Life Under The Playfield RSS

It's the little things...

It's the little things...

flash rebuild, general illumination, hardware, LED lighting, pinball repair, playfield.

By Dermot Tynan, Tuesday, October 8, 2019

So now that the playfield has been stripped bare (on the under-side at least), cleaned, and prepped, we've been focusing our attention on the general illumination. So, a few thoughts on GI...

General illumination started out as a series of 6.3 volt incandescent bulbs mounted underneath the playfield but peeking through the business-side, to light it up. Most often, they appear under playfield plastics, lane guides, and anywhere light can be added where it isn't shining in the player's face.

Read more

"Flash" Part 2: A bare playfield (on the underside at least!).

"Flash" Part 2: A bare playfield (on the underside at least!).

flash, flash rebuild, mechs, playfield, Rebuild Tuesday.

By Dermot Tynan, Tuesday, September 10, 2019

Not a huge amount to report on the Flash rebuild this week. I completed the wiring harness removal, and ended up dumping a lot of good but smelly copper wire. I briefly thought about re-using the copper wire, but it stinks. Years of cigarette smoke and that strange, ozone smell which lives beneath the playfield of all pinballs. I spent a lot of time removing mechanisms after that, and cleaning (with a toothbrush!) the underside of the playfield. It looks a lot better, now. It's not factory condition by any means, but it's presentable.

Read more

"Flash" Part 1. And so it begins...

"Flash" Part 1. And so it begins...

flash, flash rebuild, pinball repair, playfield, Rebuild Tuesday, TP400.

By Dermot Tynan, Tuesday, September 3, 2019

So, the playfield is a mess. OK, we'll have to deal with that. We can start with the top of the playfield or the bottom. Seeing as this blog is called "Life Under The Playfield", guess where we started!

The big decision here was whether or not to remove the wiring harness. It seems like a drastic step to unsolder the harness because the chances of being able to ever solder it back, are infinitesimally small. Impossible, even. So this is a definitive, never-to-be-undone decision. I did think about doing the playfield first, so I could skip the big harness decision, or at least postpone it, but no...

Read more

First Thoughts on the Flash Rebuild

First Thoughts on the Flash Rebuild

flash, flash rebuild, flipper coils, flippers, pinball, pinball repair, Rebuild Tuesday.

By Dermot Tynan, Thursday, August 29, 2019

So, the Flash playfield has arrived. The packaging left a lot to be desired, but overall the playfield is in better shape than I expected. Sure, two things strike you immediately. First, this machine was routed. By that, I mean it was placed in the wild to make money. That's no bad thing. Most of us first encountered pinball in an arcade somewhere, provided and maintained by a route operator. Second, since it was removed from its original cabinet, it has been used as a source of spare parts for other machines. I know it was routed because there are...

Read more

EM versus SS - The smoke-filled debate.

EM versus SS - The smoke-filled debate.

em, flipper coils, hardware, mpu board, pinball, relay, score motor.

By Dermot Tynan, Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Flash, when it was first produced in 1979, used the Williams System 4 MPU board and eventually graduated to the System 6 MPU towards the end of production. These boards, from the System 3 to the System 6 formed the early part of Williams migration away from Electro-Mechanical (EM) machines to Solid State (SS) machines. The first solid state machine was a game called Flicker from Bally in 1974. For Williams, the transition began in 1976 with a game called Aztec, for which a whopping ten machines were produced. Aztec was also produced as an EM (and over 10,000 machines produced). For the next two years, Williams produced both EM and SS machines. However, the company switched completely as and from the first of January in 1978. With the benefit of hind-sight, it's easy to wonder about why this happened over a year, and why they didn't just stop making EMs on Friday, and start with SS's on Monday morning, seeing as the technology is just so much better.

Read more

Tags