I don’t know a thing about electronics, except for basic soldering. I was born in 66 and grew up on EM then solid state machines. I LOVED arcades and I love watching you work on and explaining what you’re doing. Systematic troubleshooting. And listening to the sounds of the machines are a hell of a memory jogger. Thanks man!
I was at a local pinball "arcade" recently and thy had an old EM machine. I never was a fan of EM's until watching you and your true admiration for the engineering (and art) that went into those machines. I thoroughly enjoyed playing that thing! the bells and clicks etc... AWESOME! Ron, you do this hobby a great service!
We haven't heard from George in quite a while; good that he could get involved. The magical fading coloured wires... or that's how they appear to me anyway are an extra level of challenge.
I remember you fixing this one up. You were really thorough on the score rails and switches. Not sure what happened. Maybe the weak spring was an issue and the person messed around with a few things before coming to you to fix it. I can't imagine you missed anything first time round. Some great troubleshooting there and a nice quick repair. I appreciate you taking the time to "film" this as I know it would have taken less than half the time if you didn't "film" it.
Thank you so much for this video. I've been having trouble with my Fast Draw not quite score 500 points on 3 out of the 4 100 point reels. Now I think I know where to look. That tension bar on the reels. I'll take a look and see and report back. Thanks again for doing this video.
There’s an old joke which goes “How do you fix an EM pinball machine?” ….. Drive it around the block. ….. or you can take it to Ronnie, and he’ll make it an offer it can’t refuse. … really useful video, as a majority of issues with EMs are to do with the score reels. Keep explaining it Ronnie. I do my best to stay with you.
good job. with the resetting problem I would have pulled the jones plugs from the table and back box while it was resetting to see if the fault was in the backbox or playfield as a quick test to localize where the error might be real quick. I don't like to tighten springs too often, I usually think the sleeve might be worn or a little gummed. If I get it real clean then I put a little graphite into it to see if that loosens it up enough. just my different approach
I love my EM machines but they are frequently in need of minor adjustments. I love fixing them. But if I needed a tech to come out the rate is $100/hr plus $50/hr drive time. Don't think owning an EM is smart idea for someone that cannot fix them. Keep up the good work.
Nice job tackling a em pinball you made it fun fixing it. Much better then Clayton Harrell of Michigan who does em game videos who insults others and people who use wd 40 for luburcation use.
Rather than cutting the spring, you can lock a section of it together (with a wire, for example) so that it doesn't separate, thereby affectively shortening the spring. P.S. The beauty of doing it this way is you can adjust it or even remove it.
If you want a vacuum for the shop...try finding one of those 1930s Air-Way uprights and make some bags for it. An old friend who passed away last year had one in his shop which still worked.
I've got a Big Shot -- the 4 player version of Hot Shot -- and I can confirm... the drop target reset is pretty loud. I've startled multiple people by turning it on with the with the glass off.
So, speaking as a small business owner - Was this a FREE warrantee repair, or was a new repair bill generated? In my mind, or at my shop - the customer would be paying for repairs again (as well as pick up and delivery) ALSO: when you discover and show the 2 red wires that were off and you had to fetch a different blade to solder them onto, (at the 47:51 mark) I notice a rather large Burnt spot a few inches up from the end on both red wires......
We did charge them for this repair, but very little, we basically just charged them for parts and a little bit for labor, it was about a fifth of the original charge (and they brought it to us and picked it up). That little burnt spot i'm not sure what happened there but it was still insulated.
In the spring world I used to work at a place called Steedly spring, that made all sorts of different Springs compression retention etc etc on a retention spring they are determined by the hook the size and how many rounds, and yes there is a chart that exists in the spring world that shows you a formula how much retention X-length X wire size X rounds etc etc so you would be cutting out a couple of rounds and adding a hook
Kim is basically saying that the strength has lessened because of the age of the spring, it's weaker now than it was originally so he cuts a ring or two off and makes a new hook to make it slightly stronger, hopefully back how it originally was.
Saludos hermano, confío mucho en todo lo que haces. Tengo un problema con mi máquina y es que no me quiere marcar la puntuación. Me podrías decir a qué se debe o como repararlo.
Lest we forget…Use the Amazon links in this video to buy Zig’s books! I don’t think Ron would mind. (You probably won’t find one of ‘those’ vacuums here.)
I noticed those heavy reset coils are powered on the primary side of the transformer. That means they are power directly from 120 vols not the 48 volts like the rest of the coils.
