What’s up guys! A friend of mine just found a Space Odyssey in his company’s warehouse. I’ve never owned an EM…. Don’t really k kw how to work on them, and don’t know the exact condition of this particular game.

All that said, I’m thinking it might be fun to learn how to breathe life back into these games!

Here’s a pic…

This is a “name your price” type of situation.

Hypothetically, what’s the price range I’m looking at?

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$450? I'm not really sure. I'm still new to the EM world myself. EM prices seem to fluctuate more than more modern machines. I just bought a non-working El Dorado on Labor Day weekend for $900. My El Dorado back glass is flaking like this Space Odyssey is. Space Odyssey is a pretty neat machine and definitely worth the effort to have as your first EM and to get your feet into the EM world. I'm currently working on a Fireball and I am thoroughly enjoying the EM side of things. What I like best is that the switches, relays, and coils are all probably good. I've only worked on 5 EM's so far, but they all have been able to return to flipping and playing games with hardly any money spent. The work has mostly been just taking things apart, cleaning, putting them back together, and adjusting switches. Stepper units and score motors can be a little intimidating, but there is a ton of help here and on YouTube.

I’d be comfortable at $300 as long as the playfield is good. The nice thing about em’s is as long ad it’s all there it can be fixed. I am no guru but have had success using a methodical method of cleaning switches, inspecting and adjusting where necessary and disassemble and clean all the steppers. That way you know the actual condition of the machine. Once done it should start a game and function correctly with maybe a small problem or 2 to track down. I have a Space Odyssey and enjoy it. Plenty of help here on the forums as well.

I got mine for $250 because it was some random dude with a pinball machine that wasn’t on pinside and just wanted it out of his garage. Same machine on pinside, $2600

If the EM has not been molested they are generally easy to repair. It just takes time dis-assembling the mechanical parts cleaning them up and re-assembling.

If the game is complete and not molested I would go as high as $500. If there are hack repairs I would be at $200.

I am having an issue with the startup sequence on my Space Mission. Player 3 score reel just continues to flip. I've checked all the reel switch stacks and they seem good. It's been so long since i worked on an EM — can anyone remind me where to start my troubleshooting beyond the score reels? Here's a short snippet of the reel spinning.

grandy I'm still an EM novice, but I think you should look at the score reels and pay special attention to what the switches are adjusted to for the number 0 and number 9 positions. Usually one of the switches opens up on the 0 position so that the reel gets de-energized and stops moving. So if you have a known good score reel that is stopping at 0000, then look at the switch positions for the 0, 1-8, and 9 positions.

I would start there and see if that resolves it.

Ok, That is a strange cycle. The 1k reel is at zero not moving like it should then the hundred reel gets to 7 and the 1K reel starts resetting again. That does not sound like a 0 switch problem.

Does this ONLY happen on Player 3? if so this is strange as well.

Go through the playfield switches that register points, Jet bumpers, stand up targets, roll-overs, etc.

Check the reset relays.

Check the Coin door coin switches that they are not closed. (sometimes these get messed with and the score motor will run continuously)

That's all I can think of right now.

These are great suggestions, thank you!

Hope you are able to track this down and solve the issues. Let us know what you find.

Greetings everyone, hope everyone is doing well this Friday Eve.

Quick question, all of a sudden my Space Mission has the 100,000 light for player 4 when doing a single game, see pic. Tried doing a 4 player game and it remained. By the time I get to ball 4 it’ll go off, then all of a sudden comes back on.

I haven’t gone through all the mechanical reels and such to clean them, but had this for 4 months and it just started happening.

Thanks for any help.

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The only way this light will illuminate is through the Player Unit Switch. Find the player unit mech and check the contacts.

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I was going to suggest like Pin-pilot did. I've had similar issues come up on my El Dorado with some of the player unit switches. In my cases tightening the switch stacks helped or else a slight adjustment of the switch gap.

Anyone know if plastic protectors are available for this game?

If someone has a second could you get a picture of how the slam tilt is wired on this game?

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Hope this helps.

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Yep! All my wires were soldered together and there’s the cluster of 3 red and yellow. Just making sure it wasn’t a hack or something. Thanks!

Got my son-in-law's Space Mission working last weekend after working on it for a few hours every night for a week. It's a pretty fun machine and has a lot of features to it. Since I have a Fireball EM and El Dorado, Space Mission's spinner is lots of fun.

I'm waiting for my order from the Pinball Resource to arrive and I have a few minor repairs to make this weekend. New flipper bats and a new Lock Relay Coil. Should be able to move the machine back to my daughter/son-in-law's house over the weekend so they can begin enjoying it.

As far as game strategy, all I can figure out is that it is a good idea to hit the swinging target to light up the game features for double bonus, light the spinner for 1,000 a spin, and try to get an extra ball. The trick seems to not hit the swinging target after that so the features stay activated as long as possible.

