Philadelphia, PA
Hello everyone!
HOPEFULLY IM USING THE FIGHT FORUM SECTION 
Figured this would be the best place to start for questions I feel I already know the answers too, but want reconfirmation.
Little back story. As a child of the 80’s I grew up being a delinquent smoking cigarettes and spending all my money in an arcade in Wheaton, MD. Just outside of D.C. it was the perfect oasis as you could smoke inside and it had a cigarette machine. Not to mention what at the time seemed like a million games. It was there that I fell in love with pinball. Williams games seemed to be the ones I was most drawn too. Earth shaker, Funhouse, whirlwind and of course Pinbot!
Later in my early 20’s I was at a crossroad with a job and didn’t know what I wanted to do work wise. It’s at that time I decided I wanted to work on arcade machines. I started cold calling amusement companies in my area to see if they were hiring. To my surprise one actually told me to come in. I got the job with them and worked there for about 3 years. Problem is I didn’t get much time in the shop. Most of my duties were to run the routes to collect money. I didn’t learn too much about working on the machines themselves but could do some on site repairs.
Fast forward to last week where I attended an auction and to my surprise there it was a Pinbot. I plugged it and and... nothing. Of course they didn’t have a key. The play field is rough, spiral ramp is broken at the top and seems there are some rubber bands used as bumper rubbers. It had a sticker from an amusement company so I assume it was on a route at some point and then sold to a private collector. I told myself that I bet it’s not working because a fuse or power supply issue. So I went ahead a bid on it. I got it for about 600 after fees and all. Thought that would be a bargain if I could get her operational again. The head board had its security screwed in place so I couldn’t take it with me that night. I came back two days later to drill the lock out hoping the back glass key was still inside. I noticed at this time the lock seemed to be very new looking. Opened up the coin door and no key for the head board. So I had to drill the head board lock out too. Pulled the play field up and that’s when I saw it burnt wires. The power supply also had a blown fuse. The wires coming off the transformer are very brittle and the plastic is almost flaking off. I’m questioning they put a new lock on without a key because they knew the auction wouldn’t have been as favorable.
I attached some pictures for my first question if my restoration. My question is (and as I said I think I know the answer) should I replace the transformer and the wires harness leading up to the head board? Any other info about the cause of something like this would be helpful. Hoping this project won’t be too intense, but I guessed I asked for it buying a non working machine haha. Any help would be appreciative.
Thanks,
A.B.
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