This is an unedited series of videos showcasing some experiments I have been doing trying to repair damaged pinball ramps for which there are no replacements available at the present time. In this case, I’m working on a Bally Party Zone ramp, using different types of epoxies, plastics and adhesives. See work works and what doesn’t. In the end, I figured a creative approach using laser cut plexiglass tabs which were attached to ramps using two different types of adhesives.
Here’s a quick video that shows how to take an old PC power supply you may have laying around and use it to power up pinball boards for testing. I use the Bally-35 MPU board as an example of how we can set this up to do board work on the MPU while it’s outside of the actual pinball machine. This is great for testing things while you’re refurbishing a board that’s been giving you problems.
Here are six videos of an 8 part series of clips I shot this past week while working on restoring a Bally Theatre of Magic game.
What’s interesting about this series is you can really follow along with me as I fumble around trying to figure out what’s wrong. This is an all too common path many enthusiasts take which often leads them back to the beginning of the trail and emphasizes a number of common troubleshooting principals.
At this point, I have a working game except for two minor glitches with switches: An opto in the ball trough is not working, and it’s causing the game to kick balls into the shooter lane when powered up, and the EOS switches on the flippers are not being registered by the MPU. The solution to both of these issues was finally found and may or may not be what you expect. Watch the series to find out!
I recently picked up a very nice condition game but it had an odd damaged section in the middle. Obviously this needs to be fixed and in this series, my lovely assistant Brandi, helps me with playfield touch-ups and gives us some tips and tricks.
Here’s a picture of what the game looked like before:
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..
Here’s a short video I did as I was working on a Fish Tales game about to be put on location. I go over a number of things I’m doing to make the game operate more reliably and some general tricks for reducing wear and tear on the game.
In this video I show how you can replace a broken linkage in a flipper or slingshot or other plunger assembly. These are notorious for breaking. You can purchase the entire assembly with a link, or you can punch out the roll pin and install your own link. Is it worth it to DIY this? I’ll let you decide.