You guys inspired me to order a second machine and start taking mine apart. I got a little further and managed to get the playfield out and the glass off of the playfield. It wasn't too bad. Once you have the plastic casing off of the bottom of the playfield, there are plastic snap tabs that hold the clear 'glass' piece down. You can just pop it out using a screwdriver and then remove it from the top side. I went and partially re-assembled the machine with the glass still off to test and tweak. It seems the glass can just be snapped back in at any time, even with the machine back together.

I did correct the issue I had with the scoop kickout requiring a hard slap to the flipper button. There is plastic actuator rod that goes to the scoop from the flipper button. I stuck a small foam piece to the rod where the ball rests. Now it kicks it right out with any left flipper press.

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I need to do that too. Thanks for opening it up!

Very nice. Are you able to see how the scoring works? For example, are the pops actually scoring 100 points or is everything just seemingly random?

Not random at all. The pops score 100 points normally. The objective is to hit one of the bonus targets on the sides to spot the WOW insert, which gives you 10x scoring for 10 seconds. Then rack up as much bumper action as possible while keeping the WOW lit. It's just enough to keep you shooting at different things while adding a sense of urgency to it.

There's way more going on in the playfield pcb than I expected. Now I assume that the pcb in the head is a slave board and the playfield pcb is the master that is just using SPI to drive the display. That makes my assumptions about taking it over with an arduino wrong. Getting in and taking over the lower pcb would probably involve severing and tapping into traces. Even better might be to design a new pcb.

If you've still got it apart, does the pink plastic separate from the playfield plastic?

I wonder if the head score display is just shift registers like a chexx score board. Which would be easy to have a arduino or pi control. This looks like a cheap/quick turn China work so I wouldn’t expect anything complicated or ”encrypted”

I don't have it in front of me, but the pink plastic IS the playfield. It's covered by the clear lexan top layer. It didn't look easy to separate the two layers, but the whole playfield lifts out easily enough.

Tear down video:

Great teardown video. Looking forward to seeing more come out of this. Did you get the spinning target quieted down?

Not yet, I've been focusing on figuring out how the microcontroller works

I just posted Part 2 of my teardown series. I've figured out almost all of the functions of the micrcontroller and I've got a good idea what can be done with the machine without replacing the two main boards. Looks like the hardware can support a much better light show than what the existing software does.

I've also got a really good start on decoding the SPI interface between the cabinet and the backbox (next video!). Just like the lights, there's more capability there than what the existing software uses.

00:00 : Tracing a circuit (optical switches)
18:33 : Summary of each circuit on both boards
39:34 : Functions of the main microcontroller; lighting and switching capabilities

Microcontroller Functions

SPI Commands to Backbox

My only gripe is that the flippers are man-powered and that's a bit of a bummer. Obviously I understand why, but other than that it's pretty cool.

Very thorough video. It's interesting to see how the jumpers were used. I am used to seeing them used the same way you spoke of, but seeing them used to actually 'jump' traces never really occurred to me. Smart.

Interesting to see the LED mapping. I figured it was all powered from one source but this proves me wrong. The switches on the other hand, are pretty much exactly how I thought they were.

I'm looking forward to the next video. It'll be interesting to see what signals are sent and if they can be manipulated.

Seeing as how this pin is an accessory for a girl doll, I would hope the flippers were mostly girl powered.

Whoops. Yeah, I totally haven't played it, like, at all.

Very impressive work on this. Eager to see more. Need to suck it up and just buy one. My daughter is a senior in high school but still loves to collect AG stuff.

Part 3 of my teardown. I've got the communication to the backbox decoded. The software definitely does not make good use of the hardware here. Looks like the hardware allows independent control each of the 7 segments in each of the 6 score displays. The existing software only displays score digits, but I think there's potential to draw patterns and display alphabetic characters.

Great video. Got out of focus near the end, I thought it was my connection speed, but then things cleared up just in time for the eureka moment! Very cool that you have individual control over every LED in the backbox. Do you think control over the PF LEDs is also possible?

Looking forward to the next video!

Part 3 of my teardown?
What in the actual fuck?

I’m pretty sure the 6 playfield LEDs and the 2 backbox LEDs can be controlled individually. I forgot to talk about it because I was so wrapped up in the score digits. Byte 5, bit 1, controls LEDs X and Y in the backbox. Byte 7, bit 8, controls playfield bonus LED P. I think the lower 6 bits in byte 7 control a bunch of LEDs. It’ll be easier to figure out how they’re controlled once I start sending my own SPI commands. That’s the plan!

If somebody told me I’d be spending months of my life reverse engineering a pinball machine for dolls, I wouldn’t have believed it. But here I am.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZXypXzuz-W0ymE9KZiytpeiXahwPHh9p

If I did that I'm sure I would have a bunch of parts left over after I tried to put it back together.

