KISS PF swap questions.....
badta
reviewed every post I can find and have a few questions. I'm not that
concerned about the top of the playfield, not much there. To be honest
I wasnt THAT concerned about the underside either until i read about
the ground braid that the lights/bumpers are soldered to. i'm also
wondering how well this 30 year old stuff is gonna hold up to the
transfer...
I'm not that swift with a soldering iron but I'm betting i'll be a lot
better by the time I'm done.
The questions - Can i re-use the old ground braid wire or will it be
destroyed by the time it is removed?
Should I use a de-soldering wick to get the old solder off? Never used
one, any tips?
Or could i just hold the iron on there til i can separate the wire
from the light socket?
Someone mentioned about using insulated wire - would you snake it
around just like the other one and then just cut little areas where
you need to solder it to something?
I'm having nightmares about a wire popping off during the transfer and
not knowing where to re-attach it, or getting it all put back together
and smelling smoke, or nothing happens.....
Thanks guys - I got some cab stencils ready to go too. I'm looking
forward to the before/aftter pics of this project!
Don
Hassell Castle
wrote:
>Happy Friday guys - Gonna be doing a KISS pf swap soon, and have
>reviewed every post I can find and have a few questions. I'm not that
>concerned about the top of the playfield, not much there. To be honest
>I wasnt THAT concerned about the underside either until i read about
>the ground braid that the lights/bumpers are soldered to. i'm also
>wondering how well this 30 year old stuff is gonna hold up to the
>transfer...
>I'm not that swift with a soldering iron but I'm betting i'll be a lot
>better by the time I'm done.
>
>The questions - Can i re-use the old ground braid wire or will it be
>destroyed by the time it is removed?
>Should I use a de-soldering wick to get the old solder off? Never used
>one, any tips?
>Or could i just hold the iron on there til i can separate the wire
>from the light socket?
>Someone mentioned about using insulated wire - would you snake it
>around just like the other one and then just cut little areas where
>you need to solder it to something?
This is what I did...your results may vary.
First step for me was to get a pencil and go to the back of the new
playfield and free hand/draw where and how the ground braid laid out
on the underside of the playfield.
Next I used small circle sticky labels (labels about the size of a
pencil eraser that come in a roll) and labeled/numbered every
assembly. Placing one sticker on the assembly, and one sticker on the
new playfield where it goes. This included doing every feature lamp as
well.
I then wrote on a piece of paper what each number corresponded too.
1. Left Pop bumper assembly (blue yellow - yellow (banded diode end)
2. Left Inlane Lamp (blue white wire)
3. Left Outlane lamp (orange - brown)
4 Underplayfield tilt switch (green white - yellow)
etc.
The above mentioned is very important (LABEL EVERYTHING!!!!!)
After labeling everything I cut every lamp socket and most assemblies
off of the main wiring harness. Now I still left the other end of the
lamp sockets attached to the ground braid. This made for moving them
easy, as I just used a staple remover to pry up the staples and move
the entire ground braid and lamp sockets over to the new playfield.
Restaple each ground to the new playfield over my drawn lines on the
new field, lightly tap hammer into staple to firm house staple into
playfield.
After everything is moved over and screwed down I spend hours on end
resoldering all of the wires from the assemblies, lamps, switches,
etc. It takes a while..but I guarantee everything has good connection
when I'm done :-)
You can see what I'm talking about here.
This picture was taken in the midst of doing a NOS playfield swap out
on my Bally Playboy a couple of years ago, doing the above method I've
suggested.
http://www.hassellcastle.com/images/playfieldswap.jpg
Hope this helps,
Craig
badta
> On Fri, 06 Jul 2007 06:40:16 -0700, badta <dhor...@activeaero.com>
>
> Hope this helps,
> Craig
>
>
>
>
>
> >I'm having nightmares about a wire popping off during the transfer and
> >not knowing where to re-attach it, or getting it all put back together
> >and smelling smoke, or nothing happens.....
>
> >Thanks guys - I got some cab stencils ready to go too. I'm looking
> >forward to the before/aftter pics of this project!
