Flying Aces
Genco, 1958I'm doing the forensics on a rare EM (Genco Flying Aces) to see what is right and wrong with it before I connect up power... The fuses had been replaced with stranded wire. I get out my trusty air gun and start gently blowing away some of the layers of dirt and I think I may have found out what was causing the short...
Found wedged under a plug connector:
Nice "Heavy Duty" fuses with lifetime warrantee:
Results:
Cool pin! Could you post some pictures of the machine? There are only a handful of bad pictures on the ipdb of this machine.
I had to look that machine up on IPDB, it looks very interesting. Keep us posted on how it goes.
Brian
Quoted from LTG:An op wonders... "why not"....
LTG : )™
good point lloyd...
i still remember the first time i found gtb parts on wms machine and couldn't figure out why... someone explained to me that "if it was in the parts box and it made it work, that's what they used"...
I once found a little bug carcass underneath a 36c transistor. I felt so bad for him, even though he was clearly the one who shorted it. He was just looking for a nice little spot to hide. 
Are those wires soldered into the fuse holder? Soldering in that wire to the fuse holder looks like work.
If was going to do that kind of repair work I would have just cut the wires from the fuse holder, stripped and twisted them together. No need to find a piece of wire and the hassle of soldering the wire onto the fuse holder.
I am always surprised how much effort people will spend to fix something incorrectly. Using parts you have on hand to make something work is one thing, but soldering in jumper wires into the fuse holder just makes no sense at all.
Here's a neat old Pingame Journal article about another Flying Aces.
http://www.pingamejournal.com/articles/makehtma.php?file=article01.txt
Quoted from mg81:Are those wires soldered into the fuse holder? Soldering in that wire to the fuse holder looks like work.
If was going to do that kind of repair work I would have just cut the wires from the fuse holder, stripped and twisted them together. No need to find a piece of wire and the hassle of soldering the wire onto the fuse holder.
I am always surprised how much effort people will spend to fix something incorrectly. Using parts you have on hand to make something work is one thing, but soldering in jumper wires into the fuse holder just makes no sense at all.
it is the corollary to the "i'll spend an hour trying to get at something, rather than spend 5 minutes removing something else and making the job MUCH easier"... 
Quoted from AlexF:Here's a neat old Pingame Journal article about another Flying Aces.
http://www.pingamejournal.com/articles/makehtma.php?file=article01.txt
I actually was able to make contact with the writer of the Pingame article. He sold his Flying Aces in 2004, but he was able to provide me with a schematic, which is like finding a needle in a haystack. This game circuitry is pretty interesting... their are 5 solenoids powered directly off of 120v mains power. About 1/2 of the rest of the game is A/C, and the other half DC circuits.
I'll post some pictures when I get it cleaned up a little better.
Mac
I was with a friend of mine when he bought one of these at an auction in Denver in the late 90's/early 2000s. He might still have it.
I know a fellow collector from Colorado that had one back in 06. Maybe the same guy as you know. I also remember seeing one on Ebay in 2011. Could also be the same one? I was surprised no one got excited about it, but it's so rare I guess nobody knows what the heck it is. Sounds like there may be a few more than previously anticipated. It would be nice to get the serials documented on the Internet Serial Number Database.
I talked with a guy in Colorado that used to own one, but sold it a long time ago, and does not know the current whereabouts. Rory in Australia likewise sold his in 2004. I saw a picture of one in Dave Silverman's collection that he was working on back a few years ago. I checked the listings of the sold games in his auctions, and it looks like he probably kept his Flying Aces... I know he had said he was going to keep about 20 out of the 900 games that he collected.
Someday someone will surface with one.
I checked with my friend in CO who bought his at an auction, and he says he still has it (although packed away). I think he wrote a follow up article on it for PGJ or GameRoom mag back in the day, but my memory's fuzzy on that (and many other things, I'm sure).
