On Beam Trip bank armature mystery?

When I started working on On Beam. I noticed some of the trip bank armatures looked a bit weird. Some were broken, some were replaced with some strange mystery part that sorta did the job.

More importantly, I noticed that the first armature, on top of being all messed up, was missing a small 90 degree piece of metal that would stop half of the trip bank from resetting when the reset motor was running. Without that small 90 degree piece the game would never work properly.

The other trip armatures were not a problem to replace since I had a bunch of spares from parts machines as they are commonly used in later bingo machines.

The first armature is cactus but the 4th trip has the part I need

Serendipitously, I also noticed that the 4th armature was the wrong kind installed for that trip, but it was the correct armature I was missing for the first trip. The 1st trip required A-261-12. The 4th trip had a A-261-12 but required a A-261-11. So my missing part problem was solved...

A hodgepodge of armatures

From the Bally 1976 parts catalog

This whole story of the A-261-12 in the wrong place got me thinking. How or why was it installed in the wrong place, yet so conveniently...there for me to use it to fix the game?

Maybe it goes back to when the machine was assembled at the Bally factory. Maybe the factory worker assembling the trip bank ran out of A-261-11 and installed a A-261-12 instead.

Maybe that factory worker was really a latent precog. That he subconsciously knew that by installing that part, he would save a lot of grief to one of the future owners of the game that would be stuck with the broken missing part. Maybe the factory worker's precog ability subconsciously guided his hand to the wrong parts tray.

Maybe I got the part in there. That is the future me, reflecting on how I once had this On Beam game but that it never did work properly because of the missing part. But fortunately for the future me, Time Travel technology would be available, allowing the future me to go back in time, get that armature, hastily install the part in the game before I would first acquire the game...

Maybe it's a different me. That is, an analogue of myself in a parallel universe. Very similar to this one except that the Time Travel equations and all the other technological details are commonly available. In this parallel universe, time travel tourism is not illegal but strongly frowned upon. Unfortunately for my parallel self, the missing armature is no longer available in his universe. Therefore, it was simpler to go back in time to get the missing part. Maybe this other self from the parallel universe built a time machine to go back in time to the Bally factory in 1969 for a tour of the plant on the day that my On beam was being assembled. Maybe my other self distracted the factory worker at a critical moment, resulting in the wrong armature plate being installed. Unfortunately for my parallel self, he built his time machine from cheap eBay parts. Resulting in a faulty time machine that not only travels through time but also through parallel universes. He ended up in this (my) past timeline, similar enough to his own timeline for him not to notice the shift until he travelled back to his own present where he would find his On Beam still missing the part. Thinking his time altering actions were all in vain.

Eventually the Time police caught up with all these timeline altering shenanigans. To return the equilibrium to the timeline, a Time Police constable installed in my On Beam a faulty A-261-12 armature that broke soon after I got the machine working. 

Fortunately for me in this timeline, Pinball Resource has the part in stock. I ordered a bunch. Apparently, PBR bought a parts inventory from a defunct amusement operator, the armature was part of that inventory lot, but maybe there's a lot more the this story....

Maybe one of my time travelling parallel self stepped on a cockroach in 1969 that wasn't supposed to die. It died only because of the On Beam armature saga. Maybe it resulted in a similar timeline chain reaction as in Ray Bradbury's short story A sound of thunder?

Pinball cabinet repair tip: Re gluing a Bally head

The first thing I did when I got On Beam was repair the head. The bottom panel fell off.

To repair, I first removed the backglass and the backbox insert. The insert is held in by a series of machine screws on each side of the panel. Then I carefully set the insert aside .

On Beam broken head

With the backbox insert out, it's a good time to check all the counters, relays and stepper units since it's easier to work on them out of the head. Also, once the head is glued up, it needs time to cure so it's a good thing to pass the time working on the game and checking things over ;-)

On Beam backbox insert

Cleaning a stepper unit disc

One thing to keep in mind is that Bally cabinets of that era use very few fasteners, the cabinets mostly hold with tongued, grooved and mitred joints and glue. So once a piece is broken, like in the case of my On Beam, the repaired re glued joint will never have the strength it had when it was intact. However, the game is cactus if I don't do anything to repair the cabinet and give this rare game a new life. The head does have a couple of factory wooden corners to strengthen the joint so it helps a bit to take some stress off the repaired joint.

