A friend in Tucson dropped of his Godzilla for me to refurb and light up with the Pinduino. Overall, this game is in good shape, even though it spent part of its life in a bar in Texas and another part in a pinball hall in Tucson. For those that haven't played one, Gozilla is a pretty low production Sega game that uses the Whitestar board set. Whitestar was continued by Stern when the bought Sega's pinball division and was replaced by the SAM system in 2006. Both of these board sets are fully supported by the Pinduino (uses the same version of the board).

Now Godzilla, with 500 games made, is pretty hard to find and is worth playing. This is a "must" play for people who like multiball, and the major modes are each a multiball (all are 4 ball multiball), with each mode allowing you to stack in other multiballs. As the modes stack, the jackpot values increases. My favorite strategy is to start one multiball, get another one ready to start, then when down to two balls, start the next multiball. That puts on a ball saver and brings all four balls back into play. Rinse, repeat, and get all multiballs started. Then, it is time for the wizard mode and saving New York. Overall, a pretty easy game to get to (and finish) the wizard mode, and I can usually get through the wizard mode once or twice per game.

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I like to start just by vacuuming and cleaning the cabinet bottom. Stuff gets dropped and it sucks to get dirty hunting for a lost nut under the wire harnesses.

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Time to get Godzilla off the playfield. Sega spent some money getting these plastics made. Also, I never noticed that Godzilla is blue. You say Godzilla, I think of giant green lizard walking on two feet and breathing fire.

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Also, what the hell was Sega thinking making a single massive double ramp!? The vacuum form must have been huge, and no wonder why no one is going to reproduce these (well, that and the fact that there were only 500 games made.)

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Remember: size does matter!

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Game is dirty, magnet cores have wear, but overall in great shape. The wear on the back magnet isn't visible when the ramps are one. Still, these will get replaced and covered with carbon fiber magnet protectors from Cliffy!

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Pops out and parts to rebuild them, the slings, and the flippers have been ordered! Dang -- playfield inserts have ghosting! Wonder if I can get a replacement PF. . .

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Me too! I've permission to do the GI, ramps, stadium lights -- the whole works. Can't wait to start working on that!

You can get the head off without taking off the ramp. One screw on the top. Lift off the back and the slide forward for the ramp that comes out of its mouth.

Been busy for the week replacing parts. Have the pops, slings, and flippers rebuilt. Removed the magnet cores and replaced, and have carbon fiber Cliffy protectors installed around them. Finished getting the GI replaced with addressable LEDs and have it running off an external 5V power supply and color controlled by a pinduino. Can't wait to this finished and really dial in the code for the LEDs.

Went with yellow body parts for the pops. Rings tumbled polished, and new parts throughout.

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New and used pop parts

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Getting the GI replaced with addressable LEDs. Power supply should drive 500 LEDs without a problem and powered by the AC circuit used by the dollar bill acceptor. Turns on and off with the game.

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Testing the GI. I just have a demo program loaded and cycles through various colors and some basic lighting effects to make sure all LEDs are working properly and individually controlled.

Magnet cores! What would I do without Cliff?

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Replaced the Taxi stickers. New ones are lacking the punch of yellow the old ones had.

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Have the addressable LEDs on the ramps. One pair for effects seen in the ramp channels and another set for shining the playfield and complementing the GI.

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Cable management, and getting the old GI sockets wrapped up and out of the way of any mechanisms.

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Game is coming back together nicely and plays amazing! Just made a simple, easy, awesome mod that I recommend for people with the game. Put a 12v flasher socket and red LED on the ramp diverter In Godzilla’s head. Wire it to the lugs of the diverter’s coil and the mouth lights up red when the diverter is triggered.

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Vid of the mod:

Finished the first pass of code for one of the pinduinos. This Pinduino controls the GI and a set of addressable LEDs that are on the ramps and shine across the playfield. Still have a second pinduino to install and program that will control another set of the LEDs on the ramps (shining into the ramps).

Also, finally had a chance to play the game after rebuilding, refurbing, and cleaning everything -- such a blast of a game!

Had a chance to build and install the second pinduino to control the LEDs on the ramps, and get it programmed to control a second set of LEDs on each of the ramps. I really like how this turned out!

Code:
GI + inside of ramps facing across the playfield: https://github.com/elyons/professor_pinball_pinduino_sketches/tree/master/Godzilla_GI_ramps
Ramps (facing into the ramps): https://github.com/elyons/professor_pinball_pinduino_sketches/tree/master/Godzilla_ramps