Episode 413 - 1940 Chicago Coin Fox Hunt, Shoot-A-Line, Dixieland, Royal Flush, Doozie, Line Drive

For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·27m 51s·analyzed·Jan 11, 2018

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

EM/Bingo restoration podcast: Fox Hunt handoff, Line Drive progress, Multi-Bingo plans, service call technical deep-dives.

Summary

Nick Baldridge discusses the completion and handoff of his restored 1940 Chicago Coin Fox Hunt game to Ryan Claytor, detailing its unique horse-racing gameplay mechanics and unusual scoring system (200-point increments). He also covers restoration progress on a Williams Line Drive pitch-and-bat game, updates on his Multi-Bingo project (now targeting 142 games with manual documentation), and extensive service call reports on Royal Flush, Doozie, Shoot-A-Line, and Dixieland bingo machines, highlighting technical challenges like bumper contact design, slingshot configuration quirks, and relay burn issues.

Key Claims

Chicago Coin Fox Hunt uses riveted brass bumper contacts instead of carbon rings, requiring extended contact dwell time to trigger relays and creating reliability concerns if metal pieces break.
high confidence · Nick Baldridge, host, describing Fox Hunt bumper mechanism and maintenance issues post-fire restoration
Shoot-A-Line awards all six bingo cards for a single coin, not individual coins, which Nick did not initially implement in his Multi-Bingo implementation and must now correct.
high confidence · Nick Baldridge checking Shoot-A-Line schematic and comparing to Multi-Bingo design
Shoot-A-Line is likely Bally's first game with an R button, and the R button in this game does not reset the timer (unlike standard design), creating payout timeout risks.
medium confidence · Nick Baldridge analyzing Shoot-A-Line control circuit and comparing to standard Bally R button functionality
Dixieland uses different cam material than earlier 76-card bingo machines, causing uneven and odd wear patterns that require more frequent alignment adjustments.
high confidence · Nick Baldridge reporting consultation with experienced Dixieland technician and comparing to prior cam designs
Doozie has a unique slingshot design where slings fire with every point scored but not with 10-point or 100-point hits, using double-stacked normally-open and normally-closed switches.
high confidence · Nick Baldridge describing unusual Doozie slingshot behavior and switch configuration during service call
Multi-Bingo project now targets 142 games total after adding a new card bingo playfield with four games, and Nick plans to write a manual before expanding further.
high confidence · Nick Baldridge project status update confirming new playfield and total game count
Williams Line Drive has multiple sound cards, each handling distinct sounds, with no bell or chimes, requiring extensive mechanical cleaning and testing.
high confidence · Nick Baldridge describing Line Drive sound and mechanical architecture during restoration

Notable Quotes

“The thing that makes this game extremely challenging is just the sheer number of positions that the horses have to go through.”
Nick Baldridge — Describes core gameplay difficulty of Chicago Coin Fox Hunt due to 10-11 steps per horse for completion
“I tried replacing with a carbon ring and that didn't work. There's just not enough juice to drive it.”
Nick Baldridge — Explains why Fox Hunt's riveted brass bumper contacts cannot be replaced with standard carbon rings, a design constraint
“Pitching bats are good fun. This one is missing the playfield glass, which hopefully won't be a huge issue in testing, but we shall see.”
Nick Baldridge — Indicates Line Drive restoration nearly complete despite missing playfield glass, showing practical approach to testing
“The multi-bingo project is not dead. I am just extremely busy at the moment with various projects as well as with work and family.”
Nick Baldridge — Clarifies project status after listener inquiry, explaining delays post-York (likely PinballCorp York event)
“When the game is paying out, and they managed to introduce the Magic Screen Search Index bug into a relatively straightforward six card.”
Nick Baldridge — Identifies critical Shoot-A-Line relay burn issue caused by operator timer modifications allowing concurrent payout and search operations
“The relay will burn, you know, catch on fire. And that's exactly what happened, I determined.”
Nick Baldridge — Confirms physical relay damage on Shoot-A-Line due to circuit design flaw/operator modification interaction
“One or more of the diodes are burned out in there and need to be replaced... he recommended replacing with a much higher current capacity diode.”
Nick Baldridge — Documents Dixieland diode burn issues and consulted specialist recommendation for upgraded components
“The slingshot switches are double-stacked. There's a set of normally closed switches and then a set of normally open switches.”

