STATUS
The Ultimate Clock is being announced at the May 2008 Pinball Wizard's Convention in Allentown, PA. If you're attending the shop, come by our booth for a demo.

The pilot production run is being assembled and tested now. We are currently looking for beta testers for the pilot production run. Click here for details.

 
ULTIMATE(1)
 
adjective
1. furthest or highest in degree or order; utmost or extreme
2. being the last or concluding element of a series

noun
1. the finest or most superior of its kind

Here's the ultimate replacement clock board for your Twilight Zone pinball machine. It's ultimate in the sense that this is the last clock board ever needed for any Twilight Zone machine. Not only is the Ultimate Clock a perfect replacement for the factory Twilight Zone clock boards, but it solves all of the problems that have plagued many replacement clock boards. Not only is the Ultimate Clock the lowest-power clock board ever (by far), it's the first and only TZ clock board that solves the weak opto problem forever.

The Ultimate Clock has other advancements and advantages that make it the clearly superior choice:

• Based on an earlier prototype designed in May, 2002, the Ultimate Clock originated the concept of the single-board replacement for the factory two-board design.(2) A single-board replacement is more reliable and provides better air circulation inside the clock.
• The Ultimate Clock has built-in buffers and drivers for the optos - finally, a permanent solution to the inherently weak direct-drive opto circuit. The original boards and all existing replacement clock boards drive the switch matrix directly from the optos. This is the heart of the chronic "flaky opto" problem with Twilight Zone, made worse by excess heat, dust, age, etc. More on this below.
• Wide-angle, high brightness, LEDs replace the heat-generating light bulbs The LEDs are available in pure white and a warm white color that looks much like an incadescent light bulb. The high flux LEDs have the capability to generate up to 160,000 mcd of wide-angle color-correct light -much brighter than the original incandescent lamps. We have calibrated the LEDs to generate the same amount of light as the original incandescent lamps, which is not possible with other LED configurations. Most other LED modifications generate light that is not properly diffused and has insufficient overall brightness.
• Exclusive bridge rectifier circuit drives the LEDs for flicker-free lighting. Other replacement boards and LED retro-fits drive the LEDs with half-wave DC, causing annoying 60 Hz flicker.
• Three multi-color status LEDs continuously verify the DC power and the IR emitters of the hours optos and minutes optos.
• All through-hole construction. No surface-mount parts for easy maintenance and troubleshooting. Buffer and driver chips are socketed. Schematics and on-line support are included.
• Designed, assembled and supported in the U.S.A. We do not use offshore PCB suppliers or assembly contractors. Worldwide sales and support originate from our base of operations in Newburgh, New York. The Ultimate Clock is supported with our 30-day satisfaction-guaranteed return policy and a 1-year parts and labor warranty on manufacturing defects. See the Ordering Information page for more details.
• Drop-in replacement. No modifications are required. Just open the clock housing, remove the old one- or two-board set, drop in the Ultimate Clock, and reassemble.

Does the world really need another TZ clock board ?

Good question. Well, without the Ultimate Clock, the earth will still turn, the sun will still rise every morning, and most Twilight Zone pinball machines will continue to function. The game is playable with no clock at all, and it's easy for some to ignore the "clock broken" messages or the crazy operation of the game with a flaky clock. However, it's apparent that the problem "built in" to the factory clock boards is not going away, and so far, the other replacement boards do not really solve the problem 100%.

The Twilight Zone clock is an amazing and wonderful playfield toy. To think that the entire game was designed from scratch in a matter of a few short months makes it easy to "forgive" the designers for the game's one glaring weakness: the clock overheats and the clock optos are unreliable. The clock overheats for an obvious reason - they installed four incandescent lamps inside a sealed plastic enclosure. Originally, the four lamps were to be part of the controlled lamp matrix, so the software could control when each of the lamps was on or off. This would have made a simple matter of keeping the heat down - they didn't have to be lit continuously. However, due to design trade-offs, the lamps were moved to the GI circuit, which reduced their ability to run the lamps cooler. Therefore, the clock enclosure acts like a little oven, which can heat up to over 160 degrees. It's not uncommon to see original clock boards which have actually "cooked" to a nice toasty brown in many places. This heat not only discolors the boards, it affects the optos - especially the 12 o'clock opto at the top of the clock housing. The Ultimate Clock board eliminates heat as a problem not only by replacing the incandescent lamps with LEDs, but also by reducing the total opto transmitter drive current - something only a buffered opto design can do. The stock opto setup dissipates almost two Watts of heat! You could remove the LEDs or lamps completely and the clock will still get pretty hot. The Ultimate Clock reduces this major source of heat by more than 50%.

Defective by design

There are eight identical opto-interruptors inside the Twilight Zone clock. They are used to determine the position of the clock hands so that the microprocessor can tell what "time" is on the clock. The microprocessor controls the clock hands by a small motor and a gear reduction mechansim that rotates the hour and minute hands in relative lockstep. Without reliable opto-interruptor signals from the clock, the microprocessor loses track of where the hands are pointing (or it reads a "crazy" clock position) and game modes can stop working correctly, "clock broken" errors can result, or other weirdnesses can result. Sometimes problems only occur during certain modes, or the time-of-day clock during attract mode doesn't work properly. These are all symptoms of clock problems, and often the optos or clock board connectors are to blame.

