The Pinball Diaries (what did you do today?)

[mwong168]

Got the txt earlier yesterday from my buddy Elliot that our PBL order was in and he needed some help swapping LEDs into his XM. After getting his Metallica Pro Refinery Edition a few weeks ago which is tricked out with lots of bright LEDs he wants to be able to cause simultaneous epileptic seizures when guests are over playing both his pins. Only took about 25 minutes to do all the GI, inserts and he was a happy camper. Going back tonight to help him relocate his games because the floor in his current pin space has a raw stone like finish making it impossible to level his games.

Part of that package also included my DK Pinball light up Flynn sign and figure this was the last missing piece to my Tron money pit Got home around 12:30am last night and figured it shouldn be a pretty straight forward install with this very well thought out and complete kit.

It came with a replacement plastic for the stock Flynn plastic which I guess would look redundant with the light up sign just above it.

Installing the sign was pretty easy and required me to drop the close by flasher to fish the wire through and then fed down the same hole to the bottom side of the playfield. It was a very clean install and power hook up was easy thanks to the DK Pinball power splitter board I installed last week in my Tron.

Here is the final outcome after 15 mins and have to replace one of my light cycles as it appears to have burned out.

 

[REVOLUTION]

Processed some MMLE orders last night and started work on 16 more shooter rods. Today I shipped some target bank decals and will be continuing on the shooter rods as well as prep work on 20 pyramid mods and 20 Terminator 2 mods, all for PinballDecals.com. Also shipping some Pinfinity Blades.

Later this week will be producing more repro Shadow phurbas and mongols for Planetary Pinball and then some more Freddy Glove repros for Pinball Resource.

There will also be some dirty diaper changes scattered about in there.

 

[DRANO]

Mike, make sure to plug the lightcycles into that controller moving forward. I have a first generation PIG and it puts out true 5v instead of the 6.3 (?) that the inserts run. This could be a leading cause of early burnout on these mods... which were designed to run on 5v.
Also, if this works like the PIG and allows you to trigger them with switches and inserts, you can avoid having them on al the time.

 

[mwong168]

Mike, make sure to plug the lightcycles into that controller moving forward. I have a first generation PIG and it puts out true 5v instead of the 6.3 (?) that the inserts run. This could be a leading cause of early burnout on these mods... which were designed to run on 5v.
Also, if this works like the PIG and allows you to trigger them with switches and inserts, you can avoid having them on al the time.

It's not a PIG and just the FTS-8 power splitter board from DK Pinball. Currently my light cycles are tied into their respective inserts and only flashing when they are active. I might just wire them to the 5V side of this power splitter and have them on full time to avoid them burning out by feeding it 6.3v (?).

 

[Chris Bardon]

Started stripping everything off of my CV playfield last night and managed to get most of the way through. Only a couple of nuts left that I already don't remember where they go, but I'm sure I'll figure it out as things go back together. So far the only piece that's been a complete pain in the ass to get apart is getting the ringmaster mech off, since I had to take off the subways and there's just a lot of wire in the way. Might have to disconnect some more to get everything back together.

 

[WARLOCK]

In the last 24 hours I stripped as much of the top side of the pf of Shadow as I could requiring all wireforms, metal ramps and diverters.
They are off to Mike Chesnut soon with some other parts to be replated. If I wasn't before, I am deep in several projects now for sure.

My daughter Megan is "Annie" in the lead role in Toronto right now. Opening night was last night. The play runs this week and next week
at the Fairview Library Theatre in North York.

Annie is put on by Curtain Call Players. http://www.curtaincallplayers.com You can get tickets through their website and choose your seats.
They are a phenominally talented group.

This is getting long, so I will make a thread.

 

[WARLOCK]

No one else has any posts on this thread in 12 hours? Huh. Ok. I will go once again then.

So I ripped apart as much of the upper playfield on TOM as I had time for in 37 minutes today.
I have 6 pieces ready to replate and then ship to Mike Chesnut in TN along with my Shadow
teardown parts and then a few other additional parts as well to send for a few friends.

I can't wait for the results, and to rebuild both Shadow and TOM. It will be almost 2 years since
I searched, hunted down, obtained, stripped, shipped and finally get returned parts that I have
been wanting for machines I was "hell bent on finally obtaining"! It will be a great day once they
are done and complete.

Thanks to all my friends for assistance. Crikey, I should start a thread.

More soon.

 

[Chris Bardon]

Finished getting CV cleaned and put back together and I thought I had it playing really well. One busted wire after getting it back into place, and one connector that I forgot to plug back in, and it was all good for a little while. Then it started blowing fuses on the GI (see the other thread). And here I thought I'd shopped it without creating any new problems...

 

[brewmanager]

On Saturday, I was talked by my wife into hauling two machines to the school she works at for their winter fair, and more specifically, in her Free the Children room selling items to raise money to help build a school for India. Fundraising for this organization has become her absolute passion, kind of the same way I feel about pinball. It reminds me of the time I was flying back from Orlando, and wound up sitting next to a guy who was going to Africa to help open an orphanage, and I was coming back from Disney. What can I do? I'm a bit self-centred....