Entities

Nick BaldridgepersonRyan ClaytorpersonDon HookerpersonChicago Coin Fox HuntgameWilliams Line DrivegameMulti-BingoproductShoot-A-Linegame Dixieland

Signals

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restoration_signal: Chicago Coin Fox Hunt restoration required extensive bumper contact cleaning post-fire; bumper contacts not recleaned initially, necessitating Q-tip metal polish treatment to improve game responsiveness.
high · Nick describes failing to reclean bumper contacts after fire, then brightening them with metal polish which improved bumper response
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design_philosophy: Chicago Coin Fox Hunt's riveted brass bumper contact design cannot be retrofitted with modern carbon ring contacts due to insufficient electrical power delivery, requiring extended contact dwell for relay operation.
high · Nick's attempted carbon ring replacement failed; design requires longer contact engagement time, creating reliability risks if riveted metal pieces break
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product_concern: Shoot-A-Line experiences relay burn-out when search operations occur during game payout due to operator-disabled safety switches and slowed timer motor; Magic Screen Search Index bug manifests with concurrent 2x/16x scoring relays.
high · Nick traced burned relays to concurrent payout and search operations; three relays totally burned, one partially burned due to circuit matching against neighbors on scoring coils
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operational_signal: Shoot-A-Line customer modified machine by drilling flipper button hole in cabinet, removing manual ball lift for automated version, and overriding trough switches; also defeated safety switches and modified timer motor, introducing critical payout timeout risk.
high · Nick details operator modifications including direct motor drive via flipper button and safety switch defeats that created relay burn conditions
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Topics

EM/Bingo Machine Restoration & Technical RepairprimaryMechanical Design & Engineering (Bumpers, Switches, Relays, Diodes)primaryMulti-Bingo Homebrew Project DevelopmentprimaryOperator Modifications & Field IssuesprimaryChicago Coin Fox Hunt 1940s Gameplay & MechanicssecondaryBingo Machine Circuit Design & Scoring SystemssecondaryVintage Pinball History & EphemerasecondaryService Call & Maintenance Practicessecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.72)— Nick expresses enthusiasm about project completions (Fox Hunt, Line Drive near-complete, RoboFrenzy advancing), satisfaction with Ryan's visit and ephemera gift, and professional engagement with service calls. Some frustration with specific design quirks (bumper contacts, slingshot behavior, operator-introduced bugs) and acknowledgment of Multi-Bingo project delays due to work/family commitments. Overall tone is measured, technical, and solution-oriented rather than emotionally charged.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.083

