# TOPCast 16: Tech show

**Source:** TOPCast - This Old Pinball  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2007-03-18  
**Duration:** 62m 0s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** http://www.pinrepair.com/topcast/showget.php?id=16

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## Analysis

TOPCast 16 is a technical-focused episode featuring Eric A. as a guest tech advisor alongside host Shaggy. The show includes comedic segments with a character named Mort delivering pinball news, a competitive player discussion on Black Rose/Pirates of the Caribbean strategy, a "game of the week" segment featuring Bonzai Run, and extensive technical repair walkthroughs covering Monster Bash optic switch diagnostics and System 80 speaker connector issues.

### Key Claims

- [MEDIUM] Eric A. owns approximately 1400 pinball machines — _Shaggy states this jokingly during the Bonzai Run gameplay segment, though Eric disputes his playing ability and denies the ability claim._
- [MEDIUM] Spider-Man (implied upcoming Stern title) exists and Eric acquired one — _Eric mentions getting a Spider-Man in his pickup truck acquired through Ken D.Bull for $375; Mort also references 'Spider-Man game coming out next' in the news update segment_
- [LOW] Monty Python pinball game is rumored to be in development — _Mort's satirical news segment: 'rumors have it that there's going to be a monkey python game now'_
- [HIGH] Black Rose is a novelty game with limited strategic depth compared to Pirates of the Caribbean — _Trent, a professional player (4th in world), states during play-of-the-week segment: 'I would consider it a sleeper... Not a lot of flow' and 'I don't think it's that good of a competition game'_
- [HIGH] Bonzai Run (1988 Williams, Pat Lawler design) is currently undergoing playfield restoration — _Shaggy states his owned Bonzai Run's playfield is being fixed by 'Playfield Renovations' and notes another operator had attempted work before returning it due to complexity_

### Notable Quotes

> "They realized that it was above and beyond their abilities and they sent it back to me free of charge. So they did handle it in a very professional business-like manner."
> — **Shaggy**, ~45:00
> _Describes professional conduct in pinball service industry when work exceeds capability_

> "You're supposed to lock one ball, lock the second ball, start most ball, every shot gives you two ship letters... I like to just collect letters for as long as possible."
> — **Trent (Professional Player)**, ~30:00
> _Reveals optimal multi-ball strategy for Black Rose scoring that differs from designer intent_

> "I listen for it every week and I only hear me whenever I want to hear me. And I don't even know when they're gonna be on because they never tell me."
> — **Mort**, ~10:00
> _Satirical comedy bit establishing Mort's character confusion about show scheduling_

> "So I know that the 8 rows and 8 columns are working so I know that it's nothing on the CPU board so it's got to be something between the CPU board and that transmitter."
> — **Eric A.**, ~95:00
> _Demonstrates systematic switch matrix diagnostics methodology on System 80 platform_

> "When you see the ball drain really quick, that's going to be Eric when you see a train... well, he's not playing it just yet on the webcam, but he's going to be."
> — **Shaggy**, ~42:00
> _Sets up comedic expectation for live gameplay demonstration_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Eric A. | person | Guest technical advisor on TOPCast; pinball machine collector and repair expert; demonstrates technical diagnostics and gameplay on Bonzai Run |
| Shaggy | person | Co-host of TOPCast; leads technical show episode; owns Bonzai Run undergoing restoration |
| Norm | person | Regular TOPCast co-host; absent from this episode; referenced as being in 'rehab getting himself sorted out' |
| Mort | person | New satirical news correspondent character introduced on TOPCast; delivers comedic pinball news segment with exaggerated confusion and made-up facts |
| Trent | person | Professional pinball player (ranked 4th in world WPPR); provides 'play of the week' strategy for Black Rose; mentioned as moving from 5th to 4th place ranking |
| Ken D.Bull | person | Intermediary who connected Eric A. with Spider-Man machine seller; helped facilitate game acquisition |
| Pat Lawler | person | Designer of Bonzai Run (1988 Williams); created first vertical playfield game; prototype built in garage; got Williams job through Larry D'Amara connection |
| Larry D'Amara | person | Williams programmer credited with Bonzai Run; connected Pat Lawler to Williams |
| Cliffy | person | Pinball parts/accessories designer/manufacturer; sends free cliffy protectors to TOPCast hosts for giveaways |
| Curve | person | System 80 technical expert; presents 'I Have Survived the System 80' tech tip segment on connectors and speakers |
| TOPCast (This Old Pinball) | organization | Online pinball radio show; website marvin3m.com/Topcast; features technical segments, game reviews, competitive player interviews |
| Williams | company | Classic pinball manufacturer; produced Bonzai Run (1988), Monster Bash (1988), Pirates of the Caribbean; referenced for System 11 and System 80 platforms |
| Playfield Renovations | company | Playfield restoration service provider; Shaggy selected them for Bonzai Run restoration work; noted for quality work |
| Bonzai Run | game | 1988 Williams System 11 pinball machine by Pat Lawler; vertical playfield design; owned by Shaggy; currently undergoing playfield restoration; featured as game of the week |
| Monster Bash | game | 1988 Williams pinball machine; featured in optic switch repair tech tip; has center hole vertical up kicker with infrared optic switch prone to failure |
| Black Rose | game | Pirate-themed pinball game (referenced as 'sleeper' novelty game by competitive player Trent); related to Pirates of the Caribbean IP; feature analysis in play-of-week segment |
| Pirates of the Caribbean | game | Williams pirate-themed pinball game; contains easter egg where player can fight Black Rose if far enough in game; competitive comparison point to Black Rose |
| Spider-Man | game | Game acquired by Eric A. from basement collector for $375; mentioned in Mort's news segment as upcoming title; playfield condition was cosmetic despite 15-year basement storage |
| Earth Shaker | game | Game acquired by Eric A. weeks prior to episode; had dead batteries; contained misassembled California fall lever/solenoid (spring reversed); fixed within 10 minutes |
| World Poker Tour | game | Referenced by Mort in news segment as game 'everybody loves so much'; used as comparison point for expected quality of rumored Spider-Man game |
| Radio Shack infrared sensor card | product | Diagnostic tool used by Eric A. to test optic switch transmitter function on Monster Bash; can be substituted with digital camera |
| IFPA/WPPR | organization | Competitive pinball ranking system; Trent ranked 4th in world; Shaggy ranked 6th; referenced in professional player discussion |
| System 80 | product | Williams pinball hardware platform; known for bad connectors per Curve's tech tip; speaker connectors are brittle; discussed speaker and volume pot diagnostics |
| System 11 | product | Williams pinball hardware platform; Bonzai Run runs on System 11; referenced for rule implementation quality |

