Pinball game not starting? Switches not working? Here’s a trick that may work!

I’ve run into this problem at least 3-4 times in the last month with different early Bally/Stern solid state games: The game boots and appears to work but you can’t start a game and/or many switches/buttons don’t seem to work? Before you dive deep, try this simple, easy trick.

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which connectors on the Bally/Stern MPU board go to which areas of the game.

Prototyping A Brand New Mata Hari Ruleset!

I’ve been working on a new project that I’m very excited about. There’s been a movement to create an inexpensive, non-destructive and simple way to mod early Bally/Stern solid state games and add more features. In this video, I demonstrate an early prototype of the system used to modify a Bally Mata Hari pinball machine to include new features such as a skill shot, modes and even a wizard mode.

Want to learn more about this project? Visit: https://github.com/BallySternOS

Pinball Stories #25: Super Minty Mata Hara Dream Pickup – PinballHelp.com

You ever run across one of those pinball deals that turns out to be so sweet, you are afraid you’re going to get mugged getting the game into your vehicle? This is one of those deals. A really amazing find that I didn’t expect..

Pinball Stories #21 – A grail game from a special place!

I’m a firm believer of being patient in the pinball hunt. I’ve always wanted a Bally Wizard EM. It’s such a great game and has such beautiful artwork. They made a bunch of them so why has it taken so long? Because they’re an A-list game and often command A-list prices and I wanted a good deal. I waited and got more than what I wanted…

Here’s a video I did when I first picked the game up: https://youtu.be/kXVg88WqMIo

Upgrading to LED lighting: Bally Mystic

The other day as I was working on my Bally Mystic, I decided to upgrade the lighting in the backbox to LED and document what I consider to be a “tasteful” way to migrate from traditional incandescents to LED lighting. Some people complain about this but I think if you do it right, it’s a dramatic improvement, and in some ways is hard to tell from older style lighting. Let’s take a look!

Here’s the game as it was before work. Traditional bulbs in the playfield and the backglass. You will notice that this is not your typical game. This is an early production/prototype that has a different cabinet color and a special 3-dimensional version of the center eye/pyramid imagery for the crystal ball.
Here’s a close up of the original backglass lit with incandescent 44/47 type lights. Really beautiful artwork. NOTE that there’s more light shining ON the backglass in this picture, when compared with the last one below. This is probably due to the LEDs being brighter and my camera compensating by reducing the aperature or shutter speed.
After removing the backglass I replaced the incandescent bulbs with LEDs. I used a combination of cool and warm white frosted 2SMD LEDs from Comet pinball. I put cool white over areas with the following colors: white, blue, green, and warm white over areas dominated by: red, yellow, amber. In this case I went more heavy on cool because they make the image “pop” a little more as you’ll see…
And here’s the finished product. The whites are much whiter. The blues are bluer. I choose cool white for the crystal ball eye, and warm white for the pyramid (not pictured). NOTE that this is a mirrored glass, so there are only a few non-opaque areas so this isn’t the best example of how vivid and bright these LED-backed images can get. But IMO, a noticeable yet tasteful improvement.