What better way to spend a rainy Sunday than to do some work on a loved pinball machine 🙂
Despite being slowed down a little as I build up funds for the next bulk parts order, there is still plenty of things to do meanwhile. They’re not always exciting, but it’s always forward motion to the end goal – getting this machine 100% and looking great. Today I wanted to look at the shooter.
Time to get my hands dirty and do some rebuilding on Pinbot. Funds have dried up a little for now with the recent purchase of a CPR gold Pinbot playfield. I had not planned to purchase a new playfield, but couldn’t resist. Pinbot is a keeper so I will have it for a long time to come, making the extra outlay worth it in the long run.
Since I had the machine powered up successfully, the language sorted out and battery save mod completed – it was time to start pulling a section of the machine to bits and rebuilding it. I decided to work in a similar fashion to how I did on my Fireball Classic – start from the bottom up and work through areas of the machine until complete. So, time to lift the apron and see what lurks beneath.
Earlier in the week I had planned to “fix” the battery holder on the MPU board. My initial thought was to rip the 3 x AA holder off the board and replace it with either a lithium holder + button battery, or install a remote AA battery holder to avoid any possible acid damage in the future.
Quick update.
Pulled the MPU board out tonight to fix the language jumper. The board is in pretty good condition (both back and front).
I plan to remove the AA battery holder and replace it with either a remote holder or a lithium battery holder on the board. Probably the next thing I’ll do.
With Pinbot safely at home now, I’ve spent the last two weeks doing lot of investigating on the machine to find what parts I must replace, what I’d like to replace and what will be fine after a good clean. Just like I did with my previous projects, I’ve been putting together a spreadsheet with part numbers, suppliers and prices so I can organise it all to minimise shipping costs and get the best for my $. It also helps me organise purchases so I can work on the machine in sections and I’m not caught short and leave sections incomplete because I don’t have the parts (that still does happen at times, but planning minimises it). I’ve been able to use the experience gained from those projects to help improve how I plan this stuff out and it’s good to see clear lessons learnt along the way.
There are a few things I can work on now however to begin getting the machine back online and (eventually) inside the house where it will live. First up was putting a proper latch on the headbox. The latch that was attached only hooked onto a small screw and didn’t give me a lot of confidence in it.
