My wife and I are wanting to learn everything about restoring and fixing pinball machines. I have seen a couple very old threads about this but nothing recent. We currently only have three, A.F., T.Z. and M.M. We are not wanting to hire someone to come 1 1/2 out of Phoenix for repairs. We would love to either go to a class or work for free while learning the trade. We can travel. Please let us know if you know of a school/class or if you have a place like the pinball museum in Vegas that we could come help and learn at. I'm not too proud to be your errand boy or coffee runner in order to learn.

#2 4 years ago

LTG

Pinside member

Hopkins, MN

12y 191K 56,987 24 7

Youtube has lots of how to videos. On pinball and general electronics. Local community college might have an electronics course to help you with basics.

Get a solid state beater. Get it going. Learn as you go.

Get a Star Trek the Next Generation that doesn't work. Get that thing up to speed and you'll have learned most of what you'll ever need.

LTG : )

#3 4 years ago

AXE

YeOldPinPlayer

Inactive member

Unknown

8y 111K 6,454 4 12

Clay's DVD guides are excellent- http://www.pinrepair.com/top/

#4 4 years ago

MJA

Mitch

Pinside member

Wellesley, ON

10y 131K 5,030 18 38

Buy broken games, fix , repeat.

#5 4 years ago

pincoin

Pinside member

6y 68,300 298 8

If you were in PA, I'd loan you all my broken pinballs to fix! Experience is your best teacher

#6 4 years ago

LXL

Isochronic_Frost

Saratoga Silverball

7y 221K 9,408 108 1 1

Quoted from pincoin:
If you were in PA, I'd loan you all my broken pinballs to fix! Experience is your best teacher

What do you have? Does that include some time to enjoy them when they’re up and running?

#7 4 years ago

RNS

Electrocute

Pinside member

10y 104K 4,877 16

Wasn’t born into this hobby with a silver spoon. It takes effort to figure it out.

#8 4 years ago

SSP

zarco

Pinside member

11y 57,900 895 45

If you have a background or some experience with solid state electronics
and know how to use a DVM or VOM and soldering iron, you're half
way there. If not, you'll need to get an education in this area or accept
the fact you'll have to pay someone to fix your machines.

Normally, for someone new to the hobby I'd suggest getting a non-working
project (SS or EM) and learn that way. But with the machines you have there
is a good chance you'll damage your machines (or yourself) if you go
in blind.
Steve

#9 4 years ago

JMR

pinballplusMN

Pinball Plus Inc.

11y 84,800 2,591 1

Pinball repair: just when you think youve seen it all something new comes along

#10 4 years ago

???

Jeffswack

Pinside member

Mars, PA

5y 62,050 283 6 15

If you're near Pittsburgh, PaPA has a great 8 week class 1 time a year. Awesome stuff

#11 4 years ago

HBS

herbertbsharp

Pinside+ Frequent

Ballston Spa, NY

12y 146K 6,109 22 24 1

Quoted from LTG:
Get a Star Trek the Next Generation that doesn't work. Get that thing up to speed and you'll have learned most of what you'll ever need.

That is *exactly* what I did. STTNG was my first pin and a little bit of everything was wrong with it. Learned pretty much everything on it, even anger management LOL.

#12 4 years ago

XSV

xsvtoys

Pinside member

8y 103K 4,260

Quoted from Mitch:
Buy broken games, fix , repeat.

Also, when you get stuck, post well structured questions and pics in the tech forums here. The support here is great IMO.

#13 4 years ago

JES

Hop-Pac

Pinside member

8y 74,550 557

Quoted from Jeffswack:
If you're near Pittsburgh, PaPA has a great 8 week class 1 time a year. Awesome stuff

Where do you get info on that?

#14 4 years ago

JDD

jackd104

Pinside+ Frequent

11y 101K 3,901 11 14 1

You may be able to find someone local to mentor you a bit, but realistically, you will need to learn on your own using the internet resources to guide you. All the info you need is out there and people here can guide you to the right resources. As several have. Best wishes in your endeavor!

#15 4 years ago

TKM

Daditude

Pinside Moderator

Rockwall, TX

5y 266K 10,121 23 271

You can come work on my games, lol!

I always have multiple projects hanging around

#16 4 years ago

???

mew0717

Pinside apprentice

4y 7,900 2 1

Quoted from pincoin:
If you were in PA, I'd loan you all my broken pinballs to fix! Experience is your best teacher

What part of PA? I'm looking to learn this as well

#17 4 years ago

RUS

russdx

Pinside member

8y 60,800 2,087 5

Deffo buy projects and fix them up best way to learn in pinball.

#18 4 years ago

MCD

dasvis

Pinside member

Salem, OR

12y 101K 4,796 11 16

Quoted from russdx:
Deffo buy projects and fix them up best way to learn in pinball.

Exactly how I did it. With Clay's, Vid1900, & other online guides it just takes time & hands on experience. Buy a couple of project beaters.

#19 4 years ago

BTF

PinballManiac40

Pinside+ Frequent

14y 234K 17,631 104

OP, what's your location? We have an active repair group in Houston that is slowly growing.

#20 4 years ago

BTF

PinballManiac40

Pinside+ Frequent

14y 234K 17,631 104

Another way to learn is to post new repair threads when you get stumped. Lots of people will help with their point of view/explanations.

Joining each Pinside game club thread on each title you own and just keep reading through each. You can learn a lot about the different issues people each on each title.

#21 4 years ago

AMS

barakandl

nvram.weebly.com

12y 132K 10,417

start fixing up project games. early bally/stern games are pretty friendly to get started on. Tons of information about repairing them.

#22 4 years ago

---

ForceFlow

Pinside Moderator

9y 238K 31,366 268 14

Pinwiki.com is a great resource...don't forget to check that out for repair info.

Reply

Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.

Hey there! Welcome to Pinside!

Donate to Pinside

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/looking-to-learn-how-to-be-a-pinball-tech?hl=jeffswack 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.