been a while..

Figured I'd should update anyone that might follow this.  What's happened in the last 2-3 months?

Well I had my first pinball meetup at gameworks, which I thought went fairly well.  Feels like running a club (or even getting one started) is going to be a tough battle.  Seems most pinball collector/players just wanna play and fix their own machines (though I do have an un-official invitation to go see a guy's 16 pin collection down in aurora in about 2 weeks).  I don't think most people really realize the benefit of a club.

I also acquired my 3rd pin, a williams jokerz!

So far I've replaced the pinball glass (tons of scratches), touched up the cabinet paint (lots of cracks), gave the playfield a nice cleaning, and had to already replace the display.  The original kept crapping out, so I spent the $150 to get a modern LCD version (less power, will last 20+ years).  I still have some general illumination issues to work out, and although I have general sound, there is no music (error shows up during diagnostics), but it's not the roms.

I've decided I'm going to fix my 1968 bally gator as good as I can (going to replace the solenoid coil on the 1st player 2nd reel score), see if that fixes the issue I'm having.  Come next spring, it's going to a garage sale and I'm getting what I can for it (which will probably be at a loss).  It's a bit disappointing considering I felt like I had to fight to get it at $150 (non-working), and yet I can't seem to even get $200 for it cleaned up, rubbers replaced, bulbs replaced, contacts cleaned, flipper coils replaced.  I don't regret buying it, as it was a small investment, and I learned a lot as my first pinball, but I'm probably going to stick to pins I REALLY like (hence why I am completely restoring my space shuttle).

On that note, I'm also setting aside a pinball fund.  This is money that's not part of any paychecks, this is stuff I sell, side work I do, etc.  I don't plan on buying a pin soon because I know if I do, it will make me not want to work on space shuttle.  My next step is to figure out why sound isn't amplified.  Could be a bad pot, could be a bad amp chip.  Once I get that working, I am probably going to do a complete playfield swap.  This scares me, but at the same time I couldn't think of a better pin to do it on.  It's a fairly simple playfield (only one ramp, not very layered), and I will be motivated to finish it.

So in the meantime, I will keep saving up ($550 so far), and someday maybe I can buy a pinball that doesn't already have issues.  Ideally (my dream) would be to own an earthshaker or black knight 2000.  I remember playing earthshaker for hours and hours at a local arcade about a mile from my house.  Black knight was at an arcade much further, but I went there a lot and I remember how much I loved the soundtrack.

space shuttle playfield reproduction

Well I bought one.. got on a waiting list months ago as soon as I realized they were in the works.  I also ordered new plastics for a mere $75 ($125 separately).  This pin is apparently notorious for very bad playfield wear, so I guess I shouldn't be so unhappy that mine is so wrecked.  It will soon be better than factory (they fixed a lot of the misprints and alignments williams neglected to fix).  Watch the vide of them printing it:


It's gonna be a LOT of work to transfer all the pieces to the new board, but I think it will be worth it.

Pinball club meetup

Felt so good to meet with other pinball fanatics.  Both guys are clearly passionate, and Jeff seemed really knowledgeable both about general facts, and restoring (and modding) pins.  We brainstormed some ideas, and I really think this club is going to take off (sounds like a LOT of people have really been wanting someone to start a new one, but nobody has the time to put into it).

I like little sandwiches too!  let's form a club!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YGNPwdE5MI

legs painted

I decided since the legs were so pitted and rusty that I'd just use some good rustoleum paint.  Almost went with hammerpaint, but decided on a nice reflective silver that closely matched chrome.  First I had to grind all the rust off

shopping, and not the grocery kind

Ok, so I fixed my issue with the USA switches at the top (I assumed it was microswitches, not copper leafsprings).  Quick sanding of the contacts, voila! working again.  Left flipper gets stuck once in a while, so I'm going to have to rebuild it one of these days.  Some of the playfield sockets are bad under the plastics (replacing bulbs didn't work), though it seems to be in sections.  Might just be a weak connection to the first bulb.  Still waiting for my roms from indiana, was half expecting them to arrive today, ,but shouldn't be here any later than tomorrow.  I ordered a new CPU and main sound controller chip ($10 each, shipping included).  If that doesn't fix the no-sound, I'm going to have to start replacing caps, possibly look at the op-amp.

pinball life

Stopped by pinball life in huntley to pickup some parts and check the place out.

