Doesn't look like there is a group for fans of the pin Rescue 911 so I am creating one. This is the place to discuss everything related to the pinball machine or even the show. Got a tech issue, post it here, want someone to post a picture of a specific game part, post it here. Got a high score you think no one can beat, post it up.

I was always a fan of the original series. I watched it faithfully every night while it was on tv. Years later I started watching it again on Youtube. I thought it was always a great idea for show as it taught people basic life saving techniques and the show actually helps save many lives. Of course being a huge fan of the original show and being into pinball, getting a R911 pinball is a no brainer for me. Last weekend I was able to add one to my collection. It is a players machine for sure and it was recently pulled off route. It was owned by a vendor and was neglected but I got it for a good price. The helicopter wiring was disconnected, the game had about 2 inches of dust on it. Side rails are rusty, flipper rubbers look like they are the original from when the game was new. My goal is to clean it up, get the helicopter working, led it and put new rubbers on.

I decided to do a quick clean, basically just cleaning what I can get to without removing everything off the playfield. I will do a deep clean when I order new rubbers and led bulbs and do a proper shop job. I got the playfield cleaned up the best I can and put some wax on. The PF actually is in pretty decent shape with minimal wear down by the flippers. There is some wear by the pop bumpers.

I rewired the helicopter and got it so the blade would spin. I noticed that the electromagnet wasn't working so I started to investigate. I found the fuse was missing for the magnet so I replaced it. The coile was now locking on when the game was on. I pulled the driver board and found a bad transistor in q3 and q13. Not sure what q3 controls yet as I ordered a manual from PBR but don't have it yet. Either way it was bad so I replaced it. Replacing transistor q13 got the magnet working like it should. I ordered a new plastic connector piece which connects the linkage of the chopper to the motor and a new rubber friction wheel. I am hoping after getting these installed the chopper will move like it should. The motor is working and is quiet noisy. I may look for a silicon lube to put on the gears to try and quiet it down.

Also the beacon on the top wasn't working. It is getting power up to the beacon so the motor is shot on the beacon. I ordered a new one from amazon. This is a great replacement https://www.amazon.com/Wolo-3110-R-Rotating-Emergency-Warning/dp/B000BNH0UE.

Right now the only issue I am having trouble figuring out is the backbox flashers are not working. The playfield flashers are working, atleast all the ones that i replaced the bulbs in but none of the backbox flashers are working for some reason. I am hoping when the manual comes it will help me figure it out. The GI in the backbox also wasn't working but a new fuse got that working as the old one was missing from there as well.

I will post up more progress when I get it done.

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Awesome thanks for sharing! That is a neat story, I would of loved to seen that.

There is two episiodes that come to mind of your description of the episode. Both occurred into Indiana.

Car into water, that could of probably been either the one where the women crashed a suburbab into saint jays river in Indiana

Or this one in Napolean Indiana. The car technically doesn't go into the water in the recreation but If I remember correctly there is a creek nearby at the bottom of the hill.

If you can remember an approximate location where they were filming I would love to know it. I am such a fan of the show that I actually am keeping a log of where the episodes were shot. I have about 15 locations found so far. Most of them were done by using google earth and nearby key locations seen on the show to help locate the filming locations.

In the 2nd video link I posted, I always though it was weird how in the recreation the guy guy slides down the hill and there is this classic camaro the women was driving all wrecked up. To me the car looked too "real" almost like it had been there for some time and not placed there for the recreation. I would like to think they wouldn't purposely wreck a classic car like that for the show and that maybe that was the original car the women was driving and they just left it there because it was in such a precarious spot to remove it being on the side of a large hill with lots of trees around.

I ordered a bunch of parts to get the helicopter working hopefully. The ball raise thing is working just fine. The plastic coupler was broken. I tried gluing it just to temporarily see if it would move and the helicopter did move, however it wasn't spinning because the friction wheel has flat spots. Also the helicopter was arriving at the ball lift part too late. Meaning by the time it got close, the ball lift was already descending withe the ball. I am hoping this is just because the coupler was breaking and maybe it was skipping teeth or something. Not sure if there is a way to adjust how long the ball lift stays up? Got a manual coming from PBR along with a new coupler and friction wheel so we will see.

Does anyone have a manual that can tell me what transistor Q3 does? Just curious because mine was bad. I know for my freddy pinball, q3 is for the left kicking bumper and I would imagine that is what this controls on this game too but just wanted to make sure.

My center target beside the captive ball target was just hanging on the bottom of the playfield. The bracket that holds it on to the playfield broke at the bend. I have the other piece and I can weld it back together but this target is triggering constantly. It looks like this is one of those smart switches. Is there a way to adjust this switch so it is not constantly triggering or do I just have to replace it?

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Oh yea forgot about that episode. Thats neat. Any chance you remember the road name where it happened?

Had something interesting happen to my game yesterday. I checked the power supply voltage and it was 5.9 at the power supply and at the P-1 connector that goes to the control board so it was a little high. I turned the game off and pulled the power supply to clean the 5 volt pot with contact cleaner, reflowed solder to the power supply header pins and made sure everything was tight and reinstalled. Adjusted the 5 volts with the boards isolated from the power supply first to get it to 5.01 volts. Then I plugged the top power supply connector back in and tested the volts at 5.01 at the control board. I was playing my second test game and it just completely went dark no power at all. So I started at the line cord and verified 120 volts. Tested all the fuses inside the cabinet near the transformer and they were good. Checked the two fuses on the power supply inside the cabinet. The 2nd one was blown. It was a 2.5 amp slo blow. I replaced it with a 3 amp sb (i know shame shame lol it's all I had at the moment, I am getting a 2.5 for it) The game powered on and worked fine. It has been working fine ever since so I don't know what happened yet. I have yet to reflow solder to the ground board so maybe that caused an issue.

