I'm on board with this as well. When you do have a good game....it feels like you had to earn it! They are few and far between

FYI... I found the problem with Pinbot's 'Mouth' lights last night. A broken ground wire at the bottom of the back glass door. Found it, looked like the color matched the upper lights, did a continuity check, bingo. Resoldered it and Pinbot has a mouth now.

Still can't select free play, but I can live with putting 50 credits on it at a time. Love playing the game. Can't wait to see it next to my BoP this weekend.

Tom

Hi guys. Been a while since I've posted in here about progress on Pinbot 2.0, P-ROC Edition. It's coming along very nicely. I've got my 4-ball multiball working, and it's pretty insane in gameplay.

I have a couple posts showing off the 4-ball multiball here. The second one shows live gameplay...
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/annoucing-pinbot-20-p-roc-edition/page/2#post-2760499
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/annoucing-pinbot-20-p-roc-edition/page/2#post-2765733

I'm definitely having fun with it, and I'd say it's 75% complete, maybe more. I was hoping at this point I might be able to poll a few fellow pinbot lovers for your thoughts. Most of the rules I've written seem like they are placeholders to an extent. They are what came to mind early on in development, not anything I'm in love with. Multiball is a perfect example. Currently I allow you to lock up to 3 balls for a 4 ball multiball. After that, I start flashing the green standup target as a way to open the jackpot. Once you open the jackpot, a left ramp make is the jackpot shot.

So, opinions on this? Should I do an under the ramp/over the ramp combo instead? Should I make you lock one/two balls back in the eyes? What do you guys think? One of the problems with programming a custom game like this is that the sky really is the limit. That can make it tough to decide what is the best choice.

Appreciate any help I can get.
Dan

Yup, yup.

I originally took the rings off partially because my wife and four year old were frustrated. But seeing as my wife and son do not play pinbot all that much even without the inlane/outlane rings, I decided to cave to peer pressure and experiment with putting them back on. Guess what? It does not make that much of a difference after all. I thought it did, because my balls were lasting longer with fewer side drains, but it turns out that I have just gotten better as a player!

I'm not sure I follow you about removing the rubbers making things easier, but when I put fresh white rubbers on those in/out lane dividers it made a world of difference in playablilty. Once you get used to the nudging, those drains aren't really as bad as folks think.

On the other hand, I was reading the EATPM club thread and everyone was commenting on how hard those outlanes were. I was pretty confused until I remembered the Bot's reputation.

Well Dang, I bought an NVRAM chip, and was excited to install it... then I saw that the RAM is soldered in... I'm not looking forward to taking off the CPU board and soldering a socket in.

its wasn't to bad with my hakko 808. if you dont have one, check with other pinheads in your local area and see if someone has one.

Time to LED my PInBot........ Blue on the left and red on the right seems to be the norm. I want kind of to stick to this but want to break up the pattern somehow..... I have done some trial and errors but it feels and looks hmm so, so. Has anyone got any good pics of their unique P.B at hand ? I was thinking purple and Pink here and there could look nice.... I need ideas and input pls. Pictures say more than a thousand words....

Thanks
Matt

I have always thought that the mini post on the top left corner of PinBot's ramp was just decorative.

20151108_122715.jpg

After reading and following the directions for cleaning and waxing of a playfield as told by Vid, I have discovered that the Bot can be so fast that it is possible to catch enough air off the ramp that you could actually get the ball stuck up behind the flashers if the post was not there! I should note that in addition to careful cleaning and then waxing with Blitz One Grand (soooo much better than the Merquire's I was using before) I also waxed the balls. Like Vid warns, waxing your balls makes the game play FAST.

Maybe your shots are just getting to be a bit too awesome. Play less awesome and your glass will be safe.

Okay....on the less cheeky side, have you done anything to make the ball faster (recent cleaning/waxing)? Have you done anything that could have slightly bent the metal flap at the top of the ramp upwards (creating a jump)? Is a rivet on the ramp flap coming loose, creating a high spot to make the ball jump? Heck, I am a total rookie compared to you and no physics whiz but those things just seem like the only things that could be different unless you changed the effectiveness of the flippers recently (via new coils, sleeves, different rubbers, etc).

