More ICB Improvements

This will be my last post regarding Ice Cold Beer for awhile.

If you are new to this post thread, here is some links to the earlier portions of my journey with this game for context.

Ice Cold Beer (November 2019) - Where I chronicle getting the game in July and working through a myriad of issues to get it playing. The “Happy Ending” was premature, it turns out.

ICB EPROM Shenanigans (July 2020) - In this post, I take an improbably long journey through Murphy’s Law following what ended up being a dead end troubleshooting theory.

ICB Restarts (Conclusion) (August 2020) - In this post, I conclude repairs on the wiring harness and finally have a working PCB.

..and finally this post (the one you are looking at) where I finally get to put in a little detail work on the game and get it to a stable point.

Finally free of frustrating and transient board problems, I spent some time putting some finishing touches on Ice Cold Beer.

Awhile back I ordered new motors and belts from Marco, as well as new motor limit switches from Arcade Parts and Repair.

The closed gearbox design makes a tremendous difference in terms of motor noise from the game. I don’t know where Marco sources these motors but just one note, there was a polarity marker (red dot) near one of the terminals and I found that the polarity was actually reversed from what my machine expected. That tells me these motors, at least were probably used in other games, too.

My original glass has some minor but annoying damage to the art at the bottom near the ball release lever and at the top near the light bulb. I wrapped up the old one in packing material and stowed it away for later and ordered a new one from Phoenix Arcade.

While I waited on the new glass, I spent some time tumbling some of the remaining parts and polishing the ball-bar. For the life of me, I don’t understand the rust / oxidation on this game. Many screw heads were perfectly clean but the portions of the threads that were engaged in wood were rusty. Moisture in the wood? If so, odd that it didn’t seem swollen anywhere.

I installed new felt in the channels (used this stuff) and I polished out the ball bar as much as I could without removing the plating. The ball bar parts are hard to come by. People sell 3D printed copies of the plastics but the brass bar itself seldom becomes available.

Looking better!

It isn’t perfect but definitely coming along nicely.. For me, it is time to take a break from fixing this game and move on to something else for awhile!

ICB Restarts (Conclusion)

In this earlier post, I drove myself partially insane while poorly troubleshooting a consistent restart issue with a new to me ICB PCB board. I went down all sorts of side quests that were adjacent to a (known at the time to possibly be wrong) assumption that the issue was related to ROM / EPROM problems. It seemed logic related, damnit!

While the 2nd PCB was off being worked on and tested, I decided it was prudent to re-do my edge connectors. I noticed occasionally the other PCB would resolve itself based on tension on the edge connectors or that certain problems would come up related to fiddling with the edge connectors.

ICB has three 18/36 edge connectors. I lack the finesse and patient to push each pin out of the edge connector and I planned to re-pin it anyway, so I clipped the old connector and one at a time re-crimped and installed into new connectors. This was tedious / time consuming. I put down a soda flat to catch trimmings and listened to a portion of an audio book in a couple crimp sessions to get the work done.

If this is something you need to do, here are some parts links to save you time..

Gold, leaf pins & AMP Connector:
AMP Leaf Pins
AMP 18/36 Edge Connector

Crimp Tool: Ratcheting Crimp Tool

Another, definitely cheaper and probably faster way to go about it would have been to use an 18/36 solder-based edge connector.
But, this machine had 18/36 gold-leaf populated AMP connectors so that is what I went back with.

Turns out, it was a dip switch.

..

…

yep.

…

(sips Whiskey)

..

a…dip.. switch..

So, apparently a machine that isn’t equipped with a ticket-dispenser will trigger a CPU watchguard restart at the ticket-dispense thresholds.


¯\(°_o)/¯

So, my game actually works now. I only feel Level-8 stupid for spending countless hours down a ROM burning rabbit hole over a problem that ended up being a dip switch setting / game power bug. At least now I know I have solid power, good connectivity and a working PCB. It will be nice to actually get some game play in.. :) John at El Dorado did me a solid by selling me an un-obtanium board in stellar condition and hand-holding me through troubleshooting of this newly discovered “feature” of these Taito boards. If your game reboot consistently after counting bonuses - make sure don’t have a dip switch accidentally enabled related to a ticket dispenser.

Failed GC Attempts..

Since July of last year, the GC spot on my Scared Stiff has been occupied at a 61 million point epic game by the talented Marshall Youngstrom . 61,nnn,nnn is a seriously high score on a 3-ball Scared Stiff. The game was setup from SFGE with open outlanes and factory rules. When I research IFPA and World Championship games involving Scared Stiff, those games rarely exceed 20 million. Even pinside game-scores which are an unverified big fish stories, puts 61.5 million in the top 25.

So… I’ve been practicing and trying all sorts of various techniques, states of mind, strategies to try to beat Marshall’s epic score. I’ve definitely found a strategy that seems like it will work but each time I get close, my head gets in the way towards the last few million and..womp womp womp.. I’ve attempted over 20 times per week for the last 2 months to beat his score. That’s how good he is! :)

Yesterday evening, wanting to test out some new noise cancelling headphones (Sony WH-1000xm3’s are on sale, clearing inventory to make room for the next model), I decided to put on some Jams and give it a shot. I’ve listened to everything from Sean Carroll’s recent book on Quantum Mechanics, favored Soundtrack composers, through favorites from Pink Floyd, trance-y glow party drug high stuff from Enigma, old favorites from Rage Against the Machine and Tool, newer stuff from Eminem and Run the Jewels, classical remixes from Vanessa Mae and even some of the bull-crap my teenager listens to. Last night, it was Public Enemy, Apocalypse 91. Ironically, of all of these varied attempts, I’ve found that deep discussions on weeds-y P-topics like Physics, Philosophies, Public Policy all tend to encourage a flow-like state for doing consistently better.

Ultimately though, on this attempt I missed the opportunity to stretch my 2nd Monster MultiBall across the finish line and I missed the opportunity to ring that final Extra Ball shot to give myself another attempt to earn it traditionally.

Bonus, previous attempt….