Repairing a 1980 Bally XENON Pinball Machine - Fixing All The Beautiful Lights And LED's
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- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
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I love ❤️ the old Bally pinball machines from the 70’s-90’s
OMG Ron, thanks for finally doing one of the golden age Bally pins. This takes me way back to the early 80's in my local bowling alley. Centaur, Xenon, Space Invaders and Flash Gordon were the cool games of the summer. Guess we were lucky to have a vendor that got the new games in. Can't wait for the next installment of "This old Pinball" With Ron and Joe!
You will get ALL YOU WANT Wednesday :) Thank you for watching MacDaddyNS.
My dad had an arcade when I was younger and this was one of my favorite pinball games that he had. I played it almost every day.
One of my top 10 favorite pinball machines.
It is one of those games that has so many great things going on for it. Artwork, colors, sounds, lighting, playfield layout, multi-ball. So many good things going on.
Thank you for sharing this with us.
It's very well done for it's vintage, thank you for watching as always Allan!
Always been my favorite machine since I was a kid & heard her talking at the arcade...her Ohhhhs & ahhhhhs kept my attention!
as a slot tech at a casino, you hit the nail on the head about people thinking the repair guys are hacks and whatnot. we are just trying to get the machine up and going so you can keep playing so we can keep getting that nickel....... but i usually go back a few days with a list and do proper repairs on the machines when its not too busy. Keep up the good work Ronnie!!!!!
Thank you Ronald :) Boy that's a great name, i'll bet you're cool as hell :)
Yay for the new camera! Close up was sharper than the mother in-law’s tongue. All those Amazon purchases finally paid off
She was the best! There was a Xenon in Aladdin's Castle at the mall that I completely owned in the early 80s. Or, she completely owned me. Best not to dwell on minutiae.
This was fun! Thank you!
Legendary game!
Great video, Learned something new on the outhole kicker. File it down and put a new sleeve. Great video Thanks Ronnie See you on the next video.
No problem Frank, it was fun meeting your dad today, thank you for bringing him by!
Xenon is definitely one of the classics.. one of the best looking games IMO.. I'm usually a Williams system 6/7/9 fan but I'd love to own one someday. :-)
Thanks for showing us this particular machine.Very fun game with coolest sound, multiball,played this game religiously back in the day .
Thank you for watching Keith!
It was probably pretty good at taking the kids' pocket money.
I don't think I have seen this one in the flesh. Perhaps it never made it out here in Australia.
That is a nice looking game. A real T and A in space art style.
I recall dumping numerous quarters into this machine back in the early '80s in various arcades. It was an incredible machine for its time, and hinted at what would come to the realm of pinball in the future. I think these videos are re-establishing an old childhood desire of having a pinball machine (or cabinet video game) in my home. Although I have always had a preference for video games over pinball, I believe I would get more enjoyment for a longer period of time from a pinball machine than an arcade cabinet video game. I will have to do some research in recalling all of the pinball machines I enjoyed playing, and deciding which machine I would want the most, and perhaps a couple of alternatives, and then I will have to keep my eyes open while intentionally searching for them.
Keep in mind though that it's hard to get just one :)
The real Bally table kings are the ones who keep these classics polished & running. Its becoming a lost art.
Oh, now, _this_ one I _definitely_ remember. When I was growing up, I thought this was one of the coolest games ever! That's saying a lot, since I was born in 1970, so I grew up during the "heyday" of arcades... the arcade was practically my second home, and I had a _bunch_ of "favorite games". Thanks for taking the time to film this for us!
That broke joke is still hilarious even after the second time.
We're going to keep dong it
I have one of those. It's my first and only pin at the moment, as I mainly collect arcade cabs. A woman was giving Xenon away free. She claimed it was "working" and was a wedding present from the 80/90s. She said it's been sitting in the room it was in for like 20 years. Looked fine from the outside, but closer look, most of the rubber stoppers and flippers were rotted, a bunch of fuses blown, wiring was redone and a lot of blown components on the solenoid board. I ended up installing mostly new transistors, doides on the solenoid board, replace the cpu with a universal board, and ended up replacing almost all 20 solenoids. I guess initially there was no mylar on the playfield. the artwork got pretty worn out, and the mylar was placed on it later. I probably spent about $800-1000 on parts and did it all myself. Simple, but fun game.
This is by far one of my favorite pinball machines. My uncle had this when I was growing up and I would play it all the time
Played this a lot back in the day. Absolute classic. Loved the speech as it got more frantic 'try a tube shot' lol
It's one of the good ones for sure!
