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.
In this short video, I go over how to test the coin door service switches, and if faulty, how to replace them.
This is a fairly simple procedure.
If you have a button in the coin door that doesn’t appear to work, the first thing you should do is check to see if any of the wires have broken off or there’s a bad solder joint. This is very common because the coin door is opened and closed quite a lot and things can get snagged on the wires. Always check the wiring to make sure there are no kinks or damage to the wire. In the video I use a multimeter set to continuity to test the integrity of the switches. If the switches seem to work and the wiring is intact, the next thing to check is the continuity between the switches and the connector on the MPU board. If all that checks out, it could be one of the chips on the MPU board that handles the cabinet switches.
In this installment, I’m working on a Flash Gordon pinball machine. There’s a common plastic part that breaks that is very difficult or expensive to replace. I go over how to replace this part by fabricating your own plastic lane guide using common parts from local hardware stores.
In Part 2, I take things a step further by adding a metal reinforcement plate to keep the guide from breaking in the future, and I show off some amazing playfield paint touch up work and use lacquer to seal the touch-ups:
My friend Marcus Trevino recently posted a comprehensive outline of the process to break down an EM game for shipping. Much of this can also apply to solid state games, and it’s an excellent checklist of how to properly prepare a game to be shipped or transported to minimize any damage…
Now, if you do not have a lift, you can still use a bar stool, metal chair or saw horse to help you. I recommend going to home depot or Lowes and getting a plastic saw horse. They are not too expensive. Best advice would be to go to harbor freight and buy a lift. It will be used time and time again.
01. Unplug the pinball machine.
02. Remove the playfield glass and place it in a safe location.
03. Remove the balls from the game and place them in a ziplock bag.
04. Re-install the playfield glass.
05. Open up the head and disconnect the jones plugs.
06. Remove the head bolts and place them in a ziplock bag.
07. Close up the head and return keys to cabinet door or place them in ziplock bag with head bolts.
08. If you wish to protect the backglass and head, place a piece of cardboard in front of the backglass.
09. Using blue painters tape or frog tape, secure the cardboard in place so that it covers the backglass.
10. Apply shrinkwrap to the head. Wrap it 4-5 times for ideal snugness.
11. Remove the blue painters tape from the top of the head.
12. Place cardboard or moving blanket across the playfield glass. This will protect the side rails.
13. Fold the head so it is lying on the cabinet body. Make sure the bottom of the head is resting against the right angle created by the wood base and playfield glass.
14. Using a strap, secure the folded head to the body of the cabinet. Do not over tighten. You want some give in the strap so you can slide cardboard into position.
15. Cut cardboard to fit the side of the cabinet body and slide it between cabinet & straps. Tighen Strap.
16. Once cardboard is in place, apply shrinkwrap to secure cardboard to cabinet body. The ideal method is to wrap with the playfield glass as north. You then want to roll the shrinkwrap beneath the cabinet body and back up the side and then over the playfield glass. At least 4-5 layers are needed for ideal snugness.
17. BE CAREFUL NOT TO WRAP THE LEG BOLT AREA. You want to be able to remove the bolts.
18. Go behind the machine and start loosening the bolts. You are only trying to loosen. DO NOT REMOVE
19. Place the bar stool, metal chair or saw horse in a spot that you easily access it while holding the back end.
20. With your left hand, grip the underside of the cabinet on the outside edge of the leg.
21. With you right hand, grip the underside of the cabinet on the outside edge of the leg.
22. Lift with your legs. The back end of the machine should now be off the floor.
23. Shift your hip so you can rest the game on it. Reach with one hand and slide the bar stool, saw horse or metal chair beneath the bottom edge of the back side of the cabinet.
24. Before letting go completely, make sure that the machine is stable.
25. Remove the bolts of one backleg and place the leg to one side and the bolts in a ziplock bag.
26. Repeat for the other back leg.
27. Now comes the tricky part. You will need to lift the back end with both hands.
28. Once you have the weight of the machine in your hands, you need to either slide the bar stool (or whatever you used) from beneath the pinball machine.
29. Slowly lower the back end of the machine to the ground. You can put a sofa cushion or pillows or blankets to help cushion the drop. Be wary, this will take some strength.
30. Once the legless back end is on the ground, you simply tip the game onto its but.
31. Remove the front legs. Place the bolts in a ziplock bag.
32. Collect your legs and stack them. Using blue painters tape or an old playfield rubber, bind the four legs together.
33. Place your coin door keys in the zip lock bag.
34. Place a piece of paper with the name of your game in the zip lock bag.
35. Place your zip lock bags inside of the leg crease.
36. Wrap the four legs with shrinkwrap. Place the wrapped legs on the head portion of your folded game.
37. Using Stretchwrap, create a pinball mummy by wrapping the game 4-5 complete rotations.
38. Your game is ready to be hand carted to its transportation vehicle.
It was recently revealed in some online forums that a bug was discovered in the Wizard of Oz program code, that allowed very lucrative shots to be done repetitively, racking up large amounts of points. This exploit was observed being used by a high-level pinball player and attracted the ire of WOZ software developer Keith Johnson, who was quite upset he had to find out about the bug from others after it was used in a competitive environment.
Keith was understandably upset, and I don’t blame him. But once there was a bug known, those that were aware decided to keep it secret until it was patched. Unfortunately with some people knowing the bug and actively taking advantage of it in competitive situations, some of us felt keeping the exploit private was unfair and counterproductive.
With the assistance of Marcus Trevino, tournament director at the Texas Pinball Festival and Houston Arcade Group and Josh Tidmore, I did some research and discovered the exact nature of this bug, which I’m revealing in the video below. I’m doing this in hopes of making everybody aware of what the bug is and how to spot it being exploited.
Note that it’s NOT easy to even get to the point where it can be exploited. It would take a pretty experienced player to use this glitch, but it’s definitely doable and very profitable when executed.
In a nutshell, the exploit has to do with the second phase of Emerald City Multiball Jackpots. In order to use the exploit you do the following:
1. Start ECMB (Emerald City Multi Ball) by lighting all the character letters and locking 3 balls in the center/right ramp.
2. Complete the first phase of ECMB jackpot shots by hitting a character rollover and then shooting the right/center ramp. After all three characters are collected, you then shoot the throne room to approach the Wizard.
3. The second phase involves rolling over each character button (Tin Man, Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion) and then shooting the throne room to collect the jackpot/reward
You’re supposed to hit each character + throne room to get a jackpot.
The Jackpot starts at 20k and then increased by 10k for each subsequent Jackpot, so ideally completing the second wave would yield:
20k + 30k + 40k = 90k total points for all three character jackpots in the second phase.
However, if you avoid hitting the second and third character rollovers, and instead keep shooting the throne room, you can rack up consecutive, cumulative jackpots in perpetuity (20k + 30k + 40k + 50k + 60k, etc.) theoretically scoring endless amounts of points and jackpots that keep increasing.
In today’s episode, I go over some standard, recommended modifications to the Bally-35 series solenoid driver board. There are over 60 popular pinball games that use this hardware setup and these quick modifications will help make the game run better and more-reliably. They involve adding three jumpers to the board. Whenever I have a chance to work on one of these boards, I do these mods.
Here are some front and back pictures of both Bally and Stern Solenoid driver boards. The black wires are the mods. The other colored wires are done by operators having to do with the coil lockout relay.