### Signals

- **[machine_intel]** Eric A. acquired Spider-Man machine from private collector basement storage (15 years unused); playfield cosmetic condition good despite extended storage; battery corrosion present but not destructive (confidence: high) — Direct account of acquisition; Eric saw it in his pickup truck; negotiated price from $400 to $375 with seller Ken D.Bull
- **[rumor_hype]** Mort references Spider-Man pinball game as upcoming title in satirical news segment; unclear if referring to existing game Eric just acquired or a rumored new production game (confidence: low) — Mort news segment: 'Going to be a Spider-Man game coming out. Next, that's gonna be really cool' — unclear sourcing; Mort admits to making up facts
- **[rumor_hype]** Mort mentions rumors of Monty Python pinball game in satirical news update; minimal details provided; unclear confidence level due to Mort character's stated practice of inventing facts (confidence: low) — Mort news segment: 'rumors have it that there's going to be a monkey python game now... It's something to do with a flying circus' — acknowledged as potentially fabricated
- **[gameplay_signal]** Professional player Trent reveals counter-intuitive multi-ball strategy on Black Rose that deviates from designer intent; achieves better control and scoring by using one-ball multi-ball mode instead of intended three-ball (confidence: high) — Trent describes locking ball twice to extend 20-second multi-ball windows instead of progressing to three-ball multi-ball; explains control advantage
- **[technology_signal]** Eric A. demonstrates systematic optic switch diagnostics using voltage measurement, optical sensors, switch matrix testing, and connector inspection; establishes best-practice troubleshooting sequence for System 80 platform (confidence: high) — Detailed walkthrough of Monster Bash repair: 12V transmitter/receiver voltage testing, Radio Shack infrared sensor verification, switch matrix column/row testing via alligator clips, opto board connector inspection
- **[product_concern]** Curve technical tip identifies System 80 speaker connectors as common failure point; push-on female connectors are brittle and prone to breaking, causing series-connected speaker failures (confidence: high) — Curve's formal 'I Have Survived the System 80' tech tip segment dedicated to speaker and connector issues
- **[personnel_signal]** Eric A. introduced as guest technical advisor to replace absent Norm; Mort introduced as new news correspondent with weekly segment; indicates show restructuring and new talent integration (confidence: high) — Shaggy states 'Norm is not available today as usual. He's still in rehab getting himself sorted out'; introduces Eric and Mort as new regular segment contributors
- **[operational_signal]** Shaggy selected 'Playfield Renovations' for Bonzai Run restoration after another operator attempted and returned work due to complexity; indicates quality reputation and capability in specialty restoration (confidence: medium) — Shaggy states: 'The people that I've seen have the best luck with those guys' and 'realized it was above and beyond their abilities and they sent it back to me free of charge'
- **[competitive_signal]** Trent announced movement from 5th to 4th in professional pinball world rankings; Shaggy mentioned as 6th place and preparing to move up on Trent's 'butt' (confidence: high) — Shaggy: 'You've moved up from fifth to fourth player in the world in pin, professional pinball playing'; Shaggy: 'I'm number six, so I'm going to be coming up on your butt'
- **[content_signal]** TOPCast introducing new regular segments: Mort's Weekend Update news show, formal 'Game of the Week' (Bonzai Run), 'Play of the Week' (competitive player strategy), System 80 tech tips series, indicating format maturation (confidence: high) — Shaggy introduces multiple new segments with recurring structure; references marvin3m.com/Topcast website and DVD resources
- **[design_innovation]** Pat Lawler's Bonzai Run (1988) credited as 'first game with vertical playfield' design; prototype built in Lawler's garage; game was pitch to Williams via connection with Larry D'Amara (confidence: high) — Shaggy: 'Pat Lawler classic, actually his first game with the vertical play field' and 'This is how he got the job at Williams. He basically dragged this thing in. He knew Larry D'Amara, Larry did the programming'