Suzanne Ciani was the singer who's voice was used.
I never heard of her before
I think she did electronic music which I'm not too familiar with but she seems like a really cool person to me
@@LyonsArcade she was using a lot of the cutting edge digital audio devices and computer sound programming back when computers were not even in businesses.
She was working before even the IBM XT.
The sound boards back then were very basic compared to even the early 90s.
I remember working with the XT in 1983
The AT was in 85 and the 386 was in 87.
Very few businesses had a 386
The early 486s were when businesses started buying them..
They were running DOS on a lot of them, but Windows 2.0 really changed the landscape.
The GUI made it much easier for the average person to use a computer
Novel NetWare was the go-to software for business that needed to link computers together
NT 3.51 was ok, but NT 4.0 stole the business from Novel
NT 4.0 was the server version of Windows 95
The workstation version of NT 4.0 was what business used instead of Windows 95
Not much changed till Windows 2000 Server, then Windows XP and Server 2003 made a big change and service pack 3 of XP was the best OS Microsoft made
My experience has been that Windows 8 is buggy and bogs down computers even on clean installs, and Windows 10 is worse.
I have been using Windows 7 for a few years after having to upgrade from XP.
But XP was the easiest to find what you were looking for
Windows 7is tough, but windows 8, 10 and 11, you have to ask cortona for everything because you can't directly access most settings and most things are hidden from the average user.
I really don't like that Windows forces the new OS on everyone
And there are some new policies that are as bad as China.
Apple had the new policies for 2 years, now Windows 11 had them.
You can't own the software
And MS can shut down your computer remotely
That's a scary thing
And it connects to MS or whoever they want it to connect to, and it can't be turned off and the updates can't be turned off.
I miss the old days, but they are gone and it's only going to get more like China here
When they started banning and canceling people for speech, I knew we were doomed.
Free speech is no longer allowed in America
That's terrifying
Hey Ron, that different part at Q37 on the lamp board is the one for the right “flipper feed arrow” … the white in-lane arrow that flickered.
So when you said the lamps might not respond the same… it was absolutely correct. Swapping the bulb seemed to work, but if you still have it in the shop, might want to find a matching SCR.
Or not. 😀
Your shop and video, not mine. Come on people!
Ya made me learn something. I found the schematics and checked which SCR was for the arrow and WHOA BUDDY! it was the one with the big ol’ SCR!
If I find myself near your shop, I’ll buy you a root bear or beverage of your choice. I’ll even spring for Joe and Donnie. (You get two!)
I have a Xenon game, and i LOVE it. The funny irony is I worked for a company called "Xenon" for a while. They're not pinball people, so it's a coincidence. At any rate, I can't imagine ever selling it. I have a Strange Science and a Gulf Stream EM, and it's really tough to think about selling one of these to replace it with something "new". Dang it!
Oh, and the playfield is fully LEDed and it's awesome
I checked - the 52nd week of 1976 was from Dec 20, to Dec 26th! 🌲 It was indeed a Christmas baby!
That game is a classic!
Had to be one of the most suggestive games ever....i laugh whenever I play one.
She really played it up!
This is my second favorite pin, next to Bride of Pinbot. I'm lucky that there is an arcade near me that has both, and luckier still that I work at that arcade.
So in other words, you're getting PAID TO PLAY YOUR FAVORITE GAMES
I love this Pin's sounds. I wIll forever remember hearing it in arcades as a teen: the coin drop sound and the pop bumpers. Would love to get a recording of the pop bumpers for a phone ringtone.
That playfield looks glossy and mint!
A very nice pinball machine,..... as well as others from this good time of the 80s!!! 👍 Best regards from Germany😊
Thank you for watching Ringo!
Marge's sisters Patty and Selma did voice work before the Simpsons?? LOL
That game was ahead of it's time. The lights really were way ahead of the time. This is almost something you would expect came out just last year
Yeah it's really aged well with the times...
Welcome to MY world!! I've been running an arcade and working as a tech for about 30 years.
And yeah... I get my staff usually saying "It's broken" or "It doesn't work" under symptom in the paperwork.
Fun Times!
We’re certainly adding to the Ron Sounds mod chip with this video!
Boing Boing Whoo Whoo Whoo
My all-time favorite.
LIke the new camera!
Thank you D A it's working much better. Only thing is the file size is twice the size of the old one, for the same resolution but hey what can you do.