The owner was really nice, asked me if I was a long time pinball collector or a newbie.  I showed him a list of parts, and he brought me out to his warehouse to grab stuff.  He asked how far away I was, I said 4 miles.  He goes "wow, out of the 1 of 4 pinball part suppliers your that close by?  Lucky you".  He clearly has a good grasp of what he has in stock and what I'm looking for (he has about 4-6 pins in the middle at all times).  Asked about ben heck since he was there recently, he said he's a really nice smart guy, but he asks a little too much money for his projects (isn't sure how much he actually sells).

Told him about the 4-player start problem I'm having with my gator, gave me a business card of a local guy that works on stuff, says he's really cheap (he must love the hobby).  I might just give him a call, who knows he might give me some tips.

Anyway, here's the goods I got fer $36:

* The feet (and most of the inside legs) of the space shuttle were rusted to hell.  Whoever had this originally must have had a flood in the basement.

* Can never have too many LED bulbs for replacing
* My gator was missing two acorn bolts, so figured I should replace those (and have spares)
* Two of the balls in the space shuttle were rusty too (seriously, how do you allow a pin to get so badly abused, I've never seen rusty pinballs, they're chromed for crying out loud!), picked up 3 (can never have enough)
* New lock mechanism for backglass cabinet.  Doesn't seem to have a key, so out it comes

space shuttle - getting in deeper

So I'm reading postings on forums about sound.  It could be the CPU chip, it could be the main sound processor chip, it could be a faulty op-amp.  I figure the easiest quickest fix is to just replace the two main roms for $10 each.  Worst case if mine aren't bad, they are good to have backups for the future (never know when roms aren't going to be available).  There's a guy out of indiana that sells them, so it shouldn't take long to get here:
http://www.thatpinballplace.com/eproms/index.htm

If it's the sound amplifier, I guess I'm going to have to just start desoldering capacitors until something works.  I'm not so sure someone sells NOS of space shuttle amplifiers.  There is some troubleshooting in the manual about sound not working
http://www.ipdb.org/files/2260/Williams_1984_Space_Shuttle_Manual.pdf

So I might just have to go through it one by one.

One thing I do like about this pin is the fact that it has so much diagnostics built in.  3 self test buttons behind the coin door, and test buttons on the main CPU.  I don't know how modern pins are, but this is the first time I've seen this.

Anyway, here's a quick test of it playing with backglass installed

Space shuttle pinball setup

So I got my pinball all hooked up.  Sound doesn't work, but I did a of cleaning up.




















Already replaced the incadescent bulbs with LED's:

Sound still isn't working, all the rom chips there:

Also there's some corrosion on this board towards the top:

I've noticed that sometimes the LED versions of the #44 bulbs don't want to fit in correctly, but if I lightly squeeze them with a wrench, it fits better

won an ebay auction for another pin

Take a guess what it is!





Will post more about it (and pics and video) once it's in my basement all hooked up.

backglass cleanup

Well I took the best photo I could, and I'm still not satisfied with the results.  There's shadowing from my dark basement, and if I use lighting I either get hotspots or reflections.  also because the camera is so far away, the image isn't as sharp as it could be.

I think I want to do two things:
1. Take the photos outside on a cloudy day (to prevent reflection), but still have enough light to give natural color
2. Take 4 separate photos to increase detail, and also prevent the perspective skewing you get with an image.

This blog sort of talks about it, but it doesn't really go into detail HOW he took the photos.  I would imagine you'd want to at the very least use a tripod, but you'd also want to make sure the camera were perfectly perpendicular to the backglass everytime, otherwise when you merge them together your going to have uneven sizes (and it will never line up right).
http://tuukan.fliput.net/bglass_en.html

illinois pinball club

So it seems the only pinball club in this area is this one:
http://www.pinballmafia.net

And it seems to be an exclusive club that is limiting members that I'm never going to get in, what to do?  Well start my own of course!  I posted an ad on craigslist, and got 3 responses right away.  So since I had some interest, I decided to just go ahead and toss up a website real quick (so it would start getting indexed by google).  It only cost me $1 to register the domain (sale at godaddy), and I found a pretty good reliable free host to point it to.  Anyway, if your in illinois, go ahead and check out the site:
http://illinoispinballclub.com

Gator buyer?

