(Topic ID: 28788)
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Quoted from jibmums:Top of a drop target broken off? No problem, just hammer a nail in its place!
My mistake....I forgot, the nail wasn't actually hammered into the remains of the drop target....it was duct taped onto it.
1 week later
1 week later
You'd think it would have been just as easy and less unsightly to rig the start button to provide credits also.
8 months later
Couple of hacks on a recent Centaur I picked up. First, what do you do when you've broken a plastic? Why, you carve a new one by hand and color it in with a black Sharpie marker, of course. I'm replacing all the plastics but if anyone's got a couple of extra bell spacers they can part with, please met me know, as you can see I need them.
Second, here's an "extra" bridge rectifier on the power board. I can only assume the original one went south and the op was too lazy to remove the board to replace it, but this gives me shivers.....I'm actually afraid to power the game on.
Quoted from BJM-Maxx:I had that same rectifier repair on a Xenon I bought. In mine the old one had been removed. I rebuilt the board and put the rectifier back in place but there is nothing wrong with that type of repair. If the rectifier was gooped and secured down properly it would outlast the original. Are you sure the original is still there?
Checked it out, and the original rectifier was indeed removed. Still looks kinda scary though.
2 months later
Quoted from woz:I don't know if this has already been posted here but I just came across this connector nightmare
cpuconnectors.jpg
Here's the original link
http://www.flippers.be/learn.html
You win.
1 week later
Look at the size of those screws! How are they not sticking out of the top of the playfield?!
And what game is that, I don't recognize the flipper/insert layout.
1 month later
1 year later
Quoted from gmkalos:I guess I made some superneard puke off this one lol
The cardboard insulation did make me throw up in my mouth a little.
2 months later
Quoted from pinballdork:Awesome!
I'm not a fan of the face art and wanted to see what it could look like if some of the lines were removed. (just on the computer not on PF)
Nice....now she no longer looks like a 50-year old barfly with leathery skin from chain smoking.
6 months later
1 year later
Not the worst hack ever, but a funny one.... when the transparent blue standup face on my Jackbot broke, a previous owner replaced it with what could only have be a roughly-cut rectangle of plastic from the lid of a Tidy Cats litter container. It perfectly matched the blue color in the visor decal right above it, but it still had to go.
jack (resized).jpg
3 weeks later
Quoted from koen12344:I've recently got this creatively touched up F14 playfield for parts. Yes, that's all under a layer of clearcoat...[quoted image][quoted image]
Misspelled and permanent.....great combination.
no-ragrets-temporary-tattoo-thumb (resized).jpg
1 year later
Quoted from Jahkub:This threaded hook will work for a leg bolt right?
Only if it's on this pin.
hook (resized).jpg 3 months later
Quoted from PinJim:Oh the ways to get free games as a kid...
Back in the day, one of the largest theme parks in the US used tokens for their games. The tokens were very similar to nickels. If you flicked a nickel quickly into the coin mech, it'd pass as a token.
A local bowling alley has a checkpoint that was missing the door on the coin return. A penny could be flicked up into the coin mech and it'd give you credits.
Of course, I never did any of the above! Ha. Kids will do much that we don't do as adults. For example, I bought a shower curtain rod at Home Depot last week and it rang up for 1 penny at the self checkout. I called over the attendant to make sure it was right (she called the manager, and they stuck to the 1 cent price).
I taught my oldest boy (7 years old) how to check coin return slots for abandoned change. He does that now anytime he sees a game. Funny part is, he rarely plays the machines at my house. Hoping that changes as he gets older. I guess Nintendo holds his interest better at this stage in his life.
The Sunrise Mall in Massapequa had a few large "wishing well" fountains when I was a kid. One was above ground and the water was just over two feet deep. I'd roll my sleeve up all the way, wait for the security guard to pass out of sight, then scarf up as much change as possible from the bottom. Mostly pennies but I'd get the occasional nickel or dime, and quarters were like manna from heaven. The Time Out attendants wondered where I'd gotten the twenty five soaking wet pennies I'd give them.
11 months later
4 months later
I love hat tricks! Here's one: how to totally bodge a flipper rebuild in three easy steps:
1. Strip the threads on the base plate's coil stop holes. Cut the end off another base plate and use that underneath it.
2. Use completely wrong screws for EOS switch, one of which is just floating loose in the bracket.
3. Use wingnut to secure flipper bat shaft. Initially I thought this was kind of ingenious, until I realized that to crank the wingnut tight enough that the flipper wouldn't spin, you had to use a pliers on it anyway, thus completely negating the whole point of using a wingnut.