Anyone know of a store that carry PinBot single plastics ?

Need the three-pointed plastic under the visor as well as the top-left long blue "peninsula" styled one.

Thanks
Matt

K's Arcade sells the three point one for under the visor. May have issues finding the long blue one though.

I have a bunch of pinbot parts I might sell. I sold the game but was holding them for another one. I know I have a repro vortex and decals and a full plastic set. Also a set of decals for the drop targets as well as the grid replacement decal.

K´s Arcade has it yes, but $55 for a piece of plastic they can just keep it...

I have an original vortex ramp that I bought from a fellow pinhead, it is in great shape, it was repaired at the top with metal , so it is stronger now then it was original, he did a great job repairing it, I was going to replace mine because I have the black jack bot vortex ramp in my game, I changed my mind so if anyone needs one , I paid $60 plus shipping , I will let it go for the same price, here is the ebay add when i bought it

ebay.com link: itm

has anyone used these overlay stickers? I pulled the mylar off and the playfield is in good shape but I was thinking maybe these stickers would help with wear and maybe it would look better

ebay.com link: Pinbot Pinball Machine Insert Decals

Hey guys, as a fellow Pinbot owner, I figured I would share this cool new light baffle that we have at Pinball Life. It goes around the 5 controlled lamps behind the translite and isolates them from the flashers above. It also matches the shape of the artwork and looks awesome.

http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=3928

Let me know if you have any questions about it.

Thanks!
--Scott

Very nice, already added to cart, thanks for sharing

I think I may have ended my never-ending battle with the repro vortex ramp today. I did a CPR swap and put in the repro vortex ramp (which fit like sh*t, I think I complained about it in this thread already), and ever since I could not get a consistent shot up the ramp...it would always rattle around, bounce out, crawl half way up the ramp, etc. I've fiddled with the thing for months, but today I finally tore the whole assembly down again, re-positioned the shooter rod housing, tied back the long rubber with zip-ties, adjusted playfield pitch and made sure the ball had a clear and unobstructed path onto the ramp itself before rebuilding. It was a long process, but I think I got it. I think it was a combo of a lot of things that made the shot fail. With a full plunge it will juuuuuust make it to the 20,000 hole at the top of the vortex in a consistent manner, 9 times of 10 or better. I just now have to figure out the NEW sweet spot that'll get it into the 100K hole! Pin*Bot has new life...

However, I'm still sick of looking at the pin after the marathon swap. It's gonna leave soon.

That still seems weirdly underpowered. Are you using a red spring?

I'll try to remember to shoot some photos/video of mine. I really dig the additional illumination possible with LED strips; you can light up the ramps really nicely, and make the vortex glow from within. LED flashers are pretty badass, though almost too much of a good thing. I like the dazzling light show, though.

All those spot targets seem full of potential to me...

Got a new vortex ramp last week from PPS, going to install during my rebuild later this winter.

I do expect the need to fiddle with it and grind some of the plastic to have the metal flap sit flat on the PF. Looking forward to it, any tips?

Just thought I'd mention that I sold all of these parts.

Darn, I was just getting ready to PM you. I am kicking myself for not grabbing a set of plastics when they were available. I also missed out on a nice set of used ones earlier today.

I am offering $200 if anyone still has a set. I have an ad in the market.

You did miss out. I sold everything I had for $250. Lol. I was $250 short on buying a Seawitch. You gotta do what you gotta do you know

Thanks again, btw. Muhaaaa...

Anytime. And my Seawitch sure appreciated the cash.

When I change these out, you can have first dibs on the original ones. They are actually in very nice shape.

Thanks, much appreciated.

Yes....red spring. I'm a-OK with it though. A full plunge that realizes full potential at the end of the ball path? I'll take it. Don't want to break the tip off the vortex.

Get your Dremel ready! A lot of the plastic under the metal flap needs to be ground away for a proper fit. I also used a small plastic washer under one of the legs of the ramp which helped it sit flush.

