboard to boot. You can cut the wires from the molex and tape them together, or just make a wire jumper link. Then the ATX supply will boot when the AC power is supplied and a load exists.

*** Warning! ***
The PC inside a Pinball 2000 game always runs at 120v AC as it gets it's power from the transformer in the pinball cabinet. So if you are in a country that uses 240v DO NOT plug in the PSU directly to the mains socket with a PC mains lead. If you need to run the computer out of the game to do diagnostics on the motherboard, check that the switch on the back of the PSU is at 240v before plugging in into the mains! Also remember to set any PSU back to 120v before installing it in the game and powering up the pinball machine. I learned this lesson the hard way... and had to replace my AT PSU.

4.3 General PC issues

Inside Pinball 2000 PC

Trim foam to look like this

One of the issues with the PC is that the fan on the CPU heatsink is prone to failure. Once the fan stops working, the CPU overheats and over time will eventually fail. A big factor that causes the fan to fail is the foam piece that goes across the lid. Due to heat, the glue gives up and it sags right down on top of the fan. The best thing to do is to trim it back to just over the PRISM card, which is the foam's original purpose.

Another tip for prolonging your PC's life is to underclock the CPU., which will be detailed here once I pull up my info for it.

4.4 CMOS and Prism card batteries

Pinball 2000 PRISM Card

Pinball 2000 ROM Card

There are a couple coin style batteries used on the P2K computer. One on the motherboard and another between the prism cards. The motherboard battery is a standard CR2032, and the one in between the prism cards is a BR2325 coin style batteries. It would be a good idea to replace these if they have not been already. The prism card battery is sort of an odd size and good luck finding it at your local Radio Shack. If so be prepared to pay much more. These can be ordered online for a LOT less delivered.

4.5 Motherboard Issues

Symptom: Won't Boot
Leading Cause: Bad Motherboard Capacitors

Pinball 2000 Bulging Caps

Pinball 2000 Bad Cap Locations

Pinball 2000 machines use computer motherboards that have capacitors very prone to leakage that tend to puff up and then leak out. Once they puff up, it can cause erratic operation. Once the tops break, even a little, and they begin to leak, it will cause the machine not to boot. Fortunately, they can be replaced.

There are at least two kinds of caps in the Pinball 2000 motherboards in the 5 spots numbered in the picture. One has green caps (bad), and the other light blue (good). The green caps are 6.3v, 1000uf, 105c and made by TAYEH. These are the ones that you will usually find as bulged, popped, or leaking. If you see light blue 10v 1000uf, 105c caps from Xicon, you’re probably all right. I haven’t seen any of these bulged or leaking and your problem probably lies elsewhere.

If your Pin2k computer box will not boot when hooked to an external monitor with the prism card removed, look at the 5 numbered locations in the picture. They are all the same capacitor. If ANY are bulged or leaking replace ALL FIVE. Mouser carries suitable replacement caps. Check for part number 647-UHE0J102MPD. Or, if you want to use a 10v cap like the blue ones, go for it. Just make sure they’re 1000uf, and the same form factor.

When removing the existing caps and replacing them with the newer ones, be VERY CAREFUL. There are a ton of fine traces near the pads for these caps, and this is a multi-layer board. Take it slow and use a bit of new solder to loosen up the existing solder if necessary. Just stay patient, and do NOT overheat the solder pads. Remember, just one “oops” will make this basic repair much more painful or even impossible.

Once you get the caps out, note that the caps are marked with a “-“ and a stripe on the negative side. Just make sure you put the positive back on the positive side and the negative on the negative (the board is marked with a "+" where the positive lead goes).

Once all 5 are replaced, put the machine back together and power it up. If you had the Tayeh caps, chances are you’ve just rescued the motherboard in your pin2k machine for about an hour labor and $1.00 in parts.

4.6 Solenoid problems

Be sure connectors are on coil lugs tight. Vibration can loosen them and burn the lugs. The female spade connectors were used to allow for quick and easy replacement of solenoids. If a lug connection is loose or sloppy, it is best to just solder the wires directly to the coil lug.

If a connector slips off the flipper coils, it could potentially short to an adjacent flipper coil lug, and take out the drive transistor for the flipper coil. The short can occur, because the connections are unfortunately not insulated.

Connections between the playfield and cabinet's interconnect can also be problematic. This can be caused by the playfield wiring harness stressing the connections. If solenoids are not engaging, check these connections.

4.7 Lamp problems

Lamp Test Menu

With Pinball 2000 came some methods to help make operator maintenance easier. One of those features is a burnt out lamp detection. The only problem with this is that if you put LEDs in your machine, they draw too little current to be detected as good and will report as bad to your machine. LED bulbs will also strobe incorrectly for the feature lights after the machine is on for some time. Generally speaking, LED lighting is a bad fit for Pin2k machines, other than possibly the General Illumination.

