Springtime moss

Bally Venice Bingo: The quintessential "chasing Bugs"

Venice Italy: The city that inspires thoughts about the renaissance, gondolas, canotier hats, the arts, romanticism and dubious water.

Bally Venice: A ultra rare bingo machine. A juggernaut of electromechanical complexity and four transistors. A machine that Bally didn't even bother to make a flyer for. My Bingo Grail.

Bally Venice Backglass Detail

This machine is the quintessential chasing bugs bingo machine. Madonna once wrote a song about how it feels to work on this bingo machine. It feels like the first time (fixing a bingo machine) all over again.

So far, Venice has 4 main bugs.

The special game didn't work properly...

The timer unit does not step up when the first ball is raised to the shooter lane, causing the shutter to remain open when the first ball reaches the top ball gate into play.

The blue odds don't step up as they should. Very weird as the blue odds step up coil is wired with the green odds step up coil. So if the green odds step up properly, the blue odds should too.

I get electrical shocks off the control unit frame. Probably a micarta insulator that has a conductive carbon spot.

___________________________

The special game bug is solved, the problem was two broken wires on the ODD / EVEN advance unit disk. Two wires on the edge of the disk looked odd, as if they were bent in an unusual way. Curious, I pulled on those two wires and discovered that the wires were actually broken, the cloth sheathing was the only thing holding the wires. I re-soldered the wires. Lo and Behold, the special game works. That was the most intriguing feature. Very fun.

The ODD / EVEN advance unit disk is the second stepper unit from the left.

2 cleanly broken wires

I suspect the other problems are of mechanical or physical nature. Electrically, everything looks OK. I don't have that much time to work on Venice as I have other repair commitments to fulfil first but I still dabble in Venice some late evening now and then.

Hack of the day: Bowling Queen bell arm

Here's the bell arm striker off the 0-9 unit in it's as found condition inside a 1964 Gottlieb Bowling Queen.

I guess someone didn't like the bell sound.

Fortunately, the metal is soft and the arm was massaged back to it's original shape.

Bally Bingo Border Beauty 1965

This is an awesome video. *Not my video*

It gives a good view of what's happening inside a bingo machine.

Enjoy!

Working on Bally On Beam

A shot of On Beam with it's guts hanging all out. I love Bally's of that era for their design: top glass frame, sturdy playfield and score motor panel that can prop up and out.

The problem was the outhole not registering. The cause was a switch on the trip bank carry over switch stack. A small switch blade adjustment did the trick.

Pinball lifestyle: Community and Bally Venice

Bally Venice is assembled in my workshop. To get it there, I needed the help of a few friends. I am grateful for their assistance.

1968 Bally Venice Bingo

When you're in a hobby like Bingo machines, you need a network of friends around you. Because bingo machines are few and far between, you need people on the lookout for you. Bingo machine heads are really heavy, you need help to move them. Also, you absolutely need the manual and schematic if you hope to being able to fix the game and usually, they're not inside the game.

Whether it's lending parts to a buddy that needs to get a game working asap OR riding shotgun for a seemingly dodgy pinball transaction. To appreciate pinball as a hobby, you need people around you.

I was thinking the other day about the difference between a "normal friend" and a "pinball friend". I keep a mental list of my normal friends who have given me help to move or assemble a pingame because it's unlikely they will do it a second time. On the other hand, I have a few pinball friends that are always ready to help move something big and heavy down the stairs, and myself, I will help them however I can.

bingo.cdyn.com has always been the source for bingo documentation. Until now, the website however did not have any good pictures of the Venice internals so I will gladly send the pictures to Phil so that bingo aficionados all over the interwebs can use for reference.

Now that Venice is assembled I will work on it when I have the time. I have other shop jobs to take care of. Most of the switch points in Venice need burnishing and the special game is a mystery, but all of the internals are sound and when I first put the power on to the game, the credits on the display knocked off to zero so the games isn't completely brain dead.

Special Thanks to:

R.A.B. For acting as a broker in the Venice transaction
James S. For letting me store the game at his place for the weekend and letting me crash there overnight.
Bob G (ShootAgain). For helping me lift the head into place.
Julie L. For general help and understanding.
Phil Hooper For his website http://bingo.cdyn.com/ the best and only place for bingo manuals and schematics

More pictures of this EM juggernaut

Bally Venice Head

Bally Venice door

Bally Venice special game panel

Pinball's influence in graphics design

Here is a picture of a box for a cat toy my Freundin bought a few weeks ago for her kitties.

Obviously, the graphics designer likes pinball. The design even features a coin slot on the front of the box.

Stuff like this keeps pinball alive in the public consciousness.