Just when I thought I had my Raven running beautifully, it just started acting up. I would press the start button and the game would begin to start, but then not kick out a ball, the sound would stop, and none of the coils would fire. It was very odd. I knew from experience that Gottlieb games can get a bit wonky with irregular power or switch inputs, so here’s a short, 2-part video series of the “rabbit hole” I went down trying to figure out what was wrong? (As always, Ockham’s Razor tends to prevail)
Along the way, we learn a few things about the switch matrix on these System 80 games and how they differ from other manufacturers like Bally/Williams when it comes to trying to trace switch matrix issues. Here’s part one:
Here’s a video I made awhile back that I don’t see linked on my main site so I thought i’d include it. It’s a short video on how to diagnose problems with score reel switches when you turn the game on and the score reels just seem to spin forever and not reset/start the game.
We have had a new Stern “Deadpool” pinball machine around for a few weeks and I thought I’d finally do a quick “one shot pinball review” of the game, my impression, its features and an overview of the basic ruleset. Check out this very interesting game!
Here’s a companion video of 17 more minutes of gameplay and comments… hope you enjoy:
So here’s a rant I have to make… this comes after arguing in forums for years about a certain feature many of us WOZ owners have been asking for, only to be told, “No.”
We ran into a problem with our WOZ pinball where the game would act like a ball hit the castle doors on the upper left playfield even when a ball wasn’t up there. This was caused by two things: 1. The switch on one of the castle doors was too sensitive (requiring quite a lot of work to adjust) and 2. The upper playfield flippers continuing to flip every time the flipper buttons are pressed, regardless of whether or not there’s a ball up there.
Myself and many people have complained about the need to have a feature in the game to DISABLE THE UPPER PLAYFIELD FLIPPERS WHEN THERE ISN’T A BALL UP THERE, and Keith Johnson has flat out refused to do this. There are many reasons for this feature request – most specifically to reduce wear on flippers that are only used a tiny percentage of time. It’s a key issue that pertains to game reliability: don’t fire coils unnecessarily.
This same problem was also present in The Simpsons Pinball Party and someone made a third-party add-on board to fix it. That’s how annoying this thing is – and it’s a two-second software fix but they refuse to fix it. So you have unwanted wear and tear on upper playfield flippers, and additional bugs like what I describe in this video.
I don’t expect this problem to be fixed, so I’m just ranting. I hope this will be a lesson to other pinball manufacturers that listening to your customers is important. Broken games are not fun to play. If you can make a small software change that makes your games more reliable without in any way, sacrificing game play, WHY NOT DO IT? (That’s a rhetorical question actually. I suspect the real reason for not doing this is so they can sell more flipper parts.)
Here’s a special treat. We are working on restoring a 1956 Bally “Balls-a-Poppin” pinball machine. The very first multi-ball pinball machine with flippers! Here is the full playlist of the current progress on the game, including the video from our unboxing. Right now it’s up to 4-5 parts. Skip ahead in the playlist to see our progress!
Here’s another “first look” at a game that just came in from one of the club members. Perhaps sometimes people don’t think these are really “first looks” but as you can see in this video, the game came in with a shattered playfield glass.. this is the real deal.. you see what we see…
Work continues on this Gottlieb System 80b pinball machine Raven, but
there’s a problem with the light matrix. Certain lights are not
properly activating. I go through the process of fixing some lights
that aren’t working properly. This video chronicles the entire process
of diagnosing what the problem is. I go over the schematics and how to
use a logic probe to test the circuit.
