The Pinball Diaries

OMFGWTFBBQ! Reassembly of Medieval Madness is complete! I still have to adjust a couple roll-over switches that don’t always trigger, but everything is put back together, sparkly clean, with new rubber, new troll flaps, shiny star-posts, new flippers, all lamps/flashers/solenoids in working order, a new dot matrix display, and new ball trough! Huzzah! Need to post some before/after pictures when I get a chance.

It’s back in the line-up!

And it only took two years.

Medieval Maddness reassembly is actually progressing nicely, a little bit each day.

Poor Medieval Madness has been sitting in the basement 22 months, waiting for some reassembly love.

I mentioned a while back that I was starting to put it back together, but then I got distracted. So over the last few days the little man and I started to get back on it. We:

• Checked all the switches attached to the playfield. Note to self: 54, 55, 65, 66 and 68 need a little adjustment. 61-64, and 67 couldn’t be tested ‘cause I have to reassemble the things they’re attached to. 75 appears busted.

• Checked flashers, replaced a couple. Still need to check 17, 19, 21 and 23 on the ramps when they get reassembled.

• Adjusted the drawbridge. In its upright position it was leaning pretty far forward, as you can see in this pre-disassembly photo:

So we loosened the set-screw and adjusted it back a bit. Now it’s good (although this picture is not):

• Removed the old Troll flap decals and applied new ones. The old ones were getting pretty beat up as you can see here. Peeling them off left a fair amount of gunk behind, so I used a chisel to scrap it off, which actually worked really well. The little man took this action photo:

All scraped:

Decals applied:

Reassembled:

Much better. Compare that to the old versions:

Here are some pictures of the Troll flap decals. Pretty bad shape. They don’t really affect game play but are rather unsightly.

I ordered some replacement decals which I need to put on.

I’ve started putting Medieval Madness back together, making sure things are nice and shiny before they go back on. Will probably take a while as I’m averaging about 30 seconds per day spent on it.

Replaced switch #26 (left return lane) and #48 (right top lane).

Resoldered the White-Yellow wire to switch #44 (castle lock). Had to remove the moat to do it.

Test Report:

CHECK SWITCH 26 LEFT RETURN LANE
CHECK SWITCH 44 CASTLE LOCK
CHECK SWITCH 45 LEFT TROLL
CHECK SWITCH 48 RIGHT TOP LANE
CHECK SWITCH 51 LEFT SLINGSHOT
CHECK CASTLE GATE STUCK CLOSED
CHECK L. TROLL UP SWITCH BAD
CHECK R. TROLL UP SWITCH BAD

Going over each switch:

• #26, Left Return Lane – Switch only clicks when roll-over wire is pushed below the surface of the playfield. Easiest thing will be to just replace the switch and leave the roll-over wire.

• #44, Castle Lock – Took a look at this one and the White-Yellow row wire had broken off. Should be simple to resolder.

• #45, Left Troll – Since the left troll was busted and not popping up, I imagine this switch is fine and just needs to be tested and played.

• #48, Right Top Lane – Switch no longer clicks at all. Need to replace.

• #51, Left Slingshot – When I took apart the left slingshot I noticed the rubber ring around it had popped inside the head of the kicker. Not sure if the slingshot switches were stuck closed or were never getting activated. Either way, I think this one just needs to be tested and played.

All but one back box light is out.

Replaced all but the one, as well as 3 of the 4 #906 flashers.

Also replaced the two #89 flashers under the base of each ramp.

Several bulbs under the playfield are out:

• Joust Victory
• Right Ramp Jackpot
• Damsel Madness
• Left Ramp Jackpot
• Catapult WHAM!
• King of Payne Castle
• Earl of Ego Castle

• Battle for the Kingdom

I started replacing them and then noticed that some just needed the black sockets to be wiggled on the circuit board contacts. Ug. I couldn’t get the ‘Catapult WHAM!’ to make good contact. Need to find a fix.

I also used up all my packs of #555 bulbs and had to use ones I pulled out of Hurricane. Heh.

Figured out how to mount the operator switches, at least until I find something better. Attached the switches to a block of wood, attached the block of wood to a simple corner bracket form Home Depot, attached the corner bracket to the floor of the cabinet.

Extremely krufty, but it’ll do for the time being. The beauty of it is I was able to use one of the two T-Nuts in the front of the floor of the cabinet (presumably for screwing down the coin box) to mount the thing, so I didn’t need to make any additional holes in the cabinet.

I also finished cleaning the playfield with Millwax. While I was at Home Depot I bought a box of vinyl gloves. Much easier on the hands when working with cleaners.

Cleaned all of the #44 bulbs under the playfield. That was a pain since each socket had to be unscrewed to access the bulb.

Started getting the operator switches ready to go back in the machine. Clipped all coin-mech switches and illumination wiring on the coin-door, then removed the corresponding pins from the connector that attaches to J5 on the ‘Coin Door Interface Board’ (WMS #A-20580). Did the same with the slam-tilt switch since I don’t think I’m gonna be needing that.

That left me with a nice cable with just the operator swtiches:

The ground cable looped around to everything I removed, so that’s the only thing that needs to be soldered.