thetylander Current Collection
Pinsider thetylander currently owns 10 machines.
Doctor Who
Bally, 1992
“Wanted this since I was 20 years old (1992), only took half my life to get it! This machine had one issue!!! Wow!!! Only one??? The mini playfield motor was repaired poorly in the past. Replaced it with a new one, gave the machine a thorough teardown and minor cleaning while I replaced the rubber and hard to reach bulbs. Works beautifully!!! What an excellent purchase!!!”
Hi-Flyer
Chicago Coin, 1974
“I’ve gone EM and early solid state crazy! To hell with the grail machines! These are a million times better and tens of thousands of dollardollarbilzzz cheaper! I’d rather own games that are fun and beautiful over games that artificially make me look cool and stroke my… ego. It’s big enough as it is! (That’s the sign of a real pinball fan I’ve been told)”
Jokerz!
Williams, 1988
“After I sold My Kings of Steel, I continued to look for another, or a similar replacement. There were many choices, but Jokerz! is like a spiritual successor to Kings of Steel from 1984. In fact, the colors and themes are quite similar. This was bought at a local arcade and game store, and had been in regular use prior to buying it. It only needs minor touch ups and repairs to be perfect. It has been converted to LED lighting which looks amazing on this machine! It’s still a cheap machine to own, as it’s relatively common and overlooked by collectors and investors. I can’t recommend it enough. It’s a perfect combination of classic 1970’s pinball with the best of the 1980’s pinball in one machine. Repairs/mods since purchase: New LED’s (most that were in the machine were “found in junk box” quality, some were even hand painted in a variety of colors, which doesn’t work!) Rubber ring kit, all were incorrect or shot. Coil sleeves all around, minor wiring repairs, ramp adjustment, tearing down the playfield and cleaning everything. Cabinet touch up. Cut resistor to allow “Unused Adjustment” to allow balls per game selection. I still have it set to 3 balls per game but it’s nice to have the option if little kids want to play. I still haven’t done the Williams official speaker hum mod. It doesn’t bother me as much as it should I guess. It’s still a great machine and operates flawlessly. The worst breakdown was a flipper return spring popped off once! ”
Mata Hari
Bally, 1978
“Restoration project. Needs boards gone through and tested and wiring plug work, cleaning, rubber, bulbs, etc. playfield and cabinet in incredibly excellent condition!!! No fading, very minor blemishes. Came with extra boards too!!! This was pretty much a buy one get one free deal. This was obviously free. Or Two machines for half price? Long time fan of Mata Hari!! A wishlist game fulfilled yet again!!! After thorough inspection, the cabinet is so clean you could eat out of it, as well as the head. The playfield cleaned up nice with zero issues above or below. The chimes are clear sounding and the coin door is immaculate with the coin units still intact. Plastics are perfect and everything looks good so far. The issue the previous owner had was the plugs from the rectifier board to the power supply board started burning when he plugged it in, a good place to start looking for issues I’d say. Bridge rectifiers… Or that plug was connected wrong, he said that was a possibility. Hope the boards are good and the displays work. Going to test the power output (plugs out, obviously) off the power supply and the rectifier board tomorrow as I am waiting to get more molex connectors. I ran out. Then connect the driver board if power is good, and so on.”
Pinball
Stern Electronics, 1977
“Restoration project. Current condition 02/25/2022, the day of purchase. Cabinet: Overall the cabinet is in very good condition, in need of minor touch up and major cleaning. Coin door, electronics and chime box are complete and in good working order. Backbox: Very good condition with matching numbers to the lower cabinet. Again, minor touch up and cleaning are needed. Boards and power supply: These are complete and appear to be Stern originals at first glance. Self test completes and the game starts up with issues. Displays are mostly good with one needing solder work or replacement. The battery the original type. There is no leakage, but I intend to cut it off and install one of the battery upgrades. Backglass: It suffers from peeling paint (primarily yellow) and is borderline acceptable. The one area where a high cost replacement backglass may be a decent investment. Playfield: Good condition, there are minor chips and scratches in the surface paint. I need to decide to either do a little touch up work or wax the hell out of it and leave it alone. All playfield parts appear to be in good condition. Two solenoids are known to be bad, and the expected rubber and bulb replacement work obviously need to be done. Playfield glass and lockdown bar are good. To do: Regardless of operational status, all boards, switches and solenoids will be inspected, tested, and repaired as needed. This may turn into another crazy restoration like Mata Hari #2 where I want to take it as closely back to like new as possible without crossing the line into museum piece or over restored. It’s a pinball machine, it needs to be played not preserved!!! I can’t wait to start working on it!!!”
