I guess you could call that a " Shooting Gallery" Very Cool

Finished up on the Fish Tales this weekend. Overall the machine is in pretty nice condition for a FT. It doesn't seem to have a lot of heavy play time like most that I have seen. Why? Who knows?

The last system I did for a 2100 sf home had a backup generator that never got used. I won't need one for this building. If I happen to need more power, I have another 6) 175 watt panels ready to install. The larger batteries most likely won't be needed unless we occupy the building for long stretches for get aways. This could happen, so I have not ruled out getting the big ones. Also If/when we decide to build the house above the mine, we would need the larger batteries and the panels. Off Grid power systems are sooo awesome because you generate your power and there is no limit on how big you can build them. As I am getting older, (56) my energy and my pain tolerance runs hand in hand. I am not nearly as fast and have to settle for a slower progress pace. I sure appreciate your enthusiasm!

The batteries that I usually use are Trojan L16HC. They can last up to and beyond 15 years. It really depends on how balanced your solar system is. Load/Power in/storage or Loads/Panels in watts/Batteries Ahr.

Back to work on the Brick Walls today. Man, this room is starting to look like a great place to put some games!

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Due to a foot a snow up on the mountain, progress was limited to trimming out a window yesterday. But I also took the opportunity to widen my driveway with the backhoe after realizing how difficult it was to navigate being that it was to narrow. Now you could park a tractor trailer.

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The Point of the project was to renovate the old shaft house to include a gaming area. The building would be off the grid solar (powered by the sun) The interior of building would have rustic (mining) decor
The whole site is a historic place.
Putting games inside of a real mine shaft with water leaking everywhere and dangers of cave ins due to rotting wood beams with rodents and other critters is not a good idea.

The Rope Tow for the bunny slope or the Rope Tow for the vertical mine drop ride?

Actually since you mentioned that, a fellow bought The Stanley Mines Building a couple miles down the road in Idaho Springs and they are going to build a mountain amusement park. It is supposed to have a mountain coaster, a lift ride (rope tow) a mine drop and some other rides.

^^^Very Cool. But I think I will stop at the “R”cade and leave the drop ride to the guy at The Stanley. I can just see my insurance agent going “You Want To Do What?”

Gotcha! Yep We are going to do it this way. Safer and little more comfortable.

It is a different kind of living for sure. You get used to the change at first, then your like "Man, I should have done this years ago". We struggle with thinking should we go "All In" and build our dream home up here? We have a place in town that we are not ready to give up and most likely we would have to give it up to be able to cash out on a new home up there. We will see how investing goes for me in the next 5 years or so. If I can put my extra money into fixing up this building and getting the utilities installed, then later we can cash out (temporarily) our investments to finance the new build. Then we would have to sell our house in town to have any savings for the future or rent it. We have no mortgage on our house in town. I guess we will see how it shakes out in a few years.

Thanks Ryan! Can’t wait to put these babies in! LEDs and Color DMD are a must for pinball machines on Solar. (off grid) most of the load of a pinball machine is drawn from the many incandescent light bulbs and the 120v DMD display. I went with the kit from Comet.

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So I finished the faux brick paneling in the front room today. Trim is next. I have to trim out both doors in there and one piece of floor molding. Piece of cake! I picked a cordless finish nailer at HD so trim work is a snap. No noisy PITA compressor!

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So my next task at the mine is to put a roof on my shed. This shed is stronger than it looks. I need to store equipment and tools in there. There is a lot of just junk in there so I will throwing away a bunch of stuff. (No fun) But! I did find a diamond in the rough.
I found some large batteries in there! Those batteries, even if they are no good, will be useful. The core charges for the Trojan L16s
I want are hundreds of dollars. The batteries in the shed will be my cores.

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So look what showed up on my doorstep today! All the way from DC. I found this White Water on Ebay. It was on auction.
This is one of the nicest original WW I have seen. It has a near perfect playfield. The original cabinet is bright with no fade. The original ramps in this thing have very little wear. The games doesn't play well though. No credit dot, but the ball hangs up on
the insanity falls ramp. I don’t think the guy I got it from played it with that kind of a problem. (Speculation I know) look at the shooter lane. This game spent some time in storage, it had to.

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The boards are all original (matching). Someone installed a remote battery holder so i took a look at the original and sure enough there was a small amount of corrosion. Nothing on the board itself just the battery holder. I will take care that.

I am going to have to order an (LH6) upgrade for the software from Dave Estill. Looks like it has L2 in it.

