(Topic ID: 28788)

Worst hack/repair you ever saw.

By mcclad

11 years ago


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  • 4,631 posts
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    There are 4,631 posts in this topic. You are on page 29 of 93.
    #1401 6 years ago

    Bally 4-inline DT assembly. Apparently I'll be fabricating new pieces tomorrow. Unless someone can point out where they might be available.

    Shawn

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    #1402 6 years ago
    Quoted from Mk1Mod0:

    Bally 4-inline DT assembly. Apparently I'll be fabricating new pieces tomorrow. Unless someone can point out where they might be available.
    Shawn

    Call pinball resource. Bought some of those a couple years back for a D&D inline bank.

    #1403 6 years ago
    Quoted from Mk1Mod0:

    Bally 4-inline DT assembly. Apparently I'll be fabricating new pieces tomorrow. Unless someone can point out where they might be available.
    Shawn

    I might have a few spare parts drop target assembly's.

    #1404 6 years ago
    Quoted from Drewscruis:

    I might have a few spare parts drop target assembly's.

    That would be awesome! Just need 2 of the bracket guide, um, thingys. Not a clue what to call them. I will gladly pay shipping if you can spare them. Thanks!

    Shawn

    #1405 6 years ago
    Quoted from Mk1Mod0:

    That would be awesome! Just need 2 of the bracket guide, um, thingys. Not a clue what to call them. I will gladly pay shipping if you can spare them. Thanks!
    Shawn

    p-7939-1 Nut & Spring Bracket?

    https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/help-were-there-different-bally-3-inline-drop-target-assemblies#post-3917880

    #1406 6 years ago

    Bingo! Knew there had to be a name. Went looking for the exploded diagram last night but must have been too tired to find it.

    Shawn

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    #1407 6 years ago

    I can dupe them in the machine shop at work if not. Not really that complicated.

    #1408 6 years ago

    Pretty sure making everyone hungry for Panda is a party foul though

    #1409 6 years ago
    Quoted from Tallon:

    Pretty sure making everyone hungry for Panda is a party foul though

    Sorry! They just opened a new one on the base. It is literally "on the way home." As for finding these, nevermind. I whipped out a couple in our machine shop in about 20 minutes. Good to go.

    Shawn

    #1410 6 years ago
    Quoted from Tallon:

    Pretty sure making everyone hungry for Panda is a party foul though

    Yeah, I thought those things were endangered.

    #1411 6 years ago
    Quoted from ajfclark:

    p-7939-1 Nut & Spring Bracket?

    I started perusing the entire thread you referenced and began panicking that the one I have is wrong. It came from a Dolly Parton but thankfully is the exact match for the one in EBD. I suspect the only real difference between the "left" and "right" models is the top plate and the thing I'm replacing.

    #1412 6 years ago

    It appears they did not have any wood on hand , so lets use a pitch and bat playfield!!

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    #1413 6 years ago
    Quoted from chad:

    It appears they did not have any wood on hand , so lets use a pitch and bat playfield!!

    I did not realize how ugly it was, until I enlarged the image... The drilling of the hole for the power switch is remarkably accurate :
    horror2.jpghorror2.jpg But the worst is that there is not only wood ... they have not even removed the twisted nails:
    horror1.jpghorror1.jpg
    It's great art indeed !

    #1414 6 years ago

    I wonder which game it is. If I get time I may remove it and see.

    #1415 6 years ago

    It works

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    #1416 6 years ago

    Please tell me the game had an upper and lower flipper on that side!

    #1417 6 years ago
    Quoted from arolden:

    Please tell me the game had an upper and lower flipper on that side!

    WPC95 CONGO has two flippers on left side. But here, look like more a Cirqus Voltaire or NBA Fastbreak.

    #1418 6 years ago

    There was a time not long ago you couldn't get optos for ball troughs. Well while doing up my Baywatch cane across this beauty. Was having heaps of issues with ball launch and multi ball loads, wonder why.
    A for effort though.

    Was hoping to make the dual opto's into a single NOPE, BUGGER!

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    #1419 6 years ago

    After over 40 years as a tech I thought I had seen it all, but this takes the cake. Add-ons include relays, wires, beacon, speaker, bells, buzzers, door chime, and the piece de resistance, an old cannister vacuum cleaner under the machine that was also wired in. We spent an hour or two trying to figure it out, but there is so much that has been added to the original wiring it was difficult to "see the light". The guy that did this has passed away so I am on my own here. We are trying to get it going for his daughter, but where do you start? I looked through the notes he had left but there was no clear direction there. Immediate problem is in the scoring, but obviously all these extras were added to that circuitry so the original schematic was no help. Still shaking my head.

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    #1420 6 years ago
    Quoted from pinballtech:

    old cannister vacuum cleaner

    Think that is a Hoover Constellation.

    Congratulations 'You won the Post of the Week', hands down!

    So it must be wired for sound, with that speaker installed, or is there a radio in there somewhere?

    #1421 6 years ago

    That's a work of art!! Automatic cleaning feature or sound effect?

    I am sure it gave him many hours of fun!!!

    Definately one of my favorites!

    As for you, good luck and be careful!!