What's that sound? It's For Amusement Only, the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. Welcome back to For Amusement Only. This is Nicholas Baldridge. A lot has been going on. Let's see where to start. Probably with the Chicago Coin Fox Hunt. The game is finished and was picked up by my friend Ryan Claytor, who drove all the way down, picked up the game, and dashed back in time to go to work. And I will say that the game turned out looking pretty nice, but let's talk about the gameplay. The year of Flipper List. So the goal of the game is to get one or more of the horses down to the fox at the bottom of the back glass. To do that, you have to step each individual horse about 10 times. It might be 11 in order to get the fox. Once you land on the fox's space, then special will light, but only if that horse is selected. You change your selection by hitting the yellow bumpers. Every time a point is scored, then your selection changes. And if your selection matches up to the winning horse, or the horse that caught the fox, then when you drain, you get a couple of replays. You can also win on score. The thing that makes this game extremely challenging is just the sheer number of positions that the horses have to go through. So in order to aid you, the designer put in a red bumper down near the bottom center, and if you hit it, it will advance all the horses one, two, or three spaces, as well as awarding you some extra score. now another odd note about the score instead of working off of single points or thousands or hundreds of thousands the game works off of 200 increments so every time you hit a yellow bumper it's worth 200 points every time you hit a stand-up switch down at the bottom 200 points it seems like an afterthought, the scoring. It's very odd. So every five hits of the bumper, your selection swings back around to number one, and you illuminate the appropriate thousand-point panel on the back glass. So other oddities with this game. down at the exit to the play field where your replays are scored there are two stand-up switches and they're mounted right in front of these diamond-shaped posts which are illuminated underneath which is unusual and beautiful but if you get a ball jangling around down there you can get maybe up to a thousand points before you drain which is quite the feat and a pretty good feeling. I will say completing this game's sequence, you know, actually driving a horse all the way to the bottom is extremely difficult. I found this game to be very, very hard. And partly that was due to not recleaning the bumper contacts after the fire. Um, so I had recleaned the bumper stems, but apparently had forgotten to reclean the bumper contacts themselves. And the bumper contacts on this game are very odd. They're not carbon ring. Uh, they're actually riveted brass, uh, inside of, uh, this little piece of some kind of metal. Um, it's very thin. I tried replacing with a carbon ring and that, uh, didn't work. There's just not enough juice to drive it. So, probably a good idea for longevity of the game, and obviously there's no consumables involved, but if one of those little metal pieces breaks, then you'd be in some pretty serious trouble. Anyway, some of the bumpers were not behaving very well at all when Ryan came to pick up the game. And so I just ran a Q-tip through with some metal polish just to see if that would brighten up the gameplay. And in fact, it brightened up the individual riveted metal pieces as well. So that told me that I had neglected to do that since the big fire. So after that, the bumper started responding better. Still not great. I'm not extremely thrilled with that design because due to the lack of power, your contact, your skirt, has to maintain contact with the ring for slightly longer in order for the relay to actually pulse the horse. Everything works appropriately, but the issue is one of timing. You know, if the ball smacks into the skirt and immediately bounces away, depending on how fast the ball is rolling, it may not step up that unit. Other interesting notes on this game, there is a replay unit which tracks up to 70-some replays, which are illuminated through the back glass. It's actually quite striking to see those replays illuminate. And there is a free play relay. Both the replays and the free play relay will only operate if the game is currently powered. Now, this game has a shut-off timer, a mechanical timer that runs for about two minutes. So, if you don't play your replay right away, then you're out of luck. And you have to put in another nickel in order to get the whole game started again so that you can play your replay after that game is finished I feel like that kind of tricky But the other thing that's interesting is you could theoretically use this machine for gambling purposes, because it tracks so many replays, especially. But there's another problem, and that is that the knockoff switch, which is located in the typical power switch location on this game, only operates when the timer is active. So, again, you have to make sure that you have knocked off or played any replays that you want to play before the game times out, or else you have to put in another nickel. That's one way to wring extra money out of people, but not sure how that flew back in 1940. So it was great to see Ryan. He came down, and we got to spend some time together, and he brought this beautiful Repro exhibit supply catalog for me to thumb through and had Art Nouveau styling on the outside, on the jacket, And inside there was a ton of coin-op ephemera from the early days. So a lot of Penny Arcade type stuff, strength testers, trade simulators, and so on. Just beautiful. It was great to look through that. And we actually talked for a minute about RoboFrenzy. More on that at a later date. but soon because now that foxhunt is out of the building what i ended up doing was moving another game into its place i had a line drive williams pitch and bat that showed up at some point here recently and it's been folded up until i could actually address it. So, got it unfolded, got everything taken apart, cleaned all the steppers, and made sure all the score reels were clean, went through all of the mechanics, and what's interesting about this game is that there are multiple sound cards, one that handles each distinct sound that the game produces. So there's no bell or chimes, but there is an awful lot of stuff in this game from a unit perspective. There's a lot of things that it keeps track