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## Transcript

Howdy y'all, this here's Ken, the pinball ripple, and you can bet to farm I'm listening to Topcast because it's bigger than Heck and half a Texas. You're listening to Topcast. This old pinball's online radio. For more information visit them anytime www.marvin3m.com slash Topcast Welcome to another edition of Topcast. Today's technical show is coming from the Department of New Recruits because Norm is not available today as usual. He's still in rehab getting himself sorted out as it may be. We have a special guest technical advisor to step in and help. I'd like to introduce Eric A. I'm sure everybody's heard of Eric A. We never say his last name and we're not gonna walk in. Yes because you can't. Eric, how you doing today? Just fine how you doing, Shaggy. Good. We've got a lot of very special special things we run today. Like usually, one thing we do is special love. You ever notice that? We don't do anything that's not special, which is kind of how it is. Okay, Eric. So first thing we're gonna run. We've got a new a new thing going today. And that new thing is we've got a special news advisor now that we've taken on. And you know, I'd like to introduce our special weekly news update show. It's time for Mort's weekend update the week's news in Himal. So we have a new news correspondent. His name is Mort and he's a you know, he's a nice guy. He's a little bit wacky but we're gonna let him have his own little show here. So I'm gonna introduce Mort. Hello, this is Mort and I'm here with the weekend update show. It's a weekend pinball update show that I'm doing here. It's my own show. It's special for me. Thank you. Thank you, everyone for listening. That's very nice of you to come on to listen to this thing live on the radio. I got a couple of things I got questions about and I want to tell you some things I know for sure. They're absolutely true that I made up myself. Thank you. That's true. Well, there's this fellows. These fellows are Norman Shaggy and they're on this radio show and they let me be on it. But I don't understand why they never tell me when it's gonna be on. I listen for it every week and I only hear me whenever I want to hear me. And I don't even know when they're gonna be on because they never tell me. And whatever happened to this norm guy, he's always be shaggy and norm and I never hear this norm guy. He's never around. What doesn't matter with him is he's sneaking off into some foreign country and doing something strange. I don't know what he's doing. So I don't get it. You don't know what? And I don't get really pretty nervous about this. And I... more orts. Just tick it easy buddy. Listen, you know, we do this when we we gotta do this. All right. Did you go what I'm saying here, Mark? Oh well, never mind. They got this classic play field reproduction guys are making them going to make a haunted house class. Now why do they call it classic play field reproduction if they're making a haunted house class? That makes no sense to the audience. Why do they do that for? They make it all crazy over here. Why do they call them glasses anyway? I mean, I've got a silly glasses and I don't have nothing in mind. Mine just have the word Japan written on this side of them. What's a big deal about having a haunted house written on your glasses for? I don't get it. Mark, that's because they silkscreen the play field and they silkscreen back glasses for pinball score glasses too. That's why there was silkscreening company. You get it now? Oh well, never mind. There's gonna be some more games coming. It's gonna be very big and big, big and fancy games coming out. Going to be a Spider-Man game coming out. Next, that's gonna be really cool. It's gonna have all kinds of neat things on it. And you're gonna be able to play it. It's gonna have some neat things at the top. It's gonna be awesome. You're gonna love that thing. It's gonna be great. Everybody, I saw pictures of it. No, I didn't. I just pretended like I did. But if you see the game, tell me what it's all about. But anyway, I heard it next next game. Obviously that one's gonna be real unfortunate. Now that should be good. That should be just be like this world poker tour that everybody loves so much. Oh, no, that was a good get. Everybody like that game. That was a good one. So maybe this one would be like that one. And then rumors have it that there's going to be a monkey python game now. I don't know much about these mighty python games. I don't even know what it is. It's something to do with a flying circus, but there's never so nobody flying in it. There's no flying circus people. And then another thing I saw was very crazy. Somebody went and actually some guy, some guy who sounds like he's a vegetable or something. Something about a corner. He's a vegetable. I think he's a vegetable. But he told us how fast the ball can go. He got him figured it out. He wouldn't have took a caliper or something like one of those little things. He put it on there and he checked it out. Maybe he took a ruler in there and then maybe a caliper. I don't know what he did. But he took one of those things. He fed out the ball. It goes at seven miles per hour. That's 121 inches per seconds. That's pretty fast. You think it would be going like a hundred miles an hour though. I mean, I shoot the ball. I know it goes a hundred miles an hour. But maybe those shaggy, no one. Maybe they get taken me again. I trust him a lot more than this other guy, the vegetable guy. And another thing, why is it two shows in the same time? Two pinball shows the same weekend. Next weekend is going to be two pinball shows. One's in New York and another one's in Texas. That's pretty far to go. You can't get to one from another without taking a plane in there. And I don't know which one to go to because I don't know which one. One may be better than the other one. And I don't know. They don't buy it on these people talk to each other. They give them a call on their phones. They say, hello, I'm having a party. I'm having a show. Would you like to come to my show and maybe you wouldn't have your show the same time? What is up with that? Why did they do that thing? I don't understand it. Well, I can see by the shaggy guy poking me in the side that is time for me to go. So listen, everybody, I really like being on here talking to you all and telling you all the pinball news. I know everything that goes on in a whole pinball world and what's good and what's not. So thank you for listening and hope you can come back again and listen to me again if they'll let me back. So you had to hear first on more show, more in update show under radio, internet up top casting. Yes, that's where you heard it at. And it's really good. And we are and is nice. Did you so Eric, did you like more? More sounded like you had everything going together. Okay, Eric, it's time for me to ask what new acquisitions you have. So tell me your story. You bought some games this week. Okay, I need you to tell me what you bought. Well, actually a few weeks back, I went out and got a very, very nice earth shaker. And the funny thing about that one was it was actually fully working, bought it with dead batteries, took it home, put it in the garage, and the only thing that wasn't working on it was the California fall lever and solenoid underneath the play field after I replaced the fuse. So when I went ahead and checked it out, turns out somebody rebuilt it with the spring on the wrong side of the assembly. So it was having a little bit of a difficulty pushing against the solenoid. And how long did that take you to figure out? About 10 minutes. How long do you think it should have taken you to figure out? About two minutes. Well, at least it was only 10 minutes and up like four days. Like it would have been me. You know, I mean, was it obvious or was it just like the, if you've never seen one before, what have you known? Well, the first thing I did after I replaced the fuse is when I activated that solenoid and it didn't actually function, I went directly to the assembly. You know, they had some nice tape on the upper side of the play field. And once I took that off and it still didn't work, I went directly to the assembly underneath. Nice. That's real nice. I'm working on a acquisition this week, but I'm very, very superstitious about these things. So until it's actually in the garage, I don't like to talk about it. I think it jinxes it. It's just kind of a personal Ryan Policky I have because I find that the walls listen. Well, you know what? That's very true because I almost lost the spider man that I got today. Oh, so you had another acquisition? Yes, I did. I got a spider man in the back of my pickup truck right now. And what, how did that come about? A friend of mine. Wait, is, is, we don't know him as D.U. Something, right? No. Okay, good. Okay. I didn't want to make sure it wasn't that cold friend. Okay. No, it was actually another friend. A lot of people probably know him. Ken D.Bull is his name. That's, that's not, no. Okay, good. Just thinking sure. Ken D.Bull, he contacted me, said he knew somebody that had a spider man in his basement for about 15 years. So I was hoping to get something that looked home use only. Needless to say, it did not look that way. And I went to his house today after last week of supposedly going, but he had too bad of a hangover to actually sell it to me. And when I showed up at his