Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Project Announcements => Topic started by: pbj on October 09, 2018, 10:09:34 pm
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What have I gotten myself into...
:cheers:
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That looks like a pretty daunting project.
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nice Firepower!
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That looks like a pretty daunting project.
Yes and no. I'll have to figure out someway to reframe the glass, and I'll have to redo the art on the glass, but it's otherwise complete. I got a few signs of life last night.
nice Firepower!
That Firepower is a polished turd rescued from laying in the mud in San Antonio. Then it spent several years in an old folks home before I got it back. It's got a row/column of lights out but otherwise 100% and probably the most reliable System 3-7 pin on the planet. That warped head puts pressure on the interconnect.
Anyway, here's what the playing area looked like prior to cleaning. The cardboard clown on the left was hit with a paper towel slightly dampened with lavender Fabuloso. This pic was taken after one wipe, the dirt was so thick you couldn't see the art.
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if you can get high res scans or pix of the art I can try to clean it up for you.
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if you can get high res scans or pix of the art I can try to clean it up for you.
That'd be cool. My glass is missing about 95% of the paint. :lol
Best pics I've found so far....
http://www.pinrepair.com/arcade/trophy.htm (http://www.pinrepair.com/arcade/trophy.htm)
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Very cool!
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Cleaner...
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Ha. Turns out that assembly comes out with two screws. Hit it with Turtle Wax Dash and Glass. Much better.
Also - the backglass. Fix this, malenko.
Also - I got it to reset and start a game. No target movement but this is progress.
:cheers:
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Day 1 modification from here on out
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Yeah, so, those wheels make this way easier to work on. Last night I took apart the shot stepper unit, cleaned it up, and actually put it back together correctly. Now when you drop in a dime, the game properly resets that unit. Unfortunately, now that it's not stuck in mid-game mode I'm not getting any action beyond that. The moving animal targets will reset back to home if I manually move them around, but that's about it. Still nothing out of the larger motor, I suspect I'm gonna have to take that apart and clean it.
Also got some high resolution shots of the backglass and hope to get working on that art soon.
Turns out there's an EM pinball group on Facebook with 4,000 members.....
:cheers:
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you have my email, send the files or put em up on googledrive and send me the link
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That will be a really satisfying project when it is done. EM machines are cool. I almost pulled the trigger on a couple of different ones. I know I don't have the time or the skillset to tackle one at this time.
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How many colours are in that backglass? I counted 6 unique colours, from the photo.
I ask because this would be a fun task to learn silkscreening. I’ve been looking into it lately and it doesn’t seem too hard to build your own screens.
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All it took was a drill, wd40, and a hammer but, by God, this motor spins again.
Now I gotta find some really long #4 bolts to hold it back together.
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And it turns out Amazon is the winner when it comes to #4x40 3" bolts. Now I just sit on my thumb until Monday.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FN5T44/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FN5T44/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1)
Would have made life easier on myself last night if I hadn't opened up the gear box, but everything was stuck and I didn't want to risk stripping out brass gears by trying to manually turn things. Turned out they were all perfect and it was just corrosion on the motor itself that had everything jammed. I pulled that apart and gave it and the housing a light sanding and everything spins now. So, lesson learned, start at the motor first.
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Also turns out there's already a perfect copy of the backglass floating around, complete with masking layer...
Now to figure out how to get this printed.
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Probably out of your price range... BG Resto?
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Could have it printed on backlit film by FedEx for $72.... Another guy says he can do it for ~$200. Unfortunately it's 22x19 so it's just outside of that 18" price cutoff.
Mask layer could be printed on regular paper, I'd go over the lettering with a paint marker, and taped to the back.
We'll see. I printed it out multiple pages and I'm going to make sure it actually lines up correctly.
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It lines up correctly. Other printers have quoted me about $50 for the film, I'd have to provide the glass. I'll get it working and make a decision then.
Last night I put the motor back together - those 3" screws were barely long enough and there was barely enough clearance to remount it but that motor is back in business. Holding in the various target relays while forcing the game into a reset loop shows that their respective magnetic clutches are all engaging. I'm at the point where all the game components appear to be working.
Soon, I feel...
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Not sure if its too late but this (https://www.pixartprinting.com/wide-format/printing-flat-bed-rigid-materials/plexiglas/) worked well for my marquee for my build.
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Took this to the Houston pinball museum and had a fascinating day of going through it with a man that owns 400 machines. We made a lot of progress but still working on it. Schematics are on their way....
:cheers:
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Super cool. Looks like fun.
I think I would love doing arcade restorations. Especially mechanical games like this one. I had a ton of fun completely tearing down and restoring my Delta 28-303 bandsaw.
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Schematics arrived, reproduction backglass print is on its way, and back to the pinball museum on Tuesday. Hopefully it comes home working and then I have like 2 days to get it back together for a party. :lol
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:cheers:
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Sweet, never seen something like that before. Good luck!
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We are so damn close it's aggravating. Here's a quick and dirty video showing some target action.
https://youtu.be/PH-Sq8RnVSQ (https://youtu.be/PH-Sq8RnVSQ)
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3 months later, still working on it. We got the timer going now, this game is a very weird combination of unlimited shots and a countdown. Basically, you drop in a dime and have 60 seconds of “unlimited” shots but it stops at 30. If you don’t shoot at least 20 before time winds down, the game ends when you hit 20 shots. So it’s really a more psychological thing to get you shooting. Or so we currently think.
Timer problem was a bad coil and damaged coil stop. Fixing that has exposed many other problems. Will have to special order some weird springs for the ball targets.
Translite looks good.
Anyway, so it goes...
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This thing is killer. It is totally worth the resto. Nice save!
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I've officially given up on every finding springs for this thing, so I'm having to make my own. The ball targets need 4 springs. Two of them right hand wound and two of them left. The springs are 2" long and 1/2" diameter, and about 30 winds of wire per inch of length.
I ordered a spool of piano wire and some 1/2" diameter dowel rods. I've watched a few youtube videos and people chuck the rods into a drill and slowly wind the wire. I'll probably do it by hand to get it as tight as possible. The nice thing about piano wire is it's cheap so I'll have many opportunities to mess this up.
:cheers:
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This might actually work
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Alright, springs are ready. One came out looking like it came from the spring store. The others should be fine. I didn't like the result I got using a bolt, winds weren't tight enough.
:cheers:
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Nice. Glad that ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- worked. :cheers:
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Yeah, and wear gloves when taking the springs off. Luckily it just mostly bounced off the scar tissue from the last time I did something like this 20 years ago. Gentle reminder from the universe, I suppose.
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Ever feel like a project is cursed?
Scheduled to get it a month ago, "your relative fell, might be paralyzed and is on a helicopter to San Antonio." (he's fine)
Scheduled yesterday morning to pick it up Friday. Phone rings at 4:45, "your other relative fell, the injury is mortal, come quick."
And here we are. Don't fall, people.
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Spring works great. Doesn't look beautiful when it's wound up, but it moves the targets perfectly.
Another day sunk into this thing. Little progress. I'm about to cut bait on it.
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The guy helping me with this, Dan Ferguson, passed away yesterday in what is a huge loss to the Houston collector community. If you are in the Houston area, I hope you got to experience the Lone Star pinball museum.
https://youtu.be/aZ8QRjs4l14 (https://youtu.be/aZ8QRjs4l14)
We were friends for almost 20 years.
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I am sorry for your loss.