Found it! Bally GOLD BALL Manual

[Nedreud]

Bit of a long shot but I'm fed up of squinting at the appalling quality scan available on ipdb.org. The schematics are almost illegible.

I know one was for sale in he uk but I thought £29.99 plus £5 postage was a bit OTT. There's one for sale from the US that would add up to £20 including postage which is ok but it does look a bit tatty and I always worry about import fees (do they apply to 2nd hand eBay goods?)

Maybe I could borrow one for a few beers token to take a decent scan of the schematics.

Wishful thinking probably but never any harm in asking.

 

[RudeDogg1]

Shame it's not the same as the williams shared manual of that eara I'd of scanned what ever you wanted (or is that just parts and part nums i can't rem now)

 

[abaxas]

Is there not a later version of the bally 'theory of operation' manual that will cover it?

 

[Paul]

AFAIK Import duty and VAT do not apply on printed material, however worth gooling to check

 

[Nedreud]

I've got one of those Theory of Operation manuals, @abaxas. I've got a Paragon and Vector manual, and there's not much difference between them TBH.

But the devil is in the detail. The bugger is that GB is different enough with it's unique Lamp/Regulator/Solenoid combo board that the schematics are really useful. I's the wiring loom that I'm having most trouble with! It little things like two 100 Ohm 1 Watt resistors soldered to a little bit of tag board on the inside of the backbox door. What are they for? I think they might be a minimum load for the GI flasher TRIACs.

 

[Nedreud]

Finally decided to take the plunge on the GOLD BALL manual I located on eBay in the US. It seems as though I have just paid $33 (£20.89 via PayPal) to "Bill Burger" and it should be gracing these shores around 6-10th October.

Fingers crossed it won't be hammered with import duty, VAT or handling charges as (a) at $15 for the item value it's below the threshold and (b) as @Paul suspected books have 0% import and VAT rates, i.e., effectively they're exempt.

And when I do get it there will eventually be a considerably higher quality scan available via IPDB.org. Today was the final nail in the coffin when I couldn't read the numbers or voltages on the TP test points on the regulator schematics!

 

[abaxas]

Looks like you spunked your entire pinball budget on a manual

 

[Nedreud]

Looks like you spunked your entire pinball budget on a manual

Oi! You cheeky sod! But yes, the size of the GB budget has just jumped a whopping 16%! So far I haven't spent a penny on anything else. All fixes to date have been done with what I've got

 

[Nedreud]

But without the manual I'm up **** creak without a paddle because of the custom HV / LAMP / SOLENOID board that was only used in GOLD BALL and GRAND SLAM.

Writing that just gave me the idea to check if the GRAND SLAM manual is on ipdb.org, which it is, but it's just as bollox.

 

[Wiredworm]

Hopefully you won't get hit with taxes. What's worse is if you do then they calculate the percentage on the total amount including shipping which quite frankly is an utter con. Then of course you have the lovely handling charge from whoever delivers it to you.

I don't think that the shipping is included as part of the item value when determining if it's over the £15 threshold though, so with a bit of luck you'll be in the clear because of that.

 

[Nedreud]

TTBOMK the shipping isn't included in the value of the item. I did a bit of checking first but the .gov websites are quite heavy going! But that aside books attract neither import duty or VAT, so even if the combined purchase price and shipping is over the £15 threshold then it should be irrelevant. Also, if the tax collected works out to be less than £9 they don't bother either.