house, he wanted $400. I told him $350 and he said, no. And I said, all right, $375. He was like, okay. And I got it out of there as soon as I could. How's the play field? It's got somewhere. How's the back glass? Very nice. How's the cabin? Very nice. How are the battery corrosion? It's there, but it has not destroyed the board. It's just beginning leaking. Okay. All right. Enough of your silliness. Okay. You're making me jealous by and all this stuff. Okay. We've got another little segment to run. This one is... It's time for... Play a wee wee wee. Okay. We're here with Trent's play of the week. Trent, so you've moved up from fifth to fourth player in the world in pen, professional pinball playing. Great move, buddy. Have you been practicing? Absolutely not. I need to do that. What did you forget? Not just haven't had the time. Okay. Well then, I'm going to... You know, did I mention that I'm number six, so I'm going to be coming up on your butt. I'm ready for it. You're ready for it. Okay. All right, so you're in that front. Play the week this week. Oh, the play of the week this week is everybody's face is game black rose. Wait, black rose, that's the sheep man's pirates of the Caribbean, right? Well, yeah. Some people would refer to it as that. Yeah, because it's actually... it's a sleeper. I would consider it a sleeper. It's a novelty game. Not a lot of flow, but the minute everything gadgets. Okay, well, tell me about what's what's your play of the week on this one. Well, I get big points on black rose. You want to destroy the ships. Think the ships. To do that, you have to spell things ship. Wait, wait. Is there a big ship, ship, ship in the middle of the play field, like there is on that pirate thing? No, there's a big cannon. Oh, okay. Sorry, it's not an interruption. Keep that going. Anyway, to spell letters and sink, sink ship, you get it a multiball. Now, what you're supposed to do in multiball is light the lock with the in lane. Shoot the left loop to light the lock. Lock the ball. Get another ball to kick out. Lock it up there. Third ball kick out and then every shot, every major shot you make gives you two ship letters. Think when you spell sink ship, you can take a ship and you can sack those, of course. Wait, wait. To sink a ship, what are you going to do again to use a cannon thing? Well, you have to spell sink ship, first of all, and then you have to load the cannon. Okay, and how do you load the cannon? You load the cannon by looping Davey Jones Walker with the upper right flipper. You shoot that enough times, it'll open up and shoot it underneath it. That's Davey Jones Walker. Cannon will come down, start to turn, press the fire button, hit the flippers and bam. The shot straight up the middle is the ship shot. Okay, and what should do that? Well, then what happens? Well, the ship's next. You get 20 million, the first one. Is it like an animation? Yeah, and it's great. The game's got a great graphics, great sound to it when you think of the ship. The whole game really has really cool sound. Yeah, it's got the pirate babe. It's got the pirate babe on the back glass, which I've never seen any pirate movies where the pirate babe was dressed in like a tight one piece bathing suit. Well, yes, yes, pirate bathing suit, if you will. That's Linda D. Lortwerk. Good for her. Okay, so anyway, so how do you rape this thing for big points? So anyway, like I was saying, you're supposed to lock one ball, lock the second ball, start most ball, every shot gives you two ship letters, things ship letters. What I like to do instead of that is, like the lock, lock the first ball, it'll kick out the second ball. One is the second ball, it'll kick out the first ball, so now you've got two balls out there, lock the first ball again, and when you do that, it starts to time for about 20 seconds. Now while you're counting down, you're supposed to be locking the second ball. However, at that point, you've got a one ball multiball going. I like to just collect letters for as long as possible 20 seconds. That ball kick out again, you know, lock it right back again for another 20 seconds, keep collecting letters that way. Now you only get one letter when you're playing the two ball multiball instead of two, but you know, when you've only got one ball, the control is a lot easier. So you're able to make it ball, many things ship letters as you can, and start destroying ships. So you're basically in a multiball mode with the ball locked over on the left side, right? Exactly. That's what you do. Okay, and that only lasts 20 seconds, you're saying? That's 20 seconds, which is a lot longer than you think when you say the word 20 seconds. So after the 20 seconds, it kicks the ball back out, but then you just lock it again and do it all over. Yep, exactly. Rinse and repeat. Yep. Okay, okay, any other tricks? Nothing really in that game. You know, it's a big point to put you got to do is keep destroying ships. You know, there's like three video modes in it that are kind of stupid and silly, but yeah, for the big points, just keep keep playing multiball. You're right. It's a novelty. It's kind of a novelty game that can and thing and video modes are goofy, but they're kind of unique, you know, like it's a real novelty thing. You can get pretty big points on broadside, but it can be difficult. If you're really good at hitting a center shot and you get broadside started, just keep shooting that center shot, and it doubles every time you shoot it. What's broadside now? And the max depends on what the operator has it set on. I think a max is at it 64. What's broadside? Oh, broadside is one of the modes. There's a bunch of lightning bolt inserts going up the center of the play field, and every time you shoot that center shot, every other time you shoot that center shot, it'll start one of those modes. Three more video modes. One of them is broadside, and then there's a couple others I can hear over. I think extra balls, one of them. Okay, okay. Well, cool. Any any other tips on that one? Do I have any kids? No, God, you need to get a new phone. Do you have any kids? No, do I have any other tips? Tips, no, I have no other tips for that game. Just listen to the pirate. Listen to the pirate. Now, just curious, why did you pick this game? Because when you called me, I was setting it up in a location. Really? Yeah. Have you ever played it in competition? No, I don't think it's that good of a competition game. Why, it's too easy to rape? Well, it's not easy to rape, but it's different. You know, just just not enough to do. It's pretty linear. But you're flying somewhere, it forces you to play more stuff in the game. Okay, here's a real tough question, which do you like better? Pirates of the Caribbean? Or Black? Well, they Pirates are probably better, and as a tidbit, here's a little trivia for you. If you get far enough, and two Pirates of the Caribbean, you do get to fight Black Rose. Really? Yeah, you do. Well, that's kind of cool. And what Williams X Williams programmer, do you think put that in there? Yeah, I'm sure they're probably what. Yeah. Okay. All right, well, that's Trent's play of the week. Thank you, Trent. No problem, Glenn. All right, you take care. You do. That is our play of the week. Now it's time for everyone's favorite. Okay, oh, we. Okay, everyone now is time to look at the webcam on the home page of Topcast. Yes, now we're going to be discussing the game of the week. And the game of the week, actually, this week was something that Eric picked out, not me, not that I dislike this game, but this is Bonzai run, the Pat Lawler classic, actually his first game with the vertical play field, which we're showing on the webcam right now. And it's, it is really a cool game. It's a system 11 game. It came out in what way? You're going to come out 88, 87, 88, I believe. Yeah, 88. So system 11, and it's actually a well-implemented game. I mean, it really, I look it up. Yeah. So here, we got Eric actually playing it here. Yeah. So when you see the ball drain really quick, that's going to be Eric when you see a train. Actually, he's not playing it just yet on the webcam, but he's going to be, but the cool thing is, of course, you're trying to race in a motorcycle race against other riders, and you're trying to go become King of the Hill more or less, and you fight them on the hill. Okay. Now, here we're showing on the webcam, the prototype Bonzai run that was built in Lawler's garage. This is how he got the job at Williams. Is he basically dragged this thing in? He knew Larry D'Amara, Larry did the programming, and dragged this game in. Okay. Here you go. Trivia question for a free cliffy protector, okay, of your choice. What was the name of the Pat Lawler prototype? It was not Bonzai run, and that would be 1-800. If you know the name of the prototype, Bonzai run. Eric didn't know it. Am I allowed to say it now? Since I know. Oh, come on. No, no. I want a cliffy protector. No cliffy protectors for you. Those things are awesome. Yeah. Yeah. When we got a bunch of them too, Cliffy keeps sending them to me, and I keep forgetting to give them away. Anyways, here's Eric playing the game. He's really, he hasn't drained yet, but he can't get them all on the upper playfield. I want to show it up and go out to the upper playfield. Here we go. So you see you got a little magnet that drags it up to the top. Get it up to the second level. Okay, so you got to beat the first hill. Now he's got