This is our favorite wax we use on these: amzn.to/2xlOmKq If you follow that link to Amazon, anything you buy there (a t.v., bubble gum) pays us a small royalty for sending you there and doesn't raise your prices, thank you for your purchases!
For a long time, I thought I wanted to own an actual pinball machine. After seeing what's inside one of these, even modern ones, I've come to the realization that I would not be able to afford to even repair a junker machine. I'm legally blind, and would have to have a technician come in to service it, to say nothing of the artwork restoration that would have to be done, in some cases. These are truly museum pieces, and they deserve the attention which only someone like yourself is able to provide these amazing works of performing art, and amusement. I know someone who owns one. He tried to shoot a little contact cleaner into switch, WHILST IT WAS ON, and an arc ignited the spray fumes, causing him to be badly burned on his arm. Guess he didn't know about the 70 volts running through that machine. Thanks for the video. Always amazing to see the repair process of vintage arcade machines, and pins. :)
Thanks for watching Thomas... yes contract cleaner can be really dangerous depending on what type it is, people have been conditioned to spray WD-40 and things similar all over metal things and it can catch on fire pretty easy! Thanks for being such a long term viewer! We appreciate it!
Always a pleasure to watch the troubleshoot, repair and refurb videos, especially of the pinball machines. Time to sit down with a cup of coffee or tea and a microwave ready meal (tv dinners for you guys across the pond :) ). Cheers!
Another great video! I would like to add how the end-of-stroke switch works in most if not all EM pinball's. The flipper coil does indeed have two windings. One winding is for the power stroke. It's the heavier gauge wire with less wraps. The other winding is for the hold. It's a thin gauge wire with many wraps. The EOS switch is closed through the stroke of the flip. It's wired to short the hold winding so that only the power winding is used through the flip. At the end of the stroke, the EOS switch opens and adds the hold winding to the power winding in series. When the flipper button is held, both coils are now active in series to keep the flipper energized enough to hold without burning up the coil. You can see how this is wired looking at a schematic diagram. The EOS switch along with the cabinet flipper switch have to be in good shape for good flipper power.
Kevin, I have to say, I've been repairing these for many years and although I know I don't know everything, I have never had anybody properly explain the EOS switch to me until you just did, LOL. It's pretty funny, I had the understanding of basically why you need it and the strong/weak thing right... and I know about the resistance of the wire and that the lower resistance makes it stronger, etc. and the length makes it weaker, etc. but I had never actually thought about them being wired in SERIES instead of in PARALLEL. So I've been thinking about it backwards for 15 years or so.... and nobody ever told me in any of the videos that although I had the gist of it the explanation was completely backwards! I never really paid attention to it on the schematic either, although I've seen it hundreds of times on there. Thank you again for the information, I think I may do a whole video on just that. Pretty wild!
@@LyonsArcadeI didn't expect such a great response. It's really a simple concept when you think about it. Early solid state games worked the same way except they added diodes to protect the bridge rectifier supplying power. Manufacturers also used different configurations but are based on the same concept. Solid State flippers are a different beast adding computer control.
I am honestly a little jealous of your work. I love -tinkering- working with electronics and mechanical systems. But I live in the Netherlands, and just finding one of these machines, either pinball or video arcade machine, especially one in a state that needs extensive repair, is really hard, near impossible. But I have a quantum of solace - your videos. Excellent work and videos man.
I've heard that yes they're hard to find over there! Over here there's still a lot of them floating around, a lot of times they break in someone's game room and end up in the garage for 20 years!
I'm about to buy over 500 dollars worth of stuff for my pool off Amazon. I'll be sure to use your link. And once this lockdown is over I am taking a road trip to some see you and Joe !
What else to say but thanks for another great and highly informative video. I like how consistent you are in most of your videos where you give the same tidbits about what kind of grease to use and how to clean the contacts, etc. Then reading down the comments, I see the answer to why there is an extra screw hole at the bottom, anti-cheat, et-al. I wish I could afford to buy a pinball machine but I guess I'll have to settle for the digital versions using a couple of screens. PS. I just saw the Amazing Spider-Man pinball machine beside the RoGo and I can hardly wait for you to fix it Ron.
I'll take a shot at why they named it Ro Go. Bally couldn't get 'Hagar the Horrible' licensed for a reasonable amount of $$$!! LOL Also, I think Thyra the Valkyrie had enough of Ro Go's shenanigans and left him to join the Gauntlet team. hehehehehehe Joe, thanks for this! I have never seen the pin. Always learning something when I watch this channel!
