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Part 4: 1979 Bally Future Spa Garage Project! Some final repairs! The Spa is done!

Pinball Shenanigans·video·31m 45s·analyzed·Jul 10, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.022

TL;DR

Mike Dimas finishes 1979 Bally Future Spa restoration with electrical repairs and playtesting.

Summary

Mike Dimas completes his restoration of a 1979 Bally Future Spa pinball machine, replacing failed SCRs in the lamp driver, adjusting high voltage to optimal levels, installing a keyless lock, swapping in a serviced Stern driver board, and conducting final playtests. The machine is fully functional and ready for sale, featuring artwork by legendary pinball artist Paul Ferris and playfield graphics by Dave Christensen.

Key Claims

  • Three SCRs (46, 53, 51) in the lamp driver were bad and needed replacement

    high confidence · Mike Dimas, early in the video during lamp driver repair

  • Optimal display voltage for pinball machines is 180 volts

    high confidence · Mike Dimas stating manufacturer specification

  • Paul Ferris is a legendary pinball artist who has done multiple machines

    high confidence · Mike Dimas discussing Ferris during backglass examination

  • Paul Ferris may have used his daughter as a model for Phantom of the Opera backglass art

    medium confidence · Mike Dimas citing Wedgehead Pinball Podcast discussion during gameplay

  • Keyless locks from AliExpress cost approximately 5 CAD each versus 10 CAD from Pinball Life

    high confidence · Mike Dimas discussing locks provided by Corey Cook of London Pinball

  • Future Spa is one of five Bally widebody series machines

    high confidence · Mike Dimas listing: Future Spa, Paragon, Space Invaders, Embryon, Hot Diggity Doggin'

  • The Stern driver board exhibited excessive speaker buzz on the Viper but not on Future Spa

    high confidence · Mike Dimas during driver board swap and testing

  • Bally and Stern pinball machines use practically the same board sets with significant crossover compatibility

    high confidence · Mike Dimas commentary during final section of video

Notable Quotes

  • “Art was done by Paul Ferris. He's a legendary pinball artist.”

    Mike Dimas@ 1:57 — Identifies Paul Ferris as renowned pinball artist and establishes authority on Future Spa backglass

  • “This is one of the five Bally widebody series. Can you name them all? Future Spa, Paragon, Space Invaders, Embryon, Hot Diggity Doggin'. That's them.”

    Mike Dimas@ 19:19 — Identifies complete set of Bally widebody machines in pinball history

  • “I'd probably order a 10 pack of those. For five bucks, I'd definitely do it.”

    Mike Dimas@ 13:33 — Consumer recommendation for AliExpress keyless locks as viable aftermarket solution

  • “The Stern driver likes the Bally better than it likes the Stern”

    Mike Dimas@ 16:43 — Humorous observation about driver board compatibility and preference

  • “Paul, why did you use your daughter in such a scantily clad fashion? I don't know what her age was, but I don't think it was necessarily all that appropriate for the time. Didn't age well, shall we say.”

    Mike Dimas (quoting Wedgehead Pinball Podcast)@ 20:58 — References community discussion about artist modeling choices and retrospective critique of 1990s pinball art

Entities

Mike DimaspersonPaul FerrispersonDave ChristensenpersonGlenn CarballopersonBrent ButlerpersonCorey CookpersonJim WilkespersonClay HarrellpersonWedgehead Pinball Podcastorganization1979 Bally Future Spagame

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Wedgehead Pinball Podcast conducting 1990s hindsight awards discussing Paul Ferris's artistic legacy and controversial choices

    high · Mike Dimas listening to podcast episode during project; podcast actively reviewing and critiquing classic pinball art design decisions

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Paul Ferris use of family members (likely daughter) as models for scantily-clad backglass artwork on Bally games with retrospective community critique

    medium · Mike Dimas notes similarity in modeling choices across Phantom of the Opera and Future Spa; Wedgehead Pinball Podcast discussion questioning appropriateness of artistic choices

  • ?