it in the second hill. Okay, so now the game automatically flips it up to the next flipper on the hill. Now he's got to make that final thing, and of course, Eric drops it. He can't just can't do it. Now he's going to do this about 14 times. There he is. He's going back, you know, he's going to put it back in the upper playfield. And, you know, come on, Eric, can you make the shots? I mean, what, listen, you got me here for tech work, not playing ability, all right? Yeah, he owns like 1400 pinball machines, and he can't play a single one of them. But I can fix them. Then actually, we don't really know that you can even do that. It's still that, I think the jury is still out, Mr. I burn up my playfields to take off my lar. I never said I could clean them either. I just said, I fix them. Here it is going to the upper playfield again. Okay, can he make it? And the whole, no. And there's even a ball stop that comes out between the flippers, the two vertical flippers. And there you can see Joshua Clay getting really sick and tired. So he just grabbed the ball. Yeah, he's grabbed the ball and put it up there because Eric just cannot make the shot. Okay, he's going to try again. He's in again. He failed. So here I am again, can I get the ball? You know, I got the glass off and Eric just, is he ever going to get to the top of the hill? I don't think so. Yeah, let's see. Oh, yeah, there he goes. There he goes. He made it to the second part. Okay, so the game puts it up to the second. Well, can he make it? No, he dribbles it out. So anyways, you can see Eric actually owns this game. But that's our game of the week is Bonzai 1, the 1988 Williams classic by Pat Lawler. Okay, so we're going to switch the webcam back to our ugly, our ugly mugs. See now, I might own that game, but I've never actually played a full game on it since I've owned it. Why? Because the play field is being fixed right now. By who? Am I allowed to say? Sure. Oh, play field renovations. And why did you choose them? So far, the people that I've seen have the best luck with those guys. What do you mean? What have you seen? What did you like about them? Oh, they're quality of their work. I had sent it out to some competition. Oh, you mean this play field had been somewhere else first? Yes. I'd rather not say who will watch the game. No, I don't want you to say I don't want you to say anything. But let me put it this way. The person that did have it, I must give them credit. They realized that it was above and beyond their abilities and they sent it back to me free of charge. So they did handle it in a very professional business-like manner. Okay, well now we're going to do another tech series here. This is something special. Brand new. We're going to run it right now. And now, Topcast is happy to present. I have survived the system 80. Presented by the man with all the answers. Curve! Hey, everyone. It's Curve with a quick system 80 tech tip. This tip has to do with the speakers, volume pot and the connectors. System 80 is known for bad connectors, but some often overlooked are the speaker push on female connectors. These are very brittle and can often break and leave the speakers not working due to them being connected in series. Remove the sunbore connector and locate the audio out pin on the schematics. Got we've grounded the other side of the speakers. So you only find one audio out pin on most system 80 games. Take a D size battery with the negative attached to the ground bar on the bottom of the game. Then take the positive side of the battery and touch it to the audio out from the sunbore connector. The speakers should all push the cones out away from the magnets indicating they should put out some sound. Inspect the weak speaker connectors and volume pot if you have trouble. Volume pots rarely go bad, so just turn them left and right a few times and try to clean off any build up on the rea stat. Don't forget to check out the system 80 repair guides and the great system 80 this old pinball DVDs at marbenthrm.com. Shoot chaggy an email if you have a system 80 tech tip that you'd like us to cover. Hmm what do you think? I wonder if the rea stats are potentiometers. I think it's a pot isn't it? I believe so. I think rea stat is basically just a higher wattage version of a pot. Okay you know so it's a small technicality. So you say potato and I say potato or we could say it in Armenian too. And how would you say that in Armenian? I don't know. Okay so here we go for their next little segment and now it's time for tech tech tip of the week. All right tech tip of the week this one was an interesting one and you're going to have to sit back and listen hard on this one because I was a friend called me with a monster bash and he said this guy doesn't know anything about about games other than where the start button is in the power switch. So he said you know I turned the game on and it goes pop pop pop pop pop and you know I start a game and I put the ball in that center hole and it sits there and just kind of looks at me and then everything starts going out and Dracula comes out and it seems really confused. We can all over and fix it. So you know being a nice guy that I am I go over to the guys house and the pop pop pop was the the hole kicker the vertical up kicker that you know the hole dead center in the monster bash the 1988 Williams classic monster bash has this kind of hole that loves to get chewed up where you know it seems like the ball is gravitates to there. So what happens is there is an optic switch inside that hole that senses when the when the ball is in there so you got like a basically a beam of light you've got a basically a flashlight an infrared flashlight that shines over shines over to an infrared receiver and when that light beam is broken it thinks the ball is in there and then it fires the vertical up kicker to kick the ball out. Well on this guy's game there was that wasn't working that you know that switch for whatever reason wasn't working. So Eric what do you think the logical first course of action would have been at this point what would have you done first? Probably put the game in switch test mode and I did that I put the game in switch test mode and found that indeed that switch wasn't working okay so that's step one what was the next thing you would do. The reason why I'm putting you on the spot is because you'll see I win a stray here in this repair and you know we'll see why so I'm just going to curiously know what you would do next. Next thing I would have done is to make sure that neither wire was broken off either the emitter or receiver on those little circuit boards and essentially that's what I did I pulled the it actually just two screws for each side pulls that whole receiver and transmitter right off the assembly and then I used one of these radio shack infrared sensor cards you know you could use a digital camera too and I could see that the transmitter was working and then I have a little pen flashlight that I stored keep with me and actually shine it in the receiver end and I noticed in the switch test that it made no difference whether I had the flashlight on the receiver end or not. So I pretty much determined that the transmitter end was working but the receiver end was not so what would you do next Eric. I would have gone to the head and gone to the CPU board and find out which wire was supposed to be going in there and made sure it was still in a connector. Okay I didn't quite do that and I'll tell you what the next thing I did is I broke it down a little bit further than that I did eventually do what you suggested but I did a couple steps before that. The first thing I did is I got out my volt-ohm meter and I put it across the two leads of the transmitter and saw 12 volts. So even though the radio shack sensor told me that there was you know that that was working I just wanted to verify that there was actually 12 volts there maybe the voltage was low so maybe the light beam wasn't as strong as it could be who knows. So I figured you know it just takes a second. So I measured 12 volts on the transmitter side then I went to the receiver side and again put my meter on that and it shows 12 volts then I took my flashlight and shined it in the receiver and I could see the voltage drop from 12 volts down to zero volts. So what did this tell me Eric? I told you the receiver was working right it tells me that the receiver is working. So I've got a transmitter that works I've got a receiver that works but the signal is not being interpreted by the CPU. So Eric's suggestion is well the easy way is to go to the CPU board to see if the wire actually came out of the connector. Well what I did is I pulled the the column and row switch connectors off the CPU board. So if you remember the switch matrix is 8 rows by 8 columns. Okay so across the bottom of the CPU board you've got connectors for the rows and columns. I pull those off while the games and switch tests and I take a little alligator clip lock it on you know pin 1 which is row 1 of the you know of the switch rows and then I touch it to each one of the column pins and just see what it does on the on the dot matrix screen and it showed every every column working then I do the same thing I take my alligator clip move it to pin 1 of column 1 and then touch each one of the rows and it shows me each row is working. So I know that the 8 rows and 8 columns are working so I know that it's nothing on the CPU board