Friday 26 February 2010

Pinball machines, Video cabs... and a double bass

So based on my interest in Pinball machines and my partners involvement with the up and coming sport Roller Derby, I decided to buy this machine. It was sort of working when I got it, but needed a fair bit of work to get it back to its former glory. Only one the alpha-numeric displays was working, so I replaced the resistors on the power board... This had worked well for my Funhouse machine, but obviously not for this one! I now have no displays working!

While checking connections and voltages in the backbox, I managed to short something out on the CPU board, so the game no longer boots at all. After emailing Phil from Pinball Heaven, I have removed the power and CPU board and am taking them to him on Monday... He's confident that he can get them working again:-)

Once these are fixed, I have a reasonable amount of work to get all the General Illumination working again. Playfield needs a bloody good clean and the flippers rebuilding. I also have a new set of rubbers to fit.

Last night I played on Funhouse for a while just to make myself feel better. And started work on converting my Cocktail video cab to have 8way joysticks and more fire buttons. I seem to have alot of things on the go atm as I also need to get my Mr Do! PCB working in my upright cab.. but first I need to get the monitor working again, which just decided to fail... again.

Oh, and I'm still trying to get to grips with playing the Double Bass.

On a positive note, The Dangerous Aces (the band I play with) have just finished recording our debut CD. It should be released shortly.. fingers crossed!