    product_concern: Bally driver boards showing superior performance and compatibility compared to Stern equivalents in same machine

    medium · Stern driver exhibited excessive speaker buzz on Viper but not on Future Spa; when tested in Future Spa, no buzz issue present; older Bally board showed no wear or prior repairs

  • ?

    technology_signal: Demonstration of Bally and Stern pinball board set compatibility and crossover functionality

    high · Mike Dimas swapping driver boards between machines and noting practical interchangeability; states Bally and Stern machines use 'practically the same board sets'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Demonstration of affordable aftermarket keyless locks sourced from AliExpress (5 CAD vs 10 CAD from traditional suppliers) as viable alternative to premium parts suppliers

    high · Corey Cook of London Pinball sourced 20 units; Mike testing installation and considering ordering a 10-pack; successfully functional with minor fitment adjustments

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.095

0:00
Hold up, you shenanigans. I gotta pause for a minute and give a super thanks shout out to Mr. Glenn Carballo 81, who sent $9.99 USD and says thanks. Thank you very much, Glenn. I will definitely consume that in liquid fashion.
0:19
And if you guys are wondering the story behind this weird image, we sent our buddy last night this image and said happy birthday, bitch. And yeah, he replied with that.
0:34
I'm Mike Dimas, and this is Involve Shenanigans. Okay, here we go. This could be the last episode of Future Spa, if all things go well. I brought this lamp driver home and I replaced the three SCRs that were bad.
1:03
No, 46, 53 and 51. So those three light bulbs should now be working. I've got my shrink tube stuff just so I can tidy up these last two wires here. Another thing I remember that I wanted to do was adjust the high voltage so that the displays are running at 180 volts. That is the suggested optimal and ideal voltage for the displays. Not too much, not too little. And I want to check on that. Oh, and also I brought the back glass from home. So we can have a look at that.
1:57
Bally Viper
game
Bally Flash Gordongame
Bally Embryongame
Bally Paragongame
Bally Space Invadersgame
Bally Hot Diggity Doggin'game
Pinball Lifecompany
AliExpresscompany
London Pinballcompany
Art was done by Paul Ferris. He's a legendary pinball artist. I wonder what he's up to these days. But I've listened to an interview or two with him over the years on Clay Harrell's top casts.
2:16
And I'm pretty sure that this is his likeness. and possibly his girlfriend or wife and possibly some embellishments. She's got a pretty funky advanced wrist guard there with the time on it and then of course we've got some futuristic spa like activities happening over here. A lot of fun colors and like her boob strap is kind of turning into part of her hair which is kind of a shower a waterfall some naked people in a little pool there and got this dude working out it's quite the machine here it's like half machine half laser doing some pretty serious bicep curls and and it's got the mirrored back glass trim so every time I just angled the camera just right it reflects into my eyes and it's bright. Let's check this out. This is the Exercise Analyzer from 2004, very futuristic, you know. Futurist Ball is like 81, so this is many years in the future.
3:45
We've got a force field resistance, a bunch of buttons, exercise series, anabolic, metabolic, catabolic, cardiovascular, resistance, nitrogen, assimilation, and caution. Do not exceed two repetitions. You can only do two reps on this thing before bad things could happened what does this say play field graphics by david christiansen oh the play field graphics were done by dave christiansen and the back glass art is paul ferris but yeah so here's here's the future spa right here this is it this is what all the lore is all about definitely very futuristic and these guys are just prancing jogging around the track I guess they're not prancing but look a little prancy futuristic belts hey there's an easter egg for you what does that say Phil maybe that's a shout out to a buddy or something what's this say
5:09