    #1422 6 years ago

    At least he used different colors of wire. Should be a piece of cake......

    #1423 6 years ago

    Goodness... thats a helluva rats nest

    #1424 6 years ago
    Quoted from pinballtech:

    After over 40 years as a tech I thought I had seen it all, but this takes the cake. Add-ons include relays, wires, beacon, speaker, bells, buzzers, door chime, and the piece de resistance, an old cannister vacuum cleaner under the machine that was also wired in. We spent an hour or two trying to figure it out, but there is so much that has been added to the original wiring it was difficult to "see the light". The guy that did this has passed away so I am on my own here. We are trying to get it going for his daughter, but where do you start? I looked through the notes he had left but there was no clear direction there. Immediate problem is in the scoring, but obviously all these extras were added to that circuitry so the original schematic was no help. Still shaking my head.

    Did this game happen to come from Henry Schwartzman in Corning, NY? He was known for altering pins in crazy ways like this. He once wired up a wedgehead to an old adding machine that would record all of his scores on the paper roll. He was also into old appliances including vacuum cleaners. I immediately thought of Henry when I saw your post. I hope he is still with us.

    #1425 6 years ago
    Quoted from pinballtech:

    After over 40 years as a tech I thought I had seen it all, but this takes the cake. Add-ons include relays, wires, beacon, speaker, bells, buzzers, door chime, and the piece de resistance, an old cannister vacuum cleaner under the machine that was also wired in. We spent an hour or two trying to figure it out, but there is so much that has been added to the original wiring it was difficult to "see the light". The guy that did this has passed away so I am on my own here. We are trying to get it going for his daughter, but where do you start? I looked through the notes he had left but there was no clear direction there. Immediate problem is in the scoring, but obviously all these extras were added to that circuitry so the original schematic was no help. Still shaking my head.

    Wow it would be easier to buy a second one and swap the guts into it

    #1426 6 years ago
    Quoted from pinballtech:

    After over 40 years as a tech I thought I had seen it all, but this takes the cake. Add-ons include relays, wires, beacon, speaker, bells, buzzers, door chime, and the piece de resistance, an old cannister vacuum cleaner under the machine that was also wired in. We spent an hour or two trying to figure it out, but there is so much that has been added to the original wiring it was difficult to "see the light". The guy that did this has passed away so I am on my own here. We are trying to get it going for his daughter, but where do you start? I looked through the notes he had left but there was no clear direction there. Immediate problem is in the scoring, but obviously all these extras were added to that circuitry so the original schematic was no help. Still shaking my head.

    Trophy deserving for sure!!!

    #1427 6 years ago
    Quoted from pinballtech:

    After over 40 years as a tech I thought I had seen it all, but this takes the cake. Add-ons include relays, wires, beacon, speaker, bells, buzzers, door chime, and the piece de resistance, an old cannister vacuum cleaner under the machine that was also wired in. We spent an hour or two trying to figure it out, but there is so much that has been added to the original wiring it was difficult to "see the light". The guy that did this has passed away so I am on my own here. We are trying to get it going for his daughter, but where do you start? I looked through the notes he had left but there was no clear direction there. Immediate problem is in the scoring, but obviously all these extras were added to that circuitry so the original schematic was no help. Still shaking my head.

    Good grief

    If I had that project on my hands, I would try to acquire a copy of that title to compare it to, remove all the extras, and put everything back to the original configuration.

    Yeah, you'd lose all the extras, and I'm sure the daughter would probably want to keep the machine as she remembered it, but without any sort of half way decent documentation, the hours you would have to put into figuring out an elaborate system of hacks like that would be ridiculously high.

    #1428 6 years ago

    That looks like the telephone switchboard at Sam Drucker's General Store in Hooterville. Did Homer Bedloe steal it and disguise it as a Gottlieb pinball machine?

    #1429 6 years ago
    Quoted from pinballtech:

    old cannister vacuum cleaner

    Shaker motor

    #1430 6 years ago
    Quoted from pinballtech:

    After over 40 years as a tech I thought I had seen it all, but this takes the cake. Add-ons include relays, wires, beacon, speaker, bells, buzzers, door chime, and the piece de resistance, an old cannister vacuum cleaner under the machine that was also wired in. We spent an hour or two trying to figure it out, but there is so much that has been added to the original wiring it was difficult to "see the light". The guy that did this has passed away so I am on my own here. We are trying to get it going for his daughter, but where do you start? I looked through the notes he had left but there was no clear direction there. Immediate problem is in the scoring, but obviously all these extras were added to that circuitry so the original schematic was no help. Still shaking my head.

    That is worthy of its own thread.

    #1431 6 years ago

    Crazy!!!

    #1432 6 years ago

    So not even close to worst. But second machine in a row I bought where some idiot put posts in the outlanes. At least on the first one, they used real pin posts. This one they used wood screws with rubber tube and a couple of post rubber rings. Come on people!!!!

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    #1433 6 years ago
    Quoted from pinballtech:

    After over 40 years as a tech I thought I had seen it all, but this takes the cake.

    Awesome hack!

