[Feb 21, 2015] Special When Lit Social and League Meet (Salsibury)

Moonraker · Feb 13, 2015

The next Special When Lit social meet will be on Saturday 21st February. It will also be the third league meet of the 2014-2015 season.

Special When Lit will be open from 1pm and all machines will be available for freeplay and league practice. The league competion will start at 2pm. Everyone can play until the league starts at 2pm, anyone not wishing to play in the league can use the remaining tables whilst the league plays on a randomly selected 6 machines. The league games will probably finish around 5pm and we normally shut around 6pm. Games change on a adhoc basis and are subject to serviceability.

We hope to have the following machines available to play:
Attack From Mars
Avatar
Black Knight
Catcus Canyon Continued
Circus Voltaire
Genesis
Hi-Deal
Lord Of The Rings
Metallica Master Of The Puppets LE
Pink Panther
Spirit
Terminator 2
The Simpsons Pinball Party
Theatre Of Magic
Transformers Combo LE
Tron:Legacy
Twilight Zone (3rd Magnet Installed)
Whitewater
World Challenge Soccer
X-Men Pro

Address: Unit 5, Loyal Trade Business Park, Stephenson Road, Salisbury SP2 7NS.

The usual admission fee applies (£5 for adults, £3 for children aged 14 or younger when accompanied by an adult, free for under 8's) and all machines are on freeplay.

The usual nibble, tea, coffee and water are free of charge. Any items from the fridge must be paid for - eg. cans of fizzy drink and chocolate, etc.

These are not for profit events for supporters of Special When Lit that help raise funds to keep Special When Lit open.

astyy · Feb 13, 2015

I've been wanting to visit you guys - can anybody just turn up and play in the league? I have a pinball mad relative in Salisbury and I'm not sure he knows you exist yet.

kevlar · Feb 13, 2015

Tron is back?

Moonraker · Feb 13, 2015

Yes, anyone can turn up and play (cough subject to the admission fee being paid !).

Yes, Tron is back!

Nedreud · Feb 14, 2015

Got this one in the diary weeks ago! No moaning from the Mrs

Hey @astyy would be nice to meet you if you can make it.

WOOHOO! TRON IS BACK

astyy · Feb 14, 2015

I plan to attend +1 excited relative who lives walking distance away - I'll look out for you, turquoise skin and a mono-eye

Jono Sandilands · Feb 16, 2015

Is that you tempted to go then @kevlar?

kevlar · Feb 16, 2015

Can't make it Jono :>(

Moonraker · Feb 17, 2015

Lord of the Rings added to the play list. :thumbs:

alchy · Feb 19, 2015

Great line-up!

Zygaphorym · Feb 20, 2015

I'll be attending the social all the way from North Somerset by train. Here's hoping the British railway service is kind to me.

Also, yay for TOM! I can't help but play it most of the time whenever I boot up The Pinball Arcade.

alchy · Feb 21, 2015

Moonraker said:
Yes, anyone can turn up and play (cough subject to the admission fee being paid !).

I think it's too cheap. Where can you go for a full days entertainment for a fiver? and get nibbles!

Nedreud · Feb 22, 2015

Great afternoon again of pinball at SPECIAL WHEN LIT. Great to meet @astyy - hopefully see you again soon with that cover plate for GOLD BALL.

Thanks again to @Moonraker for putting on another good show with all the lovely nibbles

Really great selection of machines. So good to have unusual and rare machines alongside some of the latest and best. Because I didn't play in the league today I had time to take a closer look at all the machines.

CACTUS CANYON is a work of art. Colour DMD, gold rails, mint plastics and playfield, and clean as a whistle. WHITE WATER too. The fully blinged TERMINATOR 2 was my favourite game of the day but what a nice surprise to play a new EM: A Bally HI-DEAL. Surprise game of the day was TRANSFORMERS LE (I have such low expectation of Stern games). Another great looking pin but I somehow managed to get multiball on my first ball and it was the fastest and most mental multiball ever! The METALLICA LE was also a thing of beauty.

Highlight of the day was getting the Bell Games SPACE HAWKS working after transplanting the MPU from my GOLD BALL into it. Once we fixed a dodgy connector pin on the switch matrix for the start button it was sorted. This game has been lurking in the corner for several months, so it was nice to see another old Bally up and running again

Peter - get that connector re-pinned properly! It really was a temporary botch job!

Moonraker · Feb 22, 2015

Nedreud said:
Peter - get that connector re-pinned properly! It really was a temporary botch job!

Should be good for a few years then....!

Moonraker · Feb 22, 2015

And thanks for the kind words about the day and condition of the machines, I'm glad you enjoyed it. It was good to have Space Hawks playing again, although it was only set up a month or so ago. Most of my efforts in the last month had been getting the working machines sorted for yesterday's meet and I'm pleased to say there were no issues on the day.

astyy · Feb 22, 2015

@Moonraker I SUPER enjoyed it your machines are WOW and a great friendly event for my first do. Good to meet you too @Nedreud.

Moonraker · Feb 22, 2015

astyy said:
@Moonraker I SUPER enjoyed it your machines are WOW and a great friendly event for my first do. Good to meet you too @Nedreud.

Glad you enjoyed it :thumbs:

Moonraker · Feb 22, 2015

Here are the results from yesterday's league meet. Congratulations to Dave @alchy on keeping up his quest to beat defending champion Craig @roadshow16 by coming joint first place!

Thank you everyone who attended and supported the event, it was much appreciated.

1= David Mainwaring
1= Peter Blakemore
3 Greg Mott
4 Ross Maraffi
5 Andrew Shillabeer
6 Frank Maraffi-Henderson
7 Neil Fellender
8 Nick Hill
9 Tim Slow
10 Andrew Wilson
11 Jono Sandilands
12 Hilary Hector
13 Don Gauld
14 Jake Hughes
15 Andy Driver
16 Ho Hwee Ling
17 Amelie Mott
18 Richard Tolfree
19 S Cooper
20 Oscar Mott
21 Aston

The next social meet, league and pin golf tournament will be on Saturday 11th April, followed by David's event on Sunday 12th April.

Nedreud · Feb 22, 2015

Hey, @Moonraker! It's just occurred to me that the MPU I put it SPACE HAWKS is an AS-2518-133 and not the more common AS-2518-35. The only difference is the voltage used to supply the ZERO CROSSING DETECTOR circuit. On a -35 this is the +43VDC from the solenoid power, which is why if the solenoid fuse is blown the MPU won't do the final 7th LED flash. But on a -133 it uses the 6.3VAC from the GI power. Only four games used the -133 MPU: GOLD BALL, GRAND SLAM, BABY PAC-MAN and GRANNY AND THE GATORS.

The only difference between a -35 and -133 is just one component in the same position on the board! A -35 has a 2K resistor numbered R113 and a -133 has a 1N4148 diode numbered CR52.

Looking at the manual/schematics for the original Bally CYBERNAUT donor machines that these Bell machines were based on they supply 43VDC to J4-15. The diode that is currently on my board isn't doing anything as the +43VDC is already full-wave rectified but without the 2K the voltage is too high for the next section and is over-powering. If you want to carry on using the board replace the diode at position R113 with a 2K resistor!