Well, well well....
I am stoked. Found what it looks like to be a home use only LW3 or at least it had been to then being relegated to the storage room for a couple decades. The game was recently purchased by a collector who got it to resell. I paid fair market value for it, he might have not not and such is life. We all win, because I got a good example I would have not been able to find if it was not for this person.
I have not seen one this nice in many years. After buying and selling so many 90s games, you can easily distinguish what is home use from a routed game.
The years of smoke , grease, and other commercial smells create what I call the 'pinball scent', and when you open one of these up they just reek of this and it is not bad, but it is not French perfume either, lol. The cabs also get this grimy black feel as if they were covered by a thin layer of accumulated dirt that is now bonded to the MDF bottom.
My game has NONE of this, and to my surprise - something I have never seen before - all the electronics in the cab are still covered by a cardboard type material similar BUT thicker than fish paper, which I presume is something the game ship with. So yes, it still seems to have original wrapping around inside coin box, etc.
What a gem.
Granted the cab is not perfect but it is a solid 8 to 8.5 out of 10. I would give it a 9 but I am too picky.
Had to cross the border to get it but I made it! Seller was kind to meet me halfway so it was meant to be... super happy to have my grail pin join the family.
This has been on my list for a few years now, but it was always postponed as I was not able to find a good one, these DE are always severely worn.
So happy, this has been in the making for 30+ years after I played for the first time in the Argentinian summer back in Jan-Feb 1993 while on holidays. I was just a little kid in the arcades and this game and T2 were my faves.
Great memories.
Pin is home, now I am in the tuning stages and looking at things that should have done many years ago. Luckily, the person who I bought it from did the LED on it, news translate and a few other things, just enough bling to sell it, including all new drop targets.
I have been working on it for 2d days now, cleaning the head, fixing and replacing connectors that were burnt or just crusty. I love doing this since I own all the OEM molex crimpers to restore all the connections to their original state.
I have also replaced the DMD with my own colour LED DMD, I made these myself. I have colorized dozens of games now and building the DMD is fun for me so I do it for all the OLD DMD era games I own, some of those games have been sold now but I have done Williams Indiana Jones, Terminator 2 just to name a few.
Anyway, the head is now done, all connectors that needed replacing have been replaced. Next, I will making my own driver board with one of DumbAss remakes, he has been making Data East and Williams boards for a while now and his work is phenomenal, I also heard that HEP uses these sometimes and he loves them.
I am so happy I found this game.
Today I will be replacing the power plug as the ground prong had been cut off at some point.
Next is overall clean, replace leg levellers, add new balls and just play it.
It will be a fun day.
Pictures to follow once it is all clean, it does not need much.
Hoping to see some action in this thread.