EXTRA FREEBIE!
4. Install one of the coil sleeves backwards.
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1 week later
Quoted from ForceFlow:Allied Leisure flipper mech. The bushing stops the flipper from traveling too far in the resting position. In this case, the bushing had a chunk break off, and the flipper then could travel too far. Someone's solution as to stick a drill bit in the mech to stop that from happening.
[quoted image]
Is it just me or is that a lot of pink in the wiring? I can just see the confusing schematics -
Pink wire with lavender stripe
Magenta wire with rose stripe
Fuschia wire with peach stripe
Cerise wire with salmon stripe.....
Just pulled the drop target mech from my STTNG and I'm horrified. Is there a prize for greatest number of botched hacks to a single mech? Let's take a closer look.
1. Base: Screws to attach mech to playfield replaced with much longer screws. Didn't bother using the holes in the base for one since it would involve the trouble of feeding the nut driver around some wires, so screwed down the outside corner of the base in a new angled hole instead.
2. Microswitch: not quite sure what's going on here. Wrong switch entirely, swapped in from who-knows-where; a toaster perhaps? Looks like it's attached to the mech with some random bent/unbent scrap of metal, and by a single screw, plus it's still got a clipped wire attached to it, which may or may not be from this game.
3. Reset plate: let's replace this with a key! Maybe it's the key to the coindoor lock that I had to drill to get into the machine.
4. Target knockdown assembly: coil is missing entirely, and actuator arm is strangely bent, perhaps to keep the target from moving at all. Not that that could possibly happen with this mech.
5. Target: swapped in from a Terminator 2! Maybe the whole mech was swapped in from a Terminator 2 to replace a worse mech, but again, I can't see how that's possible. Spring has been pulled out of shape. And then there's the missing plastic ledge that the face of the target rides against on its way down, not that this one ever goes down. Looks like something that may have once been a pop bumper fiber yoke has been cut down and hot glued in its place.
6: Coil stop: One of the studs has been sheared off entirely. No problem, one stud will do, especially if we install the coil stop loosely and at an angle.
Fortunately the fix for this mess will be quite easy, just buy an entirely new one. Bright side: I now have a replacement drop target for my T2 with a relatively nice decal, should that one ever break.
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Quoted from Mageek:Excellent , love the Key.... I think that is the switch from my washing machine lid interlock ... Big question , was the Tie Back mod done on it ....
Quoted from ajfclark:Keep in mind too, this vibration ridden mech is where they decided to attached the tieback line that stops the aux board exploding...
Discussion: http://www.pinballrevolution.com/threads/13-sttng-tie-back-mod-best-way.3954/
Not the first mentions I've seen of this mysterious "tie back mod". Before I delve into your link later, perhaps a terse summation of what exactly it is?
Quoted from ajfclark:The aux board should only really have had flashers hanging off it. Because they put coils on it, there is the usual DC feedback from the coils as the magnetic field collapses.
There needs to be a diode in the circuit etc to protect the transistors. Sadly, rather than do something in the backbox, they used a thin wire from the coil of the single drop reset back to the boards. If that wire vibrates off, you loose all your protection for your transistors on the aux board. They get fried, lock on, and your subway gets toasted.
Picture for 1000 words:
[quoted image]
Much discussion: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/sttng-tieback
My brand new subway that I just bought? Hell if I'm gonna let that happen. Thanks for the info.
So, the finished mod should look like the diagram on the right, right?
2 weeks later
Quoted from pinballinreno:Every pinball machine needs:
Tape
Drywall screws
Wire-nuts
nails
keys
paper clips
wire ties
rubberbands
Or they wont work right.
Duct tape
Removal of the ground prong from the plug
1 month later
Quoted from Billc479:Gee - I wonder if this is why my solenoids sometimes seem weak on my Centaur.
(BR2)
[quoted image][quoted image]
That's not a bridge rectifier, that's a bridge rectifier's little sister.
9 months later
Quoted from aamauzy:The electrical tape.... In the words of Derek from Vice Grip Garage while evaluating a vintage vehicle he's rescuing "...well this looks like I've already worked on it..."
His videos are hilarious!
7 months later
Quoted from haveaniceswim:[quoted image]
If John Carpenter's "The Thing" was a coil lug.
3 weeks later
Quoted from ajfclark:My STTNG had one of these too. Way more resilient than the original part and a fraction of the cost, some I'm not sure it qualifies as a "Worst hack/repair you ever saw [sic]".
+1 for an STTNG "key" drop mech. That wasn't the only thing egregious with mine though, the entire thing was a complete train wreck.
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