>
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Thats a great idea Craig - it never occured to me to leave the light
sockets intact on the braid! And like yo usaid, you eliminate any
crappy 30 yeas old soldering job with new connections. Thank you very
much for the tip!
Don
seymour...@excite.com
> Happy Friday guys - Gonna be doing a KISS pf swap soon, and have
> reviewed every post I can find and have a few questions. I'm not that
> concerned about the top of the playfield, not much there.
Is it a used PF you are swapping in or a new one? If new and there are
no locator holes, double check before screwing.
> To be honest
> I wasnt THAT concerned about the underside either until i read about
> the ground braid that the lights/bumpers are soldered to. i'm also
> wondering how well this 30 year old stuff is gonna hold up to the
> transfer...
> I'm not that swift with a soldering iron but I'm betting i'll be a lot
> better by the time I'm done.
>
> The questions - Can i re-use the old ground braid wire or will it be
> destroyed by the time it is removed?
You can reuse it if you are careful removing the staples holding it
down. However, it will be very difficult to staple it down with all the
lamp sockets etc. in the way. Pinrestore.com and I think
pinballmagic.com both sell the ground wire if you want to go new.
> Should I use a de-soldering wick to get the old solder off? Never used
> one, any tips?
Not necessary - you can use a 100 watt iron to heat up each lamp and
remove it. If you have the $$$ I'd replace all the lamps you can, 30+
year old lamp sockets usually have a lot of problems. I'm cheap so I
solder the socket shut and also solder the ground wire (this is not the
braid, BTW, every calls it "ground braid" but it's actually the voltage
braid- the ground is the center wire.) Solder that wire to the center
post - marvin3m.com/fix has a picture on how to do this in the EM
section (and probably elsewhere)
> Or could i just hold the iron on there til i can separate the wire
> from the light socket?
> Someone mentioned about using insulated wire - would you snake it
> around just like the other one and then just cut little areas where
> you need to solder it to something?
I wouldn't use insulated wire - it just "looks" wrong.
>
> I'm having nightmares about a wire popping off during the transfer and
> not knowing where to re-attach it, or getting it all put back together
> and smelling smoke, or nothing happens.....
If you have the schematics it will show you the wires and their colors
and where they go, so no worries there. I use a sharpie and write on
the socket itself which lamp it is (i.e. 2x, 3x, A, B, etc).
-scott CARGPB#29
badta
Thanks Scott- its a new cleared pf, another thing causing
nightmares.....lol. I will be double and triple checking everything
before i drill/screw anything...
Hassell Castle
While doing the swap out I did not reuse my small phillips head screws
that were securing everything in place. Instead I switched over to new
screws with 1/4" hex heads. This made it so much more easier to screw
in assmemblies bulbs and such into the new playfield since it's pretty
much impossible to strip out a hex head screw as opposed to a
phillips.
Craig
On Fri, 06 Jul 2007 07:58:30 -0700, badta <dho...@activeaero.com>
wrote:
seymour...@excite.com
> Another thing to consider.
> While doing the swap out I did not reuse my small phillips head screws
> that were securing everything in place. Instead I switched over to new
> screws with 1/4" hex heads. This made it so much more easier to screw
> in assmemblies bulbs and such into the new playfield since it's pretty
> much impossible to strip out a hex head screw as opposed to a
> phillips.
>
I do this too where feasible - I use the shorter hex head for lamp
sockets and the longer one (3/8"?) for the mechanisms so there's no
possibility of over zealously tightening the screw THROUGH the
playfield.... that kind of mistake will ruin your day. I also solder
the lamp socket to the braid BEFORE I put the screw in, one advantage
non hex screws have is that you can puddle some solder around them and
still be able to take the screw out. You won't be happen if you screw
the socket to the board and go ape with the solder around it, so that
you can't remove the screw in the future (should you need to)
-scott CARGPB#29
badta
those are good ideas too........
I saw the pics of your KISS Craig - turned out nice! I will probably
end up getting a new backglass soon too, just because it'll bother me
knowing the pf and cab are restored but i still have a 30 year old
glass in there thats starting to flake....