Whenever I look at these old electro-mechanical pinball machines, I always wonder about the design process. The artists probably came up with the concept and then the engineers had to make the design work and come up with a mix of "standard" and "custom" bits, and also figure out how these will be assembled, etc. Very complicated process for something that wasn't done on a computer screen.
It is amazing what people could do without electronics. IBM made a Selectric typewriter with proportional spacing for cold-type composition, and it was all electro-mechanical and packed into the same size case as the regular model. It was amazing to look at the insides.
They use the 5 cam, and then open up switches on the other cams to cancel two of them. it's the craziest design ever. It hits the first one, then the second one another switch is wired in line and it opens at the same time the second one hits, so it doesn't score. Then it hits the third one, another switch opens for the fourth one to cancel it out, and then it hits the fifth one. I'm going to show how it works on a Target Alpha that we're filming at the moment, it'll be out in a month or so.
@@LyonsArcade Awesome.. Looking forward to it.. That's kind of how I expected you'd say it worked, but wow... That's complex! Surprised they didn't just put in a cam w/ 3 closures, and/or change the rules of the game and just make it 5k! :-) This was good timing - I have an opportunity to buy one of these machines and spent a couple hours checking out your videos on it today.. Looks like a fun game, even though I'm partial to Williams and Bally.. Thanks as always for a great video!!
Guy brought in his pinball machine about 2 years ago with broken field glass and all four legs broken. I thought it just was damaged in a move or something, turns out he thought he was being robbed and it actually was cops serving a warrant in a wrong house because he just bought the house a week earlier and it turns out he was tossed across the room on top of the machine nearly 10 feet due to him being 5'9" and 150lb. He's now in a wheelchair with a maximum amount of a lawsuit to the city capped at 10k so he wanted to make sure his game got fixed, I did it for free, poor bastard
Gottlieb's horrible back glass strikes again. The playfield looks great on this game, the back glass is a wreck. Did Gottlieb make these things with disappearing ink? Still very nice for a '73.
It can be done, but it's hard to get the new paint to be the same translucence as the original paint, so you see all of the touchups.... here's a video we did on it : ruclips.net/video/Jmz5rHvJLl4/видео.html
Still, that deafening buzz sounds like worse than a loose coil and more like a relay that is actually oscillating. And if that's the case, there is probably at least one set of contacts that won't last long.
I don’t know a thing about electronics, except for basic soldering. I was born in 66 and grew up on EM then solid state machines. I LOVED arcades and I love watching you work on and explaining what you’re doing. Systematic troubleshooting. And listening to the sounds of the machines are a hell of a memory jogger. Thanks man!
I was at a local pinball "arcade" recently and thy had an old EM machine. I never was a fan of EM's until watching you and your true admiration for the engineering (and art) that went into those machines. I thoroughly enjoyed playing that thing! the bells and clicks etc... AWESOME!
Ron, you do this hobby a great service!
09:11
"As the score motor turns"
My favorite soap show from the 70's. 🤪
Like sands through the hourglass..so are the days of our lives
We haven't heard from George in quite a while; good that he could get involved. The magical fading coloured wires... or that's how they appear to me anyway are an extra level of challenge.
All that EM soot collects on those cloth insulated wires. I missed the smell of that EM soot when the machines went solid state.
George is always sneaking around
Any ink is invisible ink if you wait long enough... or is it?
I remember you fixing this one up. You were really thorough on the score rails and switches. Not sure what happened. Maybe the weak spring was an issue and the person messed around with a few things before coming to you to fix it. I can't imagine you missed anything first time round.
Some great troubleshooting there and a nice quick repair. I appreciate you taking the time to "film" this as I know it would have taken less than half the time if you didn't "film" it.
Great work. 🏆
Thanks so much for sharing. 😉👌🏻
Thank you so much for this video. I've been having trouble with my Fast Draw not quite score 500 points on 3 out of the 4 100 point reels. Now I think I know where to look. That tension bar on the reels. I'll take a look and see and report back. Thanks again for doing this video.
Thank you for watching, you'll get it!
There’s an old joke which goes “How do you fix an EM pinball machine?” ….. Drive it around the block.
….. or you can take it to Ronnie, and he’ll make it an offer it can’t refuse. … really useful video, as a majority of issues with EMs are to do with the score reels. Keep explaining it Ronnie. I do my best to stay with you.
One of my all-time favourite machines! Good job.
good job. with the resetting problem I would have pulled the jones plugs from the table and back box while it was resetting to see if the fault was in the backbox or playfield as a quick test to localize where the error might be real quick. I don't like to tighten springs too often, I usually think the sleeve might be worn or a little gummed. If I get it real clean then I put a little graphite into it to see if that loosens it up enough. just my different approach
I love my EM machines but they are frequently in need of minor adjustments. I love fixing them. But if I needed a tech to come out the rate is $100/hr plus $50/hr drive time. Don't think owning an EM is smart idea for someone that cannot fix them. Keep up the good work.
