Cabin Fever? New rubbers for Delta Queen

Bally Delta Queen

Is it cabin fever, in these confined times, that drove me to re rubber Delta Queen?

Rubbers for Delta Queen

Why do I keep this game? Why do I keep playing Delta Queen? It's one of Bally's weakest pinball offerings of the 70's.

I didn't just re rubber the game... I freshened up the lamps too. Even did the ones under the top arch.
I have to admit it plays way better. As for looking better... it has more lights.

Freshened up Delta Queen

I'm grateful to be holed up at home with no kids, lots of beer and lots of pinball. But it does feel strange not to be able to go visit friends for public health reasons. Gives me lots of time to play and appreciate my games, instead of just repairing them.

Gratuitous shot of the Gameroom

Although I enjoy a bit of work / maintenance too.

Pinball repair vision

Playing bingo too.

3 in green scores 36: I'll take that

There should be a law for pinball repair... sorta like Murphy's Law but applied to pinball repair, it should go like this:
After repairing a pinball machine, and test playing it extensively, problems will reveal themselves once the playfield glass is re-installed.

Satomi Hustler Miracle Arrange ball

What do you get when you mix a Mystic Lines bingo machine with a Pachinko machine?

Mystic Lines card

Mizuho Pachinko circa 1971

You get the Hustler!

Satomi Sammy Miracle Arrange Ball

Hustler was produced by Satomi Co. Ltd.
I wish I knew the year it was produced. I suspect 1976, since all the assemblies are labeled 7610 and 7609... I could be wrong, dates in these machines are usually expressed in Shōwa era (1976 should be indicated as "S51".
There is little information about these games but from what I read so far about Arrange Balls, they occupied the equivalent ecological niche in Japan as Bingo machines in most parts of Canada / USA. Back of the shop hush hush dubious legality. But then there's this video on Youtube clearly showing Arrange balls in a Smart Ball parlor.

How do you play the Hustler?

First, insert Token:

16 balls are released to the ball shooting mechanism. Like an Arepachi (or unlike a traditional pachinko machine) the player cannot directly handle the balls. They can be seen behind a clear plastic chamber.

Shoot balls to achieve winning number combinations.

Balls land in pockets numbered 1 to 16, lighting corresponding numbers at the center of the backflash. Leftmost and rightmost alleys marked Re-play return balls to be shot again. Multiple balls can land in the same number pocket.

2 - 6 - 14 awards 1 token
1 - 5 - 11 - 15 awards 1 token
3 - 7 - 9 - 13 awards 2 tokens
4 - 8 - 10 - 12- 16 awards 3 tokens

When all the balls have been played, inserting another token or pressing red button on the left side of the game pays out tokens*

Features are awarded when balls go through award pockets. These pockets do not hold the ball. The ball goes through, tripping a micro switch.

Green Zone

Lights the Green Zone award. Hitting 1, 6 and 11 awards 1 token

Red Zone

Lights the Red Zone award. Hitting 3, 8, 9 and 16 awards 2 tokens

Double-Up

Instantly pays out 1 token and lights the double-up. Bottom 2 lines payout double indicated*. Does not apply to Red zone

Full Chance

Instantly pays out 1 token and lights the Double-up, Red Zone and Green Zone.

*This machine can pay out a maximum of five tokens (total) per play as indicated by the blue oval-ish label at the top of the machine.

As for repairs...
The payout mechanism was gummed up with old grease. It was completely disassembled, cleaned and re-lubed.
Edge connectors were cleaned
A few old Electrolytic Capacitors were changed on the Main board.

Control Board. Notice the sticker on the ROM

Dim or burnt lamps were changed. Replacement bulbs used are 2182. Although I find they run a bit hot. I do not keep the game on when not playing it as a precaution.

Everything inside was coated in nicotine. Balls would not release properly, coins would not even slide down the coin chute. Cleaned everything with 99% Isopropyl and Novus 2.

Back of door

Main control board and payout mechanism

The machine is for Japanese domestic market, which means it runs on 100VAC instead of the North american 120VAC standard. A large ceramic resistor was installed somewhere in the machine's turbid past. Crude, but it works. Converting angry pixies into heat.

OK. This is dodgy AF

There is a switch at the bottom right of the cabinet. If the front door assembly is opened mid play, the game will not pay out winning combinations as an anti-tampering feature.