My new beacon light came in. I soldered the connector plug on it and got it installed in the game. Looks and works great, only slight gripe I have is when it illuminates it looks more pink then red. Guessing I could find a 12v red led bulb for it and put in there to make it more red.

Still haven't gotten anywhere with that smart switch, guessing I have to order a new one. Also noticed the top pop bumper is not working. It is registering hits in test mode so I no the skirt is ok. Also the drop targets are not resetting all the time. You can see them try to come up but it's like the coil doesn't have enough strength to move them up.

Awesome, thanks for the info!

Got my new coupler in for the helicoptor and got it working. Only issue is that the helicoptor doesn't turn enough when it initially arrives at the ball so it kind goes beside it. The helicopter comes back slightly though and picks it up. Guess I have to tinker around with it. Even after replacing the friction wheel, it was still not rotating. I had to scuff up the metal plate and I sprayed some spray adhesive on it. Seemed to help

Anyone have any tips for adjusting the helicopter so it is turned enough to reach the ball? Mine is doing this. It almost seems like I have to move the entire arm the helicopter is attached to back more but I am afraid that will put the rubber wheel part halfway off the metal plate it rides on

Got the helicopter on mine working. Only thing is it still does what it shows in the video. It kinda misses the ball the first time but it bumps back against the wall and pulls the ball off on an angle. Almost seems like the arm needs to move back even further but if I do that, I am taking some of the rubber friction wheel off the edge of the pressure plate. Seems kinda counterproductive.

Anyone know any place that sells the burning buildings for the game. Mine is cracked in a couple spots.

Helicopter has been working pretty good, every once and awhile it will miss the ball, so I adjusted the nose of the chopper so it tilts down closer to the ball. I did this by rotating the shaft the chopper rides on a little. Only issue I have now is the chopper gets to the ball before the ball is all the way up so it kinda goes against the wall to get the ball and bounces away and then goes back in towards the wall where it picks the ball up. Not sure if there is anything I can adjust to make the timing better.

On a side note, did anyone ever make custom instruction apron cards for this game?

Any rescue 911 owners understand what the heck is the point of the rocking chair seen on the DMD during certain points of game play? Just seems out of place and weird. Sometimes there is a person in the rocking chair rocking away, sometimes the chair is empty. Perhaps they got called into action to help save someone hence the empty chair at points lol

Got my chopper moving quickly and quietly by adding some three in one oil to the bearings and oil points on either side of the motor. Really made a difference. Now that everythingis working, I plan on adding LED's and shopping it out

Todd just uploaded this interview with Bill Parker who helped design the game. Interesting some of the things he talks about.

Awesome thanks for sharing. It is definitely a fun pin. It can actually be pretty dang fast too! There is a spotlight mod I saw someone on Youtube did where they mounted a bulb socket on the bottom of the chopper so it shines down on the playfield like a spotlight when it is moving. They wired it to the prop motor so it comes on when the prop is spinning. Just make sure you get a 12 volt bulb as the motor runs on 12v.

I bought mine not too longer ago as a working project that was fresh off route and has lived a pretty rough life. It was apparently an export machine in it's early life. Then came back and was put on route in NJ. The rubbers are severely dryrotted I wonder if they may even be the original rubbers.

I had to replace my rubber friction wheel, the coupler, clean and oil the gears for the motor, magnet transistor (locked on magnet) and wire up the harness that comes out of the helicopter and I got mine working. It was great for me because I bought the game not knowing if the helicopter even worked or not. All I heard was a groaning sound of the motor trying to turn. Was great seeing it work fully for the first time!

Mine has the slightest issue where the chopper gets to the ball before the ball is at full lift for some reason. I am trying to think of a solution for that one but it still grabs the ball so it isn't a huge deal. I will post up a video of it.

Got about 50 LEDS and 20 flashers from Comet coming today. Plan on replacing all lights in the back box with LEDS and using some of the extras on other games. Then I will sit down and figure out what and how many and what color LEDS I want for playfield and order them and a rubber ring kit and finally get those old dry rotted rubbers off this severely neglected game. Then I will do some cabinet touch up where I can, maybe replace the side rails , replace the legs and call it done.

Leds came in from comet. Pulled the back box door off and scrubbed it down to get all the dust off. Put the new comet led's and flashers in and it looks great. Sorry I forgot to get a picture of it lit up with the marquee on. I will get one tonight. The one photo of it with the marquee shows it before with the standard incandescent s and no flashers at all.

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And as promised here is a video of my chopper in action. Any ideas what I can do to get the ball lift to be more in time with the chopper. As you will see the ball is still being raised by the time the chopper goes over top. I tried bending the ball lift down switch to try and get it to trigger earlier but no luck.

I need the city scapes as well and have had no luck so far

Awesome looks great. I just shopped mine out this weekend adding all new rubbers and all LED's. Tried removing the mylar which started to peel the paint off so I stopped that idea quickly. I need to touch up the area that the paint peeled. The game plays so much faster then before with all new rubbers and fresh clean and wax. Also my helicopter is working much better then before. Does anyone else have an issue where when the ball goes into the hospital hole that sometimes it comes up the up kicker and it drops the ball lock immediately so you get seamless flow and sometimes it comes up the upkicker, sits at the pin for the ball lock for a second before the game releases it causing a little bit of a delay?