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Bally SS 1981 Tester Required

DRD

DRD

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I have a very nice example of a 1981 Vector. This is the first game of this age I have owned. My others are all post 1990, and it is a long time since I have played games as old as this in the wild.

I am trying to make it play properly. I have put flipper rebuild kits in. Adjusted leaf springs. Replaced rubbers. Cleaned solenoid plungers. Replaced the coil sleeves. Cleaned hi voltage and low voltage leaf springs correctly. New balls. New drop targets......

But it just feels so stodgy. It may be that the linear design of the slingshot and flippers makes it stodgy. The pop bumper is stodgy too. I can see that this old bally design is full of weight, inertia and friction compared to wpc games. It has huge solenoid plungers, huge chunks of nylon rubbing on metal assemblies etc.

In comparison, I have these parts very well tuned on my other games. I have serviced wpc flippers, slingshots, pop bumpers before and seen noticeable improvements.

I live 1 mile from where the a1 meets the a57, NG22 0SA. This is 20 mins from Lincoln and Newark. 40 Mins from Nottingham and Sheffield. Is there someone who has a similar era bally game I could try as a comparator please ? Or someone who knows how these games should play would be very welcome to try my Vector and other three

I don't want to throw good money after bad, but I just do not know what this game should be capable of. And my hard work and cash to date has not made much difference to its stodgy performance.

Thanks
 
Bally flippers have a very different feel to modern games and also other companies of the same era. You'll generally find that Bally flippers feel less powerful than say Williams of the same age but have a greater degree of control.

You're more than welcome to come over and play my Flash Gordon, Fathom and Paragon to give you something to compare against. I'm in Nottingham, shoot me a PM and we can arrange something if you like :thumbs:
 
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Agree with @ronsplooter. Older games, especially Bally, tend to play slower than more recent games. The skill tends to be in fine control and accuracy rather than reaction times. Don't be fooled though... things can get out of hand lightning quick! VECTOR in particular is a "nudgers" game. The skill you need most is ball saves in the saucers down the outlanes. I find whether it goes down the left or right outlane a firm nudge on the front-right corner usually sorts it out. Careful you don't TILT ;)

As for the general anti-linear flipper sentiment you'll find across much of the internet (Pinside in particular seem to really dislike linear flippers and actively promote swapping them for classic Bally flippers) I say ********. Set up and serviced properly they play just as good.

I bought my first pin, PARAGON, about 5 minutes down the road from where you live, but unfortunately I'm a way down south near Guildford. You are of course more than welcome to try my VECTOR if you're ever passing.
 
Thank you. I think the issue is more with the slingshots than the flippers.

I weighed the moving flipper parts (solenoid plus pawl), on a wpc and my old bally. The flipper bats must weigh about the same.

The wpc weighs 94g and the old bally linear weighs 82g. That difference would suggest the linear flipper has more of a chance. But I think that its single bearing is far less efficient than the double bearing in the wpc. And also I think the wpc games run solenoids at higher voltages. These two factors will cause the stodginess. As a final point, the linear flipper also has an additional nyliner, so this will add more friction

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Looking at the slingshots, the situation is far more troublesome. Both use identical coils. But presumably the wpc runs at higher voltage. The wpc mechanism weighs 54g and the Bally linear weighs 68g, which is about 25 per cent heavier. And the Bally has a terrible amount of friction as a big slab of nylon travels along a crudely machined metal slot. The 2 bearings in the wpc are much lower friction than this crude slot. Again, the linear mechanism has an additional nyliner, so this will add more friction

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I have to agree that the linear slingshot design is not the best. I prefer the older style with the pivoted right-angle bell crank. It just seems "snappier" due to this. They can all be a bit different though. The slingshots on my VECTOR are definitely a bit pedestrian, but the one (and only one) on GOLD BALL is spot on.

As with all these things there are differing opinions on the use of lubricants in pinball machines. The general view is that they were designed to operate clean and dry. The extensive use of nylon for sleeves, liners and bearings is natural as it has good low friction properties that generally make it suitable as a bearing material.

However, not all nylons are created equally! If you were making a heavy duty bearing out of nylon you'd select your material very carefully. Some nylon has embedded lubricants that are released during wear, whilst other contain materials such as carbon fibre which are strong and low friction. Pinball is less demanding but reading through notes on several engineering sites about lubrication of linear nylon bearings it seems that a dry lubricant such as graphite could be very beneficial.
 
????????????????:confused: weighing pinball parts whatever next. ?????????????????:cuckoo:
 
Back on topic - I'd check what your transformer settings are... and see if it's set up for UK use or European use and perhaps measure the mains voltage in.
 
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Hi. My meter tells me that I am getting 252v at a different wall socket in my house. In the game there is a Bakelite 3 pin socket next to the rolling ball tilt assembly on the left hand side of the cabinet and this is getting 254v

The yellow manufacturer's sticker on the power module on the cabinet floor says it is wired for 220v, but this has been crossed out in biro to say 240v

Looking at the manual, Table A, shows what jumper connections you make on the transformer. These differ for 240v and 220v. I have had a poke about, and it looks like it was correctly set up for 240

I suspect that it is working as well as it ever will and I am just being fussy
 
DRD said:
Hi. My meter tells me that I am getting 252v at a different wall socket in my house. In the game there is a Bakelite 3 pin socket next to the rolling ball tilt assembly on the left hand side of the cabinet and this is getting 254v

The yellow manufacturer's sticker on the power module on the cabinet floor says it is wired for 220v, but this has been crossed out in biro to say 240v

Looking at the manual, Table A, shows what jumper connections you make on the transformer. These differ for 240v and 220v. I have had a poke about, and it looks like it was correctly set up for 240

I suspect that it is working as well as it ever will and I am just being fussy
Click to expand...

Fair enough...! :)
 
Thanks for the suggestion. I did wonder about the power supply but was too lazy to look into it. Your suggestion promoted me to check it out
 
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