I picked up these marquees on the factory tour at Expo ages ago.
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They've been sitting around since though and should probably find a home with someone who's more of an AG enthusiast than I am. Nothing against AG; I'm just more of an EM guy. PM me if you're interested.

/Mark

I went in his hall, and indeed he has tens of marquees for AG Soccerball (or football dont remember) and tens of uncut plastic sets.
Some of them (if the most of them) were laying on the ground.

That it what I heard also .. it is a shame. he also has Backglasses from MC and so on. All in a rotten hall.
The onliest positiv point is, that he allowed me years ago to come and see what I find.
maybe someone is livin next to him and wil speak with hiom about all this rare stuff is is horting.

This time a shopped a GarageBand and would need Lockbars.
A topper for garageBand was found as a repro.

Could just simply be connector issue if it goes away when moved. I'd also check for cracked solder joints but I really think the connector is your problem.

Pmsent

Anyone with one of the head to head games ever run into an issue with the gate not working?

Red Gate Coil 12 does not work. This goes back to HP6 q32 on the cpu board. Board works fine in mystery castle for that mosfet, so its not the board. The coil has power. The wire brn/yl back to the cpu board for the mosfet has continuity. The power wire goes back to the powersupply board and has continuity. The two other coils (blue gate and gi relay) work and have continuity to the red gate.

My last guess is the coil itself has gone bad? I tried grounding the tab on the mosfet and it fails to fire the coil. Figure next step is to swap coils between gates and see if the problem follows the coil.

And the DMD works! I ordered one of those NOS ones that ( https://www.pinballspareparts.com.au/pca-020a.html ) Pinball Australia has moved my chips over and working like new again. Was nice to actually play the game finally and see what I was doing. Next up tear down and shop it out with a LED treatment..

I checked the audit menu and found it only has 118 plays on it! Last owner said it was huo so it may appear to be just that.

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Hello,
Can anyone get me a picture of pp8 on the power supply board of their a.g. Soccer? Thanks

Helpfull ?

Its from my USA Football BEFORE (!!) fixing the powerboard !

usa football gameroom 002 (resized).JPG

usa football gameroom 003 (resized).JPG

usa football gameroom 004 (resized).JPG

usa football gameroom 005 (resized).JPG

usa football gameroom 006 (resized).JPG

usa football gameroom 007 (resized).JPG

usa football gameroom 008 (resized).JPG

usa football gameroom 009 (resized).JPG

usa football gameroom 010 (resized).JPG

usa football gameroom 011 (resized).JPG

Close, I am looking for the wires coming out of the plug of pp8.

Well in this time of social distance, I've torn down my PP and did a full shop out. Comet 2SMD sunlight leds (getting a little ghosting here and there) new black rubbers, cleaned and polished all parts. Did a strip of amber LED's under the upper PF to light up the lower PF a bit. Also did a 3 SMD strip under the apron. Comet disc in the pop bumpers red/white. Went with some red LED's in the upper lanes. Always nice to shop a HUO only game they come up so nice!

Here is a little video I made...

Did you find out the colors of those wires coming out of pp11? I need the same info if you have any pictures. Here’s mine..

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F8BAE558-6664-4460-9C25-0A9DB10A8F6F (resized).jpeg

Does the manual help?
Screenshot from 2020-04-06 09-10-44 (resized).png

Or a crappy picture I had lying around?
Screenshot from 2020-04-06 09-13-52 (resized).png

Better pic:
Screenshot from 2020-04-06 09-15-24 (resized).png

Yeah hard for me to read these manuals. I’d rather have a picture of the connector if anyone has one.. I think I’ve got it correct but I want to make sure before I turn it on and blow something up..

Screenshot from 2020-04-06 09-15-24 (resized).png

10 11 12
7 8 9
4 5 6
1 2 3

PJ11:
1 Yellow/White (not present on my machine)
2 White/White
3 Yellow/White (not present on my machine)
4 White/White
5 Blue/Blue
6 Green/Green
7 White/Black
8 N/C
9 Green/Green
10 Violet/Violet
11 Blue/Blue
12 Violet/Violet

Do you thing anyone at any time will reproduce the power supply board? With small numbers probably not right?