Looks like a good game. Having one EM at home that I brought back to life (with the help of a few videos that I've see on RU-vid), I really appreciate that you spent the time going through why you looked over every switch, and the problem that you ran into. Best part, "I see a couple of pops here and then....some other stuff [footage of shugging hand gesture]." Looking forward to the next video. I hope things are well with you otherwise.
Looking forward to the next video on this repair. Doing a Gottlieb Paul Bunyan and the score motor keeps going also. Love your videos. I have learned a lot from you already. Thank you!
Love the EM pinball videos, great work, please keep doing them. If I was in the USA you would be doing my bank balance some real damage with those beautiful machines.
Thanks Dave, we will keep doing them..... we appreciate all of yall watching out there! I specifically said "Yall" so you'd get that southern USA flavor :)
Perhaps you know this and just said it strangely, but your meter isn't off by a few tenths of an ohm, you're just seeing the resistance of your meter leads. Those leads typically are about 0.1 ohms each, so 0.2 ohms total. Before I make a low-ohms measurement, I short the tips of the probes together and if I see more than 0.2 or 0.3 ohms, I rotate and wiggle the banana plugs on the meter to minimize the reading. If you want to see if your meter is off, find a short piece of heavy wire and plug it across the two banana jacks right at the meter. You should see 0 ohms.
Not that I don't enjoy your video game videos, but I was so happy to see a new pinball video, always love these :) I was quite surprised at just how much stuff there is under the playfield. I thought it looked quite basic at first, just by looking at the playfield, so is obviously does a lot more than first appears. I'm curious to see how it plays. I'm excited to see the amazing spiderman next door though. I love that game, hope there's a video series coming on that beauty :D
Well damn, I didn't even notice but you're right! I didn't do the playfield, Joe did I'll have to tell him you found out his secret :) He even has the full size rubbers on it!!!!!!!
@@dansledepot107 It drives me crazy too, we're working on a Gottlieb Solar Ride and two of the flippers are Gottlieb, one is a regular... we're definitely going to swap it :)
Thanks Danijel! This is actual an "EM" which would be Electro-mechanical, SS means "Solid State" so it's usually reserved for the early boards with game pcb's but pretty much the new ones would still be Solid State too, lol We'll see you on the next video!
At 5:38 that "extra" hole is for the shipping screw for the bottom panel. Back in those days, Bally installed one or two extra round head Phillips screws in the bottom panel as additional "shipping" security. This is in addition to the regular large hex bolts that hold the bottom panel in place. If you notice, those "extra" holes line up with the cross members of the cabinet. I always remove those shipping screws and throw them away. All that's needed to hold the bottom panel are those two large hex head bolts anyway.
This is my favorite pinball machine repair video so far. You did an excellent job as usual. Was this specific one the most time consuming and difficult pinball or arcade game project you've ever worked on?
It wasn't that bad, there have been some that I had to stop working on for months while I tried to figure out why they weren't working right, and then others that took me just tons of time to work through so this one actually wasn't that bad all things considered! Thanks for watching melanated prose we appreciate it!
At 7:40 that light bulb delay is part of the anti-cheat and anti-slam circuit. If a person beats on the coin door attempting to get free credits, the anti-slam switch closes and energizes the delay relay. The 455 flasher bulb comes on and warms up (about 8 to 10 seconds), then causes the delay relay to drop out (de-energize). Whenever the delay relay is activated, the coin switch circuit is disabled preventing free credits.
Thanks for sharing why Bally put in a tilt delay. I know how it works but I didn't know exactly why it was used. It's the same idea using a #455 for delaying the "over-the-top" buzzer in Captain Fantastic. It's funny what happens when someone puts in a regular #47 bulb!
I've got a Rogo that I haven't even got around to working on yet. All I've done so far is open the coin door and see four broken fuseholders that need to be replaced. Gonna be a while before I work on this machine. I've a dozen other machines to work on first.
Cool video and pinball machine. i don't know why but the character art gives me some original He-Man vibes. Maybe Ro and Go were He-Man's mommy and pappy, so their full names would have been Ro-La and Go-Man. Yes, this is how I will interpret it... it's canon now! :)
on these older machines the wafers separating the points shrink over time, so you may have to verify the screws are tight on the switch stack before checking the spacing between the points.
Me neither! I gave you a shout out in a later video on a pinball machine we filmed the other day, can't remember which one though, LOL It was either on one of these videos for the Ro Go, or we're doing an 'Outer Space" soon too so it may have been on one of those.... thanks for watching Hope we appreciate it!