Mac
Had Flying Aces for some years & never before seen a post from someone who actually has one. At least the fuses weren't bypassed with wires like yours but they were all 30A even though the tag showed lower values & 1 kept blowing while troubleshooting the completely inoperative machine. Found the step-ups were all frozen with some grease that had turned to glue so the coils were energized during start-up but nothing moved then fuse blew. After disassembly & cleanup they worked & game actually played. But it has never worked right. If one is lucky enough to get to where "10" flush or 4 of kind shows in triangle on playfield (see pic) game goes crazy shuffling & scoring until powered off & re-started. I think someone put in bogus wires trying to fix it (see "new" plastic wires & wirenut in pic) but have no way of proving that. Maybe you could look next time you work on yours to see if it has same? Good luck in your rebuild! Sounds like you are very experienced in EM but if I can ohm test a coil or something on this semi-working machine, let me know. Ken
Ken,
It's great to connect with someone that still has a Flying Aces! I suspect the "new" wires were added after the old ones burned the cloth away during an over-fused short situation. It's going to take me a while to get to the point where I plug it in. I have some "pictures" of the schematic, but they are readable. What are you using for balls? I was thinking of yellow-rubber coating some racquetballs... they seem the right size and weight. The originals are like dried up prunes. How many rubber balls do you need in the game? I have never seen one of these in action. Ever take any video of yours?
Do you have one or two switches to detect the ball in hole for each spot? I hear that this was a reliability issue and they added second switches for later runs. I have the earlier single switch design.
Mac
Mac,
I can see you are good at this restoring, racquetballs work perfect. I tried tennis balls 1st but they are too big to nest in holes & don't reliably close all 3 sets of contacts under holes. Racquetballs bounce good too. The original balls were deflated so never got to see how they played. There were 9 so put 9 back but don't know if correct. Originals were red mine are standard blue your yellow idea sounds better.
Really looking forward to when you get yours working I think you will like playing it. Friends, relatives & especially kids always want to play. It is fun to watch one who has never played jump back when balls 1st shuffle because mirror makes it look like balls are coming at them!! 16 holes have 1 wire lever closing 3 contacts at once, 4 holes lever closes 2 contacts at once. It seems 1 contact per hole lights card lamp on backglass, other contacts form a chain to activate 4 of Kind or Royal Flush relays maybe.
Would LOVE to have pics of schematic. Maybe could then figure out continuous shuffle/scoring that always occurs when 10 lights in triangle. This problem has dogged me for years & spent countless hours trying to fix it. My Flying Aces is 2046. Will ask my son about a video.
Ken
Ken,
Here are the schematics and a couple of cardsflying aces card 2.jpg. Not great, but rarer than hen's teeth. Also, I could use a good picture of the ACE, King ,Queen / Heart, Club, Spade cards that go around the ball array area. Mine were disintegrated. Are yours original? I thought yellow on the balls because the ones that came with mine were yellow... not really sure if the originals were yellow or not. The natural blue of the racquetballs does not look bad.
What happens if you use the wrong number of balls? I was thinking that it is dealing you a hand of poker, and you filled in by hitting features on the playfield. Could too many balls be causing your machine to "make" the hand too easily and cause the reshuffle looping? I really have no idea on the theory behind how the game is supposed flow. An operations manual would really help.
Macflying aces 1.JPGflying aces 2.JPGflying aces 3.JPGflying aces 4.JPGflying aces card 1.jpg
What a funny coincidence - I was just listening to the TOPcast with Kordek the other day and Clay mentions how rare the game is.
"CH: (flipping pages) Flying Aces, only four units known to exist… huh…. Wow. "
Transcript at http://www.pinrepair.com/topcast/topcast_show23.pdf
Mac THANK YOU 4 SCHEMATICS, already tracking problem to where someone wirenut slate/blue & slate/black circuits together! Since this machine plays perfect till 10 in triangle lights, my friend took a video before I tear into tracing. Is this pic took of ball unit to make Avatar detail enough or do you need another?? EchoicStriker there may be more of these out there than they think.FlyingAces.jpg
See video on YouTube @ june naranjo pinball machine flying aces
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Edgerton, WI
It's speculative on the production numbers but may only be a handful in existence. Very rare and uniquely cool machine. Congrats! 