Wow! That’s what makes the EMs unique from the SS machines
Chasing “fixes” of the uninitiated is always the funnest part of machine repair.
What a beautiful piece.
Big Shot is such a great machine. Simple but quite addictive gameplay
Love that table, back in the day we had one in a little pizza joint a few miles from my house....I spent many hours beating that sweet machine 🙂
Very cool, maybe this is the same cabinet :)
Honestly, I would think stuff would get messed up during transport more often on those old electro-mechanical machines
We usually are pretty lucky, plus the guy got it home and it worked for awhile...
great video Joe!!
Thank you Todd! Hope you folks are doing well!
@@LyonsArcade Hey Joe...Things are just Booming! We are so busy! Thanks for asking
Really enjoyed Thanks, can we have a tour of your shop one day
Have the same one at home still plays great
Nice job tackling a em pinball you made it fun fixing it. Much better then Clayton Harrell of Michigan who does em game videos who insults others and people who use wd 40 for luburcation use.
Great work, facinating fault finding, I would love to have ago myself. Keep up the great vids
Rather than cutting the spring, you can lock a section of it together (with a wire, for example) so that it doesn't separate, thereby affectively shortening the spring.
P.S. The beauty of doing it this way is you can adjust it or even remove it.
If you want a vacuum for the shop...try finding one of those 1930s Air-Way uprights and make some bags for it. An old friend who passed away last year had one in his shop which still worked.
Nice one. I think, I've missed some videos, 'cause I took ill.
Glad to have you back on your feet!
Thanks Ron!
I've got a Big Shot -- the 4 player version of Hot Shot -- and I can confirm... the drop target reset is pretty loud. I've startled multiple people by turning it on with the with the glass off.
Somebody else was pointing out that they're 120 coils, plus there's FOUR of them, pretty wild!
the complaint is it won't score the thousands reel. Yet when you turn it on, it's broke! As Joe would say...
So, speaking as a small business owner - Was this a FREE warrantee repair, or was a new repair bill generated? In my mind, or at my shop - the customer would be paying for repairs again (as well as pick up and delivery)
ALSO: when you discover and show the 2 red wires that were off and you had to fetch a different blade to solder them onto, (at the 47:51 mark) I notice a rather large Burnt spot a few inches up from the end on both red wires......
We did charge them for this repair, but very little, we basically just charged them for parts and a little bit for labor, it was about a fifth of the original charge (and they brought it to us and picked it up). That little burnt spot i'm not sure what happened there but it was still insulated.
@@LyonsArcade I gave you a thumbs up for taking the trouble to reply. You didn't have to do that ;)
In the spring world I used to work at a place called Steedly spring, that made all sorts of different Springs compression retention etc etc on a retention spring they are determined by the hook the size and how many rounds, and yes there is a chart that exists in the spring world that shows you a formula how much retention X-length X wire size X rounds etc etc so you would be cutting out a couple of rounds and adding a hook
Kim is basically saying that the strength has lessened because of the age of the spring, it's weaker now than it was originally so he cuts a ring or two off and makes a new hook to make it slightly stronger, hopefully back how it originally was.
Saludos hermano, confío mucho en todo lo que haces.
Tengo un problema con mi máquina y es que no me quiere marcar la puntuación. Me podrías decir a qué se debe o como repararlo.
Nice job . I can hear that one has loads of mech noise. Made me wanna run for cover with ear buds in
To think that all of those switches and relays now fit into a chip the size of a postage stamp is mind boggling.
Morning Ron
Good morning Dano!
OMG I WANT THAT COMET!
Coming soon!
Ron talking about Zig Ziglar selling vacuums door to door. Another reason to subscribe to the channel…. Come On People!
Zig was the man!
Lest we forget…Use the Amazon links in this video to buy Zig’s books! I don’t think Ron would mind. (You probably won’t find one of ‘those’ vacuums here.)
I noticed those heavy reset coils are powered on the primary side of the transformer. That means they are power directly from 120 vols not the 48 volts like the rest of the coils.
Yup and there's two on each one, loud as hell!
@@LyonsArcade
💥🤟🤪🤟💥
Too LOUD.
Too OLD!