@@LyonsArcade Awww man,Missed ya dude,but been using this time wisely to sort a few things out...Hope you are all well over there !! ;) sending hugs from england,will go back and take in your videos we missed,and....As always Thank you guys at lyons Arcade for taking the time to film these videos for us !! Greatly appreciated !! x #StaySafe #WWG1WGA ;) x
@@saskia6750 Thanks Hope, take care of yourself over there, stuff is crazy and it's hard to tell what to believe! They shut down the entire economy over here IN ONE WEEK, scary stuff for those of us who aren't into Big Brother. They arrested one guy for SURFING and now they're talking about they might issue certificates that you're immune before they allow you back to work? Strange times!
@@LyonsArcade I hear you loud n clear ;) im just putting my trust in your president and #ThePlan ;) WWG1WGA Never surrender..EVER !! ;) No way would i take a Bill Gates vaccine,I dont think Trump would allow it anyway,its also Crazy over here too :( Please take care and stay safe Everyone here Tuned into the Channel x
Joe's CLassic, thanks for making the video and showing how the relays switches workWhat is the delay relaying used for because it has a light lamp bulb but why did they use a light lamp bulb to delay the relay?
Maybe the creators of Ro Go were enormous fans of Ernest Borgnine's performance in "The Poseidon Adventure" and named the game after his character in the movie. Okay, maybe not. :) Seriously, as much as ICs have allowed us to greatly miniaturize things and could undoubtedly shrink a cabinet full of electromagnetic electrics like this down to PCB the size of a cigarette pack, there's something to be said for the simplicity and approachability of these old systems. Easy enough to make a new spider should a 50 year old one fail, but replacing an IC that's been out of production for 25 years? Good luck.
That could be, I haven't seen the movie yet but i'll have to check it out :) Yeah these things were almost TOO reliable as far as being able to be fixed, they're 50 years old and you can still fix them almost for free.
It is! The other two videos are ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zsts0HC4WNA.html and ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9ONKsjGBE_E.html
Joe's Classic, when you're turning the score motor how do you know which position is the HOME position and witch position is the END of the cycle position?
It does it itself, when one of the relays turns on the score motor, the motor starts turning and holds a switch on itself that keeps itself running. So once the relay turns off, the motor keeps turning until it gets to the home position (which may be the same as end of cycle position, not sure), and then when it gets to that position, the switch opens that was holding itself on, and makes the motor stop right there in that position.
when turning the score motor manually by hand how would you know where the HOME position is? I wonder how the relay that turns on the score motor knows where the HOME position is
I've always thought if someone can come up with a way to reproduce pinball back glass but more like a plastic cling on or stickers. Sort of like side art for arcade games. But too reproduce the back glass without the hassle of trying repaint it. And trying to reproduce the original artwork.
How do those switches get bent, maybe setting the machine up or someone drops something on them. Like an employee working on the game setting his flashlight on them? :P
Thinking of buying another arcade, my 20th. Need for Speed Underground for $250. I could do it, but am currently on standby for work (recent world events). Convince me...
I'd probably not get it at the moment while all this work stuff is up in the air, i'm pretty old-school with money... but if you get the job thing back on track I'd definitely get it for that price, LOL
@@LyonsArcade Ya, i'm pretty much a guaranteed job. I'm the senior tech for a casino, we are scheduled to reopen May 4th. But, that being said, i think i'll wait it out, see if those 'stimulus' checks get in the mail next week. ;)
@@commandtheline They claim it's as good as done but I guess we'll see :) We've already had a customer tell us flat out he bought a game from us because of his stimulus check, LOL
After watching dozen of your pinball repair videos, it got me thinking about the Data East Jurassic Park game I used to play every day after school back in the 90's. Thinking about it so much that I thought "Man, I have a bit of a nest egg built up, maybe I'll buy a machine just to play with in the house." Then I looked up how much those machines are going for, needless to say, I really need to stop watching these pinball videos!
Yeah it's crazy man. You see the work we put into these EM's, we usually buy them broken for $250 or so and after we fix them sell them for $1200.... anything digital is usually $1800 or more, anything with a DMD display is usually $2500 or more, the prices are just getting crazy.
Tried to find the origin of the Ro Go name, only found this one that seems to match "Rogo is an old Italian word that hasn't been used for centuries. It is said to be a person who is very popular and cool and who likes to f..... hot chicks".