Ok, so I registered my gator pinball on a database that tracks who owns what pinball when I first got it.  Just logged in tonight, and it turns out I have someone interested in buying it.

I find that so interesting that someone would look for a pinball they used to play when they were younger.  It makes me want to find more pins and restore them (and keep them out of the dumpsters).  I'm sure there are lots of pins just sitting in basements and garages, not working, owned by someone who doesn't have a clue how to fix it, and keeps telling themselves "oh, I'll get it running... someday".

Anyway, part of me says "don't get rid of your first pin, it's your FIRST".  Well honestly, evel knievel was my FIRST, this is just the first one I paid for and restored myself.  Would I sell it? Sure, but at the minimum I'd want to get back what I invested in it (including parts)

LED'S are here! LED's are here!

I'm totally digging that there are direct replacement bulbs for pinball in LED form. The bulbs mine uses is #44/47 (bayonet) bulbs, same ones you probably used in science class as a kid. Super bright, no heat, and they last a long time. Here's a photo of a few I've replaced so far, you can easily see the difference. The incandescent looks yellowish, the LED's are true white.

If your looking for LED replacements for your pinball, here's where I ordered mine (best prices I could see):
http://www.centsibleamusements.com/pinball-led-44-47.aspx

Gator pinball working 90%

So I finished replacing the left flipper coil, much better (doesn't get stuck), though both flippers still seem weak.  Not sure if that's just how pinball was in that era, or maybe the main Transformer is getting weak (and thereby supplying less voltage), or maybe that's just how small flippers are?  Anyway, it starts up everytime (4 player mode, free play).  Still going to replace all the bulbs, give the playfield a waxing, and try to replace the backglass by taking a photo and fixing it in photoshop, and getting a translite version.

slowly but surely, getting there

Ok so today I talked to a former co-worker (since I'm unemployed), and was talking about how I'm working on my pinball still. He suggested I try to keep it dark and look for sparks on the cylinder on the base of the pinball case. I did see one towards the top momentarily, so I decided to take all the switches in that area off one by one, and file the contacts. Sure enough, after I did that, it starts up EVERYTIME. The only annoying thing is that it ALWAYS starts a 4 player game, and the credits don't work (stuck on freeplay). Of course being a homegame this isn't the worst thing in the world (so long as it works), but I'm thinking I might just need to change some setting.

Anyway, I also took apart the coil on the left side, and nearly got it soldered back in, but phonecalls interrupted (and I don't want to spend an entire day on it because I have other stuff to do). The bad side is that the coil I got to replace it is wired differently (3 contacts all in a row, as apposed to the old one which has the contacts seperated on different layers of the bobbin). The good part is that it seems that the previous owner replaced the right one somewhat recently, because the contacts matches the coils I have (hence why the right flipper works better), so I should be able to trace wires and duplicate it on the left side.

If all goes well, I could seriously have a working pinball soon. I still want to go through and replace all the dead bulbs. Have been seeing a lot of guys replace their incandescent bulbs with LED's. Granted I can buy incandescent replacement bulbs for about 40 cents a piece, it's a hassle to replace some of them when they burn out (and I don't think they give off great light). A lot of purists will argue that point, but this is my pin and if don't like it too bad. Anyway, lowest price I could find is $1.50 each, and they have white and colors, so I got mostly white and a few green (to try out since my theme is gator):
http://www.centsibleamusements.com/pinball-led-44-47.aspx

EM pinball if nothing else.. it's a learning tool

So my pinball still isn't working. I can get it to start a 3 player game if I manually kick the relay over behind the backglass (pretty much everytime), but of course this isn't the way it's meant to be played. The flippers are still weak (and the left one keeps dying), so I went ahead and purchased some replacement coils for the flipper solenoids (along with a new lock key and rubbers for the flippers). It doesn't feel like there's anything obstructing the flippers, so I figure spending $8 replacing each coil (which probably should be done anyway) is a good place to start.

I did take a good look at how the flipper mechanism worked. Here I was going to invent my own way of controlling the flippers when it's already been designed so well. There's a little arm that has a build in collet with a set screw that attaches to the pinball flipper rod. There's no reason I could connect my car actuator to something like that. Also on the old ones (perhaps the new ones too), they use a spring to pull the flipper back into position. To my earlier revelation, this is how I also plan on getting mine back into position rather than trying to flip the voltage to kick it back.

pinball wiper

video speaks for itself

gator pinball... running?