mar mary there's another easter egg i wonder if that's paul ferris's girlfriend slash wife at the time and her name is mary that's cool i like looking for these little easter eggs is there something else there Oh, one, two, three. Audio pleasure level. Ultrasonic. These guys are up there on the pleasure level. That's so fun. All right. Anyway. Hey, fellow shenaniganders. If you are enjoying what you are seeing, why don't you click on these three dots at the bottom of any video and then find this heart. Click on that. And hey, look at this. You can buy me a beer. You can use the slider to buy me 500 beers if you really like, but this is a way you can send thanks, and I very much appreciate your support. If you do so, your comment will be highlighted, and also I will give you a shout out. So thank you for all your support. So I've got my plan of attack. Oh, 79. I think I said 81. Yeah, this is 1979. But yeah, as you can see, the back glass is in fantastic shape. You can usually tell better from the back side. Oh, and here is a little bit of mylar going over the Future Spa letters. And we'll have to look at that cool, fun lighting effect with the whole extra auxiliary lamp driver board to drive that. this back glass probably a nine out of ten. Okay, let's throw in this lamp driver board, shrink tube some stuff, check on some voltages. All right, lamp board is installed. Turn on the machine soon and see if my three bulbs are now working. And I've got these wires soldered and shrink-tubed instead of my old twisted together and electrical taped which was just temporary now we need to shrink this shrink tube there we go one done and probably shouldn't put the flame right on it but take quarters here there we go Oh shrink tube courtesy of Jim Wilkes Shout out So there we go That is much better i route my wires i do have zip ties if needed to kind of just tidy things up here
8:09
but yeah compare all that to uh what this used to look like and it's uh significantly better okay let's turn this thing on we can see if the diagnostic button still works throw it in lamp test check our lamps oh check this out that's success there's success and that's not going to go off in attract mode so let's do this and there's success all right so all of our bulbs are now officially working and you know what we can do a little test here where's my ball see how these drop targets are doing they were pretty low initially the ball got stuck on I think it was this drop target opening but look at that I think that is good to go so we can do this in lamp test I believe let's see what our voltage is at ah my ground fell out let's use this spot here see if I can just kind of prop that there this is high voltage so you got to be very careful test point two is what we want just right here and that says it's 187 So it's pretty close. So I'm going to adjust this dial just a little bit. Try and get that down closer to 180. Okay let's see where we're at here. 182. I'm going to just leave it at that. I'm happy with that. I don't need to mess with that dial. It's old and cranky and I don't want to break it. So there's that. By the way, I still haven't found my original to-do list, so I can't cross-find to-do list off of my new to-do list yet. I don't know how that thing vanished.
10:37
But Corey Cook of London Pinball purchased 20 of these keyless locks from Ally Express. And when you think pinball locks, you don't typically think Ally Express. but I think he said he tried them and they are great so he gave me a sample yesterday this machine does not have a key so this would be a good guinea pig for this and if this does work then I myself may purchase a lot of 10 or 20 from Ally Express because all said and done it works out to about five bucks a lock canadian that's pretty darn good we're normally playing like 10 from like pinball life or whatever so i'm gonna install this and see how it works
11:31
okay so far we have a little bit of fitment issues this ain't 15 oh wait hold on it's starting to get there but i don't have a dremel i do have this tiny file so i've been trying to file But it's funny, I just put on a pinball podcast, Wedgehead Pinball Podcast, and they're doing like hindsight awards for 1990s. And they're literally talking about Paul Ferris, as I just was, and how the likeness on the art he did for Phantom of the Opera, which was one of their nominations for unnecessarily horny pinball machine of 1990. it was modeled after his daughter so I got that chick on the future spa back glass might not be his wife it possibly could be his daughter I'm not really sure but they're talking about how it was a little it's a little hard to look at knowing that it's his daughter hey what is this button for I don't even I've never seen a button like this before my life on a pinball machine I wonder if they added this because this wasn't working.
12:55
Huh, interesting. Oh, wait, hold on. No, that goes to the switch. Okay, so that is a credit button. Oh, what do you know? There you go. Anyway, I thought that was hilarious about Paul Ferris. like 10 minutes after I was mentioning him, I'm hearing all about that on the podcast. Anyway, I'm going to file away and see if I can get this thing to cram in there. Okay, just a little more filing and I managed to get it to fit.
13:24