My Al's garage band has been worked on before to the extent of soldering tracks over the existing ones! I have replaced so many components I really want another one! PSPA has none.

Anyone have a working they are prepared to part with?

Thanks
Clive

Is your machine a Alvin G Soccer game like mine? Or does it not matter? Thanks!

Check eBay, someone in your neck of the woods is selling a.g. power supplies on ebay

But watch out with PowerBoards .. there are 2 different out

PCA 019A
PCA 028

019A is our regular one we need.
The 028 is very easy and cheap to get. I am no electronoics pro but I am sure, at least with some modification, this powerboard wioll also work. It was designed later for machines never were build.
So have a look on this board but there might be some changes to do !!!!!!

EDIT: The ones on ebay are the wrong ones !

There are actually 4 that Alvin G used. The other 2 are PBPS-001 and PCA-006.

My bad, I forgot this thread was about all the different machines. I should really ingest coffee before using the internet.

However, those pictures show you how to map the diagram to the cables for Al's garage band. That technique should work for the soccer too.

Here's the scheamtic from the AG Football manual:
Screenshot from 2020-04-07 09-59-25 (resized).png

1
2 White
3
4 White
5 Blue
6 Green
7 White/Black
8 Blue/White
9 Green
10 Violet
11 Blue
12 Violet

That is idential to the layout in my machine, except the addition of pin 8 with Blue/White.

Is this main fuse a 5amp? Mine blew and it’s says 5 amp on it..

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Alright I wired everything according to that connector colors and it’s blowing the main line fuse. (5amp) There are two white wires. Numbers 2 and 4 would it make a difference if I switched them up?

On the old board they had the blue wired to pin six. They old board booted the machine but it reset like crazy and someone hack the shit out of the board so I found another board that the guy said worked but it’s blowing the main fuse..

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Looking for another picture on the power supply.

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Recently obtained a Mystery Castle, it's got a few issues but mostly nice. I'm looking for a new coil sleeve for the shooter coil as it's been cut very short and causing very inconsistent plunges. Would anyone with a Garage band or Mystery Castle be able to measure the coil sleeve for me or even better let me know where I can find a replacement?

Thank you!

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I have some NOS decal sets for pistol poker and garage band world tour $20/set

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Hey everyone,

I'm about to get my first Alvin G game, a Mystery Castle! Word of mouth from the previous owner is that the game I'm receiving COULD be prototype #2. I find this highly unlikely, but I really want to know for sure. I scoured the serial number database and have no idea what to make of it.

Is there a way to find out if my machine is definitely proto 2 or not? I will get the machine next week, so I can't look at it right now. If I hit a dead end here, is there anybody from Alvin G I could reach out to? Any info would be hugely appreciated and I can't wait for it to arrive!

So you are crazy enough to overpay for the 8k one on here right now? Matt Elder can point out the proto differences. In the case of mystery castle do not see it adding much value. Blue spot targets are wrong, they should be clear and the size is different. Paint on the cab is cracked. Yellow spot is cracked badly. The spare drops are nice as they fail often. Its a fun game (one of my favorites), but 8k is awful.

Look, I simply asked a question about how to figure out what number the game is, not a shitfest on the machine I bought. By the way, I had a bunch of birthday/Christmas money, so in reality only about 3K is coming out of my own pockets, not to mention some of that price included shipping +insurance, which is pretty fantastic. And I don't plan on letting it go, so resale value doesn't matter to me, either. Also, since parts are so hard to come by, I really don't care if the parts are *exactly* right or if the machine is *perfect*. As long as it's functional, that's all I care about. I'll fix things down the road as necessary. You must be real fun at parties lol

So, again, if anyone has any idea how the serial numbers work or who I can talk to to figure out what number in the production run the machine is, let me know.

Let me know your serial number ....
I have a proto. Playfield print is missing some colors, cabinet as drscribed other black, inside some red color. Thats it as far as I know.