Glue Job

I use Lepage carpenters yellow glue for the glue job. Once glue is applied and the pieces stuck together. I use carpenters clamps to hold the pieces tight while the glue cures. It's also good practice to verify squareness of the backbox before setting the piece to dry definitely. I put some stretch wrap on the floor under the workpiece to avoid messing up my kitchen floor with glue. A clean and damp cloth can be used on the workpiece to remove the excess glue and runs.

Re inserting Insert

Once the glue has cured for 36 to 48 hours, the insert can be reinstalled. A good trick I found to avoid damaging factory information cards is to fold pieces of cardstock on the sides over the info cards before carefully re-installing the insert.

Repaired head

Laniel Synchroson ML 1600 pinball Soundboard

The Laniel Synchroson ML 1600 sound board appeared on the pinball market in a very turbulent time of transition from Electromechanical to Solid State. The first solid state pinball machines with factory installed sound boards were introduced in 1978.

Closeup of Laniel Synchroson ML 1600 board #13

Just like 30 years before with the arrival of the flipper bumper vs. pre flipper games in late '47, the new Solid State games that were coming out made the Electromechanicals obsolete overnight.

In an era where everything new was better. Players flocked to the new solid state games. The games were better and faster. Every point, every hit was properly registered. During multiplayer games, the features awarded would carry over from ball to ball for each individual player.

Flipper conversion kit Ad from The Billboard March 20 1948

The old EM games were collecting dust instead of quarters. Established operators with fleets of EM games saw their profits dwindle. Electromechanical games with permits on location wasting space. What was a Coin-Op to do? Buy the new solid state games of course. But what about the newer EM games on location? Try to modernize the EM games by installing an electronic Sound Board, that is give the impression that the game is newer than it really is to give a second wind to the game, at least until the permit runs out.

This was the impetus for the conversion soundboards. A few models were available in the late 70's. Pintone was a one, I have also seen a Pintone Canada. The conversion sound board that really interests me however is the Laniel Synchroson ML 1600. The board was sold by Laniel Canada, not Laniel Automatic.

The first Laniel ML 1600 board I ever saw was in 2003 in a very beat up looking Gottlieb Centigrade 37. Since then I've always remained interested in these weird conversion boards.

Left: Pintone Canada sound board Right: Pintone for games with 50 volt coils

Laniel Synchroson ML 1600 sound board #19 installed in my Bally Hokus Pokus

What it commonly believed to be a serial number is written with magic marker on the board. As I write these words, I have #4,6,9,12,13,16 and 19 soundboards. As I keep finding new boards with different numbers, until I find 2 boards with the same number the hypothesis that the handwritten number is a Serial Number remains valid.

As for how they sound... When you turn the game ON, the board plays a weird alien like melody, then instead of chimes it makes different sound effects that sound sorta bad and dated.

As for value, these boards are not very collectable. Most collectors want to get rid of them to replace them with genuine chimes. They are worth at most $20 canadian dollars. Me, I like the boards because they represent a piece of canadian coin-op history.

The Laniel Synchroson board are usually wired Double Red wires to 6 volt lamp circuit for power. Double White wires to speaker (8 ohm 2 watts). Various wires to different sound inputs, up to 6 different sound inputs, each producing its own distinct sound effect. The inputs, I guess they are more Triggers really, are direct from different coils in the game. Each trigger requires both wires from the coil. The triggers are usually wired to the 3 chimes and various feature coils that are momentarily energized. Not continuously energized coils, that would just produce a long annoying seemingly never ending sound.

I'm still looking for documentation about these games. I still haven't found any mention of them in any Wiko, Laniel Canada or Laniel Automatic catalog.

Multiple sound boards

In this case, the double blue is the 6 volt

December 2021 edit: The number written by hand on the boards might be a batch number instead of a serial number, multiples of the same number have been uncovered since this post was first published.

New arrival 1969 Bally On Beam

The newest addition to my pile of games affectionately called a collection: Bally On Beam, a one player game released in August 1969 according to IPDB.

Being such a huge Bally EM fan. I had an eye on this game for a very long time. 

Surprisingly, this is my first Bally single player. I love the science fiction outer space theme.

Looking forward to bringing it back to life.

Aftermarket Reproduction Bally Bingo Backglass

Here are a couple of aftermarket bingo backglasses I have.

They are badly silkscreened onto plexiglass. The graphics are a crude rendition of the original bingo backglass art.

The colors are neon like. They give a festive carnivalesque feel to the bingos. All and all I don't hate the look they give to a game. Anyway, a bad backglass is better than no backglass at all. The Surf-Club backglass shown below is on the game I like to bring to pinball events, shows, flea fairs and swap meets. Just the backglass by itself is a conversation starter.

