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Just making it more fun! Thanks for the comment!

@jackk4234 Thanks for the comment! If you watch this same video all the way to the end, I've actually included the entire comic book opening in the video itself, along with all my video modifications. Just download the video from TH-cam, and clip off the part you want to keep. You can find additional video clips from the movie at th-cam.com/video/MfOoaexFLyk/w-d-xo.html That's where I got all my clips.

@@davesthinktank Thanks for the information. I've build the device and I get all the way to "Insert USB drive with compatible movies Press ESC to quit". I have an mp4 video from your youtube post on my USB drive but apparently something is still wrong. Is there a special format to the USB drive or video I need? Any suggestions would be much appreciated. (FYI, I have not logged in via a keyboard if that makes a difference). Thanks!

​@jackk4234 sounds like you have the software installed properly, and the hardware set up. The mp4 file should be fine. Can you watch the video on your computer? If not it may be corrupted. Try plugging in a keyboard, to check if the cable connections are good. Try putting some other mp4 files on the drive. I also had a faulty drive at one time, that would stop working after a while. So maybe try another drive. If its a cheap drive, maybe get a sandisk and try again.Try a different cable, if you have one. Hopefully one of these ideas will get it running!

@@davesthinktank Thanks again for your help Dave! It appears that I was shipped a bad OTG cable. I ordered another, and now it works perfectly. You are a genius!

Thanks, much appreciated! I ran the original game recently, with the original sound. I was shocked at the difference. It really is about ten times more fun to play now.

Absolutely!

@@davesthinktank Awesome

True. The switches in the manual and the switch test were all originally renumbered from 1 to 40. In the code though, they are numbered zero to 39. the Arduino code I started with, including the switch test, numbers it this way.

I wore out a contact on my Arduino, messing up address and data lines.

@@davesthinktank I'm talking about the pinball game MPU, NOT your Arduino board MPU, The pinball game MPU has a CPU chip that is sending out a strobe signal at a particular frequency plus at intervals spacings that is strobing the columns of the switch matrix which the rows RETURN the strobe signal back to the CPU to READ the switch matrix. My Question is what is the strobe frequency and why is the strobe frequency at that particular frequency?

Testing the diode gives either 0.55v or 0 v, depending which direction you are testing. If you are expecting 0v, and you don't have a good contact between the multimeter and the diode, you will get a reading of zero, which may be incorrect. This is important to consider, as you are often contorting yourself to look at the dark recesses of the underside of a playfield, and may not even be touching the correct wires.

Not a bad idea. You can definitely activate a coil by shorting it to the ground braid, but you can also blow a fuse or worse if you do it wrong!

@@davesthinktankyes…and that’s where I’m afraid off

Thanks! I just can't help having new ideas to boost the fun-factor on this machine!

@@davesthinktanki like it. I have a beat flash in pieces that I bought. I’d love to implement this someday when I get it working again. Looks like it adds a lot.

Thanks! It's kind of an addiction. I'm always thinking of new features I want to add!

I did a lot of programming of large systems back in the 80s and 90s, and although all the programming came back to me, I found it a challenge to figure out the Arduino code. It's a pretty big system with a lot going on. But I worked at it a bit at a time. The Flash Gordon code was not well documented, but the names of variables made it fairly easy to follow small blocks of code (e.g. TopPopLit, BallInSaucer, FreeBallCollected, etc.). But it certainly can't hurt to get the Arduino IDE (you can get it for free, just to check it out), and look at the code to see what you make of it. Be sure to keep a separate copy of the original code. Look for the starting point function loop(), and follow the code to see if you can follow. The IDE also makes it easy to track variables through the code, and find functions. So, give it a try and see how far you get!

Thanks for your encouragement! I will likely have a third video on the Arduino, as I've done quite a lot of work on the sound in particular this month. I've also added a ball save feature for @snextime below!

Then you must be better at soldering than me!

I fixed it so that if the ball goes down without hitting anything, it will kick your ball back out. I'm not sure if that counts as ball save. You can absolutely program a ball save with whatever rules you wanted, though.

@@davesthinktank ball save is when you drain in like 10-15 seconds after you plunge the ball. A second chance at that turn.

@@snextime Now I'm thinking I might really like to write a ball save, with Princess Aura saying "Don't kill him yet, Father. I want him!"

@@davesthinktank I had someone write a ball save for my FG roms about 6 yrs ago and its a game changer especially for guests!(: He wrote it using that first switch you hit in the shooter lane and then test bank 20 in the admin has 1 to 15 to roughly account for up to 15 seconds of ball save time, so you can adjust it. So when you launch the ball the timer starts after you hit that first switch in shooter lane, it also lights the shoot again circle insert at the drain letting you know that it just popped another ball out into the shooter lane. Its an amazing feature and allows you to set the game to 3 balls vs the old school 5 balls.

I have a bally silverball running BSOS. And it's totally different, more playable, harder game. It's great!!

