Mine are all in my basement and I have 5 stairs up, a landing with 90 degree turn, then 5 more stairs up. Two people in reasonably good shape can get it up, but they are heavy. We go the first 5 up, rest machine (and ourselves) on the landing, spin it, go the next 5. It's not so bad and takes about 5 minutes. Legs are off. If you can take the head off, it makes a big difference.

If I am by myself I break the pin down (head, pf, etc), if I have friends either a dolly it or we carry it. I live on the second floor so to me unless the basement stairs are narrow, it is no different than any other staircase.

I have pretty steep steps to my basement (straight line).
I got an EM machine in separate pieces (head, playfield, bottom plate with all the relays, cabinet) and was able to easily do it myself.
I was hoping I'd be able to do the same thing with DMDs.

I like being able to do things by myself without bugging my friends, so if that doesn't work I have another plan that's a little more far fetched, but maybe it could work out: my stairs are in a straight line with the door to go outside of the house. I was thinking of setting up some kind of rails with 1x3x12 wood planks, and securing a winch somehow outside the house to pull it up or down.

goi...if you are picking it up in north jersey shoot me a pm, I would be happy to help you.

I'm not going to carry them up anymore. I just bought a $1600.00 Escalara stair climbing dolly. I don't have a problem with taking the head off. I was just wondering if it will do any damage to the inside of the pinball if I took it about 6 stairs from the pinball's side, then I could take the dolly off and put it on the bottom side for the rest of the 10 stairs. Would it make the cabnet out of square of damage the playfield in any way to take it up 6 stairs on it's side?

Not sure if it would do any harm, but my stomach is bleeding just picturing that! I would be a nervous wreck

Here's a helpful diagram. Get one guy pulling the dolly from the top, someone else pushes from bottom. The top is harder, IMO. I always buy my friend a bottle of bourbon or something after.

Here's a helpful diagram. Get one guy pulling the dolly from the top, someone else pushes from bottom. The top is harder, IMO. I always buy my friend a bottle of bourbon or something after.

Lol I know how to use the dolly. I have a stair climber with a battery it does all the work for you. I was just checking to see if any of the guys have hooked a dolly on the side of a pinball. My stairs turn a 90 degree angle about 5 steps up. I can't spin the machine at the turn without hitting the wall. If I could take it up the 5 steps hooked to the side, I then could take the dolly off the side and move it to the correct position and finish the rest of the way. I need to know if hooking it up to the side will do any damage to the cabnet, playfield, etc.

I am lucky that my work has a stair climber so that is how I get mine out now. In the past if I was by myself I would pull the playfield out and just use a dolly.

I just took my High Speed out of a basement with three sets of platform stairs like you are talking about. Definitely not fun. The dolly I was using was "just" tiny enough to get it up and out without having to put it on its side, but we did have to take the head off and it was still a b#*ch

Remove the legs, fold it up, ratchet strap the backbox to the machine, stand it up and use forearm forklifts

image.jpg

I have the somewhat unique problem of not being able to fit a pin on a dolly even with the head removed. All games have to come apart and be hand carried down, even if the head is a pain to remove. I once moved a sys 11 down by myself by sliding the empty cab down the stairs and hand carrying the playfield.

I typically fold the head down and then plastic wrap the entire game before standing it straight up on its back. I then put the dolly on it (playfield glass facing away from me) before using two tie down straps to secure the game to the dolly. The final step is the lifting / pulling...ugh, lol.

Yep, for two men this is a good way to go.

I've heard of these... but not sure how they would work on stairs. Thoughts?

They work just fine in stairs, although to the guy upstairs it always looks like you're about to let go of the machine and crush the guy below, but the guy below is doing just fine.
It's a little rougher on the guy upstair's back too. So the guy upstairs has to be in better shape emotionally and physically

I moved Williams and Data East DMDs like this without too much problem, I don't know how it would go for a monster like WoZ.

The forearm forklift straps are great on stairs. The straps get crossed (X) under the machine.

By far the easiest way. My buddy's stairs are tight with 180deg bend that would never fit a dolly. We just walk right up, or down the stairs with the machines. We moved 3 games in under a hour.

Thanks for the info.

When using the straps, what is the machine's orientation? Like it's on a dolly (plunger up) or like its being played (plunger forward)?

Plunger up.

Periscope up!

I'm going to take the backbox off a waterworld tonight. Does anyone know how difficult that is?

I've never taken the backbox off a DMD (SS's are fairly easy though, besides wasting a precious cycle on those dang connectors), but I'm not so sure I understand why it would be so much more complicated...
Can anyone explain?

just a ton more connectors. I just label the unhooked connector with a sharpie to match it's designation on the board (ex.- "J119") and it is hard to screw up. Just takes a little time.

Always ratchet strap the cabinet to the hand truck. That's key.

And arcade machines are way heavier than pins, so I consider move a pin up and down stairs fairly easy. My X-Arcade "mame" cabinet I am selling weighs 480lbs! That was not fun getting it out of the seller's home. Didn't come out of a basement, but the second floor of a split level house. 6 steps down out of the living room to a tight landing, then 13 steps down out of the house. Ugh.

the same way it got in the basement but in reverse order

I use and electric winch
http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?p=2091706#post2091706

Kind of what I was thinking.

Last time I moved a (DMD) pin into my basement I thought about taking the head off, but backed out after looking over all of those freaking connectors. I imagine it would take a couple of hours to do that and reassemble (especially since I hadn't done it before.) I rented a stair-climbing dolly instead. Much faster.

Dolly's, trucks, stair climbers? I hope neither of my neighbors ever read this thread! I've always had one or the other of them just grab one end with me on the other and we've carried them inside and up/down our 180 degree stairs to the basement lol. 12 in and 7 out, they both still wave when I drive by

I'm not a member of that site, but I'd be interested in seeing the pics... can you repost here?