Introducing... Revenge From Mars!

OK, I got this one back in September as well but forgot to post about it. 
I guess it just didn't grab me?  It certainly has not held my attention.  Game plays fine, but I think it's the theme more than anything.  To be honest, I am also not a fan of Attack From Mars, so maybe this was a silly get.  But I at least knew it was popular so would be easy to trade along if it didn't grab me.
I plan on fixing it up in all of the ways I am capable and trading it off.  And yes, I already have people with dibs on it.  :)

rarrrrrgh

The first thing that needed to be fixed was the monitor alignment.   It was waaaay out of wack.  Luckily, it was easily addressed via this panel behind the marquee:

A big thing effecting gameplay was that the right orbit shot wasn't registering.  There are two switches, one visible here, and one further up, blocked from view by the ramp:

At first I thought it was just the bottom one since it barely registered, but after replacing the switch there I found the top one was also not registering.  Good thing I had ordered 2 new switches!  With both replaced, the bottom was still a bit antsy, and required bending the switch wire up a bit to be reliably hit.
After that, right orbit was being hit A-Ok.   With any one shot not registering in this game, it is a supreme annoyance.


Another annoyance?  The sheer difficulty of hitting the orbits and ramps!  I found the flipper alignment a bit concave.  This seems to be how the game was designed, but bah!  I felt it stupid.  I adjust the flippers to the traditional settings of being aligned with the inner guide rails.  Now the shots are a bit better.

you can actually see the flipper dots peaking above each flipper.  Tough, I like it like this.

One major thing left to do is get in to the back and try and adjust the focus of the monitor.  Some of the tiny text is a bit blurry, so here is to hoping that can just be adjusted!
Worst case scenario?  Monitor capacitor replacements.  Either way, I will need some help.

Oh and one time opening it I busted one of the couplers for the martian spaceship mod.  I have another one of those on order to replace the busted one.  It's a great effect, gotta get it boomin'.

Surf Champ postlude

2 weeks ago a man drove all the way from Thunder Bay and grabbed Surf Champ.  He had errands on the way, but think:  Thunder Bay is 17 hours away from Ottawa by car.  He definitely wanted this game!

It was one of those special pinball moments:  You could tell from first contact that this pin was important to him.  And when he arrived he appreciated everything about it.  From the way it played, to the way it looked, to the way I had documented it's revival back to fully functional.

He related a story that a family member had an arcade that he grew up around, and had played Surf Champ back when it was new.  First time playing it, when just 6 or 7, he was playing against an adult.  First time on it, first ball, and he apparently wrapped it to 100k+.  Pinball wizard indeed.

I am super happy to know that it has gone to a very appreciative home.  Such is the magic of pinball.

Introducing... Corvette!

 Corvette was a bit of a surprise for me.  I was sad to have Monopoly go at first, but I knew I wanted a change.  I had played this game on location before, but didn't quite in to it.
I am not a car person, so the theme was a shrug for me, but then again so was Monopoly.
Now that I've played it again?  I am really enjoying this game!  This one might last MONTHS and MONTHS in my collection, you never know. 

Much of what is wrong with this game is aesthetic. Some plastic parts missing, cracked plastics, painted cab, etc.
I fixed one thing last night and it fixed the main playing issue:

Check out the right flipper:

hard to see, but that right flipper alignment is trouble!

When the ball comes down the inline, it hits the rubber and bounces.  This game is heavy on the "flow", and that bounce acted as a speed bump.
The flipper is obviously misaligned, so I went beneath the playfield and was able to adjust the flipper location.
(the flipper mech looked odd:  someone had replaced the proper flipper spring with a big one on the coil!  uh oh, will order a proper spring.  Might be best to just replace flippers...)

yeah..... pretty sure that spring isn't supposed to be there.

After alignment, I then had to loosen the right ball guide screws and do a tiny adjustment on the guide to make sure it was flush the flipper.
After doing this, no bounce!  The game is that much faster now.

now the ball flows gracefully from the right inline to the flipper

I want to clean/replace the Light KickBack target as it often does not register on a hard direct hit.
Also will probably eventually swap in LEDs.  Warm whites only, most likely, because this game looks great with dim orangey incandescants.

I also went through my now-mandatory fuse inspection.  Not only were a few found to be drastically overfused, I found a few jumpered entirely:

nooooooooooooooooooo

The scoring + rules doesn't seem to deep, but I imagine I will just be enjoying this game for a while.

Some pics of the arduous setup process my space requires:

Introducing... Sinbad!!!

I am in love with this game.  It is the perfect combination of the 70s Gottlieb EM esthetics, but with a more advanced solid state ruleset.  (OK, the casual racism is a touch offputting, I admit)
The rules are straightforward and addictive: 4 drop banks of differing amounts of drops: 1, 2, 3, and 4.  Finishing each bank lights a roll over at the top. 
Each bank also awards a bonus X multiplier, but with the catch that the multiplier won't apply unless you have the prior drop banks down.  i.e. no multiplier X for finishing the third bank until banks 1 and 2 are also down.
And for extra strategy, the third bank lights the extra ball roll over at the top, so risk/reward abounds.

