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Want to buy a pinball machine

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The-Noid said:
I would say the half life of one of the older machines, from the 90's is around 5 hours before a switch breaks.

I can't think of a time I have played a pinball machine in an arcade that something wasn't broken or a light was out. Most of the time you just deal however.

The lights are fairly easy to fix, however are somewhat hard to locate nowdays. Most are automotive lights.
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How are the really old machines, from the 1950's? Are they difficult to maintain?
 
QueBert said:
Visual Pinball looks bad ass, but I can't get it to run properly on my system. I posted a message on the VP forums but nobody seems to want to help a pinball n00b out 🙁
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What's not working right? I have it running on my machine. PM me if you want if you still haven't figured it out.
 
RearAdmiral said:
Update in OP, bought a fish tales machine! It is ridiculously fun!
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Awesome! That's a fun game.

Quebert: The VP/Hyperpin crowd are a friendly helpful bunch. Much of the initial "how to" is in a very nicely done PDF file linked on the main page. Generally if you have questions someone will help you out. What issue are you having?
 
At one point my dad had "Galaxy". Man I put a LOT of hours into that game. I love pinball in general and it is by far my favorite way to spend quarters.
 
spidey07 said:
I remember that one and remember it being a really fun game. Congrats, I'm itching to get a machine.

How much and what's the condition?
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1950 with the fish topper. The condition seems pretty good. There is fade on one of the cabinet sides, various exterior scuffs and such. The playfield is kinda dirty, one or two bubbles on the boat that could use fixing, a couple of lights out. Plastics seem to be in pretty solid shape. Dot matrix display is perfect and bright.

The cpu board was previously replaced(not cheap), remote battery mod installed, reel belt replaced, looks like new rubbers at some point.

Overall I'm really happy with it, it has been an absolute blast. My parents love it too, which is great. I'll rip the playfield out at some point and clean/polish/wax her up and replace some lights. I'm thinking about using LEDs but they are pretty expensive.

The fish's tale flaps when you do certain things and I guess an actuator knocks into the tail to make it move. It is LOUD but working as designed.

Rubycon should tell me how to quiet this down or if getting a quiet actuator(don't even know if that is what it is) would be possible.
 
I just played the new AC DC and I love it. What I like is the is modes that you pick at the start of the game based on the song picked. My best mode seems to be hells bells. When I picked that mode I was hitting 50 60 million for scores. I did get my name in it for hells bells mode. Very nice pinball that does not have a lot of outs. The biggest out is when you hit the bell in the middle and the ball sometimes comes straight down the middle but even that does not happen to often.
 
Have you considered pinMame?

Google it.

Be warned though, a good rig costs $4K+. requires a serious PC to have it run smoothly.
 
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RearAdmiral said:
Rubycon should tell me how to quiet this down or if getting a quiet actuator(don't even know if that is what it is) would be possible.
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Probably going to be difficult and expensive.
You can turn the music up loud though and you won't hear the mechanicals as much! :biggrin:

In the old games the flipper solenoids would hum, sometimes with a fury.
I always like when the ball smacks the glass. It's tempered and can take quite a beating though.

Nice thing is when you own the game you can take the glass out and cheat to your hearts content to see what the game does! :awe:
 
Rubycon said:
Probably going to be difficult and expensive.
You can turn the music up loud though and you won't hear the mechanicals as much! :biggrin:

In the old games the flipper solenoids would hum, sometimes with a fury.
I always like when the ball smacks the glass. It's tempered and can take quite a beating though.

Nice thing is when you own the game you can take the glass out and cheat to your hearts content to see what the game does! :awe:
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heh yea I have been meaning to cheat. The glass is a little beat up, scratched and such. I wonder how much a new glass panel would cost.
 
FWIW, I prefer machines to show their age. Worn top, scratched glass, cigarette burns... It adds character, and shows the love it's gotten over the years :^)
 
IHateMyJob2004 said:
I would love one too. I just can't justify the cost. It usually requires something like a 42" 1080p LCD and then decasing it. A high end build can use 3 monitors. 2 monitors is pretty much the minimum.
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I'm thinking this might get a lot more cheaper with the price of TVs getting cheap. By next year we should see $200 42 inch TVs. If you build a PC for $1000 and a couple more screens for $400, not sure what a pinball cabinet could cost, you could get this for maybe $2000.
 
Jeffg010 said:
I'm thinking this might get a lot more cheaper with the price of TVs getting cheap. By next year we should see $200 42 inch TVs. If you build a PC for $1000 and a couple more screens for $400, not sure what a pinball cabinet could cost, you could get this for maybe $2000.
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Some people buy pinball machines that are of little value and pretty much beyond all hope. Gut them and go from there.

If you have good wood working skills, you could make one out of wood.

The LCD you buy needs to be viewable from all angles. Some of them are such that you can't see much when looking from the bottom up. The people making these thngs are aware of all this though and can make recomendations.

Processing power is imnportant though. I'm not sure if mutliple cores matter with pinMame. MHz and architecture may be more important
 
IHateMyJob2004 said:
Some people buy pinball machines that are of little value and pretty much beyond all hope. Gut them and go from there.

If you have good wood working skills, you could make one out of wood.

The LCD you buy needs to be viewable from all angles. Some of them are such that you can't see much when looking from the bottom up. The people making these thngs are aware of all this though and can make recomendations.

Processing power is imnportant though. I'm not sure if mutliple cores matter with pinMame. MHz and architecture may be more important
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Did not think about the viewable from all angles I would differently would research the hell out of this before I started something like this.
 
Jeffg010 said:
WoW there are some cool youtube vids now I'm interested in this.

WoW I want.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44WfGT0ElVk&feature=related
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It is fun to mess around on the computer, but I just can't get into it enough to invest for a big setup. There is (was? haven't been in about 3-4 years) one or 2 Ultrapin visual pinball machines in Disney Quest at Disney World. They got boring fast as opposed to real pinball that I can play for hours.
 
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