The Siren's call : Fathom's Bally pinball

[DarthNuno]

Winter 2012, I got the opportunity to bring back a really great pinball... a Bally's Fathom   



The pinball is globally complete, but not working. The previous owner didn't have time to finish the restoration and he lost interest in it.



In addition of the electronic side, there will be a lot of work to fix the esthetic part...



I'm wondering how I will repair this for example  ...



Or how to clean the playfield to remove these marks 

 

Anyway, it's gonna be a new and exiting challenge! Oh, by the way, you may ask why Fathom?
Well, it's for me one of the best example of an 80s pinball : awesome artworks, simple but effective playfield, typical pinball 'stressing' sounds & voices... 

This is Art   

 

 

After a first & rapid cleaning, with the backglass 



Work on!

[Robinholland]

Cool  
I buy last week a nitro ground shaker pinball
Yesterdag i repair the pinball and he is now fully working  
3 months ago i also buy a Buck rogers from gottlieb  
Pinball's are cool  

[Belike]

Never heard about Fathom, but it looks like a nice pinball with awesome artworks.
That Nitro Ground Shaker is one of my favourites, it also appeard in the movie Goodfellas:

[kid]

Fathom is a great pinball.
I love repair this pinball generation.
I have a lot of prints and spare parts => don't hesitate .

[Laszo]

For fathom there has been a playfield rerun, original procedure, great quality, price 700 euro's. They are sold out but sometimes they are put up for sales... Same for plastic sets and backglass.

Ball swirls can be erased by sanding of the top coat... But you need to clear coat the playfield afterwards.

[DarthNuno]

I have a lot of prints and spare parts => don't hesitate .

It's good to know, thanks 

For fathom there has been a playfield rerun, original procedure, great quality, price 700 euro's. They are sold out but sometimes they are put up for sales... Same for plastic sets and backglass.

Yeps, I've seen these beautiful rerun, woow  ...but €€€ of course 

Ball swirls can be erased by sanding of the top coat... But you need to clear coat the playfield afterwards.

Sounds good. Any 'clear coat' product to suggest? 

[Laszo]

I have a lot of prints and spare parts => don't hesitate .

It's good to know, thanks 

For fathom there has been a playfield rerun, original procedure, great quality, price 700 euro's. They are sold out but sometimes they are put up for sales... Same for plastic sets and backglass.

Yeps, I've seen these beautiful rerun, woow  ...but €€€ of course 

Ball swirls can be erased by sanding of the top coat... But you need to clear coat the playfield afterwards.

Sounds good. Any 'clear coat' product to suggest? 

You could use a waterbased, non yellowing pu clear, high gloss. Even better is a two component clear which the car repairshop uses. You can not do it yourself. A car shop could do 4 layers voor about 50 till 100 euros.

[DarthNuno]

Ok, regarding the electronic side now... after a connector problem, the game boot... and works! 

I Need to fix some parts onto the playfield, but the game is *almost* playable.

Major problem : bug in the sounds (but voices are Ok) : I've ordered a capkit (+volume potentiometers) for the Squawk & Talk Sound Board. Hope this will fix that problem

The rest will be cleaning, replacing solenoids, and usual pinball renovation stuff...

Here's a picture 'in action' :


 

[DarthNuno]

Got the capkit for the sound board 'Squawk & Talk'.

Before :



After :



Yeah! Sounds are now all back, including the voices of course!

So even with few things left to fix on the playfield, the game is very playable... and that what I did during something like 40 minutes!

And then...

The game freezes! I reboot it, and ... it doesn't want to start anymore! 
There is a self test procedure on the MPU board. A led that blinks a certain amount of time. In my case (2 blinks) this indicates a chipset problem at U8 location, but also could be a voltage or contact problem too.
Here's the value I got on the MPU board :

TP1 : 5,13V
TP2 : 13,6V
TP3 : 21,4V
TP5 : 5,16V

No problem at this level. So it may also be a contact problem? Let's remove the MPU :



Here's the three chips located at U6, U7 & U8



Let's clean the legs but also the supports :



After this cleaning operation, let's see if it solves my problem???

No!!! 

So, now it cannot be something else than what the self test procedure says ... chip 5501 located @ U8.

Hey, I also have a Bally Space Invaders pinball, which use the same MPU board :



... and so it uses the same 5501 chip! 



Let's remove it from the Space invaders MPU, and use it on the Fathom MPU board...

Hell yeah!!!   



Fathom is back from death, for a second time! Got also great support on http://www.flipjuke.fr for my pinball related questions...   

Ok, stills few things to fix, but at least the game is now playable/enjoyable! What a great pinball 

[DarthNuno]

...and a video 'in action' 



...but still a lot of work to do...

[Belike]

Well done, can't wait to put my fingers on the buttons.

[Laszo]

5101 ram is very sensitive, this parts fails often. I hope the 5501 is more robuste  enjoy