so it's got to be something between the CPU board and that transmitter. So what do you think I did next? Well you could have gone back to the I believe there's an opto board underneath the game. There is. Okay and on that board itself you've got several chips on there and I can't remember off top of my head. Okay so that's exactly what I did. I went to the opto board and what it is is at first I always check the connectors coming to that board because they're IDC installation displacement style connectors and they typically they can break or the connections. Do you know what IDC stands for? What? Intensely dumb connection. Yes yes that's that's correct I believe that because I like the crimp pins too. Just want to share that with you. That's good thank you. So I pulled that board off I looked at the connector and make sure that on the male header pins on the board that there was no crack connections I buzzed I actually knew the wire color coming off coming I knew the wire color coming off the the wire color that was coming off the the opto and what I did is I changed is I I followed that to the oh man we lost our webcam sorry I got a little I just got a little weird there was sorry the webcam's off for temporarily. Anyways I knew the wire color and I traced it to the board I knew which pin it came in on that board and then I traced that to first its resistor so I measured all the resistors to make sure none of the resistors were open because sometimes the resistors go open and then I measured a continuity from the resistor to the LM339 chips there's three of these LM339 chips that are very much known to go bad. So I figured out it was you two so I knew which chip it was there's also a bunch of 1n 4000 and 1 diodes too I checked those with my meter two to make sure none of those were shorted or whatever because those go bad too so basically it led me to this chip and I thought gee it could be nothing else it's got to be this chip other than one other minor thing one other minor thing that I overlooked you couldn't have I overlooked it but you tell me what do you think you wrote that guide okay well tell me what you these wires are also daisy chain throughout the play field. Say that again please these wires are also daisy chain throughout the play field. Say that one more time please these wires are also daisy chain throughout the play field. Very good I did not think of that right off and I very carefully cut out the U2 chip with a little pair of very specialized cutters and then heated up each one of the pins remaining in the board pulled them out then took my solder sucker and clearly carefully sucked out all the solder on the chip and then replaced it with sip style socket and a new chip and it didn't make any difference it still didn't work. So Eric say one more time wires are daisy chain throughout the play field. I got a question for you. So this is the thing this is the first thing I should have done I went to the manual I looked at the switch matrix chart in the back and it shows all the rows and columns for each switch so I find that switch that optopopper switch okay and I find the row in the column it's in and what I do is I go down the column and I toggle each switch in the column and every switch worked in the column then I did the same thing for the rows and guess what none of the switch worked except for one one switch worked so I immediately knew that there was a break between that switch and all the other switches and it's really easy when when you do this you always started the switches at the farthest back of the play field because that's where the wiring harness comes in and that's the first switch in line that gets daisy chain so I followed that from the first switch to the second switch and at the second switch the wire was broken okay so then I reconnected that wire and guess what Eric these wires are daisy chain throughout the play field it worked it worked so that was you know what I oh go ahead okay I really think that we might have somebody telling a fib here I don't think you wrote that repair guide I think it would arm yeah yeah I often wonder about that myself too but anyways tech tech tech tech tech oh we that was bonehead tech tip of the week so you know I was very systematic in the whole thing I'm sure you were just checking for the obvious you know Eric I would like to say that nobody called us on our 1-800 number nobody called with the answer to our answer to our our trivia question I'm I'm Banzai Run are you sure somebody's not on the phone no no the line's not busy nobody called so we're going to run our next segment which is another trivia conscience but I want to just tell you that the name of the prototype Banzai Run wait wait can I say sure wrecking ball that's right wrecking ball that's what it was called wrecking ball so I got it right I get the clip protector right no you don't you know you don't so now we we move to our our next little segment which is another little trivia thing you know just when you thought it was safe to go back into the arcade hi people it's the corner welcome to this week's version of the conundrum here's how the game works I give five clues about a game's identity that's up to the listeners that's you to call in and guess what game it is pretty simple right if nobody gets it I keep giving more and more clues until someone nails it what is this week's prize shaggy this week's prize are the famous cliffy protectors for the game of your choice cliffy protector city all right let's play clues number one and two this is a got-leaved system 80 machine clue number three it's designed by John Trudeau clue number four it's a wide body and clue number five a bunch of sounds from this game in no particular order it is not black hole do not call and tell me it's black hole because it's not think you know what it is then call in shaggy give him the phone number just in case they forgotten 1 800 375 2529 so Eric do you think anybody's gonna get this um I know the answer you do yeah well don't spew it out I'm gonna give the next clue okay clue number six this game has two playfields well if you took a saw to it you'd have two playfields on any game clue number seven this game has a spinning back glass animation does that help Eric it's got to be black hole it's not black hole right this game has six flippers it's got to be black hole it's not black hole oh god how many times I have to tell you that this is a tricky one I can't believe that nobody is getting it man we've got two trivia's who's listening out there like you know the clue number nine two of those flippers are in the outlanes oh boy that really helps it's not black hole no and clue number 10 this game has six kind of six slingshots six flippers six slingshots you really think you know what it is no then call in shaggy give him the phone number just in case they forgot me 1 800 okay that's corn's conundrum and now we're gonna take a little break and hopefully people will call in and uh so far yeah yeah top guys is brought to you by Marco specialties your pinball parts superstar visit their website at marcospecialties.com you can search for parts by game name, game make or part number Marco specialties was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Lexington, South Carolina they specialize in pinball parts supplies books and anything pinball Marco has been online since 1996 and is the web's oldest and the largest pinball parts supplier there are new 12,000 square foot distribution center services 25,000 customers in over 50 countries feel free to call Marco specialties at 803 957 5500 Marco specialties your pinball parts superstar at marcospecialties.com who are? okay we've got john de on the line from paddle creek michigan john can you hear us okay? yeah i can hear you good okay john what what game do you think it is? um tea i don't know i'm gonna guess here uh black hole don't say black hole uh spirit it is got leave spirit congratulations do you own that game? no i don't okay good i'm just checking i you know so what what cliff you protector would game do you need a cliff you protector for uh that way black hole right? yeah really big one for that one um tea a cliffy protector i'm about um looking okay you took too long sorry we're just connecting okay next caller next call all right i'll tell you what john you think about it and you email me shaggy at morvin3m.com okay and uh we'll uh we'll get that right out to you all right sounds good all right thank you very much for call hey thanks okay bye okay so now we're going to do open up the lines to uh any tech questions you have any tech questions i need you to give me a call at 1-800 and we will take your tech questions on the air and uh we'll be right back after a couple ads hey George i just had to call and tell you about this really great magazine i guess it's called the ping game journal and it's the only magazine dedicated totally to pinball it's got great articles and interviews with designers and everything no George i won't loan you my copy who knows where you'll take it to you're gonna have to go to pingangernal.com and get your own subscription but George the guy says that each issue will give mail whenever he feels like it what's the deal with that all right George i gotta go got a call Elaine and tell her i can't believe how good this magazine now for a word from our lawyer the entire surprise goes with the pinball hall fame first episode also available some pinball machines