Miscellaneous November Update

November sucks! It's cold. It rains. It snows.

Daylight is down to nine and a half hours and getting shorter everyday until winter solstice.

It's a difficult time of the year.

I realized I haven't posted anything here in awhile. Things have been a bit slow machine wise.

So here's a bunch of little things I've been fiddling with lately:

 

Nishijin Circuit Racer in my custom cabinet:

I installed Circuit Racer in my custom pachinko cabinet.

 

 

Also, as can be seen in my original post for the game, It was missing all the aluminum trim on the lower ball tray.

So I found a tray that had the trim I needed.

 

 

I Ginger-carefully removed the trim, and installed it onto Circuit Racer. It really improves the overall look of the game. Especially since this is pretty clean example.

 

Kyoraku Oryusan in the ball lift frame:

 

I installed Oryusan in the ball lift frame.

 

 

Oryusan was what finally motivated me to buy a Silver Orange ball lifter after all these years of wanting one. So, naturally, it was the next game to go onto my test platform I cobbled together in my previous post.

 

These newer pachinko machines with the fever modes are impossible to appreciate, as in really experience the gameplay, without some sort of ball lift system. The machine's prize hopper is too small and the machine quickly runs out of balls as soon as you achieve a fever mode.

BUT I didn't just install the game. I bought two more Orange ball lifts: One that is complete with the proper prize hopper paddle switch and one that had the overflow blocked off.

 

I modified my platform to accommodate the second lifter. As the first lift fills up with played balls, it overflows into the second lifter. Excessive balls overflow into a couple of boxes. That gives the whole setup amazing capacity. I admit that TWO Silver ball lifts is a bit of a Pachinko Nerd Flex but now I can play through a 15R and not run out of prize balls.

 

 

I wired a timer so that when the prize hopper paddle switch closes the first lift will run continuously and the second will run 15 seconds ON, 15 seconds OFF until the prize hopper is filled. That way is prioritizes the first lift so that it empties first.

The one down side of my new system is that I occasionally have to manually empty excess balls if gameplay goes on for too long without a significant win.

 

It's crazy how many balls these newer pachinko machines can gobble up!

New tokens for Satomi Buffalo Arrangeball:

I got some 26mm tokens for the Buffalo Arrangeball. I like 'em.

I want each machine to have it's own token model to make things more complicated.

Bally Miss Universe side art:

 

This is a bit off topic.

 

I recently watched, for the first time, the 2001 movie adaptation of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

 

I know... I'm about 25 years late.

I thought the titular character totally looks like the side art of the Miss Universe bingo machine.

 

I just had to share it.

🎵Through the dark turns and noise of this wicked little town🎵

December 1974 Nishijin Circuit Racer: Early production game?

 As mentioned in the previous post, I acquired a Nishijin Circuit Racer.

Soon after, a friend mentioned that I could buy replacement stickers for it. But when I compared my machine with the sticker set, mine were slightly different. The car sticker in the "cloud" is different and my the feature artwork doesn't have the fork in the road around the "4" and "G", nor does it have the second "S" at the start. Fortunately, my stickers are still in decent condition.

And contrary to other descriptions of circuit racer that are found online, the left and right yellow trophy holes start the feature, not the center hole. Center hole opens only the bottom centre tulip on mine.

The funny thing is that when the tire feature is open, you can't see the S, 4 and G lights. Should have used a low profile tire instead ;-)

You can see the S, 4 and G lights only if you look from the side.

Circuit racer is known to be a game from early 1975, so the expiry date stickers would indicate some months in 1976 (S51). But my expiry sticker indicates 50-12 (December 1975), meaning it was released some time in December 1974. Does this mean I have an early production game?

Pachinko Palace imported some rare gem!

Here is a very informative article about pachinko machine expiration dates. I used the article as a reference for my tiny bit of research.

Nishijin Circuit Racer

By chance, I picked up a rare Nishijin Circuit Racer pachinko machine. It's one of the few models of that era that utilizes an electromechanical feature. Most pachinko machines from that era are purely mechanical devices except for a couple of lights and leaf switches.

When I first got the machine it was dirty, the back was falling off and the tire feature coil was continuously energized with no power going to the lamps. The cleaning and falling back were an easy fix not worth documenting. The stepper unit required partial dismantling to access the wiper and disc for cleaning.

The feature unit is very nice with a sealed relay, a tiny wiper and disc, a step up coil, a reset coil and a delay circuit for the reset coil. The board also has 4 diodes as a bridge rectifier.

Here's how the unit works.

Under normal conditions, when the feature is not engaged. The stepper unit wiper is in zero position and the sealed relay is energized breaking the circuit to the tire solenoid.

When a ball triggers the feature micro switch it momentarily energizes the step up coil, shifting the wiper one position. The small sealed relay drops out and it's switch makes the circuit for the tire solenoid.

Additional balls in the feature steps up the unit via the micro switch until it reaches last step.

The stepper unit reset coil is energized by the last step on the stepper unit or by the left or right pit stop micro switches. 

Wiper winds back to zero position, small relay is energized by zero position and tire feature solenoid drops out.

Stepper disc steps:

0 - Energizes sealed relay

1 - S light

2 - 2 light

3 - 3 light

4 - 4 light

5 - G light

6 - Energizes stepper reset coil 

Enjoy some reference pictures of the stepper unit. Details are few for this game!