Help with lamp socket removal from Xenon PF

Gregory Topf

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Sep 23, 2012, 8:32:53 PM9/23/12

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I feel like this is a silly question...
Stripping the wiring off of my Xenon. Well, getting ready to until I looked at the bulbs. How the heck do I remove them?

They are all soldered to the ground braid which is stapled to the bottom of the playfield. I feel like I either need to desolder/snip every one, pull the ground braid out or...?

Also, I've seen people replace sockets for something "better" and more reliable. Any suggestions if I'm going to have to do major surgery on the sockets anyway?

Joe Grenuk

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Sep 23, 2012, 8:40:06 PM9/23/12

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I leave the wires soldered to the braid, pull the staples, then use
the braid to hold the sockets together as you slide the harness over.
You can clip the staples, but I don't like to leave the pieces of
staple poking up from the PF, because they just catch wires as you
try to slide the harness off.

On the Bally games with the white sockets, I always change them out
with new sockets, but I do it one at a time, ideally before I slide
the harness off for two reasons...first, you sold get flux and burns
all over the bottom of the new PF, and also to ensure that the angle
of the socket relative to the insert is maintained so you'll have a
better fit on the new PF.

LoveF2K

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Sep 23, 2012, 11:48:22 PM9/23/12

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It's no picnic to replace the lamp sockets on early solid state games, especially Bally. I did 2 Xenon swaps. From the advice of Steve Young, Bally bayonet sockets are crap and should be replaced if going through the trouble of removing the harness. I stripped off all the supply wire and started from scratch with new sockets and I used tinned copper lamp wire for the supply wire. The long nose 22 gauge stapler that Pinrestore sells is a great tool for this job. Are you doing a full swap?
Rich

Gregory Topf

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Sep 24, 2012, 8:23:20 AM9/24/12

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I'm having an overlay put on since I couldnt find any decent donor playfields. Process is deep enough that I need to totally strip top and bottom though...so everything off!

What sockets did you wind up using instead?

Doug Bercot

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Sep 24, 2012, 9:37:59 AM9/24/12

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I replaced all of the sockets on my Xenon without removing the braid, I bought sockets from the Pinball Resource, I think they were abt 0.79 each. Well worth it when done, no more dim or flickering bulbs.

All you really need is a strong soldering gun, like a Weller pistol type and a bit of patience.

Gregory Topf

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Sep 24, 2012, 11:26:43 AM9/24/12

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Did you just use standard sockets or something unique? I could desolder them all...my weller could use the workout...or, I guess, I could break out the Hakko 808 for the solder sucking duties! I'm just reluctant to pull the braid off if I don't have to...it's nice and neat and I'm not keen on redoing it because I feel like I could never do it the same!

LoveF2K

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Sep 24, 2012, 2:24:57 PM9/24/12

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I used the same sockets, just new ones. I got mine from Marco. There really isn't a choice between different types of sockets for this era. Some early Bally games used 555 push in wedge base sockets but they are becoming obsolete, plus they run hotter than 44's. Desoldering all the sockets will time consuming but you save on buying new braid and staples. I desoldered 44 staple down sockets from my F2K lamp insert and resoldered in new ones and it took a full day to do.
Don't sell yourself short, applying new braid(supply wire) is pretty easy to do and if you follow the same path you can even staple exactly were it was before. I have pics of my swap if you're interested.
Rich

Doug Bercot

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Sep 24, 2012, 2:50:25 PM9/24/12

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One really important point is that if you leave the socket on the PF while desoldering it'll take a lot more heat to do the job, what I did was to un-screw the socket first and separate it from the wood PF before de-soldering. After figuring that out things went much faster.

I used "Standard" sockets and my Weller got smokin' hot a few times, I did the bulbs in several sessions - it was a lot of work.

The pbresource lamp socket page is here: http://www.pbresource.com/sockets.html

My order (although the quantities are not correct) specified the following:

12) #A1363 staple lamp bracket 0.66
2) #A2913 laydown bracket 0.70
8) #A2915 3/4 playfield lamp bracket 0.70
40) #A2916 1 1/8 lamp Bracket 0.79
20) BLY-PostCap White acorn nuts 0.17
30) C952-2 1-3/16" Blue Posts (Xenon) 0.68
1) #131 Pop bumper lamp bracket 1.20

I pretty much WAGged the part numbers, you could probably get actual part numbers from the manuals to verify, but AFAIK the bulk of the sockets were #2916

Doug Bercot

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Sep 24, 2012, 2:56:33 PM9/24/12

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If you get bored, here's my Xenon adventure, it was fun when I did it.

http://tinyurl.com/ctxkaq4

Of course I sold it afterwards, it was more about the journey than the destination...

Gregory Topf

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Sep 26, 2012, 3:33:01 PM9/26/12

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So I spent some time working on the wiring today. How do you recommend removing the staples? They are flush against the PF. I couldn't grab them with needlenose pliers, couldn't snip them with dykes, and didn't want to try to dig around with a flathead screwdriver and wind up taking chunks out of the wood. Suggestions?