The designers at Bally seem to always insert certain things in every game. You know kind of like they uhh.. were... uhh.. Well, they like the ladies. I do love the mirrored back glass look. They remind me of those mirrors that you could try to win at the local carnival every summer. The Bally machines are very cool and have their own feel. I never realized I was a huge fan of the tension background music. Very cool machine and great video.
Yeah those carnival mirrors were really cool! The sound of course they hired a lady who knew how to make good music to do all of the sound so it worked out nice :)
Lovely game. Those LEDs really do set it off.
Afternoon Ron.
Hello Dano!
That's pretty. Looks like I need to make room for a Xenon machine next to a Black Knight 2000 in my imaginary game room. :)
one of my 3 favorite pinball machines, this is so cool
Very nicely put together video and very entertaining as well. Thanks for posting this.
Thanks for sharing. That new camera is doing a great job. Nice and clear. Big 👍 up.
used to own one of these beatuies....try tube shot !! Thank you guys for taking the time to upload and film for us x🤩
Hey Saskia I'm glad you're back, hope everything is well over there. Yes it's a great game!
@@LyonsArcade Everything is pretty good thank you Ron x
Love this game. 1st time I played it I was about 10 or 11 and thought I was doing something dirty and didn’t want my mom to come in and catch me playing it because of the sounds coming out of it 😂 😂
Ohh Laa Laa This poor woman who made the music has been lusted after for 42 years now
I was about the same age and felt the same thing! Interesting I was not the only one. A ground-breaking, seductive, machine.
10:27 Here name is Suzanne Ciani who did all the sounds for the game, and it's her voice. She's a synth artist, back in the days of plugging cords in and out to create different sounds on an analog set up. She still does concerts. She was on an episode of Letterman and here she is making the sounds for Xenon on an episode of Omni ua-cam.com/video/r28i-k3mL3o/v-deo.html
This is exactly the video I came to link to!
Ron, Bally sure hit a home run with this game. My local arcade has a great example of a Xenon machine. There usually a wait to play this game, even over the latest & greatest machines. I wonder if George Lucas got the idea for the villain in his Disney movie "Captain Eo" from Xenon. The Xenon character looks like the evil queen in Captain Eo. What do you think❔
Hello from Phoenix Arizona❕🔥
Its properly the sound roms playing up in the connections legs and socket on board or the speaker is worn out or the voltage supply to the speaker. also the flippers might have dirty relay contacts.
My fav table of all time
It's a good one!
nice thumbnail!
We had to go all in for the mighty Xenon
The musician, Suzanne Ciani, was really a pioneer in using electronic sounds to imitate, or "synthesize," real world sounds and instruments. She actually created the score for Xenon as well as recording and manipulating her voice heard in the game. Here's a cool video from the time that showed her doing just that!
ua-cam.com/video/r28i-k3mL3o/v-deo.html
The link you provided should be pinned. Thanks man.
@@beavis6363 And dude at 76 yrs old she's still doing it, even still mixing live in concert. I'd you're interested, here's a *very* in depth interview she did this year about her process that I mostly didn't understand, but damn is she smart:
ua-cam.com/video/ZDgc7I0xnwQ/v-deo.html
Great video dude!!!!
SCR (Anode, Cathode, Gate) should read like a diode between Anode and Cathode. Resistance between the Gate and the Anode should read infinite. We used to check them by
shorting the Anode and Gate or by supplying a small voltage on the Gate and Cathode. An SCR will latch or stay on. A SCR is a D.C. device. A Triac is an A.C. device. It will act kind of like a transistor. (It doesn’t latch when triggered like an SCR does)
Trippy game. She sounds like an old ticket taker at a cheap amusement park I went to growing up. Blowing smoke in my face as she handed me ride tickets.
So badass!!
Another cool video! I always appreciate you doing these vids. The art is looking fine on that xenon. It's good one to get 100%. There's some operators who did a poor job and barely made stuff working. And then there's good operators who did a proper job repairing stuff.
I think the flipper is sharing a ground possibly with a switch causing it to trigger when it shouldn't. But that's my guess. I think something is getting voltage it shouldn't.
It's a very nice game, thank you for watching Viscountalpha!
I had a similar issue with a pinbot I had. Guy put a hard top on it and in the process he pinched a switch wire under the flipper mech so every time you hit the flippers the game would tilt. That was a fun one
LOVE THIS CHANNEL!
Thank you Gunther, we're glad you're hear watching!