Can we get Lyman to work with you on the code?

I'm thinking about start collecting different kinds of pinball machines, but I don't have the good place for them yet. Anyway, such things like that enthrall me.

Get your wallet out.

We here on pinside believe anywhere in the house is appropriate like the kitchen, dining room, basement , living room and garage would all be efficient.

And this particular machine is small enough to keep in the bathroom! We live in exciting times, ladies and gentlemen.

My smallest line-up:
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and bedroom

Haha!
Well, it was totally douchey for me to bust in here like that, I apologize.
What you're doing takes 1000% more intelligence than the all night surfing of Pinside that I do.
I gave up beer and am on vodka straight now, so pardon my dickishness.
I'll buy ya a beer sometime bub.

Pinball Mafia did a decent gameplay stream.

I noticed they were also having a problem with the upper-left kickout. Here's a pic of my fix. I put a small square of adhesive foam on the plunger. Works perfectly every time now.

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I made some progress with controlling the score digits. Check out the display!
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Very cool! Try throwing some F-14 Alpha/Numeric stuff on there for fun!

Absolutely epic!

They're only 7 segment displays, so it will be difficult representing all letters. Alphanumeric displays are 14 segment, I believe.

You really know how to crush a guy's dreams.

Part 4 of my teardown is posted. I'm able to control the score digits from my own microcontroller now! The protocol between the playfield and the backbox allows independent control of each of the 7 segments of each of the 6 digits, so it's possible to display patterns and rudimentary alphabetic characters. Not shown in the video, but I can also control the three LEDs in the backbox (the lower 2 LEDs and the 1 LED behind the title). I don't think the machine ever flashes the LED behind the title, but it is controllable. Also, if you look close at the score digits, you'll see an arrow underneath digits 1-3 and digit 6, and dots between digits 3 & 4 and between 4 & 5. I can control each of those independently too. Maybe I'll used those as the ball counter.

Nice to see your making head way in figuring out how it works. Even thow i more of a actual moving parts guy i can under stand this some and its neat to see how it works. But i do wish i had better grasp of this. Got just enough experience with hex decimal editor to mod a computer game to make it easier to win.

Any explanation as to how my score ended in a 4--or was it just a bug?

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Didn’t want you waiting for an answer for to long. But I have no idea.

Pre-bonus score was 500,700. The bonus after the 3rd ball is awarded as 2% of your final score (with 1,000-point minimum award). Nice score!

https://www.americangirl.com/shop/p/julie-pinball-machine-gdw97

If anyone is interested, it's $127 with free shipping until 5/31

Thanks. I couldn’t resist and bought one.

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I'm late to that party, but your progress is fantastic! $12 for a logic analyzer is definitely a no brainer. It was really cool to see the data translated by the program so easily. All of it is very cool. Looking forward to seeing more!

Yep. We got one too. Not joking when I say my kids have played it more than any of the other A-list machines I own!! And they’re in high school!

Also, is it me or is this basically the coolest part of a Munsters premium pin?! The miniature playfield was the part I liked the most when I played one on location.

Can someone familiar list the steps to ONLY access the upper left scoop for a fix there? The kickout doesn’t work without significant jostling.

No shortcut here. You need to take the plastic bottom cover off of the machine to get at the snap tabs that hold the playfield 'glass' in all along the edges. Pop those out carefully and lift the glass out of the top. Then you can get to both the top and bottom of the kicker arm. I fixed the kickout by sticking a small square of foam on the kicker where the ball rests. It pops out effortlessly now. It's in this thread.

I have the same problem with the upper kick out. You really have to smack the flipper buttons hard and give it a little shake.

Anyone still playing this? Mine has been setup on my bar right above the beer fridge the entire time. I still give it a spin a couple times a week. On my second set of batteries now. The first sign the original batteries were getting low was the pop bumper spinner starting to get weak. This was at over 300 plays. That's not bad, but I do wish I could just plug into the wall too.

I saw they recently announced a mini Pac-Man arcade to scale with The Flip Side. It looks like some fairly nice detail. Releases on 10/2.
https://www.americangirl.com/shop/p/courtneys-pac-man-arcade-game-grn44

That's the Numskull Pac-Man, right? Looks like the same size and has the same bezel around the monitor.

Yeah. We play from time to time but my wife made me put it in the girls toy room.

Part 5 of my teardown is posted. I've started planning how to replace the original microcontroller with my own. I was able to remove the microcontroller from the playfield circuit board, wire my own microcontroller to the playfield, power my microcontroller from the playfield circuitry, and drive the backbox and playfield LEDs using the playfield circuitry. Unfortunately I lifted several pads and traces in the process. I think I'm going to have to build a circuit board with the same footprint as the original microcontroller so I can surface mount it to the original pads.