The Pinball Diaries (what did you do today?)

[WARLOCK]

I have been so busy at work................ (I know that is getting old and I promise to stop in two weeks)

I forgot that my LOTR is @ Brewmanager's. :shock: So is my Seven-UP! How could I forget them? There is an empty spot
at home waiting for lotr as well. Plus one waiting in Mississauga, 2 in Stouffville, 5 or more in Montreal?

I swear they are breeding on their own.

Soon, very soon we will be united, my pins and I. (kinda getting excited actually)

Back to work for now. :ugeek:

 

[Freezie]

I put some clear flipper buttons in my machines and installed cointaker flex LEDs behind them !

 

[DRANO]

I examined my first Bally 6803 MPU board.
I'm trying to troubleshoot a sound issue and it seems to be linked to the board and an odd (cracked) resistor on the back of the U1 chip.

 

[thewebexpert]

I installed tapatalk for phpbb ... Not as nice as vBulletin but it will do until the community can raise funds for a commercial program. Free for android, .99 on iPhone if you do not already own it ...

Sent from my GT-P7500 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

[brewmanager]

Haven't really done anything - I think I kind of burned myself out (and burned myself - no soldering wrists please!) working for so many straight late nights to get Jokerz ready for sale. In fact, I really only started playing again last night. Longest my pins have been dark in quite some time.

Still thinking about how to excise the ghost in my BK. next step is to test the boards in another machine - changing the 4049 chips solved the two switch matrix row issues I'd been having, but oddly caused a new row to show up. Santiago has been great at helping me, but even he must be tiring of this machine. I realized today that its the 2nd longest tenured machine in my basement. Now that's scary!

 

[DRANO]

Walt, looks like I've got some of those ghosts in my Bally Special Force too
Repaired a broken resistor and hoped that would bring the sound back... not no dice.

I guess I can't expect too much, considering what I paid, but I am struggling to track down the cause of the problem. Swapping PIA chips next.

 

[REVOLUTION]

Proud to announce my little dude has a baby brother on the way! not much time for pinball these days I'm afraid.. :?

oh, AND the Hemmings' are officially moving to Orangeville! House with a finished basement this time! So long, pink walls! :lol:

 

[Menace]

oh, AND the Hemmings' are officially moving to Orangeville! House with a finished basement this time! So long, pink walls! :lol:

That last sentence will be the death nail in your collection. You know EXACTLY what is going to happen right?

D

 

[Luckydogg420]

Congrats. One is enough for us. Do you remember all the work of a newborn? And now you are going to have two kids. Say goodbye to sleep for a while.

Orangeville is a nice town. Great central location.

 

[thewebexpert]

Yeah, but two kids can play together, so yeah, no sleep for a bit, but I can kick them outside and they will play for hours and I can work on my pinballs, or well, do nothing.

 

[tkaye]

I completed my light cycle mod on my Tron. Pretty proud of myself that I did it all by myself.
Ended up soldering the wiring to the battery terminals. Small bit of dowel kept splitting with screws even with pilot holes.
One of the LCs switch didn't glue down so I melted the top with the soldering iron and Bo
Lobbed a little solder inside to short the switch. It's the cycle at the back of the game so you can't see it.
I've got them temporarily wired with alligator clips until I decide where I want them to light from (gi or insert)
But I think hey look good considering I'm such an all thumbs rookie!

 

[quarter grabber]

I completed my light cycle mod on my Tron. Pretty proud of myself that I did it all by myself.
Ended up soldering the wiring to the battery terminals. Small bit of dowel kept splitting with screws even with pilot holes.
One of the LCs switch didn't glue down so I melted the top with the soldering iron and Bo
Lobbed a little solder inside to short the switch. It's the cycle at the back of the game so you can't see it.
I've got them temporarily wired with alligator clips until I decide where I want them to light from (gi or insert)
But I think hey look good considering I'm such an all thumbs rookie!

Cool, they do look good! I had to buy mine from kimballs pinballs. They came broken, and when I sent him an email telling him he just told me to glue them and wouldn't do anything for me. Good job you could do it on your own and not have to get from him, he's a jerk. They do look awesome though, good job!

 

[quarter grabber]

Did yours originally come with two bikes or did you have a car in place of the Flynn light cycle? Mine came with a car there and if I mount it the way you have (which looks better) you can really see the two screw holes for the car. How did you get around that??

 

[tkaye]

Did yours originally come with two bikes or did you have a car in place of the Flynn light cycle? Mine came with a car there and if I mount it the way you have (which looks better) you can really see the two screw holes for the car. How did you get around that??

Yes. Mine was a third run that included the Clu light cycle and a car on the blue plastic
I mounted the Tron (blue) light cycle on the rear hole and used the existing black post and screw from the die cast toy. Then I angled it to cover the front holes. The cycle is on a slight downward incline due to the rear being mounted on the post.

 

[quarter grabber]

Did yours originally come with two bikes or did you have a car in place of the Flynn light cycle? Mine came with a car there and if I mount it the way you have (which looks better) you can really see the two screw holes for the car. How did you get around that??

Yes. Mine was a third run that included the Clu light cycle and a car on the blue plastic
I mounted the Tron (blue) light cycle on the rear hole and used the existing black post and screw from the die cast toy. Then I angled it to cover the front holes. The cycle is on a slight downward incline due to the rear being mounted on the post.

Actually, that's a good idea. I'm going to try that, thanks.

 

[superjackpot]

Proud to announce my little dude has a baby brother on the way! not much time for pinball these days I'm afraid.. :?

oh, AND the Hemmings' are officially moving to Orangeville! House with a finished basement this time! So long, pink walls! :lol:

Wonderful news. Congratulations - on both fronts. Your little guy will be so happy.
As for the new house... more pinball space in this one :mrgreen: ??

 

[tim.sanderson]

I'm working on coming up with a rig to record games on my machine. I'm also trying different cameras. An HD web cam had good resolution, but crappy a frame rate. This one used my GoPro Hero2. I then rotated the video in Vegas, to make it a little easier to watch.

I need to work on lighting, (although this is pretty good for having the glass on) and improve sound quality, but it's a good start.
I'm not sure I like the wide angle look of the GoPro, but it does help keep the camera from needing to be very high above the machine.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mvJ8n5DtkKo[/youtube]

http://www.multiball.org/2013/06/gopro-hd2-test-2.html

 

[Vengeance]

Just use the same rig I use at the Launch Parties Tim, it's super cheap to make and easy to use.

 

[brewmanager]

Friday night, after my ball games, I made a run out to Brock's soon-to-be-former home in Brampton - amazing how that place has grown - my GPS had me running through fields most of the time, as an accident closed Hwy 50 and prevented me from following Brock's initial directions - even though I'd been there a few times before, Mike or Scott had previously been navigating.

Then over to Doug's to drop off the machine I picked up from Brock, and give him my BK for exorcism.

I've had it since September. In 24 hours, Doug had it working. And he probably slept, and ate, and played with his kids in those 24 hours too. What I wouldn't give for such skills....

Now to go get it, set it up in the garage work bay I've got going, and shop it out. Looking forward to having it play like a champion again. It's playing more like a 3-legged dog right now, according to Doug at least - I still haven't played it.

 

[Menace]

Yep, I was determined to get BK working quickly to repay you for picking up the game from Brock for me, BIG thank you on that one. And because I was "on a mission" I of course forgot to take pics of the troubleshooting DURING working on BK, so I'll go back and snap some "mock up" pics to add to my repair posts and at least show how I narrowed down some of the issues. (I don't think I took any pics of the under PF wiring hacks I un-did at your place previously)

D