I really like the 100,000 score lights for when you roll the score reels over. My Fireball, Time Zone, and El Dorado do not have that feature. Getting extra balls is fun too. I also get a kick out of making the knocker go off to award credits based on high scores and the after game match.

So finally started working on My family's Space mission that has been in the family since the 70's and fixed a few issues that were bugging me. The Biggest one I found was a runaway score because the 5000 point relay would stick. After pulling it apart a good cleaning it is working without any issues.

I have one issue that has been bugging me and I figure I would see if anyone has ran into this. On a new game. player one does not always reset to 0 but if I end the game and hit start again it usually works and goes all the way to 0. I checked all the switch stacks on the reels in the back and so nothing seems out of place and that gaps all look good. Not a huge issue because I know I can reset but it would be nice if I could get that to reset to 0 every time.

Jmxdc I'm certainly not an expert, but that sounds like a score reel problem. If the score reels for player one haven't been taken apart recently, cleaned, and switches cleaned and adjusted, that would be where I would start. Do the score reels keep spinning and not stopping? If so, that's related to the switches for when the score reels are at position 9 or 0.

I pulled out each reel and check the switches/gaps they all look good. I did not take apart each real and clean but I think I will make that the next step. just wondering if maybe changing the wipers on each real is a good idea too.

This website is great and really helps me. Here is an explanation of the Williams score reel.

https://homepinballrepair.com/em-score-reels-williams/

awesome info thanks!

I've had this problem on a few occasions.

"If the three switches do not open at zero, then the machine will not know that the score reels have reset. A side effect is that the Score Motor (in the cabinet under the playfield) will keep spinning."

Does anyone know where I can find a printable scan of the credit unit reel?

Mine is very discolored and no amount of cleaning is going to get it back to a reasonable color. I couldn't find them on http://www.pinballrebel.com/pinball/cards/Williams.htm where I found files to print up some decals for my nasty score reels.

Don't worry, this abused machine is getting a nice restore

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I found the sample dummy card on https://www.ipdb.org/files/2253/dummys_copy.tif might be able to use that to create the rest of the numbers you are missing.

I think the credit/replay unit uses a different font

your right, I totally misread and just thought you were talking about the score real.

Is this a file you can use?
http://www.pinballrebel.com/pinball/cards/Bally/Bally_Credit_Reel_Numbers.zip

Peter
http://www.inkochnito.nl
If you like my work, please send me a donation via PayPal.

Thank you for this info, I did a full cleaning of a couple wheels that were giving me issues. had to replace one coil stop and they were super dirty. I only have 12 more to go but they are working perfectly now. I was kinda bummed I was going to replace a couple of the contact rings but the ones I found on marco are reverse, I need the same thing but opposite. https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/A-6294

I am currently working on an updated file for Space Odyssey.
I have new card images I can add to the file.
The score inserts looks to be complete.
The Score Adjustment card has not been added jet, so I want to add that one too.

Can anyone tell me the correct size for the Score Adjustment card please?

I could also use a scan or photo of the 462-4 card.

Peter
http://www.inkochnito.nl
Williams_Space_Odyssey_Std-562 (resized).jpg

I have a bunch I can share that you asked for in my resto thread but I dont have a scanner. I'll work on getting you some pics and measurements later today.

Couldn’t find 462-4 but I have 464-4 just in case that was a typo.
I added a few I know you are missing.
Such as 464-5 464-6 and 464-7 and STD-538

Here you go man work your magic!!!

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Thanks for the images.
A lot of them look good to use.
Most of the time images are slanted and out of proportion.

I think the 464-4 card may be the same as the 462-4 card.
Space Mission and Odyssey have the same gameplay...

Peter
http://www.inkochnito.nl

Curious if anyone knows why some Space Missions have a Blue Arch and some have a White Arch?

The original flyer has a White one.

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Personally I painted mine blue and added stars because I thought it looked better

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/handshake-in-space-space-mission-#post-7023371

That looks amazing.

Can you share what paint type and color you used as I see the ivory can, but curious which blue. Looks like Ace Hardware brand.

Thanks

The ace can is only for the white dots. You take the nozzle off and spray in a quick left to right motion about 6 ft away and get perfect spatter. That how’s I do my cabinets.

The blue was Rustoleum 2X
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/handshake-in-space-space-mission-/page/2#post-7141106

When I was restoring the Space Odyssey that I gave to my father, I bead blasted both the upper arches and then took them to a local powder coating shop. "What colors are you running this week", I asked them. So, the top upper arch ended up "Dodge Viper Blue" and the bottom upper arch gloss white.

On my Space Odyssey, the upper arches are still original. Top upper is blue, bottom upper is bare metal.

On the Space Mission that I used to own, both top and bottom upper arches were white.

On the production line, they probably installed whatever colors they had on hand that day.