Restoring a pinball machine

[Pinballrob10]

Afternoon all. Looking at getting my first pin which is going to be a modern stern but an older machine has come up that needs full restoration and is at what i think sensible money. My question is this, whats soldering and general repairs like to do on a pinball machine? I'm a mechanic by trade so not a stranger to repairing electrics but never done anything on such a major electrical scale. Would I need a desktop soldering iron or would my portable be ok. Are there any other special tools required to do a restoration? Thanks in advance for any advise.

 

[kev a]

General repairs is likely to be stuff like flipper rebuilds, replacing coil sleeves, general fault finding, swapping out failed switches etc, if its an older stern are we talking about DMD era?
If so the boards have proven to be quite reliable over time.
I would imagine being a mechanic you have quite a collection of tools, sure you would already have most of what's needed, although worth remembering that being US built, pins are imperial, a good set of imperial Allen keys and sockets are a must.

Will probably need some cleaning products, Naphtha (lighter fluid), IPA and Novus plastic polish are all good for cleaning and wax for the playfield.

I did a full playfield swap with a cheap £10 amazon soldering iron, portable I'm sure would be fine for under playfield work, PCB work you may be better off with something with proper temp control though, but that wouldn't be something you would need straight away.

 

[Jay Walker]

Hello, Rob,

The older Stern machine I see offered here at the moment is a Trident, built in 1979. Taking that as an example, the nastiest thing obviously visible there is the damaged Solenoid Driver board, with a burn mark where a circuit resistor has died. Knowing that era Stern games, many lamp sockets will probably be intermittent or have totally failed. The latter could be tackled with a portable soldering iron, but for the former the circuit board repair may be better off with better equipment. Plus finding why that circuit blew up, and replacing any other damaged components, such as the drive transistor, and maybe the pre-driver. Not to forget the solenoid itself. An on-site repair back then would've consisted of fitting a new solenoid winding with diode, and exchanging the driver board for a good one, with the damaged board repaired back at base. The boards are mostly similar to those in the more prolific Bally games of the time, too.

The obsolete high-voltage displays may or may not be working/repairable, and require a more modern replacement (or good used items) if they aren't.

 

[Pinballrob10]

Sorry for confusion I'm going to get a modern stern and then considering this project as well. It's a Gotllieb Street fighter 2 machine

 

[Jay Walker]

That's okay, I only turned that up as an example, a handy reference without using an external link. Many machines requiring work will be somewhere around there condition-wise.

Speaking of SF2, great things were expected of it when launched, but it's generally quite poorly regarded. Gottlieb were pre-eminent in the electro-mechanical era, but struggled a little after the advent of solid-state games.

 

[Pinballrob10]

That's okay, I only turned that up as an example, a handy reference without using an external link. Many machines requiring work will be somewhere around there condition-wise.

Speaking of SF2, great things were expected of it when launched, but it's generally quite poorly regarded. Gottlieb were pre-eminent in the electro-mechanical era, but struggled a little after the advent of solid-state games.

I know it doesn't get a lot of love but its the first pinball i ever played a great deal 30 years ago. Wanting one for nostalgia more than anything which is why id like a project as a sorted one is just too expensive

 

[Matt Vince]

A project machine has many states. I would avoid a machine with too much obvious corrosion as you may end up chasing issues constantly.

 

[s000m]

I know it doesn't get a lot of love but its the first pinball i ever played a great deal 30 years ago. Wanting one for nostalgia more than anything which is why id like a project as a sorted one is just too expensive

You'll quickly find a project pin can be more expensive that a 'sorted one' if you're not careful.

I'd try and avoid Gotlieb stuff as the parts are hard to come by. I'm assuming you're looking at the Czech one on eBay, its cheap for a reason...

 

[Pinballrob10]

You'll quickly find a project pin can be more expensive that a 'sorted one' if you're not careful.

I'd try and avoid Gotlieb stuff as the parts are hard to come by. I'm assuming you're looking at the Czech one on eBay, its cheap for a reason...

Good spot. To be fair he's not even willing to plug it in to see if it turns on which is ringing the old alarm bells.

 

[AlanJ]

Take a look at the shop log threads on this site - it gives you some idea of the sorts of issues you can expect, and how to sort them.

Plenty of help and advice on here is you get stuck.

 

[Moonraker]

I'd try and avoid Gotlieb stuff as the parts are hard to come by.

I've never had a problem... and have owned all eras of Gottliebs...

 

[s000m]

I've never had a problem... and have owned all eras of Gottliebs...

Playfield (both mini and main) aren't availiable or reproduced AFAIK
Plastic Set isn't availiable
Toy Car plastic isn't availiable

Just a few examples!