Eight Ball Deluxe
Bally, 1981Looks awesome. I was whining about the work to redo brackets and screws on my recently found EBD-LE but your work to restore this game tells me to be thankful for my find!
Will be interesting to hear how the new flippers play compared to the OEM Bally "Linear" flippers.
Quoted from mof:Nice work !
Sounds like your fan base gets a victory-lap "first-game -- but will it work?" video pretty soon!
-mof
Thanks! Yes, we're getting close to the victory lap 
Quoted from nplg:Looks awesome. I was whining about the work to redo brackets and screws on my recently found EBD-LE but your work to restore this game tells me to be thankful for my find!
Thanks! I think a game like EBD is always worth fixing!
Quoted from nplg:Will be interesting to hear how the new flippers play compared to the OEM Bally "Linear" flippers.
I'll give feedback... but my experience with linear flippers is limited!
I erased the spare drop target with Novus 2... Yes it's that easy to erase.
I printed some water decals.... took me some time to find the right font... It seems even Marco does not have the right font on their repros. I took the opportunity to print more decals for my future needs.
Pic127 (resized).jpg
I did 3 layers of clear to protect the decal
Pic128 (resized).jpg
And voila.... new one on the left, broken one on the right... the font is a tiny bit too "bold", but good enough!
Pic129 (resized).jpg
Wow - the efforts you do to make it work is amazing. I am too lazy honestly to not just replace stuff. I always fear that saving now means spending some time later, when in reality I likely will sell the machine long before something breaks or wears out. But, I always work for dependability once I fix it.
I can speak to the downgrade on the flippers. I have had linear stuff before and it’s OK but it has to be more tuned in than WPC or the prior generation of Bally mechs. I had to buy all new mechs for a Flash Gordon restore I am completing now and I put in the prior gen non linear.
I am restoring my EBD LE soon and I had to either buy a linear rebuild kit or decide to also change them out. I will be using non-linear for EBD it is just more responsive if you ask me just feels tighter, I know purists will dispute what I say. It’s just a crisp responsive flipper.
Quoted from wamonkey:Wow - the efforts you do to make it work is amazing. I am too lazy honestly to not just replace stuff. I always fear that saving now means spending some time later
I also do this for fun and to learn things, not only to save money. In my "real life job", I have a lot of pressure and delivery dates that are very important to meet. For my pinball projects it's different... it will be ready the day it's ready
Quoted from matiou:I also do this for fun and to learn things, not only to save money. In my "real life job", I have a lot of pressure and delivery dates that are very important to meet. For my pinball projects it's different... it will be ready the day it's ready
I am like you - my job is a grind and every day is another day - it never stops.
Pinball gives me a sense of competition that I don’t get in my work a day job. I think I enjoy restoring machines more than playing them. I like the pursuit of the machine too. These days though reasonable stuff is hard to find.
Enjoying your postings though...keep up the good work!
2 main reasons why not having installed my coin door yet is an issue:
1/ the coils are making a lot of noise when testing
2/ my cat thinks EBD is a play house 
Pic130 (resized).jpg
yes, i already posted this pic in the cats thread
the hack wires you see in the back are to simulate coin door buttons. they will be gone today.
I disassembled the coin door weeks ago.
Dirty. Dusty. Rusty.
Pic131 (resized).jpg
Clean up in the sink
Pic132 (resized).jpg
And re-assembly...
Not as easy as planned... I disassembled a long time ago, and decided not to look at my pictures... I found out the hard way that things had to be assembled in a certain order... or else... you lose some time
Pic133 (resized).jpg
But all is good, even better with a fresh Bally sticker. And the cat won't be able to get in the cabinet anymore!
Pic134 (resized).jpg
Quoted from matiou:victory lap
Looking forward to the video, champ!
-mof
Quoted from Lovef2k:Please explain the coil noise...humming, buzzing, chatteringm machine gunning??
No, by coil noise I was just referring to the regular "clac" of the coil when activated. When you don't have the coin door in place to close the cabinet, the noise is pretty loud, but nothing abnormal.
Looking good! I've never attempted anything this involved but I always love seeing the progress in these type threads. Thanks for sharing.
Quoted from matiou:gameplay video
Now yer talkin!
Wow, just skimmed most of this thread, quite some amazing work! This looks so much different than when I picked up Aquarius from you. That cabinet work is especially impressive. Good luck on the final stretch and thanks for sharing your journey!
I've been crimping connectors every night last week (small 30 minute sessions)... And I'm now done for all connectors. What a task! The only ones I have not done are the display ones, as they appear to work quite well as is, and any intermittent failure would not be a "game breaker", worst case just a flickering display.
Pic137 (resized).jpg
As you can see on the picture, I still have not figured out how to fix my Squawk and Talk...... but not a big deal my LISY35 board takes care of the sound.
