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

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:

28 thoughts on “First Look: Bally Mr. & Mrs. Pac Man Pinball

  1. Just bought one today for $800; appears very clean, this is my first pinball machine ever, but after watching some of your videos and doing some reading on web, felt confident it was okay. He put a new Alltek board in, so no batteries anymore, which I didn’t realize was part of installing one of those took care of.

    Thanks for all your help and videos here!

  2. If it wasn’t for your videos I would have not known where to start on my mr & mrs pacman, Thank you for this. I have my machine working great. But there is one problem. My left lane gate does not open when it is supposed to. Any ideas? There is power to it but it doesn’t operate like it should.

    • I’d clean the coin and make sure it’s not gunked up.. then try to run a coil test and see if it opens. If it doesn’t, check the connection. You can get the manual/schematics and trace which pins on which connector relate to that coil.

      and Thanks so much for your kind words!! 🙂

      – Mike

  3. Mike thanks for the response. I have an original repair manual so i will check it out. I thought it might be a problem with the driver board, i had a problem with a badly soldered molex pin that the gate would lose power and open if i touched the connector. i fixed that and now it stays closed. My thoughts were that when activated to open, the coil would lose power to open.

    Again thanks for the help. Can you get addicted to these things or what!

    Cant wait to see pics of the new shop!

    Pete

  4. Hi Mike,

    I have been following your videos while restoring my MMPM. It is my first machine so it has been a learning experience. Thanks so much for posting the videos.

    I am almost done but have run into an issue.

    I cannot change directions in the pac maze with my left flipper. Here is a video of my issue.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySySl7xvOyc&feature=youtu.be

    Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    Bill

    • That is odd.. but it looks like it could be a switch adjustment issue? I assume the left flipper button works normally? I was not aware there was a different switch… but I’d follow the trace from that flipper to where it needs to make contact and the signal path looking for anything odd

  5. Hi Mike,

    Thanks so much for the reply. The flipper works just fine. It seems to work if i touch the back with my thumb while also touching the side rail which is odd. Sometimes when I touch the back with the back of my thumb the top pop bumper goes off or it add credits.

    You better give me some tips on tracing. My first pinball so I am pretty green and have not traced before.

    Thanks again Mike.

    Bill

    • First thing to do is take a look at the wires that run to the devices in question and follow them through the machine – look for any broken solder points or frayed wires or something touching something it shouldn’t.

  6. MIKE YOU DID IT!!!!!! Great Success.

    Followed your advice and found a broken solder point, surprisingly enough on the other flipped switch.

    Works awesome now.

    I only have one more item to fix. I have a light on the maze matrix in the middle that will not light. I checked the back and it is almost like there is no power getting to the socket with the bulb that will not light.

    Any thoughts?

    I am thinking of converting the board to red and yellow leds but have no idea if it would work. I thought these might work:

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/20-pcs-Yellow-LED-3mm-High-Quality-Light-DIY-RoHS-New-/160897803890?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item257641a672

    Thanks again Mike. You are the BEST.

    Bill

    • Hi Bill,

      AWESOME that you found your problem. It’s so satisfying isn’t it?

      Yea, it’s been awhile since I fiddled with the pac lite matrix board but I would check continuity on the board to see if there’s a problem – those tiny lights tend to heat up so you could have a bad solder joint somewhere in the socket.

      I too have been wanting to convert mine to LEDs… that’s on my “to do” list. I’m not sure however, if you can simply drop in LEDs in place of those incandescant bulbs. I think more modifications would need to be made, but I’m not certain – it would require looking at the schematics, but I wouldn’t assume you can replace them, but I haven’t tried it.

  7. Hi Mike,

    Well the Matrix board is giving me trouble. I have successfully made some yellow and red Leds for it but I am still trying to solve two issues.

    1. Two lights will still not light. I tried two separate matrix boards and they both have the same lights out so I am starting to believe it is not the sockets.

    2. One light is always on. No idea why.

    Here is a video of the issue.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSGdaNXCSyY&feature=youtu.be

    Any ideas / suggestions would be awesome.

    If I can get the lights fixed I believe I can call the restore a wrap.

    Thanks again,

    Bill

    • If you tried a different board and you know at least one of them was good, I’d check the connectors. If not that, then look in the schematics and see what handles the light switching – it could be a bad IC or transistor.

  8. Hi,
    I just baught a MMPM pinball, my first machine. I am 44 and can remember playing pinball ever since I was very young, so I am prettty excited. I fixed a few minor things but I am stuck. The top knockdown targets go down when hit, then they stay down until the ball is over than they reset. I believe they should reset during play to make pac man aggresive and open gate at the left alley. Any thoughts.

  9. I just purchased my first table, Mr and Mrs Pacman. I did some minor repairs but I am stuck. The top set of knockdown targets do not reset til the ball is over. I believe they should reset while the ball is in play, this multiplier opens the left side gate and advances 3 pac moves. As it plays now, the targets get knocked down and stay down, no points or anything. Any ideas and help would be greatly appreciated.

  10. Thanks for the advice, I flipped it up and pretty much just kept exercising the switches and the targets. Well, it worked. The game is playing as should, very cool. To have my own table is kinda like a dream come true, or a least one from my younger days. You have a very cool site and I am sure a lot of people find it useful.

  11. Hello all, I just bought a Mr and Mrs Pacman, I am having the opposite problem you are having with the left flipper, the arrows work fine, but the flipper does not work. Any help is appreciated. This is my first pinball table, so I am pretty excited to work on it.

  12. Just bought my first machine,the MMPM. It plays decent but already issues I have to tackle. I’ll research those as I know it will take work and parts. My question, how can I unlock the head without the key? The scoreboard works but the light behind the big glass cartoon is out and we really want it working. We have two keys that work the coin door. They fit in the head lock but won’t turn. I’ve tried for hours but have no idea how to get into the head to fix the light. Any ideas?

    • I know it’s been some time so you may have this tackled already, but I just picked one up 2 days ago that didn’t have keys so I had to move it with the head on. Once I got it home I drilled out the lock since they are easy to find online. Check to make sure there aren’t any keys inside the cabinet or attached to the inside of the coin door.

  13. I’m picking one of these up this weekend. I know the top backbox can be removed, can you tell me if both of the backboxes can be removed? I’m a little worried about it being able to fit in my SUV without being able to get both of them off. Other machines I’ve transported have the usual backbox and removing it has always been necessary.

  14. I’d appreciate some help on Mr Mrs Pacman. Machine has not been started up in 6 or 7 years. Plugged it in and everything seems to start up ok, and there are 40 credits on the display. But it will not reset and start play when I press the credit / restart button (on the right near the coin slots). Did I forget to do something? Or is there something I need to check / do to kick things off. Years ago I just remember plugging it in, did nothing else.

    • Any game that’s been sitting for awhile will need to be looked over – I’d start with examining all the connectors and then the switch contacts.

  15. Hello,

    I try to fix my “Bally Mr. & Mrs. Pac Man Pinball”. I actually have this problem:

    When going to play the “PacMan Maze Playfield” I can´t rotate the Direction Arrow for PacMan to walk with the left Flipper Button and also can´t walk using the right Flipper Button.
    But playing the normal Flipper game the Flipper Buttons/Flippers work complete OK. So I don´t think there´s a error with the Flipper Buttons itself.

    Any idea what I can do?

    Regards
    Luzie

    • I’d have to check but there may be a second set of leaf switches at the flipper buttons that trigger those other switches. Check that and check the shematics to see where the switch matrix switches plug into the MPU board and check those contacts/connections.

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