Interesting question. I haven't heard of this, or read it in any manual, so i would have to say no. It's a good idea though. Maybe I'll look into how the arduino might achieve that.

I just checked an Alltek manual for their solenoid board, and it goes through a check for stuck coils as you suggest. So, the 70s/80s pinballs can be upgraded to do this.

@@davesthinktank Yes but only the Alltek replacement boards do this check for stuck coils. Its something in the boot sequence program loaded on the ROM chips but the 70s and 80s ROM chips don't have this check for stuck coils doing the boot up so the watch dog circuit on the Alltek boards are different also to check for the stuck coils it seems.

My pleasure! The more effort I have to put into solving pinball issues, the more I want to get this information out there for others.

Thanks, much appreciated!

What a surprising suggestion!

Thanks! It's been six months, and this fix has held without fail!

The sound in this video is from the original speaker. I wasn't happy with the sound, and so in a later video I replaced it with a huge speaker on top from an old surround sound system! It had great sound, but I eventually figured out the bad sound was actually on the sound file I was using, which was a clip from the movie, including electric buzzing and whizzing noises from a space battle. So currently, I am back to using the original speaker.

Yes, it makes a huge difference! I've been working with Geeteoh.com to make more sound files available.

I actually made it myself! I designed it using an online photo editing program (pixel.com). It was too big for regular paper, but I split it into two parts and printed them on 8 1/2 x 11 photo paper, then cut them out and joined them. I have a couple videos going over the details. See my videos "Make your Apron Pop", and "Introducing Flash Gordon". I should probably make some of my redesigned aprons and targets available on line.

I did eventually fix all the Vector's issues! It's been great since. I usually find the bigger the problem, the smaller the cause. I had things shorting out all over my Star Trek a couple years back, and finally tracked it down to a bit of solder that dripped from a repair I had been working on, to short a switch to a solenoid! I hope your new parts do the trick!

Dolly Parton, I assume? Good game. Not all the old ballys have a suitable spot for a video display. I was thinking maybe one of the card slots could be used. BTW, see my other video where I add a video display to the Flash Gordon. I give a lot more detail on the steps required.

Thanks! Wow, there's a lot on your channel. I'll try to check it out soon!

Hey, thanks! That was actually completely spontaneous. I put the camera up at the ceiling so you could see the whole machine, and when I turned around and looked at it, it made me think of Flash jumping at the camera in the final scene of the movie!

Thanks!

It really does! I have a replacement sound board, from Geeteoh Electronics. I made a video on installing it th-cam.com/video/1wFn0PuC6MU/w-d-xo.html , which added most of the sounds and music that you hear, and also one on how to customize it with your own sounds th-cam.com/video/G9YgYAGwlz0/w-d-xo.html .

Good spotting! Yes, it has always been very insensitive when hit from above. Any other direction is fine, though. Maybe it's time I did something about that!

Thanks! I really love that it allows you to add your own sounds. If you watched my game at the end, every time i hit the drop targets down you can hear Kirk yell, Khaaan!

I actually had one for a while. It was mismatched with all the other bulbs, and bugged me more than the light in my eyes! I replaced all the gray spacers a while back with white, and this white cover looks really good among them 😀

Thanks! A lot of research went into this. I hope others can follow with their pinballs.

Thanks! It really was a massive project. Hopefully I save someone a month of trial and error!

Good to know, thanks!

Thanks for the views!

Thanks. I usually live by "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", but this hadn't broken in 40 years and was starting to worry me!

Good questions, and I'm probably not the guy to answer them! But I'll try: Once an SCR has power to the gate, it allows power to flow from the anode to the cathode, but the power to both gate and anode are needed to keep the circuit open and current flowing. I assume then that low voltage to the anode can then cause the circuit to fail, or at least cause it to fluctuate. This appears to be a problem only for a small number of (40-year-old) SCRs, so it may be more of an issue of wear. As to why SCRs rather than FETs, I couldn't tell you. I can say, though, that the lamp driver board is the most dependable item in the backbox. MPU, regulator, sound and rectifier boards need lots of maintenance, and are more and more frequently replaced, but most machines still have the original lamp driver boards working away. So, using SCRs seems to have been a reasonable choice. Only the unpredictable switch from incandescent to LED has caused any issue.

@@davesthinktank The SCR is turning on/off the power supply voltage to the lamps/lights on the pinball playfield. The SCR is in "parallel" with the Lamp bulb or LED. When the LED is in parallel with the SCR its causing the SCR to self oscillate or fluctuate the SCR gate voltage or anode voltage causing intermittent on/off which I'm not sure why. The datasheets to SCR's doesn't say anything about the SCR's Load impedance.

​​@@waynegram8907you have to consider the difference between electronic components in a schematic, and in the real world. In a schematic, everything works perfectly. In the real world, things deteriorate and sometimes fail. What may have worked perfectly with an LED 40 years ago may not be up to the task any more.