For a condensed history of Pachinko, check out Pachinko Boy's history page

Wine and Bally Mystic Gate Bingo

Playing Mystic Gate.
Drinking Wine.
Winning 192 credits on a 3 in yellow.
Messing around with my phone camera.
La dolce vita.
The sweet life.
La grosse vie.

Bally Mystic Gate bingo: Four in Red

4 in red on Mystic Gate.
240 credits.
Broke the 1000 credit barrier.

I can't decide which makes me happier:

Lining up the numbers.

OR

The fact the game counted up the credits properly.

Both!

F*** Yeah!

Bally Mystic Gate: It works and plays

It's been awhile since I last wrote about my Mystic Gate 20 hole bingo machine.

It's been working for some time now.

To get it working I had to:

Clean all the steppers, discs and wipers
Clean the mystic line units.
Clean the switch stacks of the shutter motor.
Clean the relays under the program unit that were covered in machine dirt and old oil.
Swapped all the 55 lamps for 47's and I changed all the 1464 lamps for the card.

Not much work really for a bingo machine. The game is relatively low mileage. The clutch washers were still lubricated and in good shape so I decided to leave them as is. After all, better is the enemy of good enough.

Mystic Gate is a pretty simple 20 hole bingo machine. No side game, no strange esoteric features. Juste the gate feature really. The game has a 40 coin limit. It doesnt have a proper mixer like the older bingos and I find that the setup with the Scrambler unit and the program unit takes away from the randomness of each spin cycle compared to my older games like Golden gate, Carnival Queen and surf club.

I had a few guests over in the last few weeks and they all find the Mystic Gate really fun.

I have to admit I also think the game is pretty fun despite being very simple. I think the gate is more of a gimmick. Sometimes it's useful sometimes, not so much.

How do you play the mystic lines?

Here is a fun game I played recently that nicely demonstrates how the mystic lines work.

In this game I had the A and B lines lit. The "Press buttons after 5th ball" and I had the "Any 4 stars score 300" that should read instead "All 4 stars score 300". I guess the Backglass Screening Department made a typo.

So After shooting my 5 balls I had a nice but useless grouping

11 in the blue
12 in the red
8 and 20 in the yellow and the 1 yellow star number

By itself this number combination was not a winner but by moving the A and B mystic lines...

I moved the A line up and down to have the 20 in the blue section.
I with the B mystic line, I switched the 2 left vertical columns of the card so that 8 and 1 are now in the blue section.

Lo and behold. 3 in blue. Luckily for me, the blue odds were all the way up and I scored a hefty 192 credits.

That's the beauty of the mystic lines.

The downside of the mystic lines is that the star numbers counts only as the 5th number in a color section. Two numbers in the same color section plus the star number of the same color pays nothing. Three numbers in the same color section plus the star number of the same color pays as a 3.

Mystic Gate does have the features "Any 3 stars score 25" and "All 4 stars score 300"

With one of those features lit, I guess the star numbers are a bit more useful.

Pinball lifestyle: "The dose makes the poison"

To loosely quote Paracelcus:

"The dose makes the poison"

I might be getting close to the lethal dose of pinball... Maybe not, I have observed fellow humans with a lot more games than me. I'm safe, for now.

But I have a heck of a lot of games. A lot for the small space I live in...

Here is the latest pictorial inventory of my... I can't really say gameroom anymore. It's more like a game house.

Observe and enjoy!

Les cardiaques et les femmes enceintes sont priées d'éviter ce spectacle effrayant!

UPSTAIRS

Firecracker, a Bally game designed by Harry Williams, one of my personal favorite games

Bally Nip-It, the latest project. Tastefully modded by moi. Still fun.

Bally Surf Club bingo, with the mixer taken apart for a cleaning. I have a recurring problem with the neatsfoot oil that goes sticky. To be continued.

Williams Four Corners. Every picture tells a story. She is filled with secrets.

The ole Nishijin Super DX pachinko game. I've had this game for over 16 years.

Bally Hokus Pokus. Sadly, I don't have any room for this game at this point in time.

The Booz-Barometer. Circa 1958. A gift from my Ole Pa a long time ago.

North Star Richelieu. Bally Challenger one ball and Keeney Thriller. Future projects. Treasure Trove.

DOWNSTAIRS

Enjoy the view. I know I do.

