I'm currently working on BSD myself. Man, it was horrendously dirty!
(Topic ID: 29878)
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Bram Stoker's Dracula
Williams, 1993
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Route beater. It's going to be a nice player's game. Hasn't been on location since 2011 and even then it was in sorry half-working condition.
Quoted from HighProtein:What color to powder coat the legs on mine?
NOT RED
Blue, Purple or Black?
You kind of answered your own question there.
I noticed low voltage on the emitter opto for the beam going across the playfield for Mist Multiball. I was getting about 7 volts where it should have been 12. This caused the opto to register closed and the game to constantly run the magnet because it thinks there is a ball somewhere in that path. I'm re-capping the daughter opto board to the right underneath the playfield, I believe it uses 2 30v 100uf caps. Check your opto emitter voltage. The 12v power supply is unregulated so the game probably relies on these opto boards to smoothen out any remaining ripple in the supply.
1 week later
Well we recapped the board but it got to where it didn't notice the switch closure tested with a good receiver. I found someone who sold theirs, hope that does it.
Quoted from Jodester:Yea. Rides in that slot with very little adjustability.
And that's why I figured adjustability wouldn't be a problem.
Quoted from Jodester:Looks good. I guess you got mist working right. Did you replace the opto board or did the new caps fix the problem?
Patiently waiting for the new board to arrice from Austrailia...not really that patient.
Yeah we fixed the mist motor which needed some adjustment. Not sure why my board is taking so long, the guy who pulled it from his game says he shipped... 
I'm dying to play it (pun intended)!
Quoted from nthack:I got a bit carried away when replacing parts and cleaning my BSD. My record keeping wasn't as good as it should have been and my memory is poor as well. I have these parts which I'm not sure where they go. I'm sure someone can help a novice. Many thanks in advance.
Here they are. The little triangle looking piece fits over the right mist trail opto to the left of the shooter lane.
Quoted from yzfguy:pretty sure that goes above the coffin ramp. If you screw it down too tight balls will get hung up on it.
This. I had to actually raise the coffin up because it was pushing the plastic cover too low and hanging balls.
image.jpg 1 year later
And I wasn't even trying! 2 weeks later
1 month later
Since I have an HD camcorder with 30x zoom I got inspired by the artful camera shots in various Williams promo videos. Compare my video to the Williams version. I had quite a bit of fun shooting and editing it. I choreographed the flow to give the illusion of playing 2 balls of a typical game of Drac. 16 minutes of video edited down to 3 and a half minutes. Someone else did this with another game but I can't find the thread for it. The video was shot in a nearly dark room and turned out fantastic. 
These bats are original per Williams design spec. Thanks for the comments. I tried to make it look pretty convincing!
A lot of confusion over these lightning flippers. Many people say a French operator with heavy influence in the market suggested they be installed to improve revenue by shortening ball times. I agree the game must not have been designed with these in mind, as it's much more enjoyable and shots are more satisfying/more consistent. But nobody has concrete evidence to prove one theory over another that I know of.
Quoted from MXV:I worked there and can and have verified this and told the story numerous times over the years. It was a French distributor/operator though, not just an operator. He put them on all the games over there. He talked sales/marketing here to do it for a while and the games that were victims of them mostly suffered for it (Dr. Who, BSD, Fish Tales, though Fish Tales still earned well and sold well).
Dracula was supposed to have full sized, blood red flippers and was designed around them. It was changed when the game hit the line to those stupid lightning flippers which made an already hard game even harder and it earned less, not more. The manual even has the blood red flippers listed in the parts list as they never changed the manuals since they were already printed at that point.
According to the flyer, this is true.
1 month later
5 years later
My Dracula is very dusty coming straight off route. It's the last game I installed standard rubbers on in 2013. After using Titan silicone rings for many years, it's like looking at the back of the fridge and forgetting about "that." Just when you think you've rid yourself of all that bad, chalky, dusty, crumbly rubber.
It plays fine. The plan was to give it a good clean and rotate it to a different location for tournament play. But NOPE! The prisoner looks up at those dry, cracked lane guide rubber rings in sadness. Curse you, gum rubber.
I just finished cleaning all the solenoids and re-sleeving all the coils which took me about a full day. The up/down solenoid for the upper right ramp diverter is especially tricky. I had to break the lip off of the old sleeve to get it past the rear of the bracket because there was so little available movement for the coil. I got that one done, but it was an adventure. Also, if your jet bumper seems weak or kicks to one side for some reason, check the orientation of the yokes on the solenoid. One of mine had the yokes both on the same side, and I fixed it by stacking the metal and fiber yokes in opposite facing directions as the manual shows. This resolved the issue and now the bumper is strong and consistent.
You have to replace the speaker panel. The plastic itself that the artwork is screened on to is actually red.
Quoted from Gorgar666:What color Titans do you have? I’m thinking Red.
I use white on all the rings, but do use color and black on posts.
1 week later
2 weeks later
Quoted from mollyspub:Hope ya got new plastics for the slings!
It's not a priority.
Quoted from mollyspub:I guess ...
It's a commercially operated player's game on a route, lol. It's going to have the crap played out of it by a bunch of slightly drunk regulars who love having a pinball machine available at all. There's a repair budget, and there's a restoration budget. Stuff will break over the next year so replacing something minor like cosmetic plastics is pointless.
Quoted from mollyspub:It's all good man.Just bustin your balls! Glad to see your keeping the game going!
Sorry for any misunderstanding. I appreciate the feedback! I should have it done this week.
1 week later
Quoted from GRB1959:It almost sounds as if you have a ball in the Castle lock lane when you turn the game on. The URL below may help you out as to the proper behavior of the Mist multi-ball.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/bram-stokers-dracula-clubmembers-only/page/153#post-6070782
Gord
This was the exact behavior I saw after shopping my game out. Turns out I forgot to reconnect the cubical 9 pin(?) connector for the castle lock optos. After doing that, the issue disappeared. The CPU was thinking there was a ball in the castle lock.
1 week later
Quoted from ky-pin:can anyone tell me how tall this hex post is? it is under the right side building
[quoted image][quoted image][quoted image]
Thanks for using my shop out photos. Glad to know they help.
1 week later
3 months later
1 year later
Quoted from Crash:The bar set the mood for Halloween so Dracula fits right in!
[quoted image]
[quoted image]
They put on more googly eyes!
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South Bound Brook, NJ
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