Double flippers mean you face crippling embarrassment of the ball going down right between them, and the lolling ball arcs of EMs means you have to be a few steps ahead to shake away from the outlanes.

a really sedctive layout

The final thing that sold me on this game was the Pascal PI-1/X4 board in it.  All 3 other boards and their interconnects?  Gone.  I'm lucky that I have never had to re-pin a connector, as apparently that is not a rare thing to do on Gottlieb System 1 machines.
The board adds extra features of a skill shot, ball save, and I think more high scores.


Even though this is my first real post on this machine, I probably won't discuss it much since there isn't too much to do any more!
The big issue was the left pop bumper wasn't working, totally jammed up.  I was lucky to also receive a spare playfield with this game, so I harvested the remaining mechs (pop bumpers and flippers) and then sold the playfield.
I was able to use one of those salvaged coils and a brand new coil sleeve and had it going great.

you can quickly tell this one might be a problem.

And then it was stuck again.
What had happened was the switch was getting stuck on and the fuse wasn't blowing and so the coil was bulging/overheating.

I eventually traced this back to the plastics of the pop bumper, which had enough give to allow the switch plate to get wedged under the plastic chasis, at certain angles, and then be always on.
I swapped out the whole pop bumper assembly with a spare from the other playfield, and it has been perfect since.

Hard to see here, but the plastic blue bit is wedged down on the bottom right.  Stuck!

Spare playfield to the rescue!  Time to harvest.

inspecting and cleaning the spare.

LED lights now all behind the backglass.  I am going to get some LED blinkers still, though.  Those incandescent blinkers heat up right quick!
I took the plastics off, did a deep clean, and swapped in LEDs on the playfield.  Added lexan washers to the plastics posts.  Even though many of the plastics have chipped, they still look good all around, so want to avoid any further damage.
Novus 2, Novus 1, then waxing.  Then I used clear low-tack plastic sheets to cover all of the playfield wear spots at the top, around the bumpers, and in front of the drop banks.  Hopefully that will help keep it well preserved for years to come.

All that is left really is to pop in a new rebound rubber, as the current one is going a touch stale and doesn't have the signature bounce.
And one light socket needs replacing, as it is too corroded.
Parts ordered!

some lovely colours

INTRODUCING... omg what the hell just happened? Sinbad! Corvette! Revenge From Mars!

 CORVETTE! REVENGE FROM MARS! SINBAD!

Yeah ummmm hi.  I might have a problem.  And it's name is pinball. 
My whole lineup has shifted.

Surf Champ sold, Sinbad bought.
Monopoly traded for Corvette.
Flintstones for Revenge From Mars.
and Beat The Clock left to be replaced with Baywatch.

GOOD TIMES.

Things were a bit nutty around that mid-September mark and the Ottawa/Gatineau Pinball Show.  :)
Huge thanks to everyone who worked oh so hard to help me make this happen.  Pinball hobbyists rock.  We all go out of our way to make MOAR PINBALL HAPPEN.

Surf Champ: DID SOMEONE ORDER A PERFECT GAME?

FFFFFIIIIIXXXXXEEEEEDDDDDD!!!!!

Yessssss, just in time to hopefully sell it, Surf Champ is playing 100%.

Without a tilt, you forget sometimes how MUCH a tilt bob adds to the game.  The drama of each shake!  The trepidation of each potential save!

I used alligator clips to wire in the tilt bob.  I like this method, similar to how I set it to free play, because it is easily disabled when need be.

I was also not happy with the final ball performance, ye olde BX relay.  Final balls means double bonus automatically, so this was important!  But it turns out the BX was fine, and it was other sub relays controlling the double bonus.  I cleaned them, and also cleaned the player unit in the head, and now it is running A-OK.
The player unit position was the main component in the circuit for those sub relays, so by far the most obvious part to approach.  Sanded it down, cleaned it with rubbing alcohol...

then used some fabbo PBR grease on the contacts:

Surf Champ is an awesome game.  Now, it is also perfect.

Surf Champ: flipper fixed, plastic fixed

Surf Champ is coming together nicely!

Finally got an A-5141 coil and soldered it in as a replacement for this on the left flipper:

Check that out on the Pinball Medic Coil Chart:  A-20095 is referred to as a Gottlieb Super Flipper.  Pull in ohms of 1.55, but HOLD ohms of 35.5!

A-5141, the factory default, has a 1.7 pull ohms and a hold ohms of just 6 ohms.

So this 20095 is NOT for this kind of machine.  I wonder if it was put in just because of the slang name for it?
Since the 20095 coil had a 6x higher ohms, it couldn't hold the ball, so when it tried to catch it, the flipper would depress until the EOS switch opened up, activating the PULL ohms, with strong strength, thus causing an annoying flutter.  And a total inability to hold the ball.

Now it plays great!  Yaaaay!


The game also had one broken plastic, up near the drops.  I took it out and it was quite warped, so I flattened it using my oven technique.  I then superglued it together, then coated the back with a low-tack plastic sheet.
When putting it back on I also used lexan washers on all posts to minimize future ball impact.

looking good!

All that's left?  Well I was just reminded there is no tilt attached in the game.  Like, not even a snipped wire as you might normally find.  So I should probably try and rewire that up.
Also the final ball (BX) relay does not seem to be snapping on right now, so I will look to clean/adjust that soon.