This is another game from the personal collection. Out of the nearly 60 pinball machines I’ve owned, I’ve never had one burn up a connector enough to actually smell it until this one.

I had my back line of games on and started to smell electrical burn, which is the last thing you want to smell around a pinball machine. After a few minutes of hunting down with my nose, I narrowed it to Star Wars. Cut it off, opened the head and found some very burnt connectors on the GI connector from the power board and the ones going to the inter-connector to the backbox head.

GI connectors burning up over time on these Data East games, as well as most other manufacturers, is actually really common. These are the lines that supply the general illumination lamps and they are on all the time, which can create a good deal of heat through the board and on those connector housings.

To remedy, I replaced all the male pins on the power board and added in new female molex housings on the 9-pin connector from the power board and 6-pin connector to the backbox with trifurcon crimps.

Turning the power save to a lower setting on games that allow you too or replacing your incandescent lamps with LEDs which run at lower amperage and less heat dissipation help reduce the likelihood of this type of burnt connector happening again, or can save this type of repair if your connector/pins are in good shape still at this point in time.

Nasty burnet male pins on the GI line of the power board.

New male pins and female connectors with trifurcon crimps save the day.