At this point... I'm pretty happy to report... all the components of the game seem to work 100% (switches, lamps, coils)... I guess the next post will be about a working game, yea!
Quoted from matiou:what about a gif
[quoted image]
Pretty cool. Can you give me some deets on this Lisy board please? I see you have the optional sound card. So does the speaker wire go directly to it? Their website and ordering process was confusing for me. I didn't see any pricing. I did see one version has IC's labeled displays, solenoid/lamps and switches. Why, is this board running everything or just as the MPU? I'm also curious about the sound and speech reproduction, does it sound original? Does it have separate volume for speech and sound as original S&T? How long did it take to receive? Sorry for all the questions, just trying to see if it's worth it.
Quoted from Lovef2k:Pretty cool. Can you give me some deets on this Lisy board please?
Hey Lovef2k! The Lisy35 is a MPU replacement board designed by @bontango. It's a "do it yourself" project... you cannot buy it, you have to assemble it on your own. As opposed to other reproduction MPU, it's a software emulation. A raspberry pi is running pinmame and emulating the game of your choice. It's sending signals to your regular solenoid board and lamp board and (optionally) s&t board. In my case I use a rpi sound board to emulate the sounds as well, as I don't have a working S&T. The sounds are recordings of the original, so it's playing sound files, not generating the sounds. I'll post a video today. The cool thing with Lisy is the fact that it hosts a web server... from your computer you can troubleshoot lamps/switches/solenoids/displays/sounds without using the limited test mode of EBD. The downside is a little bit of delay when you turn on your machine to allow it to boot up. If you have more questions about Lisy, I suggest to ask them here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/diy-lisy-a-replacement-mpu-for-gottlieb-bally-amp-stern
bontango is also working on a DIY FPGA based MPU replacement, which will fully replace your MPU for approx. $60. (check https://lisy.dev/ballyfa.html). I will test it soon. If someone is interested to test it as well, pm me, as i will have spare PCBs I can sell at cost.
So as the title of the thread reminds it, this was not a restore project... and I think I reached my initial goal.
The machine:
- is solid
- is clean, smells good
- is allowed inside the house
- is 100% working
All this re-using a lot of the parts, and buying only what was really dead, missing or worn out, keeping the budget really low.
I went a bit beyond "bringing back to life" on some points:
- re-pinned/replaced all board connectors even though only one of two were failing
- replacing all displays with DIY led kits, even though only one was failing
- completely rebuilt from scratch (restored!) and rewired the backbox door
- installed leds (except playfield GI)
- bought new legs, when I could have cleaned/painted the old ones
All this took me quite some time, a bit more than I thought at the beginning... but the past few months (like for a lot of you I think) life has been a little bit more "complicated" than usual
Sorry for those waiting for a video... but please wait a little bit longer, as the one I took had crappy lighting.
In the meantime here are some cool before/after pics:
Pic139 (resized).jpg
Pic140 (resized).jpg
Pic141 (resized).jpg
Pic142 (resized).jpg
Pic143 (resized).jpg
Pic144 (resized).jpg
Pic145 (resized).jpg
Pic146 (resized).jpg
Love love the before after comparisons. I'll speak for the pinball community thanking you for saving this gem from the dumpster. Nice work man!
Thanks all!
That was a fun project... and quite satisfying to go from old piece of rusty junk to great used-but-shiny game
It was nice to share it here and get some feedback...
Thanks to all of you commenting and "upvoting" and special thanks to those who actually contributed by selling me parts at a good price (@bbriese, @schmitty, @yfz450, @bontango, @damonator, @diver12) or even giving away a backbox door (@lovef2k). Pinside is great!
Next steps:
- hardtop
- cabinet stencil
- new plastics, drop targets...
But not now! I will enjoy the machine as is it... and maybe in few months!
Pic147 (resized).jpg
Quoted from Mathazar:On the light baffles under the Player 3 display...did you repair that wood or start over with new piece?
New (used) piece... no way to salvage anything from this water damaged backbox door!
Quoted from matiou:Thanks all!
That was a fun project... and quite satisfying to go from old piece of rusty junk to great used-but-shiny game
It was nice to share it here and get some feedback...
Thanks to all of you commenting and "upvoting" and special thanks to those who actually contributed by selling me parts at a good price (bbriese, schmitty, yfz450, bontango, damonator, diver12) or even giving away a backbox door (lovef2k). Pinside is great!
Next steps:
- hardtop
- cabinet stencil
- new plastics, drop targets...
But not now! I will enjoy the machine as is it... and maybe in few months!
[quoted image]
Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.
Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!
This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/bringing-back-to-life-an-eight-ball-deluxe/page/4?hl=nplg and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.
Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.
Columbus, OH