of. There's a Grand Slam reel, which ticks up, and based on the number of Grand Slams, you get extra replays or extra innings. And yeah, I'm pretty excited to have this come together here, cleaned everything, the playfield, back glass, everything is clean now. The playfield has significant wear, but it's a formica surface, so really just the illustration has worn away. The surface itself is fine. Loaded up some new balls, and tonight all I have left to do is clean the bat mechanism, and then I should be able to test. I'm looking forward to that. Pitching bats are good fun. This one is missing the playfield glass, which hopefully won't be a huge issue in testing, but we shall see. There's a big ramp that goes up into the back and a very small bullseye target that if you hit, you get a grand slam. But man-running unit, took that apart, cleaned it, everything looks good there, I think. So everything should be good. Very exciting to have another project near complete, and then I should be able to get back to working on RoboFrenzy. Again, I've got the backdoor screw together, just need to do all the wiring, you know, the difficult part. but that's coming soon. On multi-bingo news, I had somebody ask me recently if the project was dead. It is not dead. I am just extremely busy at the moment with various projects as well as with work and family. So it's been tough for me since York to get back to it, but I do intend to. I have a new play field, the card bingo play field, and I'll be designing those four games into the multi. And that'll bring the total of games up to 142. And then from there, I have other plans. Wow. That should be very exciting. However, one of the things that I'd like to do before I even get there is to design a manual for the game so that others can have an idea of what they're getting into. I have a lot of people ask me what it's going to take for them to build their own. And I explain, you know, the board set that's necessary, computer, yada, yada. But most people want to see it in black and white in front of them, not just in a list in an email. So I'm hoping that having a manual will help with folks that are curious or want to build their own. But it'll also help me to remember exactly what's in the game and some of the thought process, especially if I come back to it after a long time. I want to be able to fix things relatively easily. And just as with the Bally manuals, you know, that's what it's going to be good for. So what else has been going on? Service calls. Getting back in the swing of things there. Worked on a Royal Flush with a bonus count problem as well as an end-of-game problem. And ended up tracing both of those circuits. And surprise, a good chunk of that was wrapped up in the BX relay. but there were a few adjustments that needed to be made throughout and in various other relays. Worked on a doozy and boy that a weird game This is the only game I worked on that had slingshots that fired with every point and every rollover. Multiple points, like 10 points and 100 points, the slingshots didn't fire, but individual points, the slings would fire every single time. I'm not sure if this was due to a lack of sound in the game or perceived player action or what the case was, but the slingshot switches are double-stacked. There's a set of normally closed switches and then a set of normally open switches, and the idea is the normally closed switches will open up when that point kicks, but otherwise they remain closed. The normally open switches will close when the ball strikes the rubber surrounding the slings. Just a weird setup for that. Otherwise, game had sat for a long time, needed some going through, went through, cleaned the score reels, made sure all the units could step, cleaned, lubed, all that good stuff, and things were operating, resetting very snappily, but that's as far as I took it. There remained an issue with the slings because the slings had been adjusted so that the front set of switches were normally open as well as the back set of switches. That was my misunderstanding until I realized that the game was supposed to kick the slings every single time that you did anything. When you have those misadjusted, it creates some serious problems. Coils will lock on until you correct that issue. I find that crazy, but that's the way it was designed. So, other service calls. Let's see. I went out and worked on a shoot-a-line, and the customer there is doing a phenomenal job bringing this game back from the dead. It had previously been parted out and had been operated very heavily, very heavily. The operator had made a series of modifications which were interesting, many of which were designed in order to keep the game on route, keep the game earning. but one was removing the manual ball lift and replacing with an automated ball lift but instead of just replacing the shooter rod housing and putting the switch in there just like you would on any other bingo drilled a big old hole in the front of the cabinet and put a flipper button in there and that drives the motor directly. There's not much fixing involved with that other than replacing it back to a manual lift. But operator had also overridden the trough switches. The trough switches are used to ensure that all the balls have returned and the game is ready to play. Well, in this case, the trough switches had been tied together, so they're always showing closed. That's fine, actually, in this particular game, because a lot of the logic for ball count actually comes through the ball gate. So the most critical time is at the start of game when the shutter has to open up, and when you shoot your first ball and the shutter has to close again. Shoot-a-line is pretty intriguing because all six cards are awarded for a single coin. This is not something that I reported on in my previous podcast. And actually, if I recall correctly, it's not something I implemented in the multi-implementation, so I've got to go in and fix that. But check the schematic, and sure enough, that is correct. This was not a modification. You drop in a coin, and the game will reset and tick up. One, two, three, four, five, six, all your cards, and you're ready to go. Another interesting note, 17-volt lamps are used only in numbers 26 and 28. This game has a 28-hole playfield, which is different from the standard 25, and those extra lamps apparently had to be wired in an unusual way. Normally on a six card, all the lamps are 6 volts, and they're cut down from the 17-volt, or