Category Archives: How-To

How to, maintenance and other technical aspects.

First Look: Bally Kings of Steel Pinball – bringing a dead MPU back to life

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This is a nice video series I’ve been working on for the last 2-3 weeks involving a very nice-condition, 1984 Bally “Kings of Steel” pinball machine – you just don’t see this game very often. I think I’ve actually never played one before so I was psyched to pick up the game. Unfortunately, like most of the time, it didn’t work — this game would not boot up and had some obvious issues. Here is a video playlist of my work thus far getting the MPU board back in action. This is a particularly good sequence going over how to trace issues on the MPU board, and in this case, it wasn’t a typical battery-leaking-damage situation. Something else was wrong as you’ll see..

How and why to upgrade your pinball lighting system to LEDs

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Depending upon who you ask, you may get different arguments for or against switching out your old incandescent pinball bulbs for newer LEDs. I don’t think this is an either-or proposition. I think you can do both! In this video series, I go into why you might want to update your lighting system and why, as well as talk about proper sue of lights based on their color temperature.

Securing and adjusting stand-up targets and their leaf switches

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On many games such as this Theater of Magic, there are stand-up targets in the middle of the playfield that take a constant beating from the ball. The switch blades in these targets, as well as the entire assembly will often get bent out of position and stop registering. I demonstrate how to use a simple tool to fix the leaf switch blades and put them back into position, as well as some other techniques for making sure the targets are solidly-attached to the playfield.

Stand-up targets have changed very little over the decades so this technique works on both old and new pinball machines.

Pinball Flipper Tune-Up: replacing bushings

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If you have a wobbly-feeling pinball flipper, there’s a good chance the bushing is either worn or broken. In this two-part video I go over how to remove the flipper assembly and replace the bushings so you can get nice, snappy, flipper action.

This general technique applies to most flipper assemblies with only a few minor detail changes. Some bushings were screwed into the flipper assembly (especially with Gottliebs) and others were connect to the flipper assembly plates themselves (as in later WPC games).

Repair, don’t replace that broken pinball coil!

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Pinball coils (aka solenoids) are windings of insulated copper wire that create electromagnets that make things move on the playfield. If you have a coil that is no longer working, and doesn’t have any obvious signs it has “melted down”, there’s a very good chance you can repair it instead of replacing it. In this video I go over how this is typically done. This works on all types of pinball machines from the EMs to Stern, Bally, Williams, etc.