It’s not such a mean pinball.
Executive Editor Lee Teschler speaks with professional pinball player John Replogle about flippers, pop bumpers, and how to keep score without solid state logic.
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Seth says
Older pinball machines used electromechanical counters, solenoids, & relays to work the machine & keep score, with the scores displayed on mechanical devices similar to a car’s odometer, except the 1s, 10s, 100s, 1000s rollers could be accessed by various relays, and pulses to kick the 100s reel 5x for a 500 point score. Some of the machines would pulse the 1s column 1000x, but that wore out the mechanism rather quickly. Newer machines went to LED displays. Same basic TTL or even relay logic is used to tally the score. There are loads of solenoids in a pinball machine and loads of #47 6.3 volt lamps. New machines use LEDs which do not need replacing like the old lamps did. I would, could, and can fix about anything. I used to have three pieces of 4×8 foot peg board to lay out wiring harnesses for pinball machines, or cars & trucks for that matter. The older machines had an adjustment on the tilt mechanism, so we could set it to be more or less sensitive. The lower the pendulum set on the rod, the more aggressively you could shake the machine around. We could keep track of the money coming into the machines, and if we started loosing money, we might make the tilt setting more sensitive. Eventually we would swap out the machine for a different one, and that usually worked best. I did pinball machine repairs as a sideline to automation, and control work in factories, processing plants, etc. I love the old machines!! I also like the early 2nd generation video games too. The more tactile the better! Centipede with the trackball was great fun. I just don’t have the room to be repairing guitar amplifiers, juke boxes, and pinball machines right now, but hopefully, I will get set up in a semi-rural area, and then I can use my box truck & lift gate to make the rounds, and pick up repairs from 10 or 12 cities, fix them, then return the items repaired or fully restored,