Hello, I’ve been working with pinfixer on redesigning and remanufacturing new “spinning bumper” assemblies for Orbitor 1. These parts are just plain Unobtainium and I’ve spoken to numerous owners who have searched for them to no avail. Many of the original motors are wearing out at this point and suffering severe “wobble” that has caused owners to rarely play their game for fear of these parts breaking.

To all Orbitor 1 owners and restorers, would you be interested in buying complete NEW spinning bumpers for O1?
These are looking to be pretty pricey to make, so we are estimating around $200 each for these units. Since originally O1 was supposed to have both Clockwise and Counter-Clockwise motors we will be designing these new motors to be reversible, allowing an owner to simply switch each motor for the desired rotation.

I truly believe there is a genuine NEED for these absurdly impossible parts to be remade to help other O1’s survive.

Now since the “foam rubber” spinning discs are also beat and falling apart on many of these games we would look into reproducing them as well. That issue we will also be gauging interest for.

Please, spread this around and vote, it will greatly assist our efforts and provide a better idea for quantity of spinning bumper units needed.
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I was looking at them, last time you mentioned it however none of them seemed to match this particular one. I can contact the company and send them specs, but I was hoping to get more pictures or another motor to be sure this is the correct one before contacting them

I have one motor but it does not lineup with the standoffs on the bracket so I’m wondering if it was replaced back in the field at one time. It could be original and it’s possible the other bracket was different. That’s the issue, the amount of unknowns. I recently discovered the Orbitor 1 actually used the metal stern brackets for the flippers during part of the production run, however they switched and used plastic Wico brackets for most of it.
They were really trying to save money and use what they had during this point in the company’s history

Thanks Jay, I appreciate your interest, will keep ya posted!

I have considered that. I doubt any owners would like to remove this motor but that was my next route. Hopefully they can assist. I can post pictures of what I have tonight.
How do you clean them? The biggest issue is the bearings. How do you buy replacement bearings, how are they sized? I’m not very experienced with these types.

Apologies, didn’t mean to leave anyone hanging.
I guess I should be a responsible thread owner and give you folks an honest update:
As of yet, no tangible progress has been made. I’ve spoken with different shops and tradesmen in the business to try and find the best, most efficient method.

After factoring in costs, I’m pretty confident I won’t really make any money on these. Regardless I am still dedicated to producing these *hopefully* this year. Without me reproducing them I doubt anyone will EVER make them. In the interest of inevitable future maintenance existing Orbitor 1’s will undoubtably require, having these available should come in handy, comparable to the guy who reproduced the tube dancer for BBB.

On another peripheral note, I have started operating locally with a local arcade owner.
There is also even bigger news I’m not able to disclose just yet.
The purpose of my mentioning this is because while juggling these two business ventures this year I will be working out these spinning bumper replacements in the background.

This is not to discourage any of you who responded and are waiting. I want to be honest and open that this is a real project I’m working on, and progress will most likely be intermittent but I will do my best to keep you informed moving forward.

As promised here's the big update:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/new-saratoga-silverball-2020-continuing-a-tradition

I've taken up the mantle and started the spiritual successor for my local pinball show after the first one came to an end last year. I've been working on this for a few months and made the announcement last week or so. All the big hurdles have been crossed. Now it's onto the logistical goodies and then finally a few months down the road to the implementation and execution phase!

I do have some very good news for the spinning bumpers. I was contacted last week, about the exact same time I announced the show and a pinhead who doesn't use Pinside reached out and responded to messages sent many months ago! It was a total surprised but this person has a complete spare motor unit and is lending it to a machinist they know to have it duplicated. Responses seem very slow, but hey IT'S HAPPENING! Once I get some numbers back then I'll post more updates and we can finally see about getting some damn spinners made!! HELL YEAH!
Maybe it's too optimistic but I'd love to have these made and get my Orbitor finally completed in time for my big show this August!

The spare foam seems to be very very popular. Definitely high on the priority list.

If we can find a suitable motor I don't see why not. I don't know if anyone ever figured out if these were RPM sensitive or if it merely scored when it detected any sort of speed decrease. The opto is simple enough but totally unobtainium.

Haha that’s exactly why this thread exists. The opto boards have been unobtainium since stern made them in ‘81
That’s why I’m having them remade.
Check your PMs.
Coil drops are stock parts most suppliers have them. Flipper brackets are tough. Does your game user the plastic or metal ones? Mine uses plastic.
Third Coast Pinball was willing to remake the harness for me. If everyone wants we could pool together and have him make a new run of Orbitor harnesses. That’s what he’s done for Seawitch/Stargazer and such.

Thank you, that answers some questions! I had been told the plastic ones were original by some and others said they’re incorrect.
So the integrated stop plastic brackets are just replacements from WICO at the time? They SHOULD work? I have spare metal ones from a parted out Seawitch just in case they don’t.

Thank you! That thread reminded me to announce, Opto board is out will be duped soon! Orbitor replacement bumper assemblies are moving forward!

Great! I’m thrilled with the response I’ve gotten on this. Board was received by the dup guy. Just waiting to hear his estimates on cost and repro timeline with this whole virus.

I answered this PM, but for everyone in the thread. I want to be conservative on a timeline for this, thanks to the ‘Rona. It’s entirely speculative how many outfits will be open for business to reproduce the things needed, and the raw material supply chains may be disrupted with all this.

However, I am fairly confident in having the boards ready, have an established source for the motors, and have a fabricator setup to build the brackets at least by year’s end.

I will talk to Steve at PBR about reproducing the red foam spinners again, as he’s considered it a few times. I think it’s been stated before that the minimum he can produce will be 1k. So we’ll see where this goes.

So far the hardest part to remanufacture seems to be the double-ended axle I have not seen any sources for this. It may have to be fabricated. If we could even source any length of double-ended axle I could get them milled down to the proper size and notched out.

That’s a total recap of where we are and my thoughts at this point. C-clamp motors I’ve found several sources so I just have to decide which will be the best for the project and determine if there is a particular RPM we need to maintain or if any speed will do.

I plan to try and spec-up the bearings that hold the spinner together as those have been the biggest point of failure on all these machines. They’re not designed to take thousands of horizontal impacts from a high-speed ball bearing.

If there are any thoughts or recommendations on this, please feel free to let me know.

Stay healthy and keep the faith! We’ll get through this and Orbitor 1 will be ready for launch in no time!

If we make 1000 and we had 100 owners interested in at least a set, that still leaves 800 of them extra.
If some people buy extras, at best maybe 300 are accounted for, so 700 extra.

How many Orbitors do we think still exist? Surely less than half of them. So the unfortunate bit is that no matter what, there will be a lot of extra bumpers laying around.

Steve requires a certain minimum amount for these to be run, and the concern is that not enough people would be interested in these to justify it.

I agree with you on this, I think most everyone would buy a few sets just to be safe. We’ll talk soon and discuss this option further, not sure if he was thinking of rubber replacements, Titan/silicone replacements, or perhaps a genuine foam replacement. Expect updates soon!

Right now there seems to be difficulty finding a suitable horseshoe opto to replace the originals on the board, so perhaps we will go a different route like the IR suggestion. I don’t know entirely how feasible designing an entirely new board to handle a redesigned motor assembly would be.

That sounds like a great idea for long term solutions. I’m not incredibly savvy on that kind of circuit work, so I will have to run it by some folks. If anyone else has suggestions for a different design completely, feel free to drop them.

I’m continuing the course right now for duping the original opto boards, and creating exact original replacements.
Perhaps once this is achieved then it would make sense to create and design an entirely new setup.

The amount of community input this project is receiving is very inspiring, thank you all so much!