And what do you know? It works. Just like that. So yeah, for five bucks, I'd probably order a 10 pack of those. Let's for fun test this credit button, see if it works. What do you know? That's a nice and easy way to add some credits, so I am not opposed to that. It's an undoable hack. One screw and a couple of wires, so not opposed to it. One other thing I'd like to do, this is the board I sent out to Brent Butler, my board repair guy, for my Viper. But it has a weird thing where when the high score to date shows, the speaker buzzes extra. if you just listen to the speaker when the track mode is going off and when the displays are going on and off you do hear a little bit of stuff coming from the speaker that's normal but this was excessive so I have tried other boards in my Viper driver boards without the excessive buzz so I want to throw this in future spa and see if that buzz still occurs or if it just doesn't happen on this game and if it doesn't then maybe I'll keep this in the machine because it has been fully serviced and upgraded this one don't know that it has I mean I can tell that the cap is probably original so if this doesn't do the buzzy thing then i may just leave this in the machine so i'm going to swap that and see what happens okay i got the board out and i just noticed we got a little old nest in there maybe new i don't think there's any anybody in there i'll drag something through that what do i got let's go see if anybody's home you could just like suck them right out of there with the shrink tube
15:42
nope we safe okay but yeah this is a nice board doesn look like any transistors have ever been changed There no burn marks It got all the original chips
16:01
And there looks like there's no previous repairs. So this is a nice driver. But I do have this one installed now.
16:17
And let's see what happens. All right. Let's wait for these high scores to pop up. High score to date.
16:41
And no speaker buzz. okay well that's interesting the stern driver likes the bally better than it likes the stern so i think i'm going to leave that in there because it's been gone over it's got the ground
17:04
improvements it's got the updated capacitor for the displays high voltage stuff a couple new transistors and a lot of new components in the high voltage section in general. So this thing's rebuilt and I think it's going to be happy in its new home. And then for whatever machine I need in the future, I'll take this home, I'll service it, I'll do all the things to it, and then that'll be good for another project. There is possible talks of a machine that I was potentially going to pick up today.
17:48
A little, well, I won't say too much. But if that comes to fruition, it is a 1979 or 8 Bally. so that board could potentially have a new home already okay so that's pretty sweet i think all that's left is to uh play test and see if there's anything left okay i'm about to do a play test game so i thought i would install the back glass and we can see what it looks like i haven't looked yet really that future spa animation is actually really cool let's turn the light off here and then have a closer look that is awesome valley uh splurged with that whole uh feature there whole new board a bunch of more parts. The bomb is a little bit higher due to that. I think they did that on another game or two.
19:04
They did something funky with Flash Gordon. The big spotlight in the middle. I think they did something similar to this. Maybe, is it Embryon?
19:13
This is one of the five bally-wide bodies. Can you name them all? Let's see if we can nail them. Future Spa, Paragon, Space Invaders, Embryon, Hot Diggity Doggin'. That's them.
19:32
The five Bally Widebody series. Anyway, I'd say that looks pretty damn good. It's one tiny little flake there, a little crack there. paint is that the paint might be kind of coming off the glass a little bit at the bottom there but i'd still say overall it is a nine out of ten all right so let's set this up and play a game all right let's see how she plays now oh the camera's in my face again hold on let's move up a little bit do this still kind of in my face but it's a little better and yeah i think that looks good all right let's go to the spa Let's see if we can find Paul Ferris' wife or daughter.
20:48
Kind of gross, because she was probably pretty young at the time, and that's basically the comments that the guys at the Wedgehead were saying. It's like, Paul, why did you use your daughter in such a scantily clad fashion?
21:06
I don't know what her age was, but I don't think it was necessarily all that appropriate for the time. Didn't age well, shall we say.
21:20
So far, everything seems to be working. The flippers are flipping, the drops are dropping, the pops are popping.
21:36
The spa is a happening place. Whoa. Wrong clipper. Oh, also, I crossed off. Turn background sounds off. Off of the to-do list. As amazing as they were,
21:55