Thanks, we sure think so. We finished room one today. Trim is completed and grouting all done. I hung wood blinds on both windows. They are the cheap knock offs you can get at HD but they have the direct movement instead of the pull cords. I like these much better! So we will start moving some decor and the two games in there this week. Thennnn... I will need to put a roof on that shed! And oh I almost forgot, I have to work this week too...

Ok I have been working on White Water all week. Bought the game off Ebay for $6350.
This game was completely original with very low play time on it. It does not have any holes drilled for a lockbar which leads me to believe that the machine was used in home or it was lightly routed in a place where it did not get played much. (and that does not happen with a WW). The playfield is impressive with no Lost Mine wear and raised insert wear. The ramps are all original and have very slight ball trailing. The cabinet is in very nice condition with no fade and just a few very slight touch ups. The topper has some typical lifting spots on the waterfall but does not change the effect. Actually the small raised areas ad to the water dimension a bit. The game has all it’s original boards. The only board issue I found was F501 will not keep from blowing. Of course since the board uses two power sources it continues to work just fine. I believe that D1 is shorted and I ordered some MR-501 Diodes. So on a scale from 1-10 I would give the game 9.5.

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So I added LEDs to the game and ColorDMD. I am still waiting on the pinblades from PinGraphix. Now, Here is where I am sure to get some blow back. I ordered a Playfield protector yesterday. (yes I know) I feel that I need to protect this playfield from wear from now on in order to maintain the phenomenal condition. I typically have done this to my other games and I feel it improved the game play while protecting the original playfields. I am not going to start the pf protector debate here, but that is how I protect my games. I figure that when the protector comes in, I will do a disassembly teardown for cleaning of the portions of the game that are buried under the mini playfield. That should finish out the shop work of the White Water. I feel very fortunate to have been able to land a WW machine in this condition especially on Ebay! Now, with the Fish Tales I just bought a Mylar set to protect the pf. Both machines should be ready for the journey up to the mine here in the next couple of weeks!

Just a couple of move in pics at the mine. Still putting the finishing touches on White Water.

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Installed pinblades from Pingraphix on White Water. What an amazing difference! A must have IMHO. I finally got the topper complete. Got the right LED combination for the lighting and smoothed out the bubbles in the decal. It looks like million bucks! All I am waiting on now is the playfield protector. I am a bit worried about shipments from Germany though...

I will be doing the VUK wire form mod for the White Water when I do the tear down for the playfield cleaning and install of the playfield protector. The mod strengthens the attachment of the wire form to the mini playfield by drilling and using T nuts and studs. It is a very necessary for the wire form to stay tight long term and not damage the playfield surface. This is a typical problem with White Water. IMHO The T nut method of fastening the wire form should have been done at the factory for all of the games.

These are pics that I took when I did the mod to my first machine.

Security is always a concern. My neighbors are always watching out for the place. We also will have cameras and everything is behind locked gates and perimeter fencing.

D1 shorted as predicted. Easily replaced and the fuse stays in. I wish all board repairs were this easy!

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The playfield protector came in today. I know what I will be doing tomorrow!

Playfield protector installed. It took about 5 hours but I did a couple of mods while I had everything apart. The mod to the “Boulder Garden mountain will help preserve that and keep it from being destroyed by ball hits. The Cliffy protects the base and the additional post in the back provides more support. I used a stud for front mount that is real tight in the valley of shape of the mountain.

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White Water is now complete. I discovered that the former owner/s did not shop out the game properly. Not surprising! White Water can be more difficult to properly clean and adjust because all of the ramps and the mini playfield have to be removed to do it. Not everyone is up for that. (some due to laziness) I see Wh20s for sale ad saying shopped and you can see the dirt from not removing the rear of the playfield (ramps and such). Updated the software yesterday from L2 to LH6. Big difference in the light show and other stuff (no crash bug). One funny thing happened while we were playing it last night. The topper abruptly shuts off. I was like, " Hey, who turned out the lights" . Didn't realize til later that the topper died. It was a 5amp fuse that decided to give up. (meaning it just stopped working for no real reason other than it was tired after 27 years! So the next big step is the move for both games to the Mine. Maybe next week! Pics will follow.

I know it has been awhile since I posted last. With work and winter in the rockies winding down I haven’t been doing much at the mine. So we got started on the floor in the main room last week.

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And yes it is porcelain tile not wood. Found this stuff on clearence at a local Floor And Decore. It looks like old barn wood. Perfect for a rustic floor in an old mine building. Now wait til you see what I am doing for the bathroom floor!

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