I have 3418 and guess its proto 18 from XX.

I have to check my files, have also a list with most machines and its serialnumber.
It was a online Alvin G. resource but it is lost.

3407 steve schmidt, usa (proto art)
3410 james greenhalgh, uk (proto art)
3414 pinball perfection, usa (proto art)
3416 brian stahl, usa (proto art)
3418 tom altenbach, ger (proto art)
3424 anthony capo, usa
3477 rick burnham, usa
3479 basil leblanc, usa
3486 ipp, usa
3526 matt elder, usa
3550 jess askey, usa
3583 brock hemming, can
3592 unknown, usa

This is not up to date ...

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Here's more of that S/N list from my old Alvin G site. Matt took up the torch for a while after I lost hosting, so he may have some more data points since then. The one that was for sale in the marketplace for $8k does indeed have the proto artwork. The serial number 3406 can be seen in one of the photos, so now you have some history on that machine.

3406 robert cheek, usa (proto art)
3407 steve schmidt, usa (proto art)
3410 timmy vierboom, belgium (proto art)
3414 pinball perfection, usa (proto art)
3416 brian stahl, usa (proto art)
3418 tom altenbach, ger (proto art)
3421 toddi, ger
3424 anthony capo, usa
3454 mario van cleave, usa
3461 todd, usa
3463 dan loosen, usa
3477 rick burnham, usa
3479 basil leblanc, usa
3486 ipp, usa
3493 scott kenny, aus
3495 arthur, holland
3521 gregor, ger
3526 matt elder, usa
3540 fred pika, ger
3550 jess askey, usa
3572 anon, usa
3583 dan loosen, usa
3592 unknown, usa
3594 robertmee, usa, made for Italian market
3601 maurizio, italy, made for Italian market
3603 mike, usa, made for Austrian market

Hey guys, so the serial number is in fact 3406! The one I bought is now archived in the market history including pictures, so if you need that reference it's there (I don't have it yet, but I can supply more pics when I get it).

So does that make it proto 6 then? I can't imagine they would start on such a weird number. Do they start at 3400 or something else?

Is there a website with further information on Mystery Castle proto vs production differences? I'd like to compare those to mine.

3603 mike, usa, made for Austrian market ... this machine was around 10 years ago "registered" in Austria. The owner told me this days that there were 2 machines, one was "converted" to a commercial rebuild for CocaCola or something like this.

In Germany are around 5 not listed games more.

3418 tom altenbach, ger (proto art) is my machine and was made for the US market and imported with an other MC around 2010 from "Pauls 50th" a german dealer who bought many things in the US. The other machine went to UK as he told me years later.

No ... there never was a official website.
As I remember Brian run this site:
www.tristatechapter.com/arcade/alving/alving.html

I mirrored it years ago and tried with Matt to bring it back but ... time goes on.

At least you can find all differences here in threads, also our "adventure" with the "lost 3. ROM" ...
I still have all my Alvin G.´s .

Thanks, but unfortunately that link doesn't work anymore....

www.tristatechapter.com/arcade/alving/alving.html

....has all that information been listed in another single location?

The Internet Pinball Serial Number Database is the only place I can think of. I would definitely love this info, too.

I'm getting a prototype this week Pinballer73, I'd be more than happy to send you pics when I get the game!

I think the list from Betelgeuse is still the last we have.
It seems protos are from 3400 to 3420. Every new number will help.

I will see if I bring the old Alvin G. side back online but have no time to take care. Maybe someone would like to host a new form ... today there are more options with Wordpress or so ....

That would be great, thanks Fenix15

Unfortunately, my old site is long gone. You may still be able to find it on the wayback machine or something like that.

Production playfield art has purple banners with text at the shot entrances, and purple CASTLE text for the drops. Sample/Proto playfield has blank white banners and white CASTLE text.