    #1434 6 years ago
    Quoted from DCRand:

    So not even close to worst. But second machine in a row I bought where some idiot put posts in the outlanes. At least on the first one, they used real pin posts. This one they used wood screws with rubber tube and a couple of post rubber rings. Come on people!!!!

    Id they were able to get real pinball rubbers, I don't.comprehend why they wouldn't have at least just used large runbers to go from post on sling to a post on section above and just blocked outlane without damage....and probably would have been less work...

    #1435 6 years ago

    Or rubber bands like from newspapers.

    #1436 6 years ago

    Not a hack, just kind of funny. Can’t find a replacement pinball? Any ol bearing will do apparently...

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    Edit: I think that’s actually the level tilt ball they decided to load in the game.

    #1437 6 years ago

    Some of the hacks that have been posted here look to me like someone had no access to parts (not inconceivable before the internet took hold ) and had to get creative to bring a pin back to life. Other hacks border on lunacy, as if the kid who aways took things apart and never could get them back together grew up and applied his creative skills to a pinball machine.

    And then there are those others that classify as plain old half-assed, piss-poor workmanship. These are the kind of people who you hope don't work on an airplane that you are fixing to go flying on.

    Somehow their shitty work manages to hide in plain sight. They are the small kind of hacks that can leave you scratching your head as you try to find a problem. They are the hacks you stumble into/onto while you are working on your pinball machine and now you have unplanned, unscheduled work that you will have to fix before you can go back together.

    I am reinstalling a CPU PCB on a pin I bought a while back and as I am going back together I see a loose wire swinging in the air. Crap. Where did that wire come from?

    Someone replaced a connector housing and re-pinned the 8 pins that are part of this connector and I shook a wire loose when pulling the CPU.

    i look at the connector and see I have to replace 8 trifurcon pins because someone either someone either did not know what they were doing or did not check their work after they did the job. The result is a lousy crimp job.

    This is hack job. A poor attempt at crimping connectors.

    The gray/blue pin, third from the left already fell out and I have crimped a new pin on. I have 7 more left I need to correct. I have plenty of pictures as I am afraid to breathe. Every one of the remaining wires look like they will pull loose at the slightest movement.

    This is the third pin I have bought where I have had to replace connectors that were not crimped correctly.

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    #1438 6 years ago
    Quoted from merccat:

    Any ol bearing will do apparently...

    It's a power ball!

    #1439 6 years ago
    Quoted from cottonm4:

    This is the third pin I have bought where I have had to replace connectors that were not crimped correctly.

    I suspect they were trying to use plain old wire crimpers instead of the proper tool for the job.

    #1440 6 years ago

    Ironic I just found this topic, cause the fish tales I’m restoring has some terrible wiring harness hackery going on

    https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/fish-tales-wiring-harness-hackery-help

    #1441 6 years ago
    Quoted from Soulrider911:

    Ironic I just found this topic,

    Leave it alone it's supposed to be like that. If you change anything you may be disrupting the space and time continuum.

    #1442 6 years ago
    Quoted from merccat:

    Edit: I think that’s actually the level tilt ball they decided to load in the game.

    It probably is, I've also seen this a few times..

    #1443 6 years ago
    Quoted from pinballtech:

    After over 40 years as a tech I thought I had seen it all, but this takes the cake. Add-ons include relays, wires, beacon, speaker, bells, buzzers, door chime, and the piece de resistance, an old cannister vacuum cleaner under the machine that was also wired in. We spent an hour or two trying to figure it out, but there is so much that has been added to the original wiring it was difficult to "see the light". The guy that did this has passed away so I am on my own here. We are trying to get it going for his daughter, but where do you start? I looked through the notes he had left but there was no clear direction there. Immediate problem is in the scoring, but obviously all these extras were added to that circuitry so the original schematic was no help. Still shaking my head.

    Maybe he was using the vacuum to increase ball speed or even air balls

    #1444 6 years ago
    Quoted from Liftserv:

    Maybe he was using the vacuum to increase ball speed or even air balls

    I would have thought the vacuum was to award a breeze

    #1445 6 years ago
    Quoted from pinballtech:

    After over 40 years as a tech I thought I had seen it all, but this takes the cake. Still shaking my head.

    What game is it?

    2 weeks later
    #1446 6 years ago

    Jersey Jack's Wizard of Oz, now with self-defrosting flipper springs!

    https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/woz-coil-spring-lights-up-lile-heater-coil

    image (resized).jpegimage (resized).jpeg

    #1447 6 years ago
    Quoted from DennisDodel:

    Did this game happen to come from Henry Schwartzman in Corning, NY? He was known for altering pins in crazy ways like this. He once wired up a wedgehead to an old adding machine that would record all of his scores on the paper roll. He was also into old appliances including vacuum cleaners. I immediately thought of Henry when I saw your post. I hope he is still with us.

    This was in Calgary, Alberta up in Canada.

    #1449 6 years ago

    That WOZ cabinet work light mod is awesome...

    #1450 6 years ago

    Out of my T2 that I am restoring.
    What a mess! The guy spent a lot of time doing this hack!

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    There are 4,631 posts in this topic. You are on page 29 of 93.

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