There's definitely something odd going on with the scoring reset, but if toggle the power about a dozen times, it finally kicks over and starts.  Looks like beyond a new rubber kit, I also need to replace the solenoids on both flippers.

Update: I've since replaced the rubber with a full kit.  From the last time I tinkered with it, it seems the 3rd digit on the player 1 counter is getting stuck for some reason.  I may have to dis-assemble it to see if something is jammed.

little monsters - "down here.. there IS no tilt!"

About 6-1/2 minutes into the above clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv2mqUnWsr4&feature=player_detailpage#t=386s

it shows a young fred savage going into an underground arcade.  He starts playing Vector pinball

and maurice (played by howie mandell) starts shaking the machine violently.  Brian starts getting upset because the pinball is going to TILT, but maurice informs him there is no tilt.

bud light superbowl 2010 commercial

Forgot about this one.  There's a pinball machine in the background that has a bud light them

neil patrick harris xfinity radio commercial features pinball

Who'da thought pinball would still be used in mainstream media?  Check it out:

Xfinity pinball radio commercial by nobodyishereman

pinball turns on, doesn't start

When I replaced the fuses, bammo the lights come on and stuff starts to move inside.  However, it doesn't want to start a game.  There's a motorized spindle under the playfield right in the middle that seems to spin forever, as if it can't clear something out, so I'm not sure what could be wrong (perhaps a relay stuck open?)  Of course after bumping the coin door a few times, and messing with the position of the scoreboard, it suddenly starting working!  Of course, it only worked once, but man getting it working felt so good.  I did notice the left flipper had issues flipping everytime (at least when the zipper flippers came together).  Also there seems to be a missing wall in part of the playfield because the ball got stuck a couple times.

My first pinball machine

Literally looked at a recent craigslist ad in the morning, someone was having a garage sale 2 miles from work today (starting at 8:30). Another pinball fan from work drove over there right away to check them out, we went back at lunchtime. He wanted $200, talked him down to $150. Backglass has cracks, and so far it doesn't fire up, but I'm hoping it's just the blown fuses in it.  I was so careful driving it home, I was worried that the backglass would shatter the rest of the way just from the bumps, but it survived.  I want to try to take a bunch of photos straight on, and merge them in photohop (clean up the crack marks), and hopefully get a reproduction glass.  I found out a process called "duratrans", which is the process you see for large backlit ads in malls and such.  Looks like I'm looking at about $50 for the print:

http://www.mightyimaging.com/backlit_transparency.html

and then I can either do plexiglass or get real glass cut from a local frame shop (maybe another $10-$30?).  Here's my pin on the database (which I still need to add myself to):

www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?gid=987

Met mark ritchie

Yes, the pinball designer:
http://pinwiki.org/wiki/Mark_Ritchie

The younger brother to the VERY famous Steve Ritchie now the lead engineer at Stern Pinball:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ritchie

No, this was not recently, it was a long time ago (and not realizing at the time who he really was).  This was probably around 1998?  My brother worked for Incredible Technologies at the time, and I was still getting my feet wet as a mechanical engineer (doing mostly drafting work for a company, trying to get my opportunity to do some design work).  Mark was at the time working on an mp3 jukebox (completely new cabinet from scratch), and gave me some drafting work.  Not sure if he was throwing me a bone (because of my brother), or really that was his way of interviewing me to see if I'd be a good fit for a job there.  Needless to say, I got paid (something) for the work I did.  Had I known who it was at the time, I would have been a more excited of who I was meeting.  I must say he seemed like a really cool guy.

Tron Pinball

I dug the new movie, and I'm a bit excited for the new Pin from Stern.  Slated for a May-June release, I'm sure the Gameworks in Schaumburg will get this as soon as it's available.
http://www.pinballnews.com/games/tron/index2.html

pinball auction

Went to an estate auction this morning, didn't win :-(

They had a stargate pinball, sold for $1000.  1994, so recent, but not a great layout.  You would have to really be a fan to want to a pay that.

They also had a hi-flyer which ended up selling for $350:
http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?gid=11670

Granted it's old and I shouldn't have been so critical, the flippers seemed weak, there was at least 1 bulb out, and the backglass had scratches in the artwork.  I also wasn't too keen on the layout (though it would have been nice to have a mechanical pin as my first machine).