I've seen you do a Xeon before, but I don't think I have seen the playfield looked into with such detail on previous videos.
Xeon and Future Spa are two of my favourite games from this era.
You can also use white out to mark your changes Incase you get pulled off the machine and can't get back to it right away .
Suzanne Ciani was the woman. She also worked on the sound effects.
Those brackets on the back box are original. I have them on my Xenon. When I bought my machine, someone screwed a screw into the top hole.
Question for you, Ron. Are the staples that hold some of the wiring flush against the underside of the playfield and inside the backbox insulated at all or is one just relying on the wire insulation? This wiring looks to just be a ground so maybe that's why they just use staples? Thanks & keep up the great work with these repair vids!
I don't remember those particular staples but I've never seen any of them be insulated, most of the wiring that is stapled though is actually a ground braid that's not insulated at all. Thank you for watching like always Serg!!!!
When the ball is ejected from the top saucer, the ball should hit the top bumper, slightly to the right, as mentioned in the manual. A lot more fun, with ball into the bumpers.
I didn't see the ground wire in the backbox, did you connect it ?
Keep the good work !
Suzanne Ciani! Experimental electronic music!
Maybe the voice is Suzanne Pleshette......"Hi Bob".
Now that's a really cool pinball. Not as annoying which Bally Midway made at 1983. Why has someone mixed regular bulbs and LED.s? Regular light board doesn't like LED's at all. If somebody wants to have LED.s, there should be only a light board, which is suitable for LED.s.
Beautiful machine. Nice job. When you say overlay, do you mean a hardtop? Or more like a wrap with artwork? New to this resto lark!
Back in those days blue LEDs was really expensive. And just as a fun fact this game I believe was one of first multiball games
Yes it was just after Firepower, I think it came out in December of 1980
@@LyonsArcade I guess we're forgetting one of my favorite of Ballys' first multiball games that came out almost a year earlier....Silverball Mania, released February 1980...the first multiball machine I ever played and one of the most enjoyable! That's the one i'd like to own as my my first machine. Waiting on the day when you get one of these to repair/restore!
I was working on Bally to do a multiball for a couple years. One day as the team was going out to lunch I threw a second ball onto the playfield just to see what would happen. Greg Kmiec came over to watch and multiball was back at Bally.
Well Ronnie Joe isn't wrong about it being broke *Shrugs shoulders* XD
come on now, come on people
As an EE, I truly don't mind the absence of proper terminology. The troubleshooting methodology is top notch. From the datasheets, the pin order of the 2N5060 and MCR106-1 are different, with the former having the gate in the middle and the latter with the gate on the outside. This is why the replacement SCR had the bent legs.
Min 3:05 ,lil' spider crossing the wooden ball rail..
Depends on the type of LED. on them vintage pinball games they need that warm light look. And they do make warm light LEDs but... you have to find them. stuff like Xenon you can cheat and use colored LEDs for the respective zone or use cool light white LEDs and get the intended effect the designers were going for. It's an Artform to Restoration to make things pop like they're new.
JOE CLASSIC< I'm not sure if you can replace FETS with SCR's because SCR's won't turn OFF by themselves. So if you replace the driver FETS with SCR's the lamps/lights might not turn OFF because the SCRs won't turn off by themselves without additional circuitry?
That coin door coil for the coin return was designed to kick in when speech was activated. Turns out there wasn’t enough memory to activate a credit while speech was being used - kids were pumping quarters in there and when she talked, quarters just went down with no credit and operators complained so they put in that return coil.
There are also 2 lights at the plunger that light when the ball is locked to alert the player that a ball is there - those lights are driven at the aux lamp board.
Grid, Cathode and Anode/Plate.. ;)
The issue on my game is also the sound. When I turn it on, for the first few minutes it’s staticky. After a few minutes it’s fine.
Joe did what you told him to do. Go easy with him will ya! :)
Come on people
Hey Ron!!!!!
Hi Jason!
First female voice on a pinball!
I believe the inner backglass is missing. Tske a look....maybe not.
Put it in the tube. Hahaha!
I think Gorgar had the first voice in 1980
If flickering with LEDs is undesirable, one can always add some small electrolytic capacitors. I assume that would cause them to act more like incandescent bulbs. Incandescent bulbs don't come on or go off all at once due to heating a filament. The time to charge and discharge a capacitor would make the behavior closer to an incandescent bulb.
And yeah, power flows from the "negative" to the "positive." They are named backward, but it became tradition and stuck.
