So as promised here is my first every pin purchase documented is all its (ugliness) glory.
It all started in late March when I decided with the wife that we were going to get a Pinball machine. I had in my Garage when I was a child a Bally Pinball Wizard pinball machine. It never worked and was given to someone to repair who then ended up stealing it and never returning it...
I've always been interested in Arcades as a kid my Dad used to go around fixing and repairing Fruit machines, pinballs and Arcade machines. Space and money has meant I never got to have a Pinball machine until now.
My wife studied Pinside's top 100 and we settled on Star Trek as the pin of choice. Fate would have it that such a pin the very next week appeared on UK Pinball Group. It was a Star Trek Premium. The person selling it had come into possession after a death in the family. He knew very little about it and was asking for pricing.
Naievly I asked 'What have you been offered so far' for the machine. To which he responded 'I have a dealer offering in excess of £6000. I responded with an offer of £6300 and he accepted.
The seller lived less than an hours drive and we drove down to inspect the machine. I had prior to going down tried to organise a visit with Martin who I'm sure most of you know performs collections and deliveries but he wasn't going to my neck of the woods for at least 2 weeks.
We arrived at an old house the Machine was being stored in the garage. We performed some initial inspection of the machine. It looked great from first glance and proceeded to try the machine out. A ball got stuck in the Vengeance. The seller said 'Yeah it does that we think its something to do with the balance' and pointed to the spirit level within the machine which was well off the centre.
The flippers all worked and not having experienced any modern Pinball machine I was wow'd by the effects and lighting.
On the lighting front I noticed some lights weren't lit on the playfield but assumed 'naievly' at the time that these used lamp holders with £3 bulbs (how wrong I was!) the machine look great on face value and I proceeded to agree to purchase of the machine.
The seller was keen to get rid of the machine today so I was placed into a position of trying to mount the machine in our car to take it back.
My car although a Hatchback (Honda Civic Type R) was definately no designed to hold a Pinball machine.
I present the first picture of said machine.
Imagine this going down the Motorway
Got more than a few looks. Luckily I had bought some decent Strap Wrenches to hold it into place. I definately won't be repeating this as I'm amazed I didn't damage the Pin or the car in the process!
After we got the machine home I began to set it up. This is where I noticed the first few problems.
The rear feet were completely rusted.
I began the long and arduous tasks of cleaning and sanding them back to a reasonable finish.
From the condition of the feet and other metal parts on the machine it looks like it was left in a very damp area...
I proceeded to clean all the other rusted area's.
Next i got myself acquainted with the Stern Diagnostics and inspected the playfield.... Many lights were faulty.
<Videoi of faulty lights)
520-6808-02 (lights 1 and 3 fault)
520-6812-01 (3 faulty lights)
520-6811-00 (4 faulty lights)
520-6813-00 (all 3 lights faulty)
I spoke with people on the UK Pinball group (mainly Neil) and discovered that LED replacement would be difficult and not recommended and replacement parts were the way to go..
While performing switch tests, further inspection had yielded the following:
- Missing Roll Over spring on the TR(E)K Canal
- Faulty Roll Over Switch on the 'Away Team'
I ordered the replacement parts and £400 later they arrived.
I installed each part and voila the switches and lights were operational once more!
My next issue came from the mechanics of the game. This took the longest time to resolve...
Despite what the seller thought about the issue the problem was not the leveling of the playfield. During Vengeance multiball one more balls would continually get stuck within the mechanism.
I initially bought standard Stern Pinball balls which look to resolve the issue and worked for a little while but quickly became magnetised and the issue repeated.
I was led down initially the route of faulty opto's but switch tests concluded these were fine and were not the result of balls become stuck.
In the end the issue was resolved by twisting the wires underneath the playfield. The issue was documented some 7 years ago. It looks like the previous owner never bothered to resolve the problem!
Replacement balls designed for magnetic games were also purchased from Pinball Bazaar for good measure and touch wood the issue has not returned since.
While inspecting the tranceiver boards that board 5 had its wiring in reverse. I adjusted the wiring and moved onto the next issue.
The DMD at this time decided to start playing up...
Line have appeared in the screen solid red and get worse the longer the machine is left on for. I ordered a replacement refurbished DMD from Cointaker but it unfortunately arrived DOA. It had a missing dot within the board which I suspect had something to do with the non functionality.
Raising ticket requests initially yielded a response of an apology and a statement that a replacement would be sent. 2 weeks later no updates had been provided. Placing a query here then led to an immediate refund of my purchase with no further communication. An offer has since been accepted on here for a replacement DMD. I will update the log here once it arrives.
Next up the playfield. I waxed it and other than dimple city it appears to be fine. I considered a playfield protector but see mixed responses on their effectiveness and appeal.
I then inspected the flippers. These were yellow and loose from I can imagine years of use and exposure to sunlight. Thankfully the artwork isn't affected!
I ordered some new bats and solenoid sleeves.
Dissasembly of the flippers and links were easier than I thought. The coil sleeves were a good bet as the existing ones were very worn. Thankfully the coils and coil stops seemed OK.
Old VS. the new
Coil stops cleaned and coil sleeves and bats replaced I put everything back together.
The rubbers were put back on as they hadn't arrived yet and would do for now.
Fast forward to today my replacement rubber kit arrived.
I replaced all rubbers on the playfield. Some were in terrible shape.
I ordered replacement rubbers from scandanavian pinball. £15 including delivery. They even threw in some red rubbers for the flipper bats as a free gift!
When the DMD arrives I'll be finished. Its been a bit of a long road but its all finally coming together.
Hope you enjoyed reading my journey.