were hurt during the family of the pins vids but they were all get your terrain to DVDs on coin up goodness now okay while we're waiting for a uh anybody to call in that has any tech questions again the number is 1-800 Eric do you know what that 1-800 number spells no idea no idea 1-800 i better not say um that question hi you're on the air with topcast how can i help you yeah this is Rex and Oregon here Rex how you doing fine good can you hear us okay i can hear you just fine great so what what kind of question do we got for you well uh f1 i have a white water and f111 blows on it about every 50 games or so and that's the that's the fuse that runs uh the flasters go out and then the topper lights go out the chaser lights go out right basically or that's the uh what the 18 bolts for the flasters in that the flasher or the lights in the topper 12 bolt bulbs so yeah but when the when the when the when the when the fuse goes out the the playfield flasters go out and also the uh the the top there it's a five bolt slow blow you mean a five-amp slowball five-amp slow blow yeah right right um you got any ideas Eric uh huh okay i had a couple suggestions one make sure that you don't have any five five five bulbs in the topper but you say it doesn't blow right away it blows after a while yeah and those bulbs would have smoked pretty quick because of five five five bulbs or six smoke bulbs running in a 12 volt circuit they would last about anil a maybe 30 seconds right but if you left an old one in that i put i when i got the machine i read your guide that told about things on the white water and i i bought brand new 194s i think they are right right and uh replaced every bulb up there okay good good good all right what else you got there uh bridge rectifier leg shorted on that yeah that would blow with a fuse immediately though if you got one leg shorted on i've actually seen it where it'll run because a filter cap is pretty substantial where it actually filters out that AC ripple but under time a slow blow fuse is going to blow all right that's an idea i would back it off a level though this is what i would do i would break the system down into smaller chunks first thing i would do is i would disconnect the um the 194 bulbs all of them you know there's a connector somewhere that runs power to that that waterfall thing on top of the backbox how it goes to the uh there's a taster board up in the uh up in the top i could disconnect the voltage off of that right disconnect that connect the board that jacer board and you know the power that it outputs to the lamps just take that whole thing out of the system and you said it takes about 50 games to see if it blows yeah okay then i would play 50 games and just see you know what happens um i have a suspicion that it's still gonna blow because i don't really think that that's the problem but what you're doing is you're you're just breaking things down is it uh is it the jacer lamps up top or is it the flashers okay so let's assume that it does still blow okay so what's your next course action the next course action is to look at all your flasher bulbs under the play field and that just kind of make sure you might have some sort of a situation where one flasher bulb is very close to something else and maybe through the vibration of play you get um either one of the lugs of the flasher bulb it vibrates enough to touch some other maybe a g-i lamp socket or or even the frame of a metal solenoid or or anything enough to maybe blow that and just kind of give every every one of visual inspection and make sure you do look at every one um and i i did that to a degree and one of the flashers that i saw that sort of concern me is very exposed wires underneath big puts cave it's right above the pop bumpers there in the boulder garden right and so i sort of inflated that flasher the the bear lugs a little bit to see if that was a problem okay and what did you do to the lugs on our cities and inflated insulated oh insulated sorry insulated in my bad a little little shrink tubing on on the flasher so that it right nicely done if a ball got kicked up there it went it went hit the flasher okay now if i'm not mistaken you actually have there's a the flasher circuit has individual transistors that drive them correct that is correct okay well the next thing i do after that is if you got a meter stick it on current reading and then run through every flasher and see that as you're running it you're not getting a higher current draw on one flasher than another with your mother in the fuse holder yeah you can run that that test what is it all lights and all flashers tests but i would go individually oh you wanted a time flashers and see which one if any draws excess current compared to the others correct yeah yeah the only time you're going to run into a situation is if you have one circuit that's running two flashers as opposed to one flasher right yeah i mean i guess in theory you could have a ball that's causing an issue or the transistor itself or the yeah or the transistor itself i think all those would be a couple good hints um you know the other thing if you wanted to actually try and break the system down a little more uh the flasher system down a little more you could actually remove the connectors associated with any particular set of flashers and play your 50 games and see what happens if you think you have a hunch that any one particular flasher or group of flashers is causing you a problem and just keep on trying to make the system smaller and smaller and if you come to the conclusion that you can't find anything then you back up and do erics um erics replace the bridge rectifier replace it's associated filter cap and um if it's still bow and then uh then i'm lost at that point yeah and you know about every about every again and it don't happen at the same time but about every 50 games or so it it will get the you know the wpc reset thing going too so i've got on the order i've got um br2 and it's filter cap on order and i'm going to replace those for good luck you're saying that the whole game is kind of resetting and forgets its memory? no no it just gets the um you know on wpc games your site where where uh where the um on your site it says that there are reset problems with the whole game you know it'll right it'll go like it got a slam till uh but yeah the game will reset but i mean the slam tilt is different than a reset um you you but you know that right yes yes okay but it'll it'll just it'll just start the whole game over right well for there's a couple other things too for the reset issue is it a game of re-import i'm not sure okay check your jumper in the bottom of the cabinet actually it started simpler than that go and look at the serial number sticker on the back and see if it or and actually there's one on the inside right wall the cabinet too and just looking it'll say either the voltage is 120 or 220 or 240 and if it's 220 or 240 that means the game is re-imported but it was going to air come sorry if it is a re-import and you have to replace that jumper to convert it from 220 back to 120 yeah make sure it was done right yeah well sometimes that connector in the transformer plug will not seat real well and i actually had a problem on my on my twilight zone where that pin was almost barely coming out so as you were playing the game you get this intermittent reset periodically you move the play field and go away for one in addition to that the edge connectors where the five volts come in to the right side of the power driver to the left side reseek those connectors and just talking about j 101 when or two up on the upper right and then on the lower left right above the g i connector and below the the ribbon cable on the driver board and saying if you get any if you reset those and you get any different behavior like your resets went away that's an indication that those connectors are that you have issues with those um as a general rule whenever a replace b r two and it's associated filter cap i always replace the connector pins for j 101 always with new trifrecon pins i i've really come to conclusion that those things are all very very linked and that you know it's just a good way to a good thing to do yeah i'm looking at the sticker inside yeah it says 120 volt okay then that then that was uh that never left the country or never that was designed for north america then you know if it says 120 that game never left so that you know that that's just uh the reason why is like the movs are different for the export games and a lot of times people don't chase those out and some of the little minor issues that we don't really need to cover now we place you know it was a domestic game so but anyways give those a whirl and do me a favor send me an email and let me know what you come up with because this is the perfect stump the chump article for next week you know so you can see see how we did or see what you figured out but you know keep in touch and let us know shaggy at marvin3m.com send me an email and let me know how how you work you know what what resolution you came to all right sure take care bye okay one and once again their number is 1 800 if you want to call up with any um tech questions and in the meantime uh we also have on the website where people can email in tech questions and i've kind of been keeping a uh a little working uh a library of them and here we've got a guy frank from new york um he has a 1978 bali