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Update for everyone: I have reached out to Gottlieb directly since I couldn't find a website for Alvin G. They gave me some contact info to get in touch with Michael Gottlieb, who I will be reaching out to shortly. From there, I'm just going to follow the trail down until I find someone who may have some records and info on Mystery Castle (and possibly other games, too!) or maybe who were on the design team. If I can find a log book or records of some kind showing which number the FIRST Mystery Castle was, we can figure out everyone else's numbers, too.

I will report any findings back here.

My plans are to A. if possible, colorize the animations for Magic Castle and get a ColorDMD board out for MC and B. also if possible, maybe strike up a deal with someone and maybe get some parts reproduced (less likely to happen, but I will give it the old college try).

If anyone knows anything about the coloring process of DMD animations and has any advice, I'm all ears. If I end up getting the chance to colorize MC, I want it to be beautiful.

Thanks a bunch to everyone who has reached out so far, you guys are pretty awesome. It's such an honor to own one of these rare but awesome gems in pinball history!

How awesome would that be, ColorDMD for Mystery Castle, YES!

Good luck with your efforts on that and your further enquiries.

Thanks for the information on the playfield colours. I'll check my game and NOS playfield. Any idea why there were two slightly different sets of cabinet artwork?

This is also about prototypes.
The protos cabinet is black. Inside is some red because it seems that they used Garageband cabinets for the protos.
Later on the cabinets were black with "sprenkles".

If someone will start reproducing spareparts, all flipper mechanics would be helpfull. This is the point on Alvin G. , its hard to find parts for the mechanics.

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Good call. I had forgot about the cabinets being re-sprayed World Tour cabinets too. My best guess is that the early playfields were printed before they had settled on the names for the major shots.

Others have done this before. There was a podcast interview with Michael Gottlieb years ago where he was asked extensively about MC. He did clear up some things about the number of machines produced, but he didn't have any documentation. We can only assume that 3400 or 3401 would have been the first machine built, though very early units may have been used in-house only. Matt Elder probably knows more than anyone on the subject, and has more documents and pieces of company history than even the people that worked there.

Guys, production cabs were sometimes al's cabinets that were repainted, not a sign its a proto. I have one that was resprayed and its not a proto.

Just a few quick notes from things I've learned over the years after interviewing many Alvin G employees, including former art director and artist for MC itself, Dan Hughes....

There are no remaining MC protos. Those were destroyed. The game in question, and others similar are just early production games. According to Dan all production games were to have the speckled cabinets, but Churchill delivered some with and some without speckles, all through the life of the game on the line.

And from what he remembered, all the playfields should have had the pink banners from the get-go, but there may have been a screening screw-up early on, and those playfields were still used up. Perhaps there is more that he didn't remember, but that is what I was told many years ago.

Anyway, congrats on the new game, Fenix15. Have fun with it! If I can be of any assistance feel free to shoot me a PM. Alvin G stuff was my life for many years, and I have an Alvin G museum building here and love chatting about this stuff, but I've had a lot going on lately and don't get on Pinside a lot anymore.

Thanks for the info, Matt! It's actually both a bummer and a relief to hear that protos don't exist anymore. Still, to have such an early game (and one that has the lowest serial number in the database so far!) is like winning the lottery. For all intents and purposes, I will just assume my game is either 5 or 6 in the production run and leave it at that. Really, really cool!!!!

Not sure I see how it is winning the lottery? It is interesting, but typically early prod vs late prod doesn't matter unless there are major differences that get removed. B/W games are great examples of this since protos and samples often have major features that got cut for production.

Other games like say Full throttle where early games have wood around the window instead of artwork, its just sort of neat.

On the upside at least early MC games run later code. If it were an al's it would be worth less because you are stuck on earlier incomplete code. Games like that it tends to hurt the value as people tend to want the full code. Had an early cosmic carnival like that which was stuck on early barebones code.

It IS like winning the lottery, at least for me: what are the odds I would get my hands on the lowest known serial number for any game, let alone a rare one that doesn't pop up on the market often? Also, if my machine has the artwork errors (the blank banners on the playfield, for example), that further adds to the cool factor.