4.8 Switch problems

The switches are a common failure on these machines. The sub-microswitches used throughout the playfield are susceptible to sporadic or total failure, like some WPC-95 games. Most switch related problems are the switch itself not the switch matrix. Replacement of the switches is the only resolution to make them reliable again. There are 2 common switches in a Pinball 2000 machine which are XXX and XXX.

Problem: Machine reports coin door open all the time
Solution: Check motherboard mount in Pin 2000 computer case

If your machine is reporting this, check the raised mounts under the motherboard in the Pin2k computer case.

Inside the Williams Pinball 2000 computer case, there are 6 raised, threaded metal lugs acting as mounts beneath the motherboard to secure it to the case. However, some of the replacement boards don't allow all the holes to line up. The top middle peg (closest to the power supply) can grounding out on the bottom of the motherboard where there was no hole to secure it and causing the machine to think the coin door was open.

To fix this, cut three rubber mini post grommets in half horizontally to make two small rubber doughnuts and use the six rubber pieces to create insulators for all six posts. Once it's insulated and re-secured to the mounts through the insulator/spacers you made, problem should be solved!

4.9 Monitor problems

Bad idea if charged

The monitor inside a Pinball 2000 machine is a normal low-resolution arcade monitor. Two different brand CGA monitors were put in Pinball 2000 machines, a Wells-Gardener 19K7302 or a Ducksan CGM-1901CW. At this age, most of these monitors could use adjusting, if not a capacitor kit. Working on the monitor or chassis is not much different than working on a video arcade game monitor & chassis. Re-capping the chassis, neck board and re-flowing major solder joints is a good start to bullet proof your machine. If you are removing the high voltage connection to the CRT tube DISCHARGE IT a couple times before grabbing it. You can do it with a long screw driver with the shank grounded. Slide it under the rubber insulating cup, and when contact is made, a pop or snap will be heard. Do this a couple times before touching it. The tube can sometimes have a residue charge, even if it hasn't been turned on in awhile. Always discharge it before touching it. One note on the Ducksan chassis. There is a fuse on the chassis that if blown, it will not discharge a couple big capacitors on the board. If for some reason this fuse is open or blown the capacitors will have a charge until you ground them or touch it. Look for a blown fuse on the chassis before prodding a lot of things.

If you see a blown fuse, discharge the big caps on the chassis. On the upside if you do discharge it with your body you will remember it longer than reading about it!

Another option for Pinball 2000 monitors include purchasing an LCD and mounting it place of the CRT. This option will require a signal converter to convert the low resolution signal to something a VGA computer monitor can handle.

4.10 Video Amplifier

Video Amp

Amp mounted in a Revenge from Mars

Adding a video amplifier to the standard CRT monitor drastically increases contrast and color. This is a fairly simple and relatively cheap add-on. The recommended video amp can be purchased from Ultimarc. Installation is basically feeding the serial cable output from the P2000 computer into the video amp. Wires will have to be attached to the amp's screw down terminals. These are the RGB (Red,Green,Blue) and Sync. wires. These run from the amp output (screw down terminals) to the CRT chassis.

With Wells Gardner, the sync wires can be joined together. Here is a link to the pin outs on a Wells Gardner. You would use the first four pins: R,G,B and Gnd . And the last three: Gnd, V/Sync, H/Sync. The two ground wires tie together. Locations are clearly indicated on the video amp.

On Ducksan chassis, the Sync wires will be separated. If using the Ducksan chassis, there is a small board trace on the amp that must be cut. This is so the video sync is correct. If the sync is wrong, the symptom will be a rolling picture that can not be adjusted. If hooked up incorrectly, there shouldn't be any ill results, except there will not be a picture.

An important point is that your game's PC video card may not output +5v on pin 9, which is needed to run the Ultimarc video amp board. Test this with a meter set to DC volts between pin 9 and the metal shell of the cable supplied with the video amp connected to your PC and with the game up and running attract mode. From experience, Star Wars Episode I won't output the +5v, but the later RFM boards probably willl. If you have no +5v, the upgrade will apear to fail and you get no video. Fear not. Just run a long wire from a spare 4-pin molex drive connector (connect to the Red wire) in the PC out to the Video amp. . The pad it needs to be soldered to is indicated at the bottom of the ultimarc product page. Then cable tie it to the whole length of the supplied video cable leaving some slack at the ends. You don't need to run a separate ground wire, the shield of the cables and other earthing takes care of it for you.

Once the amp is installed and running, it's a good idea to turn the contrast down on your chassis or neck board adjustment pot. The amp will really kick it up a lot from its previous setting. It's not a bad idea to adjust the focus on the flyback too. Re-capping the chassis, neck board and re-flowing (solder) connections are highly recommended. With the amp installed, it's a night & day difference for image quality, color and contrast.

