While I was driving back and my wife was kind of dozing, I made a mental list of the things I need to fix on T2. I picked T2 because the other games either have something really big wrong with them or need a lot of work, whereas T2 made for a very concise list:
- Fix the lamp column problem
- The kickback aim seems to be off, sometimes allowing balls to drain while its impotently kicking at them
- Bottom jet bumper doesn't work
- Ameliorate the ridge on the playfield in the left orbit, which seems to be interfering with balls
- Adjust flippers
- Fix Hunter/Killer Jackpot lamps
- Start button light is out (I wasn't sure about this during my drive, but it turns out to have been true)
- Fix flaw around edge of autofire hot dog insert
- Fix flaw on front of cabinet
- Try to do something about lines that are out on DMD
- Clean start button
Next up was the start button. Did the obvious stuff like checking the bulb and where the wires were going to the coin door interface board. Everything looked fine, but it was getting late so I left it disconnected (and played a few games, so I had to open the coin door to press the start button :P ).
Tuesday night I skipped volunteering at the museum because I was sort of fed up with pinball, but I continued to work on the T2 start button. Since the cabinet area seemed OK, I took a look in the backbox to see if anything was up there, and there was something in the Up position: Following the interboard wiring table (not as nice as the diagrams in the Doctor Who and later manuals, but in this case serviceable), there is supposed to be a 3 pin socket in J136 with one cabinet lamp wire going into it and another in J135. On my game there was no socket at J135 and two wires attached to J136, one of them somewhat haphazardly as though it had been stuck there because there was no place else to put it. That, of course, turned out to be the wire that was supposed to be in J135. Not having any .1" sockets (pins? yes. hole plugs? yes. sockets? no. sheesh) I just alligator clipped the wire to the proper pin, yielding a working start button! It was at this point that I added the last item to my list, because the button plastic was a sickly yellow.
Next I decided to look at the dead bumper. My first guess proved incorrect since the switch test showed that the switch was working fine. But the solenoid test showed that it didn't work, and in fact just clicked demurely instead of a full-bodied whack. I'm not really a pop bumper expert, but comparing it to the working bumpers showed that the metal and bakelite pieces that connect the plunger to the bumper ring was not doing any connecting. The two pieces are supposed to come together around the neck of the plunger like a pillory; however, both pieces were facing the same direction, allowing the plunger to get out of the stocks and wander around rather than being pelted with rotten vegetables like it should. So I disassembled it, reassembled it correctly, and it worked perfectly. Now the action in El Bumperino borders on insane... my bonus multiplication has at least doubled since I fixed the bumper.
Finally on Wednesday night I tackled the jaundiced start button. When I disassembled the button to try to clean it, the plastic with the text on it crumbled. I tried to use a spare button from one of the Doctor Who cabs, but there was some reason I didn't, like maybe it didn't fit or something. So I printed out the word START 3/4" wide on paper, cut a circular piece and put that in where the plastic was. It looked fine and I like the white better than yellow because it suits the game better... though I do notice the grain of the paper, so I may need to replace it with something a little more uniform than 20 lb printer paper. The only problem I ran into was when I put it back together the button would go in but not pop out. After some trouble shooting I found that in prying up the outer plastic I had deformed it, and that was rubbing against the sides of the button housing. I filed off the rough edges and now it works.
And that's what I've done so far with T2. During idle time watching TV, I've been slowly clearing stuff away from and off of the Doctor Whos in preparation for preparing to do the cabinet swap, and last night I put the new cabinet up on legs and repositioned the old one where I can hopefully get to the parts easily.
I was planning to do a lot more pin-related stuff this weekend, but I found out a few weeks ago that stalwart personal finance manager Quicken, which I've been using for 15 years but has pretty much abandoned the Mac, will not run under the new version of the Mac OS. After years of neglect -- and lagging about 3 years behind the PC feature set, which I guess makes the current version on par with Quicken 2004 for PC -- this was the last straw, so I downloaded iBank, a Mac-only product. Basically I got sucked in for two days and actually enjoyed paying my bills in software that functions... the joy of being able to cut, copy, and paste text reliably made me lose track of time. Sorry, Quicken, I'm just not Intuit any more.
And how could I have forgotten this? Before I left for PAPA, somebody pointed out that a picture of my daughter and I graced a pinball article in The USA Today! At first they said I was on the cover, but it turns out I was on page three. I am pointing at a nondescript part of the playfield in Creature (maybe the Snackbar?). The guy took the picture on a day when I'd gone to pick up my daughter from work, but I'd pretty much forgotten about it until the article appeared. The article was sitting out on the desk at PAPA, though I don't think anybody recognized me. :( The most unfortunate outcome? An inmate serving 18 years for dealing crack sent my daughter a letter saying he'd really like to get to know her... and he should be eligible for parole by 2014! What a catch. Does this happen every time you appear in the newspaper? If so, ew!
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