New! The Dumbass Industrial Average

Today we're starting the Dumbass Industrial Average, a measure of how much of a dumbass I am to have bought so much stuff lately. Basically, I'm going to take what I payed for the playfield lot ($332) and the new Doctor Who ($202+$25 for gas), subtract the theoretical value I've received ($25/playfield and $50 for the Dalek head, respectively) and created an index based on the money I get from selling the remaining parts on eBay. So basically, anything below 50 means I'm a loser and above 100 means I am a canny businessperson. We're starting at 0, but since the DW translite sold last night for $75, it should go up to about 17 soon. Just to keep up my momentum, I posted the under playfield ramp that cleaned up so nicely and the Solenoid Expander board from Fathom that has heat damage but works. I need to sell a bunch of stuff so I'll have some money to throw about recklessly at Pinball Wizards in May.

Over the weekend I ended up doing more with DW than I had planned. I poked around at the 10 switch Opto board on account of the three optos misbehaving (two of the mini-playfield gray targets and the Tardis popper switch. The board checked out OK, so I started playing with the Tardis popper. When I unhooked the optos and put them face to face, they worked fine, so I reinstalled them. I did bend the receiver slightly so it was straighter, and that appeared to have done the trick... the Tardis popper now correctly detects the ball and pops it up, complete with the Tardis sound! The two gray targets are going to have to wait, because all the wiring for them is hidden behind the mini-playfield. I'll probably be taking it out soon to seat the gray target bank properly, because it's loose and won't tighten (which is what causes it to fall back slightly, leaving the gap that the ball gets caught in). I also squirted some WD-40 on the post of the outhole kicker, which fixed its sticking problem very nicely.

My wife helped me put the new DW up on legs, which makes it easier to disassemble, which I did to a certain extent yesterday. Here we have a picture of the two games side by side. You can really see the red in the new game, plus some of the challenges in restoring the cabinet (remove the tape, repair/fill wear, etc.). You can also see more puzzling evidence, the plug on the power cord, which has three horizontal prongs... I guess it's foreign, but I've never seen one like it.

I was feeling a little frisky, so I wired the Dalek head in the new game to the old game, creating a bizarre freak of nature... Siamese twins joined at the Dalek wires, one twin alive and the other being harvested for parts to keep its sibling alive. While wiring, I found something weird... the connectors for the old game don't match the new games... the plug for the Dalek's GI is normal, but instead of a two pin plug driving the flashers in the Dalek head, the two wires end in a six pin plug. There is also a mysterious two pin plug that I can't figure out. I plugged the flashers into two of the pins of the six pin plug and it works fine, but I don't know what those extra wires do. Trying to trace them was a lost cause, so I'll just wait until the boards move into the new cabinet and hunt them down then. The only thing I can think of is that the old game's connectors are for the prototype game with the moving Dalek head... this would be cool, but what little doc I could find didn't jibe with what I was seeing in the game. Plus the motor and boards would cost another $250. feh.

On the left is a pic of the new game's playfield before I started disassembly. You can see that it's absolutely filthy... every time I go near it I attract fine particulate dust, like a Pin Pig Pen. It's missing the main ramp -- the expensive one -- and has two major wear spots, on the Master and by the upper left flipper. To the right is the under playfield, with the Dalek head visible at the top. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a big demand for light boards on eBay, and I think I've already got a full set... mostly, people want the sockets. There's also the 10 Switch Opto board, but I don't know what those go for or if they readily fail. Yesterday I removed the plastics, the right ramp, and the mini-playfield... they'll all need to be cleaned within an inch of their lives and sold. I also need to scan the Who-mobile sticker on the ramp, since my ramps don't have that.

Finally, I had to sneak in this link: The Beatles performing on Doctor Who in 1965! Apparently, the BBC tossed the original tape of the show, so this is pretty rare. They should have taken the fourth Doctor's advice and never thrown anything out.

And finally again, last weekend my wife and I struggled Quicksilver out of the basement and into the living room, where it is currently waiting to get properly leveled. Here is our cat Rosie enjoying it. It was a tough slog, because I found out after we got it onto the carport that our door isn't wide enough to get the head in. We ended up having to rotate it in.

I'm sure there's more but I can't think of anything else, but it's after midnight and I've got to work tomorrow. eep!