For me it depends on where you are moving it and how much you want to spend. I have two different ways to move machines around. (1) a little three wheel thingy for each leg, I went cheap and bought four of them for 3 or 4 dollars at harbor freight, and (2) I have a motorcycle so I built a box that sits on the motorcycle lift. A couple of ideas for ya anyway. Good Luck!

Cheapest would probably be these.
http://www.lowes.com/pd_66999-255-4262599NN_0__?productId=3037455&Ntt=caster&pl=1&currentURL=%2Fpl__0__s%3FNtt%3Dcaster

I can move my pins around by myself with these. I can even get one out of the truck by myself with these and a sawhorse. Works on carpet too. They work best with the rubber floor protector disks under the pinball feet but will work without them too. Unless you have a huge collection, these should be fine.

Hmmm. I never thought of using my motorcycle lift. Thanks.

use an appliance dolly to move machines up and down stairs.
http://www.harborfreight.com/600-lb-capacity-appliance-hand-truck-65685.html

those little 3 wheeled rollers work great for moving them around your room once they are setup.

Hello All,

I actually use Magic Sliders, they have them at Home Depot and Lowes for about $7 for a set of 4 (2 inch diameter). The leg levelers fit right inside. It makes the games easy to slide around once set up, especially if you have 2 next to each other and need to work on one of them. The only draw back is they don't work on carpet.

"The only draw back is they don't work on carpet. "
True. That and guests tend to get a little wild while playing the machines and get em sliding around a little.
I agree those are good if you're going to need to move them around, but I bought a set of the varnished wood floor protectors (right in the same area as the Magic Sliders) that have rubber pads to keep the machine from sliding and to protect my floor from the caster pads.

As far as moving goes, I have the best kind. It's called my 6'3" 210 pound son. He works great. Although he's expensive to keep fed.

G

I've been using pinball skates I bought from Marco many years ago
a one man opperation & easy to use .
The only draw back is going over uneven stone/brick then they tend to pop out

http://www.marcospecialties.com/product.asp?ic=PBS

Actually, I knew I had seen this somewhere once. This guy built his own home-made Pinball Dolly out of wood.
http://fubigoil.net/homemade-pinball-dolly/

The one at the bottom of the post is the one I'm used to using.

I don't know how many of you have ever use the commercial ones the Operators use, but their a God-send for long moves. They don't do a hill-of-beans going up stairs though

G

I use skates as well and I move my games easily by myself on carpet. Autumn.....I sometimes tie a zip tie around mine if going on a rough surface.

I have the 2" round disc furniture sliders from walmart and they work beautifully on carpet. They also help with the indents the leg levelers leave. It disperses the weight throughout the disc and makes a bigger indent, but if you move the machine the indent comes out a lot quicker. I have a set under each machine and just slide the machine with little effort when needed. The machine does not move around with nudging though, it stays put.

There are two different kinds, ones that have memory-like foam, and ones that peel to reveal an adhesive to stick to bottom of the leveler. I like the memory-like foam ones a lot better. They grip the legs a lot better and don't slide off. The sticky ones tend to slide off if you aren't careful when moving the machine.

Oh zip ties - never thought of that thanks twizz63

For moving machines around that are setup, I use a 500 lb capacity hydraulic table lift from harbor freight. I've modified the handle with some hinges so it can be collapsed down for storage, and bent back to get the table further under the pin. This item is favored by numerous members on another pin forum due to it's cheap price, and the fact it only weighs 90 lbs or so. So it's portable moreso than the lifts designed for pinball machines.

http://www.harborfreight.com/500-lb-capacity-hydraulic-lift-table-94822.html

As for stairs, the cheapest rout is a decent appliance dolly with sliders as someone has already posted. I went a more expensive route and bought a used Lectro Truck stair climber. It allows me to move pins up and down flights of stairs with no assitance.

"As for stairs, the cheapest rout is a decent appliance dolly with sliders as someone has already posted"

Yep. Used them before too. Mostly for Video Games. Usually, we dis-assembled the Pins for stairs and by then it was easy enough for two people to just tote it up or use the appliance dolly.

"This item is favored by numerous members on another pin forum due to it's cheap price"

How sturdy is that cart in your opinion? It's kind of hard to judge from the photo. It looks like a great deal and pretty easy to modify as you mentioned. There's a Harbour Freight about 10 Min. from my house. I'll have to check it out.

G

The harbor freight table is solid.

I also bought the harbor freight 500 lb lift table with a coupon (search the harbor freight site for COUPON). Super cheap - about $100 as I recall.

WORKS GREAT!!! I was able to completely move a pin by myself from the back of my minivan and into my garage by myself. The head was flat down on the box and the legs were off. No problemo. Gently slid it out of the van, positioned table, locked roller wheels, pushed pin onto table, then lifted the table to clear the van, wheeled it into my garage, raised it higher to attach legs, etc, etc. Sooooo easy.

Seriously, I see no reason why anyone would buy a $400 "pinball" mover. This also doubles for kids to stand on and get lifted up to get a better view. Just be careful of the scissor action below...but it lowers really slow so that's a bonus.

Cheers,
Mike

"This also doubles for kids to stand on and get lifted up to get a better view"

What about us bigger kids who like to do crazy stuff like that??

Thanks for the tip. I'm going to HF this weekend to see what I can find!

G

NoVArcade, can you post more details on how you modified your handle on the Harbor Freight table? I have one and it works great, but I haven't modified my handle's mounting points yet. I've been trying to figure out the best method. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

"I have the 2" round disc furniture sliders from Walmart and they work beautifully on carpet ... I have a set under each machine and just slide the machine with little effort when needed."

I second this. I use the Magic Sliders version, but it's pretty much the same concept. I just moved all six of my pins last night from one room to another easily by myself. The carpet in my basement is a berber type, so it's not as thick as some. I would imagine the sliders would still work on a more plush carpet, it would just require a little more effort. I plan on leaving the sliders under my pins all the time. It will make it really easy to pull one of them out when I want to work on it.

pinball skates from Jabtec. like em a lot

Stangbat: here's some photos of my lift. This is the latest version of the table, there's an older model with different mount points. The hinges I'm using are Stanley brand from lowes.

http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm21/samsho1/IMAG0296.jpg

http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm21/samsho1/IMAG0297.jpg

Here's mine in action rescuing Seawitch:

[img]http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4026/4673727692_d3f5abb2f4_b.jpg[/img]

How do you post images again??

"How do you post images again??"

You can attach them directly to the post using the tool right below the reply box.

Perfect NoVArcade! Such a simple solution. I had something much more complicated planned. I even have some hinges like that in a box in the garage. Thanks!

BTW, I have the same version of the cart.

I had to set mine up a little differently than yours, NoVArcade. My hinges might have been longer. But the cable wasn't long enough to allow the handle to pivot over perpendicular. I ended up swapping the handle so that the release lever is now on the left. This gave me more slack in the cable and it now will lay flat on the cart and swivel over so you can pull it.

Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you. There's a nut underneath that you can loosen to give the wire some more slack. : )

I don't think the nut underneath or up by the handle was going to give me enough slack. Anyway, problem solved and I'm happy. Thanks for the pictures.

Even it's too late ..for pinwizard1 ...

, somebody gave me some pieces of advices about this stuff :

http://www.manulevage.fr/table-elevatrice-te150-700x450-mm-capacite-150-kg-p-224.html

Sorry for the language , but the most important is to share !

All this lift mechanics stuff is super cool. I've always used my brother...