I'm going to keep looking on craigslist and ebay until I find one I like at a reasonable price.

pinball podcasts

Yes, they do exist!  I'm trying to catch up on these:
http://www.spookypinball.com

http://www.silverballpodcast.com

Also check out ben heck's latest podcast where he shows off his custom lost pinball he's working on, and great teamwork with jeri elsworth

Future Pinball working!!

So I've been fighting with this for probably a good week (I REALLY want a virtual pinball).  Visual Pinball is a pain, from what I've read from dribbled information from forums, if you want to run visual pinball (the old emulator) as dual screen, it HAS to be run through a frontend like hyperspin, and I believe you have to manually configure position/scale, which is a pain in the ass (which I still don't understand how it works).

So then I read that future pinball is a little easier (and you don't need hyperspin to make it work).  Started it up as always, this time with my 37" LCD TV hooked up to it.  Can't understand why the option to do 2nd screen isn't available (greyed out).  Read some more forums, nothing.  Then I think.. "I can select two displays in nvidea settings, but I can't select primary, and it doesn't show the 2 monitors in windows setting"

So I go download the latest drivers for my Geforce 8400 GS card, and low and behold.. I can select primary display, I get the checkbox in future pinball to select backbox on secondary display.  After about 20 minutes of tweaking settings (choosing primary, selecting rotation, etc), I finally get pinball working on 2 monitors:

head to head pinball

I always thought "Hey, you know what would be pretty cool?  a head-to-head pinball game.  Surely someone must have done that at some time?"

Well turns out someone has, but it's from a long time ago so it's pretty simplistic:


But then I found this.. a very RARE Joust pinball game:




Which is just AWESOME, especially with the sounds from the game

steel pinball test

Got my real deal steel pinball.  As you can see from the video below, it appears I have enough strength to pop the ball. Can't know for sure until I build a full size table, but so far it's looking good



Even though this actuator seems to be working out, I ordered a pair of what I believe to be higher torque and more weight driven actuators (more internal gears and higher rpm motor I believe).  It's rated as one that's applicable when more force is needed (heavier door), so the new ones should work that much better.  Picked up the pair for $13+shipping, which I don't think is unreasonable.  This is totally working out, which is better than I expected.

12v flipper proof of concept

Finally decided to mockup a very rough "proof of concept" using some scrap wood from my basement.  This is a flipper that is powered by an actuator from a automotive door lock as apposed to a solenoid.  Much simpler design, lower power.  I don't yet have a real pinball ball to test with (one on order), but it still looks somewhat promising even if I am using a tennis ball.

tommy boy pinball

Ok, so I started messing around with visual pinball.. Got frustrated (mostly because it's so old), but did manage to figure out how multiple flippers work in the scripts.  Turns out most of the same script tags work in future pinball (which is superior) for many reasons:
1. It's true 3d (camera can be moved
2. You can import custom 3d objects
3. It supports layers so it's easier to see levels
4. sounds are much easier to attach to objects

Anyway, although VERY rough right now, I did manage to get some graphics laid down and some sound effects imported to targets

One thing I've definately noticed while building a pinball virtually is that it doesn't take much to get a ball stuck without proper design. While I would love to just get my hands dirty and start building a physical table, there's definitely something to be said about prototyping first and working out the bugs.

Also whenever I DO get my real physical pinball machine started, they do in fact sell a diecast of the 67 GTX car that I could put right in the center of the playfield!

Got my actuator

So I hooked it up to a battery.  The good and the bad:
Good: I was worried I'd have to reverse the voltage to retract it.  As soon as I remove power, it retracts.  That means I can totally just wire it up to a button.
Bad: It's not quite as strong as I'd hoped, but it could possibly work.  That plus I think this is only a 2lb actuator, I can still buy a 10lb actuator for about $20.

Also regarding the soundboard, I figured out a much better way to do it than initially thought.  I got a Soundtrack shirt for christmas:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/interactive/a5bf/

which is $30 and has 20 seperate sound banks that stores on an SD card (I believe as long of a sound as you want).  If you add up $5 each for a card sound module I found previously x 20 = $100.  So if I buy another soundtrack shirt to hack, it would totally cover more than enough sounds for a pinball machine (plus everything is stored on a single SD card, which makes it easier to update sounds).