If the existing CRT tube is good, video amp is a nice add on. I am not a huge LCD display advocate for games that originally used CRT tube monitors. The black level of CRT tubes is difficult to replicate with LCD / LED panels. However, that is not to say modern LCD panels don't look good. Since the CRT display is going the way of the 8 track player, I want to keep mine running as long as I can!

4.11 Sound problems

The audio amp inside the PC box is pretty reliable, but if it does ever have problems, there are 2 strikes against it: 1) it is proprietary from Williams, and 2) it is all surface mount components. This makes service and replacement a little bit of a challenge.

The Nucore folks at Bigguys Pinball have created a modern replacement amplifier for Pinball 2000. It is available from Piball Life for $119 and should work as a replacement if you can't fix the one for your game.

4.12 Flipper problems

It should be noted that the E.O.S. switches are normally open.

5 Modifications

Adding Saucer Lights to RFM

I always wanted green LED saucer lights over the ramps on my RFM.

You can buy a kit, but that will be expensive. If you can fix pinball games at all (well you go this far and are reading this site)... then I found an easy mod which has:

• LEDs that are completely interactive with the game.
  
• On when they should be, off during hypno beam and some of the other modes where it would distract.
  
• Keeps count of saucer lights scored.
  
• Patterns are pretty cool. Some scan back & forth, others flash.
  
• You can add a saucer with sequenced lights to the flasher above the SOL hole, if you want. Mine has a red flasher dome with red LEDs.
  
• Cost is very low, although as with most pinball mods some work is required.
  

Still interested? OK, let's go. It's based on an idea from Levi (he's a great guy from the Pinball group based in Brazil) and involves wiring the LEDs into the mothership saucer lights on the playfield. I've had mine connected up for well over a year with no problems running 3 mini-saucers.

Here's an idea of what the mod looks like. Notice how the saucer LEDs follow the Mothership lights on the playfield. This isn't my RFM, but has obviously been done in a similar way.

You will need 8 x 3mm LEDs and 4 x 1K ohm 1/4w resistors per saucer. For wire, I used a long (about 3M) Ethernet cable and cut it in half. This gives you the 6 wires you need to run to each saucer in a neat cable. And the plugs will (just) fit down into the playfield. I used black heat shrink tube at the saucer end to secure the wiring and keep it well hidden running up from under the playfield. You need to remember to add the heatshrink tubes to the cables before soldering on the LED leads.

On the underside of the playfield, I made a junction board out of veroboard and some RJ45 sockets which are for CAT-5 Ethernet. I used 4 RJ45 Sockets, two are for the Front Saucers and one is for the SOL hole saucer and one is a spare. Try to find a 4-way RJ45 CAT-5 Ethernet connector that would be used on a PCB for a Wifi or Ethernet Hub. If not, you can just use separate PCB mount sockets wired together. I also made a connector (12 way socket .156") that goes to the pins under the center of the Mothership lightboard. This goes to the veroboard and there is a 12-way .156" header there for the original connections to the game's COL 3-4B and ROW 3-7B Lamp Matrix.

All the connections are simple and 1:1. It looks like this:
Original 12 way socket (unplugged from beneath the mothership) --> Veroboard 12-way male header pins --> New 12-way socket on a 10" lead --> pins on underside of Mothership lightboard.

It's like an electrical extension cord, which lets you "breakout" the pin connections you want to the LEDs without permanently modifying your game. I believe that when you add a mod it should be able to be "backed out" and the game put back to factory. It might be easier to just splice into the cabling, but that's not the right solution in my opinion.

The 3 x RJ45 sockets are wired in parallel to the header pins and connected to the LEDs as per the instructions here. Lamp 9 (Row 3B) at pin 10 on the underside of the saucer is not used for the saucer LEDs, as there are only 8 LEDs on each saucer.

Do not forget to add the 4 x 1K current limiting resistors to the lamp rows on the underside of all saucers!

Lastly, connect up the saucers the the junction board and enjoy the show. I hope to come back and add pictures and a link to my own youtube video.
If you are thinking clearly when you do this, you can swap the wiring on the LH saucer and make it "spin" in the opposite direction. I think I just swapped: (pin 6 with pin 9) and (pin 8 with pin 7) on the underside of the LH saucer.

The results from this mod are amazing, and well worth the effort involved.

PARTS LIST
Item	Quantity
LEDs 3mm (Green)	8 Per Saucer
1K ohm 1/4w resistor	4 Per Saucer
Cable: 8-core Ethernet	1 x 3M per Saucer
12-way .156" Female Socket / Crimp Style	2 (Trifuricon Crimp preferred)
Trifuricon Crimps (preferred)	24
12-way .156" Male Header	2
RJ45 CAT5 Ethernet Socket	3 (or 4 if you leave one spare)

6 Repair Logs

Did you do a repair? Log it here as a possible solution for others.