they're run directly off of the 6-volt circuit. Well, in this case, they're cut down from the 17 volts except for these couple other ones. I guess they ran out of resistors. I'm not really sure why that was done from a wiring convenience standpoint either because they're both buried near the middle of the card. so it's not a situation where having that extra resistor off to the side would really have made a difference but it probably has something to do with current capacity and load so I'm sure that was engineered properly it's just odd, one of those things this is also the only game that I can think of that has an R button that doesn't reset the timer. And I'll get into why that's a problem here in just a minute. But normally, and I will say this is likely Bally's first game with an R button, but normally the R button has two functions. One, reset the timer back to zero. So if the game is timed out or is about to time out, you get another shot at doing what you need to do. The second function that it has is to engage the search, and it releases this little plate under the search disk, allowing the wipers to turn. That's all great, except in this game, the R button doesn't reset the timer, so the game can time out while it's doing the search. Now, what Don Hooker, what Bally did in order to prevent that is added some switches onto the control unit, which is fairly beefy for a game that doesn have a whole lot of hardware inside He added some switches some safety switches that will prevent the game from stepping up the timer Well, the operator, in their wisdom, had defeated these switches and had actually moved the timer step-up to a slower-moving motor. this motor and the step up works and it only engages once the first ball is shot which is as it should be but unfortunately it doesn't take into account that the game may be paying out when it times out the game will just inexorably keep ticking until it stops so working on the game, I got the game entirely working except for scoring. And really went through the scoring circuit with a fine-tooth comb. The game had been driven hard, I mean really hard, so the replay counters on each of the cards had been rebuilt by the operator. They had used the same color wire on every wiper arm on it. But I can't really blame them for that. they had a lot of work to get it going that far. They also re-riveted parts of the replay counter-steppers because they had just burned through or worn through with enough use. Again, good job. You know, kept the game going. But this timer thing is a problem, and I'll tell you why. The game is paying out, and they managed to introduce the Magic Screen Search Index bug into a relatively straightforward six card. So game is paying out, the search index is on, as well as the 2x scoring relay, which basically releases the replay cams, and possibly the 16x scoring relay. Well, when that happens, after a brief period of time, the relay will burn, you know, catch on fire. And that's exactly what happened, I determined. The relays were all matching against themselves, you know, their neighbor, which is the same, on all of the scoring coils. So they are all suspect, but I suspect that three are totally burned and one maybe mostly burned. We'll find out with another round through. um aside from that worked on a Dixieland Dixieland had multiple problems the first is that it didn't score took a look and mechanically card 5 and 6 search wipers were frozen in place the cam release armature was kind of wedged up into the cam and it couldn't move. So freed that up. That didn't fix everything, unfortunately. Ran into a bunch of diode-related problems and also an alignment problem. So in this game, there are a bunch of diodes that handle backflow of current. It prevents the backflow of current into other adjacent relays. So if you're playing for double or nothing, for example, it doesn't automatically hit you with the same double or nothing win on whatever card that may be. And its neighbor, and that one's neighbor, and so on. So instead of tripping six relays, it's supposed to only trip one. Well, one or more of the diodes are burned out in there and need to be replaced. Bally originally called for 1N4007s to be used, and in speaking with a friend of mine who has worked on more Dixielands than I'll ever see in my lifetime, he said he recommended replacing with a much higher current capacity diode, which I'll be doing, and that should take care of the problem. as far as search disk alignment so on 6 cards this is something that had slipped my mind but on 76 cards the search disk has to be aligned exactly with the starting rivet it has to be on the rivets otherwise you'll get sympathetic replay count ups so for example you might have a winner on card number 2 you take your regular replay win and it starts stepping up card number 2 and card number 5 at the same time this is just because the wipers are off the home position so it assumes that there's a winner there that is easily fixable typically but in Dixieland, Bally had changed the material slightly that they used in their cams apparently and those cams wear unevenly and oddly compared to the prior type of cam that they used, although I will say that certainly those can become rounded too. At any rate, just some slight tweaking should get that one back up and rolling. Otherwise, the game is playable again, and you can win regular replays, but you can't win double or nothing. There may be another problem with double or nothing in that double or nothing never awards double, but without the diodes being fixed, it's hard to say for sure because, again, backflow could be causing a relay to trip when it shouldn't be. So that's all for, you know, kind of going around town, fixing some stuff. I have some more service calls coming up here this weekend and some more lined up for next week, most likely. So expect to hear a little more next episode. That's all for tonight. Thank you very much for joining me. My name again is Nicholas Baldridge. You can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcast at gmail.com or you can call me on the bingos line. That's 724-BINGOS1 724-246-4671 724-246-4671 You can listen to us on iTunes, Stitcher, Pocketcast, via RSS, on Facebook, on Twitter, at bingopodcast. you can listen to us on google play music you can follow me on instagram at bingo podcast or you can listen to me on my website which is for amusement only dot libsyn.com thank you very much for listening and i'll talk to you next time