playboy and his question was my lamp driver board does not seem to be working the mpu boots up fine sound is good all the switches on the play field work um he does say however i'll hit a target and sometimes the bumpers will fire and i'll come to that in a second but even though the switches work none of the none of the cpu lights turn on i checked the test points and i i get five volts do you have any ideas so i don't know what test points he checked um but the you know there's two sets of lamps or two circuits of lamps on that game there's a general illumination which is when you first turn the game on the g i comes on it's kind of like flipping a switch on on the wall and the light comes on type thing then they all run at six six volts ac okay that's the the g i i don't think he means that i think he means the computer controlled lamps because he talks about the lamp driver board though you know i don't he didn't really uh he didn't really say but i suspect that's what he means and those are actually driven by a separate circuit running off six volts dc okay now that power comes from the rectifier board in the bottom of the cabinet and there's a test point on that board that you need to check along with an accompanying fuse and also a bridge rectifier that filters the you know whatever seven volts ac down to six volts dc okay or vice first i can't remember which so you need to check that test point on the rectifier board to make sure you have power there then if you have power there i would lift the play field and put one end of my dm m my digital multimeter unground and the other end on um this kind of like you'll notice that between each one of the computer controlled lamps there is like a a braid wire that brings power to each one of the lamps it brings the positive side of the power to that just kind of make sure that you have six volts dc there because if you don't have six volts dc there none of the lamps are going to work for whatever reason and that could be either a connector problem or again that fuses out on the rectifier board because what that lamp driver board does is each transistor on the lamp driver board actually grounds completes a circuit to ground for any particular lamp as told by the CPU board okay now in regard to his question about when he hits one switch and it fires the wrong coil um i would check the connector on the solenoid driver board on the lower right side it's a small connector uh a point one hundred connector i would just pull that thing off run just a little piece of sandpaper over either side of the male pins plug it back in and see if anything changes is something changes and means you've got a problem with one of those connector pins um let me see if i got this right he's saying if you activate one switch of a pop triggers another solenoid yes okay i've actually run into this exact problem yeah me too specifically on a pop bumper right you know what it it could also be the caps uh besides that right when somebody replaced these coil sleeves at one time they pulled all three coils out and swapped two of them i swear to you that's exactly what happened yeah the other problem could be are the um the point oh five micro ferret uh capacitor disc capacitors that run on the switches for the pop bumpers those like to go bad so a lot of times if you just cut one end of those off and see if anything changes that'll that'll tell you right away if if you've got a problem with those you know that that is that's a real common problem let's look to see if the wires look pulled like the route like the wires are pulled really hard like they don't belong on that solenoid chances are they don't hmm any other interesting tips that you want to add i was gonna say the capacitor thing what capacitor thing well like they short sometimes and oh you mean the disc capacitors yes right okay okay well we're gonna take a little break here and again if you want to call in it's 1-800 if you got a tech question or you know you just are highly opinionated and you want to speak your mind i guess we can let you do that too no we can't okay all right top guess is brought to you by pinball life give your pinball machine new life with parts from pinball life we should pinball parts will want pinball life is located in the great city of Chicago their phone number is 773 202 875 we have an open door Ryan Policky and you're welcome to call us with your questions and concerns 80m to 5pm central time when they do Friday their website is it pinball life that kind of pinball life no hassles just the parts you need to invest you're right Eric oh sorry i'm at yeah I just dropped the microphone almost okay all right so while we're waiting we've got another tech question that somebody emailed in this guy's name is Ben he's working on a united orbit shuffle alley okay and his question is I have a nineteen sixty three united orbit shuffle alley my problem is is when I throw the puck twice the pins go up but I don't get any points in the player and frame unit does not advance however when I manually turn the score motor it detects the pins and gives me the correct score as well as advances the frame in or it's player player unit I'm 99% sure that I have the fingers lined up correctly not really sure what he means by that but any any answers sure the first thing I would check is just the lane this is of course an electric mechanical so Eric is useless on this regard hey I think the last goes game yesterday what what what do you have can't electric mechanical yeah what was it I don't know they all look the same to me well what did you fix there was a switch is tilt relay bank was actually giving them a problem when he first got the game and he thought he had a fix by cleaning all the contacts but of course he's color found that there was actually a cold side of the white was actually broken off who was just touching the switch deck very nice I'm amazing aren't I no you can't even remember the name of the game so I kind of kind of mutes the whole thing you know what I mean why remember it was called a tilt relay that's nice anyways back to the orbit again when he throws the puck twice it's not doing any scoring across the back of the shuffle alley there is a whole row of switches that basically tell the game that the puck has been thrown and that it needs to register either the first or second shot relay so what happens is you've got this whole kind of matrix of switches so it's kind of shaped like a V kind of like you know bowling pins are set up in a in a V formation so the switches closest to the player like will raise the you know the number one pin the number two pin the number three pin so on and so forth to the number 10 pin okay so as the puck hits each one of those it raises up the pins associated pin but then the very last row of switches that's furthest away from the player actually tells the game that the puck has completely passed all the pin pin switches and that it should register as you know a completed shot and then it'll pull in either the first shot relay or the second shot relay depending if it was you know the first or second shot so if you open up from the bottom of the game there's usually like a metal plate that you slide out and then you can see all those switches I suspect that he has a broken wire because those switches again are all daisy chained across the back or those switches are misadjusted or those switches of dirty or the connector that connects all those switches to the rest of the game is dirty or has some sort of an issue maybe a broken wire so that's that's what I would check I suspect if he does that he'll be good to go yeah I was gonna say broken wire on a stack switch right that was a joke get it no I can you explain that to me please you know what we make a perfect couple you got a face for radio and I got a body for one yeah yeah you got any other interesting tech stuff that you want to throw in Eric I know you always come across some interesting stuff there's nothing like dead air I love telling you that silence there you know my brain was Ryan thinking there for a second I running all kinds of crazy stuff well I want to hear it what what do you got okay how about this one while back I was working on a taxi pinball machine and I called Klan of course he wasn't in help and I had I had a black knight 2000 displayed board in a taxi machine and that won't work specifically because there are jumpers placed in a black night 2000 board on the display board whereas certain segments are stolen for the extra display on a taxi game it was really strange because you'd have to go back to the schematics on a taxi game and see that these jumpers weren't used on this board hmm okay I know yeah that that one is a bit odd okay here I got you the speaking of odd I got this email this one's kind of interesting I got it his name is Scott his location is San Diego and he has a Valley theater of magic he says hi I just picked up a theater magic and both the trunk magnet and left drain magnet fuses were blown there is continuity between the board and the magnets with no shorts I disconnected both magnets and replaced the fuses plugged in the left drain magnet and worked fine plugged in the trunk magnet fuses also controls the ball release and I could tell that the coil locked on in the fuse blue

_(Acquisition: whisper_import, Enrichment: v1)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-06-06 | Item ID: 39bc5dc8-db5c-4ce1-b732-bc1dd660220b*