Pinbot
Williams, 1986
“Rough but very promising condition. Received some major drink spillage down the front sometime in the distant past, affecting the coin door, front cabinet, lockdown bar, etc. but the rest of the machine is in very good condition. Definitely a players condition machine in need of rescuing!!! Not afraid to admit we overpaid, $3300 for what should be a $2500 to $2800 machine, but it was a local pickup and the people we got it from were really cool and nice. Besides, I am not a reseller and don’t intend to sell it or anything, the wife won’t let me! Also, all the expensive hard to find bits are intact and in good condition. Most of the issues are common cheap parts and my own labor, which is always free because it’s fun. Already started cleaning and repairing Pinbot once we unloaded it at home. Get the vacuum the Novus and a wire brush?! Cleaned the playfield, the rust on the lockbar from the ancient spillage, and replaced the balls so the wife could get in a few games and beat the existing high scores before removing the original battery battery unit! Known issues and checklist process: Always work from the wall out people!! 1. Cord needs replaced. Broken plug end. 2. Power transformer tests out fine. 3. Needs the System 11 Bridge rectifier fuse modification. Surprisingly it hasn’t caught on fire yet! The Rectifiers test out good. 4. Looks like original caps on power supply board with the infamous burnt light wire mod added. Recap, resolder connections, test outputs. The 5v was running a little low, at 4.8v with no load. Caps made a huge difference!!! 5. Empty the original battery holder of AA’s!!! NVRAM is going in!!! ….then I’ll check the rest of the 11A. 6. Target bank in front of pinbot face is broken free. Another common problem with a variety of easy fixes, depending on the damage. Really should’ve been made at the factory in metal instead of plastic. Needs an Upgrade!!!! I did jump ahead to other issues: right lane change was giving a warning on the test menu, broken wire to the flipper switch, easy fix. Left outline light was inoperative but it turned out to be a bad diode. Initially thought it was a transistor on the board but GORGAR used brain and started at bulb first and worked backwards. Not bad progress for a couple hours of tinkering!!! This is going to be a pretty easy refurbishment, knock on MDF, just gotta order a few parts and Pinbot will be good as new. After much work, Pinbot got a new lease on life!!! The backbox GI lights went out due to the flasher for the backboard being damaged. Replaced it!!! The machine has All New fuses!!!, of course, Bridge rectifier fuses, lots of recapping on the boards, LED bulbs in key places, New Stuff: 5bank target bracket, target motor, playfield glass, rubber, 47 bulbs, flasher bulbs, the special eyeball bulbs, playfield disassembly, cleaning, very minor touch up, repaired plastics, new balls!!! New cabinet speaker, coin door repair, front of cabinet repair and paint, also one clear red and one blue clear flipper button because it’s Pinbot. The wife did most of the cosmetics and some board work. It took about $400 but I can proudly say that this Pinbot is starting to look and work awesome. ”
Popeye Saves the Earth
Bally, 1994
“Was working! We moved it to our house and it stopped working the same day we got it!!! This happens, shake them around on bumpy roads in the back of a dodge pickup and things get loose and disconnect. This was different. This machine was beat to death and poorly repaired. It had been installed and operating at a local arcade and game store. First the flippers stopped working. It was just the flipper wiring plug. Yeah, it’s those Bally plugs. A little deoxit, push the wires in to those stupid slots, and it worked fine. I Replaced them with good connectors. The spinner wheel stopped working as well, it turned out to be a bad diode on the motor control board. It took about 16 hours to get the machine up and running properly. Most of that was reading the manual, learning how this particular pinball works, inspecting and testing the whole machine, and studying the schematics. I spent maybe three or four of those hours troubleshooting and doing physical work on it. The machine was up and running but needed a thorough going through. Repairs/mods: New playfield glass. The original shattered. WPC lighting issues. Someone had wired all the playfield GI lights to the right side output terminal. This was due to burned out transistors and some sort of power issue in the past. Reworked and repaired. Fuses were all wrong. What is it with using car fuses?! DON’T!!! Properly re fused. New rubbers, lightbulbs, remote battery pack, two resistors, three diodes, and a handful of capacitors, two transistors, board traces repaired. Truly, this machine was running on pure luck. Replaced incorrect and non matching flipper coils, (really???) all the worn bushings - which was all of them, broken plastics, cabinet damage, dead gate solenoid, upgraded the rom to LX-5, it had a amateur burned LA-2 that was burned wrong and worked occasionally.. . Good grief!!! Every coil was loose, screws and hardware were missing, dead micro switches on the lball lock unit, bad opto sensors on the ball trough, loop ramp, and wheel exit. EOS switches on upper playfield were bent so they were always open and one opto sensor was disconnected (but good) from that area. Animal ramp kicker assembly was bent like a woman. If I didn’t love Popeye this would be parts!!!”
Red Baron
Chicago Coin, 1975
“Wow! This may not be “the bestest game in the whole world”but what a theme! This has been a want list game for a long time, and thanks to me being the only weirdo in a 300 mile radius, I got it and Hi flyer for a song and a dance! Or was that a fart and a giggle? Who cares? Yay!!!”
Super Spin
Gottlieb, 1977
““Wow!!!” Condition!! Needs minor cosmetic work and to be shopped in order to achieve perfection!!! Unbelievably cheap and unbelievably rare. Day Two: Wow!!! Day Three: Wow!!! Day four: Wow!!! One minor issue, right side bonus target doesn’t score and the feature light for it doesn’t light up. The Solenoid is not receiving power and the coil is good. Probably something simple but schematics started giving me a headache so I played it without the target working, and then played some Pinbot. Since it’s run in a series, the right, center, and left bonus are all on the same switches, it’s not the score motor or bonus wheel. The only difference it has is that the when lit light gives you an extra ball so it may be messed up there. Otherwise perfect in every way… …and still Wow!!!”
Listing 10 games. Currently showing results page 1 of 1.