These backglasses were made by a longtime Bingo machine distributor and reseller in the greater Montreal Qc. area.

From my photo archives: 2015 Ottawa pinball and gameroom show

Here's a picture of a couple of my games at the 2015 Ottawa Pinball and Gameroom Show. The gone and NOT missed Williams Travel Time and my second Bally Super Wall Street Bingo. I took the picture after shooting a 5 in line diagonal on the second card. It happened by accident, I just chucked the balls. Good times!

North Star Coin Machine of Montreal Canada

Canada had a few pinball manufacturers in the olden days.

Automatic industries Inc. of Toronto Canada who produced the Maple leaf and a Whiffle bagatelle home model

Ro-S-Co of Canada

But I think the most successful canadian pinball manufacturer, or the one that produced the most electromechanically complex games was the North Star Coin Machine company of Montreal Canada.

Robert Baraké wrote a good article one the North Star coin machine company: Montreal's silver marble games If you want to read a bit on the history of Montreal's pinball manufacturer and his personal adventures, I highly recommend it.

If you don't want to go through the whole article here's a condensed version of the story of the North Star coin machine company:

On November 17th 1947 a ban on the importation into Canada of all non essential goods was ordered to conserve a dwindling US dollar supply. Pinball machines and other coin operated devices were included in the list of non essential items affected by the embargo and could no longer be imported into Canada. The importation of metal pinball parts was still allowed however.

The brothers Jacques and Gerard Tremblay, that were Laniel employees at the time, saw the ban on importation of pingames as a business opportunity. They founded the North Star Coin Machine Company of Montreal Canada.

North Star Released two models, Sea Breeze and Richelieu. The machines were assembled in old army barracks. The company re-purposed Gottlieb cabinets and parts from 40's games. The art was done by their brother in law Louis Leger. Less than a thousand games were produced in total.

The gradual lifting of the embargo started July 1st 1950. Nonetheless, the canadian market was quickly flooded with low priced used US games. The orders for North Star pingames dwindled and the company folded. The Tremblay brothers remained in the Amusement industry as operators for decades to come.

So this is the History of the North Star games.



My history with the North Star Games started somewhere in 2012 or 2013. I dont remember how or when, but I think it was while perusing the IPDB. At that time, I thought it would be completely impossible to own a North Star Game.

Then in December 2014, I decided to show up to a Friday night pinball meet at Robert Baraké's loft. At the time I didn't really know Robert, but we later became good friends.

Here's a short video from youtube that gives an idea of how those Friday pinball meets colloquially known as PowWows (PW) could be. Anyway, It was at Rob's loft that I first saw a North Star pingame in person. The game was Richelieu

On January 23rd 2016 I went to the North Star machine a Piastre's grand opening. The pinball bar is named in honour the the defunct Montreal pinball manufacturer. For the occasion, both the Sea Breeze and the Richelieu were on display. Thinking that would be the closest I would ever get to the North Star games, I had a picture of myself taken with the games.

In April 2016 I got my own North Star Richelieu. My friend Rob had a second Richelieu. He wanted a good home for it and he offered it to me. Obviously I took the game. It's sitting in my office as I write these words. It's a very slow project. It's missing a few parts and I insist on finding period correct parts for it. Hopefully, I will find the right parts in the near future and get this gem to play again.

Richelieu in my office

In May 2016, I had the chance to meet Mr. Jacques Tremblay. I listened to his stories and got to ask him a few questions about North Star's manufacturing techniques. I'll save that story for another day.

Mr. Jacques Tremblay with James Schidlowsky by Williams Major League at the North Star pinball bar

In September 2016 I had a very special repair job. A North Star Sea Breeze. Only 2 are currently known to be still in existence. The other one is at the Musée des Civilisations in Quebec City. This Sea Breeze is going to a private collector who wanted the game to be fully working. My friend who was selling the game couldn't work on it due to time constraints so he brought the game over at my place so I could take care of it. 

Sea Breeze in for repairs at my place in the middle of the living room

So 2016 has been a very interesting year for me in regards to the North Star pingames. Less than a year before, I thought I would never own one. Now, at the end of this year I've had both models in my house and I'm the owner of one of the few remaining Richelieu games. Feels like I've gone full circle. I goes to show what kind of crazy and interesting hobby pinball repair can be. 

Reference material

Canada Bans U.S. Coin machines. The Billboard November 29 1947. p. 144
Canada to get Jukes, Games. The Billboard March 25 1950. p.104, continued p. 120
http://www.montrealpinball.com/blog/stories.asp?view=plink&id=62