It all started in late March when I decided with the wife that we were going to get a Pinball machine. I had in my Garage when I was a child a Bally Pinball Wizard pinball machine. It never worked and was given to someone to repair who then ended up stealing it and never returning it...
I've always been interested in Arcades as a kid my Dad used to go around fixing and repairing Fruit machines, pinballs and Arcade machines. Space and money has meant I never got to have a Pinball machine until now.
My wife studied Pinside's top 100 and we settled on Star Trek as the pin of choice. Fate would have it that such a pin the very next week appeared on UK Pinball Group. It was a Star Trek Premium. The person selling it had come into possession after a death in the family. He knew very little about it and was asking for pricing.
Naievly I asked 'What have you been offered so far' for the machine. To which he responded 'I have a dealer offering in excess of £6000. I responded with an offer of £6300 and he accepted.
The seller lived less than an hours drive and we drove down to inspect the machine. I had prior to going down tried to organise a visit with Martin who I'm sure most of you know performs collections and deliveries but he wasn't going to my neck of the woods for at least 2 weeks.
We arrived at an old house the Machine was being stored in the garage. We performed some initial inspection of the machine. It looked great from first glance and proceeded to try the machine out. A ball got stuck in the Vengeance. The seller said 'Yeah it does that we think its something to do with the balance' and pointed to the spirit level within the machine which was well off the centre.
The flippers all worked and not having experienced any modern Pinball machine I was wow'd by the effects and lighting.
On the lighting front I noticed some lights weren't lit on the playfield but assumed 'naievly' at the time that these used lamp holders with £3 bulbs (how wrong I was!) the machine look great on face value and I proceeded to agree to purchase of the machine.
The seller was keen to get rid of the machine today so I was placed into a position of trying to mount the machine in our car to take it back.
My car although a Hatchback (Honda Civic Type R) was definately no designed to hold a Pinball machine.
I present the first picture of said machine.
Imagine this going down the Motorway
Got more than a few looks. Luckily I had bought some decent Strap Wrenches to hold it into place. I definately won't be repeating this as I'm amazed I didn't damage the Pin or the car in the process!After we got the machine home I began to set it up. This is where I noticed the first few problems.
The rear feet were completely rusted.
I began the long and arduous tasks of cleaning and sanding them back to a reasonable finish.
From the condition of the feet and other metal parts on the machine it looks like it was left in a very damp area...
I proceeded to clean all the other rusted area's.
Next i got myself acquainted with the Stern Diagnostics and inspected the playfield.... Many lights were faulty.
520-6808-02 (lights 1 and 3 fault)
520-6812-01 (3 faulty lights)
520-6811-00 (4 faulty lights)
520-6813-00 (all 3 lights faulty)
I spoke with people on the UK Pinball group (mainly Neil) and discovered that LED replacement would be difficult and not recommended and replacement parts were the way to go..
While performing switch tests, further inspection had yielded the following:
- Missing Roll Over spring on the TR(E)K Canal
- Faulty Roll Over Switch on the 'Away Team'
I ordered the replacement parts and £400 later they arrived.
I installed each part and voila the switches and lights were operational once more!
My next issue came from the mechanics of the game. This took the longest time to resolve...
Despite what the seller thought about the issue the problem was not the leveling of the playfield. During Vengeance multiball one more balls would continually get stuck within the mechanism.
I initially bought standard Stern Pinball balls which look to resolve the issue and worked for a little while but quickly became magnetised and the issue repeated.
I was led down initially the route of faulty opto's but switch tests concluded these were fine and were not the result of balls become stuck.
In the end the issue was resolved by twisting the wires underneath the playfield. The issue was documented some 7 years ago. It looks like the previous owner never bothered to resolve the problem!
Replacement balls designed for magnetic games were also purchased from Pinball Bazaar for good measure and touch wood the issue has not returned since.
While inspecting the tranceiver boards that board 5 had its wiring in reverse. I adjusted the wiring and moved onto the next issue.
The DMD at this time decided to start playing up...
Line have appeared in the screen solid red and get worse the longer the machine is left on for. I ordered a replacement refurbished DMD from Cointaker but it unfortunately arrived DOA. It had a missing dot within the board which I suspect had something to do with the non functionality.
Raising ticket requests initially yielded a response of an apology and a statement that a replacement would be sent. 2 weeks later no updates had been provided. Placing a query here then led to an immediate refund of my purchase with no further communication. An offer has since been accepted on here for a replacement DMD. I will update the log here once it arrives.
Next up the playfield. I waxed it and other than dimple city it appears to be fine. I considered a playfield protector but see mixed responses on their effectiveness and appeal.
I then inspected the flippers. These were yellow and loose from I can imagine years of use and exposure to sunlight. Thankfully the artwork isn't affected!
I ordered some new bats and solenoid sleeves.
Dissasembly of the flippers and links were easier than I thought. The coil sleeves were a good bet as the existing ones were very worn. Thankfully the coils and coil stops seemed OK.
Old VS. the new
Coil stops cleaned and coil sleeves and bats replaced I put everything back together.
The rubbers were put back on as they hadn't arrived yet and would do for now.
Fast forward to today my replacement rubber kit arrived.
I replaced all rubbers on the playfield. Some were in terrible shape.
I ordered replacement rubbers from scandanavian pinball. £15 including delivery. They even threw in some red rubbers for the flipper bats as a free gift!
When the DMD arrives I'll be finished. Its been a bit of a long road but its all finally coming together.
Hope you enjoyed reading my journey.
I had a house in Kingsdown rd near that nice pub and Honda
as for balls and rubbers I use the legend at pinball mania .