Having issue with my Energy Value/Solar Value Ramp! It won't stay up any more... Not sure what happened, but I looked under it and both coils are operating as they should, but the little metal bracket that's supposed to slide over the "hook" when the ramp goes up isn't hooking, so it just falls back down. The little metal piece looks like it has a little piece of it missing (Could be from excessive use) - should that little piece of metal on the ramp down assembly have notch in it or is mine broken and missing a piece?

Any help would be great appreciated - Pinbot is one of the best.. EVER.

Hello. Thanks for the reply. I agree those targets are nice ones. I have a mode (Uranus, the blue-green planet) where you have to hit all the blue-green horizontals and all the blue-green verticals, which essentially makes a tic-tac-toe pattern on the chest. I think you have 60 seconds or so to do this.

I can probably think of some other challenges to put before the player using these. Suggestions welcome.

The latest bit of fun I've been able to have is a sound upgrade for the old Pinbot. Never sounded so good!

20151107_200352-600x1067(1).jpg

More info here on the build process of this speaker panel... http://www.pinballcontrollers.com/forum/index.php?topic=1619.0

Looking for some advice about mylar for the playfield, I removed the old mylar , it was bubbled up in a lot of different spots so it had to go, now the playfield is in really nice shape, there are just a couple of small square inserts that are a little low on the playfield, it does not look like much protection with the clear coat, if there is any at all left, should I put mylar back down? they have it on ebay, thanks for your help

I remember an interview with Barry Orsler saying they wanted to do some alpha letters using the chest lamp matrix but ran out of memory... Which was really expensive back then to justify adding another ROM just to do neat visuals on the chest matrix. But P-roc based Pinbot has no limitations... So my recommendation is use it to do mode call outs by scrolling mode names across it or do count down timers for mode start, or end of hurry-up count downs... Notice you can do a 10-

X XXX
X X_X
X X_X
X X_X
X XXX

So a count to a blast off, seeing as Pinbot is a space theme would be cool to start a mode or start the game. Also would be good for doing High score initial entry or scrolling the initials across. Lots of ways to use chest lamps. Make an arrow sign pointing to different shots via animation to direct player actions... Hit the left Targets <- or hit the right targets -> or use them to direct shots into eye sockets... Tons of stuff to do with them. It's a 5x5 DMD so you could do simple video modes like jump the planets where a single dot on the left has to jump over scrolling dots coming from the right... Imagination is the key to anything so let yours run free...

BH

how did you pull it up, cold air? how much paint did you lose?

I didn't lose any paint at all, I used the air can upside down and very carefully removed the mylar a little patch at a time, then I used goo gone gel with flour and removed the glue with a soft sponge, the flour and the goo gone work great, actually pretty easy to do

Thanks so much for this. It's exactly the kind of suggestion I was hoping to get. Indeed, I can do this pretty easily and it will be great for my modes when I count down the last 10 seconds. Can't wait to implement this.

Dan

Hey guys,

Where to get a repro plastic set for Pinbot these days?

If not, when do you think they would be available again?

They are all sold out everywhere I have looked. CPR has said they have done their last run. I have a wanted ad for $200 but no bites.

I'd like a new ramp flap. Anyone know if those are available? It looks like the Jackbot one is the same part number but not very many search results for them.

Buy a sheet of blue spring steel from PBR and make your own. You'd just need to measure the original with a caliper to make sure you order the correct thickness.

Does anyone have a pic of my decal mod installed? I'd love to see it!

Sorry, I meant the whole lift ramp assembly, B-11239.

BAA is OOS and the rest are listed from overseas vendors. http://bayareaamusements.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=GS-JB-B11239&Category_Code=LAST&Product_Count=38

I mean Pinbot is a very popular game, 12000 units+. I doubt it's going to be their last run since I'm sure there are still a lot of Pinbot out there that need new plastics.

Don't you guys think?

It would be nice, but their site says:

November 2014 (FINAL) Re-Run. Last run was in 2008. Grab now or forever hold your peace.