At any rate, I had them cleaned, waxed, working 100% and with Warlock's help with my stairs waiting in the living room ready to go for setup Friday night. Loaded them into the van, dollied them into the classroom, and spent way too long leveling them and testing them. On the plus side, during a test game I put up an absolutely epic score, getting GC on a game I'd never even gotten a 1/4 of the points I got in this game.

We were charging $1 per game, all proceeds (every single dime) going to the build a school fund.

The next morning we opened the fair at 10 am, and immediately ran into some problems.

1. Most kids didn't have the slightest idea what to do, and were merely hammering on the flippers.
2. Parents kept pressing the start button again after their kids games, or starting 2, 3 or even 4 games for their kids.

The most surprising thing of all was that at some point, an upper flipper mechanism let go.

Nobody noticed. At least, not until my five year old showed up and announced the machine was broken, and sure enough, she was right.

I'd packed up all kinds of supplies and parts I thought I might need - bulbs, fuses, rubbers, you name it.

Never thought about a flipper breaking. It was near the end so I just left it - if no one but my daughter noticed it in the first place, I decided to chance that no one else would, and I was right.

End tally - one machine brought in $65, the other brought in $43 for a grand total of $108 in about 4.5 hours of play.

My wife says everyone loved it, and I'm glad she's happy.

But I think next year I might just cut a cheque, and save myself the trouble.

Anyone else ever tried something like this?

 

[spiroagnew]

End tally - one machine brought in $65, the other brought in $43 for a grand total of $108 in about 4.5 hours of play.

Curious...what machines made this grand adventure? Glad to see these old dogs still making in some dough!

 

[brewmanager]

Xmen was the big draw, being much busier than Flintstones. Flintstones was the one that broke...

 

[Menace]

Flintstones was the one that broke...

Damn those crappy B/W games... :lol:

D

 

[Chris Bardon]

Sorted out the GI problem with CV with the help of a breaker and some trial and error. Also managed to find one other switch that I'd forgotten to reconnect in the process. Game is back up and playing great though-I'm glad I cleaned out under the inserts when I had it torn apart. Makes a huge difference to the brightness of the game, and didn't actually take very long to do all things considered.

 

[brewmanager]

Realized it was exhaustion resulting in far too much kvetching in my recent posts. I am just happy that I was able to use something I love for the power of good.

Also need to express my gratitude to Warlock. I hope everyone has as good a friend as I do.

 

[DRANO]

Nothing earth-shattering to report for the last couple of weeks.

Got called away to Las Vegas on business (no trip to the PHOF this time though) and got back just in time to come down with a massive cold/flu. Been laid up for a few days now.

Last night I finally had a little bit of energy so I got around to finishing putting those great kevlar leg levelers on all my EMs. Now I can easily slide games around as needed.
Tonight I will continue to install some of the plated parts I got from Michael Chestnut at Expo last month; LOTR looks kick-ass in brass!

I also have a couple of playfields that have been waiting around for some attention. I guess I'll start a new batch this week. Luckily, most are just simple touch-up and clear. Nothing crazy to re-construct this time around.

 

[WARLOCK]

I decided to sell most of my vids.
I require room to work on my pins.

6 of 10 machines are gone and shipped.
More soon once these other vids do go.

I should sell a couple of pins as well I think.
I'm not sure what to do though just quite yet.

Toledo, Comet, Charlie's Angel's, Seven Up and..?

Perhaps an original "pukman - pacman cab"! Ouch.

Tough choices. I have 10 on the go. 5 stay. More soon.

 

[Grauwulf]

Today was a very pinball-repair heavy day. Fixed the dead flippers on a High Speed, which thankfully ended up being a busted EOS switch causing the fuse to blow if you held the flipper for more than a few seconds. Got the messed up left diverter from my Shadow welded up, so no more slop. Finally got a clients's Party Zone and Funhouse working 100% PZ had to have the switch matrix connectors at the MPU replaced, opto and connector replaced on the opto board for Capt B Zarr and repaired wiring to two non_working switches. Rudy''s head and the flippers got rebuilt on Funhouse. Nice to bring a bunch of machines back to 100% working condition.

 

[REVOLUTION]

Re-made some new molds for parts last night (T2 mod), this time using my new vacuum chamber. What a great tool.. no more bubbles!

This vac chamber will finally allow me to make the Tron shooter rods I've had in my brain for over a year now.

 

[mwong168]

I noticed the glove movement on my JM along the X-axis has been sort of sluggish as of late. I've read many times in the past because the rod is made of a much harder material then the nut it ends up stripping it over time causing it to bind, slip or get caught up during operation.

On my last Marco order I added two X-nuts and Y-nuts as I always like to have spares of unique parts for all my games. I swapped out the X-nut, added a bit of white lithium grease on the rod and smooth operation once again.

 

[Chris Bardon]

Nice-I'm planning on doing the same once I get the parts. I ordered both through Starburst Toronto, so hopefully they get in before Christmas. I think I'm also going to take apart/clean the gearbox at the same time, since I've read that can be a real improvement as well. How worn did the nuts look on your game?