Oh, is the ball supposed to remain stuck in the left shooter?
Yes it catches it over there until it starts multiball... sometimes, sometimes it just lets it pass through. We're going to do another video where we go over the rules and things and play it a little bit.... Thank you for watching PlumGurly!!!
What program are you using for your wiring diagrams?
You can download most schematics at www.IPDB.org
Ron, thanks for being non-technical in your descriptions!
I'm trying to keep it simple for mys... I mean, the viewers.
How about clean and set switches and recap the audio amp...how am I doing so far ?....cheers.
looking a Wikipedia, this was Ballys first talking pinball and also first female voice( Suzanne Ciani).
If your comment starts with "Well, technically...", You're watching the wrong channel. Learn 'em Ron!
I'm tryin' to smarten' em up :) They need to just re... come on now, come on people. You need to relax people
A tiny bit more trivia about this game can be found on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenon_(pinball)
Thanks for the great video.
OMG WHY ISNT YOUR TERMINOLOGY CORRECT
come o.... come on now Get Help.... co.... come on, you know my te.... I mean, you watch the channel all the time, you know my terminology isn't correct come on now Get Help you need to think about it now come on people you can't do that
Machinists call that mushrooming.
That's it :) Thank you for watching Randy, as always!
Hello
Yodelayheehoo
Hi Lil Everette, where have you been???? We've been waiting on you for 46 minutes!
@@LyonsArcade Busy
Mahna Mahna?
@@naytch2003 Watch out for that…
@@lileveretteyoakumiii Mahna Mahna?
Hey Ron. I'm having similar issues with sound on Xenon. Speech and sound come and go. Speech is crackly/garbled sometimes. Looking forward to seeing your resolution! I sent both sound boards to my repair guy and they work on his end but flaky on my end. I cleaned the coin door pot, repinned the main sound board connector, checked the tube exit switch that stops background sound and it looks fine. It was suggested to repin J4 on the MPU so might do that as well. If you have any other suggestions let me know thanks. Good luck! Here is a quick 2 min video I took of my sound issues if you wanted to take a peek! Thanks, Mike ua-cam.com/video/QPzd9YQsAss/v-deo.html
We're gonna get all into it on the next video, and do everything you just mentioned, LOL Might be J4, the guy that's testing it, is he testing it in a machine or just on the board?
The issue is it sends a signal to the board on 4 different lines, if one of those lines starts losing 'packets' or whatever, it stops the sound. This is hard to test on a bench because you don't have the MPU there to send it the packets.... if you press the test button, it'll work fine, but not with the MPU controlling it.
On mine what it ended up being was a broken trace on the replaced connector, the actual male part of the connector. There are 4 lines coming from there to 4 resistors that run the control from the MPU. Tomorrow our full video will be up so maybe that will give you some ideas.
@@LyonsArcade Thanks Ron for the reply. Very much appreciated! Pretty sure my guy is testing on a bench (so I guess that means that the issue could still be on the sound board(s) or MPU?) I forgot to mention I have a new altek MPU installed. I will plug away and see what I can find. Nice find on your issue! Looking forward to the video!
@@LyonsArcade Well I think I fixed it. Fingers crossed. The pop bumper was in fact vibrating the tube exit switch closed DOH!!!!! So of ALL the things I did, a simple switch adjustment was probably the solution!
The one bumper is too bright😮
Putting LEDs in an old system are for people who want to play with the lights on!
Xenon Voice:
ua-cam.com/video/r28i-k3mL3o/v-deo.html
Suzanne Ciani
"It's broke". So, it's out of money (in addition to being out of service.
joeconsumer what were pinball machines designed for? Thank you for playing
Put your video together with the person that did the music and voices. ua-cam.com/video/r28i-k3mL3o/v-deo.html&ab_channel=TokyoMatt
A Stern solenoid board in a Bally game! How unoriginal. C'mon people, as a former Bally guy that just infuriates me. :(
You think so?
@@LyonsArcade Have a stack of Bally SD boards in my home office ready to stick into every Bally that I get with a Stern board. Copyright laws were pretty loose in those days when it came to board traces. 😠
You have the skills and knowledge set but you lack the Vocabulary of the terminology.
some terms that'll help you explain it;
Tolerance range: the range of voltages that are acceptable for an electronical component.
Amperage: strength level of the voltage
Voltage: Base unit for measuring electrical current
Ohms: the resistance level for clean power flow.
Everything else is hyper technical and not really necessary in explaining simple electronics.