they're gone. Got my gate open. And that... See that says, that light says opens gate when lit, but it feels like it should say gate closes. Feels backwards to me. Because you're using up your gate. So it's closing, right? I guess it's opening up the in lane, but I feel like, yeah, whatever. Let's hit some drops.
22:46
Belly thought it through. I did not. All right, let's try and get some multipliers going here. Oh, I tickled it.
23:10
Yeah, so the first drop target lights both your spinners. Then the second one is your 2x. Third is 4x. Third is 6x.
23:24
Like that I did that all right on cue. And, whoa. Now we need extra ball. Yellow target at the back there. Beautiful. Good thing I got that extra ball on the way out the door because that was ball three 243 points
23:54
Let's see if I can get another extra ball. Oh. No, no, no. Okay, that was not nice. I hit the one letter that I didn't need.
24:09
Wow. I tried to cheat it by throwing it into the shooter lane. That strategy did not work. Okay, let's play one more game.
24:24
But I'm thinking I'm done. I think our work here is done. Another successful garage project. Future Spa is a fun game. I'm glad I got the opportunity to mess with it. Like I said, I had this in the queue for many years, hoping to get to it one day. Then my buddy JC was looking for a project and he really wanted to go to the Spa of the Future. So I let him have it.
25:10
What? I tilted that. Well, at least we know that works. And then, like I said before, it ended up making its way back to me.
25:25
And she required a little more surgery than I was anticipating. But that was fun to de-hackify everything. and I'm always learning something I'm sure I learn something new I also find the more you do stuff the more you actually retain that information because you know pinball is a never ending learning curve and it's impossible to retain everything but it's nice because all these Bally and Stern games are practically the same board sets.
26:12
So, a lot of crossover and makes life a lot easier. Alright, so that target... No, not target. Okay, so the light that I repaired...
26:28
Don't open my gate! Oh no! How did I not tilt? So basically what I'm trying to say is the kickback spots a letter in future spot.
26:42
Whoa. Drop target spot letters. So that's handy. Because otherwise, you've got to send it up top and get all... Oh, something else just spotted me. What spotted me there? I didn't catch it.
27:02
Otherwise, you've got to go in all friggin six lanes up top if it weren't for spotting. That was very beast-like but I survived.
27:20
All right let's try some actual flipper skills. That was a busted tap pass. Let's try that again. That's better. you can get your top pass down on this game then you can win or you can fluke it into the drop targets that's always a thing what does the fountain of youth do? oh that just gives you spa letters so the next time I hit it will be P and then the next time I hit it will be A I don't want to go for it but Yeah, okay, so that's how that works.
28:04
Should we go for it? Wait, no, let's get extra ball. Let's try a little back flick, back flick, roll up, back, that's whatever it's called. That.
28:19
Either way. Oh, the one lane, of course. That's ball two. 36,000 times six. I'm at 346,000. Last ball.
28:38
Let's try and have a good one here. This will be it. I mean, I will do a gameplay video. Uh-oh. Oh, that's trouble. As I typically do.
29:05
Future Spa will be putting up for sale. Uh-oh. Oh, that's trouble. Let's see if I can get myself out of that. Without tilting, that was kind of impressive.
29:20
Okay, ski jump. Extra ball. Oh. High score today, probably. And the extra ball. Followed by the alarm. Fire alarm. No! Of course.
29:38
Alright. 572. One last ball. That's a pretty good three ball game. That is not bad at all. I got 36,000 banked for super bonus.
30:00
So, I do like that spinner sound. Does it make that sound when it's not lit? Okay, let's do that then.
30:12
That'll work. I got the spinner lit now so we can compare spinner sounds. yep different spinner sounds when lit and not lit and both very let me survive the beast yay i tilted how is that even freaking possible how are you so inconsistent oh i figured it out okay so when i was cleaning the cabinet anyway let's this is my finishing score 591 except for the fact that I got hosed and I was not the high score to date I just collected a special when I heard the knocker go off okay where's my light oh it's on okay when I was cleaning the cabinet I found the ball roll the uh tilt roll ball and um isn't that supposed to be resting at this end but when it goes to that end it was just resting there and that was probably causing my tilt so we're gonna remove that problem solved anyway that is the end of the future spa garage series we would call it a success and yeah I think we'll wrap up this video and go play another game or two