The optos are supposed to act like on/off switches, so they are connected directly to the game's switch matrix circuit. This is where the main problem lies. An opto-interruptor makes an imperfect on/off switch. The manufacturer noticed this late in the design, and their solution was to use specially-selected optos - ones that had sufficient drive capabilities to meet their specification. These are the infamous ".0086" optos. Optos marked QVE11233.0086 are the specially-selected versions of the QVE11233 opto. Optos that have not been specially screened may work, and they may not. Or, they may work for a time, but fail later. Unfortunately, this is also true for the original .0086 optos as well. As they age, they can lose that extra "oompf" that is critical to the clock working properly. Other replacement clock boards may also screen their optos and only install the "good ones" on their board, but the sad truth is that there are no "good ones", since the design is inherently weak. Add heat, age and dust in the opto path and even a "good one" may not drive the switch matrix the way it needs to. The Ultimate Clock board solves this problem.

If the original designers had the time and the budget, they would have made the clock opto circuit more robust by buffering the opto outputs. An opto is not a good device to connect directly into the switch matrix on the game, but there are many devices that are. That is exactly what we have done with the Ultimate Clock. The optos on the Ultimate Clock drive a high-impedance level detector, and the level detector is followed by a powerful darlington transistor driver. There's no need to drive the opto LEDs hard (another significant source of heat), and the optos now have a very easy time, not being driven up to (and beyond) their limits. The drivers used on the Ultimate Clock are the same as the game CPU's switch column drivers, so compatibility and reliability are guaranteed.

We don't mean to be too critical of this built-in weakness of the game. Bally/Williams did a superb job overall, and part of the problem is that Twilight Zone is still one of the most popular pinball machines of all time. They get a lot of play, and are highly desireable by both players and collectors. But as time marches on, the minor flaws can evolve into chronic problems. The manufacturer intended for the game to bring in quarters for a few years before being retired, and any Twilight Zone operating today has lived well beyond its expected life. It's a tribute to these pinball machine makers that the fixes needed to keep these classic games going are still relatively few and far between.

Let there be light

Part of the appeal of pinball machines is the warm glow of dozens of small incandescent lamps, used for general illumination as well as feature lamps. An early attempted work-around for overheating clocks was the "diode fix", which made the clock lamps much dimmer but didn't cut down on the generated heat all that much. So you got a dim clock that was still "broke". A better fix came by way of replacing the lamps with white T 1-3/4 LEDs. This was better in that much less heat was generated, but unfortunately, the resulting light was the wrong color (way too blue) and poorly dispersed. And because these LED mods always drive the LEDs with an AC voltage (i.e. the general illumination voltage), they flicker noticeably. The Ultimate Clock board uses the latest warm white LEDs, which have a color temperature very similar to the original incadescent lamps. These high-flux LEDs are incredibly bright, and the light is well dispersed - no more bluish rays shooting out of the sides of the clock. Pure white LEDs are also avaliable. And we've added a bridge rectifier circuit that eliminates the 60 Hz flickering of every other LED-based clock board.

Is this thing on?

Even when everything is working 100%, the clock and its optos will always be suspected as the cause of any clock-related weirdness. Before the Ultimate Clock board, you had to run the game diagnostics in order to troubleshoot the clock, and even then, the information that you got was sometimes not very useful. The Ultimate Clock has three diagnostic LEDs that show the status of three key areas of the circuit. Normally, all three LEDs will be on. The three LEDs are different colors and they don't change the look of the front of the clock - they project upward and add a subtle distinctive and decorative look. The PWR LED indicates that the +12 VDC is present on the clock board. The HRS LED indicates that the LED transmitters of all four hour optos are functioning. The MINS LED indicates that the LED transmitters of all four minute optos are functioning. Should an opto transmitter fail, it is easy to determine if it is an actual opto failure, using the technique detailed in the troubleshooting section of the support area. No more blindly changing optos when the problem is elsewhere. Of course, the optos in the Ultimate Clock should live long, uneventful lives in their cooler environment along with the buffer circuit isolating the optos from the game's switch matrix.

The Ultimate Clock is looking for beta testers! The first short production run is being completed in May, and we're looking for people that are interested in using and evaluating the product. Beta testers get a special price for the board and some other advantages. We offer a lifetime warranty on beta boards. Should it ever fail, just return it to us for repair or replacement. We also offer a free exchange of your beta board for a regular production board should you wish to exchange it within one year of the end of the beta program. In return, all we ask is that you install the board and report back your experience with it - good and bad. Beta boards are fully tested and 100% functional, but they may have cosmetic issues (such as jumper wires) as is typical of any early production product. If you're interested in becoming a beta tester, please email us. Due to shipping costs, we must limit beta testers to those within the US.

Footnotes:

(1)
ultimate. Dictionary.com. WordNet® 3.0. Princeton University. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ultimate (accessed: January 27, 2008).

(2)
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.pinball/tree/browse_frm/thread/2f00d7d9e
5d1a30e/8e7d21f3de233bab?rnum=1&_done=%2Fgroup%2Frec.games.pinball%2Fbrowse_fr
m%2Fthread%2F2f00d7d9e5d1a30e%2F8e7d21f3de233bab%3Flnk%3Dst%26q%3D%26#doc_855ad2378f08592c

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