Category Archives: Tests & Checks

Work continues on the Bally Mr. & Mrs Pac Man Pinball Game

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In the continued saga of bringing this 1980s game back to life, I begin to go over the electronics and figure out why the game wouldn’t boot up.  Normally you fire up these Bally machines and count the number of times the LED on the MPU board blinks, but in this case, the game didn’t even get far enough to begin to start up the MPU.  Fuse F3 kept blowing and the game wouldn’t power up at all…

An examination of the schematics showed an area on the power rectifier board where it was likely some components were damaged and needed to be replace.  Luckily, these were not very obscure items so I could pick them up easily.

Stay tuned for the next installment where I go into addressing an issue with a broken plastic rail guide that probably can’t easily be replaced, so I have to fabricate my own!

 

First Look: Bally Mr. & Mrs. Pac Man Pinball

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Fresh out of the truck is another acquisition.  This came from a guy whose wife wanted it out of the house.  The machine had been sitting for many years and would not work.  Here’s a first look at a classic 1980s Bally solid-state pinball machine: Mr. & Mrs Pac Man.

Mr. and Mrs Pac-Man was built in 1982, with approximately 10,600 made. The designer of this game is the same guy, George Christian who did one of Bally’s most successful and critically-acclaimed titles, “Eight Ball Deluxe” (as well as the original Eight Ball game). The art is also by another renown artists in the field, Pat McMahon, who also did the artwork for Tales of the Arabian Nights.

In this video I show you what I see as I go through this newly-acquired machine.   You never know what you’ll find inside these cabinets, interesting hacks, foreign objects, broken stuff, etc.  I just moved the game into my workshop and am doing what I call an “audit” of it.  Seeing if I notice anything in or out of place and generally getting an idea of how much work may be needed to get this game back in shape.  Join me!

Here’s a look inside the cabinet:

Before you turn a new game on: checking coils

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Since we picked up this Williams Earthshaker in such horrible condition and have never seen it powered up, before we even attempt to turn it on, we need to go over some areas of the game to make sure that applying power doesn’t cause more harm.  In this article, I go over one check, which is making sure all the coils/solenoids are in good condition.  A burned-out coil can cause damage in other areas of the machine, or even a fire.