Whenever I look at these old electro-mechanical pinball machines, I always wonder about the design process. The artists probably came up with the concept and then the engineers had to make the design work and come up with a mix of "standard" and "custom" bits, and also figure out how these will be assembled, etc. Very complicated process for something that wasn't done on a computer screen.
It is amazing what people could do without electronics. IBM made a Selectric typewriter with proportional spacing for cold-type composition, and it was all electro-mechanical and packed into the same size case as the regular model. It was amazing to look at the insides.
Hey Ron!!
Hey Jason!
54:00 ok, Ill check out the full game play video on the big shot... 2 years ago
I remember playing this in a pinball simulator.
That's pretty cool they would do a kind of obscure title
Farsight's "The Pinball Arcade" used to have it.
On the 3000 point bonus, I didn't see any switches on the cam that had 3 cycles.. How is it scoring 3x per light when it's in 3000 mode?
They use the 5 cam, and then open up switches on the other cams to cancel two of them. it's the craziest design ever. It hits the first one, then the second one another switch is wired in line and it opens at the same time the second one hits, so it doesn't score. Then it hits the third one, another switch opens for the fourth one to cancel it out, and then it hits the fifth one.
I'm going to show how it works on a Target Alpha that we're filming at the moment, it'll be out in a month or so.
@@LyonsArcade Awesome.. Looking forward to it.. That's kind of how I expected you'd say it worked, but wow... That's complex! Surprised they didn't just put in a cam w/ 3 closures, and/or change the rules of the game and just make it 5k! :-) This was good timing - I have an opportunity to buy one of these machines and spent a couple hours checking out your videos on it today.. Looks like a fun game, even though I'm partial to Williams and Bally.. Thanks as always for a great video!!
Guy brought in his pinball machine about 2 years ago with broken field glass and all four legs broken. I thought it just was damaged in a move or something, turns out he thought he was being robbed and it actually was cops serving a warrant in a wrong house because he just bought the house a week earlier and it turns out he was tossed across the room on top of the machine nearly 10 feet due to him being 5'9" and 150lb. He's now in a wheelchair with a maximum amount of a lawsuit to the city capped at 10k so he wanted to make sure his game got fixed, I did it for free, poor bastard
Gottlieb's horrible back glass strikes again. The playfield looks great on this game, the back glass is a wreck. Did Gottlieb make these things with disappearing ink? Still very nice for a '73.
Silkscreen with no clear coat. Without the clear coat it just flakes off.
Williams can be just as bad if not worse.
Note! “It’s fixed. Then it’s broke”
Yup!
I have Big Shot as one of the available tables in Pinball Arcade on my Android tablet.
That's cool that they make such an obscure title for it!
Any way to touch up the back glass, or just leave it alone?
It can be done, but it's hard to get the new paint to be the same translucence as the original paint, so you see all of the touchups.... here's a video we did on it : ruclips.net/video/Jmz5rHvJLl4/видео.html
I love pinball machine, but I think if I got one , my neighbours would complain about the noise
Owwww my poor wittle ears!!! Hahaha noise happens people deal with it!! 😆
Still, that deafening buzz sounds like worse than a loose coil and more like a relay that is actually oscillating. And if that's the case, there is probably at least one set of contacts that won't last long.
You think so ?
You better watch for copyright issues, I think that's how Mambo #5 starts lol
Won Too Three Fo Fie
Wait, my local pinball repair has a huge youtube channel?
Where Have You Been?????!!!!!?????
Another Broke one?
No! The SAME Broke one!
A comeback!
Uh Oh, Uh Oh!
"Music to my ears" That would be the Sound of Silence?
I once bought sand from Zig while I was walking in the desert.
Zig is still selling me stuff and he's been dead for 5 years!
You know, these videos go faster if you play a soundtrack in the background, People!
(I listened to Lupin III tracks while watching this fixer-up.)
RUclips are your mental Sick ? ever 5 minutes interruption with double ads in this Video, ZWELVE TIMES for 58 minutes...
They do them every 8 minutes, kind of like how t.v. commercials used to be
"Pinball traveller" lol
:)
Oh no not schematics time again😂
If Zig Zeigler came knocking on my door I'd run like hell, he's been dead for 10 years
Hello
Yodelayheehoo
You think so?
Yodelay Hee Hoo Lil Everette!
Tech tip. 💥
Plug the machine into a REMOTE PLUG OUTLET.
Did Joe leave you a note that it was broke?
Yes of course he did!
My God, that's an annoying sound. You did warn us though
spamton likes this one
MACH 3, Mad Planets, Q*bert, Reactor …
dropped a dime in ? lol god you ARE old! lol jk
Hate "boomerang repairs"...