I had planned to begin this update with a really bad pun, but I’ll save you the anguish and get straight in to the good content! This update will be focusing on the assemblies in the lower section of playfield, along with cleaning up the drop target areas. I’ll also the look at the upper orbit shot as some screws that attach the metal rail to the playfield live under plastics in the mid section – so easier to do that all now in one go. The game has been played a lot over the years, with broken plastics across most areas of the playfield. The sling shot and return lane plastics are cracked or missing a few pieces. The bikes are still in one piece though, which is good news.
Flippers
All posts tagged Flippers
I’ve been so busy lately working on other peoples machines, I decided to set aside a few hours this week to work through a few “to do” items on my own games. One of the things I’ve been really looking forward to doing is installing the Aux flipper switch upgrade board to my BoP 2.0. What is this? At present, when you’re in the profile menus or video mode, where the flippers would be disabled in modern DMD games, they are still enabled in BoP 2.0. So as you play the video mode, the flippers are still flipping away when you press the buttons. Scott Danesi created a small upgrade board which hooks in to two extra switches on the P-ROC board (CPU board supplied with the BoP 2.0 kit) and allows the flippers to be disabled while still registering presses. The kit is really straight forward and can be installed by anyone.
The Apollo 13 overhaul has continued over the last couple of weeks. Sometimes progress can feel like slow going, but it’s surprising how quickly time gets sucked up as you work through sections of a machine. Plus, it’s getting cold at night time, so working on games once the sun has gone down is getting tougher. The previous update was heavily focused on the apron area of the playfield. Shifting my attention 30cm higher up the playfield, this update will be focusing on the next lot of assemblies – so things like the flippers, up post (ball save), ball return VUK and sling shots. Technically the VUK lives under the apron area, but i’ll ignore that fact for the sake of including it in this update instead of the last one 🙂 I also want to get the CPU controlled lamps switched over to LED’s as the kit arrived. So let’s get started and begin removing some parts!
Progress on Dr Who this week moved along really smoothly. Some weeks are like that, where everything comes together easily (which is a great counter to those weeks where nothing goes well at all). I wanted to start this update by giving the coin door a face lift. The coin door has metal panels over the three coin slots which will need to be removed. Because they are pop riveted to the door, I will need to drill them out and fill the holes. Overall the coin door isn’t in terrible condition, but has the usual scrapes and scratches from age. Replacing the old foreign pricing cards on the coin slots is on my to do list too. I spotted that the launch button isn’t correct. Notice the two small holes (one above, one below) the red button – there should be a larger button that slots in to them and so this needs to be replaced.
With Funhouse completed and back to the owner, I was able to enjoy the vacant space it left for a matter of minutes before it was filled with the next machine on the list. The next game to receive a rebuild is a Dr Who. Released by Bally in 1992, with over 7700 machines built – it’s a great theme and a really fun game to play. In its current state, the game is basically unplayable due to a few issues which I’d like to get sorted first. Overall condition (once you see past the dust) is actually really nice. Cabinet is solid (some fade, but minimal damage) and the playfield is really decent. It’s going to clean up nicely and I’m excited to test it once complete!