Interflip "BAO!" Dragon, Bally "camel toe" Wizard! and Bally "Brass Bra" Lost World: my only solid state game

Bally Flip-Flop, Twin Win, Big Valley

Bally Carnival Queen Bingo, my first magic screen bingo.
Watling penny scale
Bally Super Wall Street Bingo. My first bingo machine. Pictures of the backglass of my game seen here were used with my permission in Nick Baldridge's virtual bingo.
Bally Miss Universe. Good looking game, awful gameplay.

... Bally Golden Gate and Mystic Gate Bingo

Keeney Little Buckaroo Upright

Bally bottomless hopper slot machine

Midway's Space Gun. My one and only gun game.

Midway's Table Tennis Remote Controlled wall game. The remotes are HUGE

AMI D-80 jukebox. My first restoration attempt.

THE WORKSHOP aka "B" SIDE

Projects and extra games

Bally Surf Club Bingo

Williams Spark Plugs Horsey game. Gambling machine in disguise

United's Singapore Bingo

Bally Star-Jet pinball. The first EM multiball that established the 3 ball multiball mode.

The Borg cube of extra games, projects and parts machines

Crazy!

Bally Mystic Gate bingo: Begin the repairs

Before even turning a new game on, I give it a good visual inspection. Gives me a good idea of what kind of hacked up game I'm dealing with. In this case, the Mystic Gate isn't too bad but there some strange hacks.

First thing I noticed was that extra armour was added around the playfield. I guess it was to make it even harder for potential cheaters to get a hanger in to get "bonus" numbers. Notice at the left of the armour, there's a wire connected via a lug. That wire was connected to pulsing 6v via the 16 pulse cam... weird.

I removed the electrified armour since it interfered with the lifting and lowering of the playfield.

Next is a classic for the Reflex unit.

The role of the Reflex unit in a bingo machine is to make the odds and the features tighter as the machine pays more credits. Also, it gradually makes the game looser as more and more credits are played. A number of hacks were used by operators to make the back and forth operation of the unit a bit more lopsided to the operator's advantage.

On this unit, you can notice that 2 different gears are used, these gears make the reflex unit advance or reverse. One gear has more teeth than the other. That way, it reverses more slowly towards more generosity and advances relatively faster towards more stinginess, regarding features and odds.

Furthermore the operators manually advanced the reflex unit to the least generous position and jammed cigarette pack cardboard in each stepper mechanism. That way, the unit neither advances or reverses. Stays in the same place. I've seen this in at least half a dozen games I've worked on in the past.

Out of curiosity, I checked what brand they were using... Looks like JPS. Lol.

On the shutter motor, an extra switch was added on the #1 stack.

When I first inspected the bottom of the cabinet, I noticed a loose brown plastic sheathed wire. I followed it back to the #1 switch stack. One side of the switch was connected to the Yellow (common), the other side was just loose. I looked everywhere inside the head for a place it would connect but found nothing. I removed the superfluous switch a wire.

Lastly I found a solder bomb on one or the trip bank switch stack. I removed it as a precaution. It could cause all sorts of weird problems.

Another interesting detail, not pictured is that the game has 4 bookkeeping meters. I've personally never seen that many meters in a bingo machine. I still have to investigate what each one does.

Soon, I will have a friend drop by to help me install the head onto the body. The weight isn't too bad as bingo machine heads go but it's still pretty heavy. Then, I'll be able to turn on the juice.

It's hard to keep friends when you collect bingo machines and need a hand to lift the heavy head every time you get a new project.

More to come

New arrival: Bally Mystic Gate 20 hole Bingo Machine!

Bally Mystic Gate in the living room

This is my first 20 hole bally bingo machine. Mystic Gate was released in 1975.

It has a 40 coin limit. It's main feature is the Gate on the top arch. When active allows you to shoot the ball directly to the second row. Might come in handy. Otherwise it's a very basic mystic line game. Anyway, it's a pretty rare game, even more so in my part of the world. I straight traded a Gottlieb Sure Shot, that I fixed up, but that was in rough shape, for this game. The numbers probably don't add up but I HATED Sure Shot so for me it was all good.

Gottlieb Sure Shot

To me, Mystic Gate is not a proper 20 hole: no extra balls and no side game but 20 hole games are pretty rare here in Quebec so I have to make do with what's available. Also, since the card is identical to most 20 hole games, for the exception (off the top of my head) on super 7 and bonus 7, it will allow me to get the hang of the card and moving the numbers around.

More to come as I still haven't assembled the game. Cant wait to debug it and play it.