Amusement Doctor LLC

So we had a couple of unforeseen things that happened lately and boy did they make life interesting. The first was a flipper pawl that was in a BRAND NEW Star Wars pinball with an incorrectly installed kingpin. This made the flipper stick randomly and was a stumper until we took the flipper apart and found it. The second was an allen bolt that evidently was never given a hole. This was on a new part as well so….it made for a bit of head scratching.

The black pin peeking out about halfway up should be flush with the rest of the plunger. SUPER fun to figure out!

The upper Allen Bolt has no hole in it! We wonder how many ended up making it out to the field like this.

We have repaired quite a few Williams Pinball 2000 machines, so we are pretty familiar with Star Wars Episode 1 and the sister machine, Revenge from Mars. This one came to us completely broken and in pieces. (the latter was for transportation purposes) When we first started working on it, we noticed that just about everything electronic wise was broken, but the cabinet and playfield were in immaculate condition. It turned out pretty great!

How we first saw her

lotsa pieces!

more pieces!

head pulled from body

back box works again

full color on screen

Queen Amidala is ready to rule!

She is fixed and ready to play!

We work on quite a few Williams machines and have worked on many Defender , Robotron 2084 , Joust , and even occasional Sinistar games. This Stargate that we fixed at a customer’s house is the cleanest one we have seen in a long time. The paint on the sides had a few mars but other than that, it looked awesome with none of the wood splitting on the bottom of the cabinet that we usually see. The control panel was one of the original slick, shiny plastic versions that came with these machines and it is completely free of cigarette burns! Usually when we see a Stargate, the control panel is usually burned like crazy or someone has replaced it with one of the textured aftermarket control panel overlays.

Nice Original Stargate

This is another post about acid damage, but this one has some pretty gruesome pictures of what bad batteries can do to a machine. The result is a machine in need of a new MPU board (main logic board) which will be at least $600…… if we can find one. Please change the batteries in your machine if you have one. This is a double tragedy since this is one of the more hard to find Star Wars Trilogy machines.

The culprit….. old batteries on the MPU. In their infinite wisdom…. the game designers decided to put ALKALINE batteries in the upper right hand corner of the backbox. When they leak, they damage everything below.

The damage even extends to board underneath the MPU.

SEGA Star Wars Trilogy…. down and out for now 🙁

We have had the opportunity to work on many Defender machines over the years, but the one we recently came across is one of the cleanest machines that we have seen in a long time. The control panel has the typical Williams Defender , Stargate , Make Trax , Robotron , Joust cigarette burns, but overall the machine’s cabinet is a solid 9 out of 10. The electronics are proving to be a bit of challenge with some weird issues, but again, we are figuring them out. Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar really put in some incredible effort with this machine and when we play it, we cannot believe it is from 1980. It still holds up incredibly well.

Such a great cabinet

Whoa, what’s going on here?

got it down to one invalid switch

Screen shot of a 95% working board set

If you are looking to part with an arcade machine, please let us know. We are always looking for machines as we are always being asked for machines! One in particular that we are looking for is Tail Gunner by Cinematronics in the upright version or Tail Gunner 2 by Exidy in the cockpit version. It is unusual for a game to come out in different variations by different manufacturers, but we will not argue with this one as the game is just awesome! This is a game of basically no strategy, you just need to shoot everything coming at you and use your shield sparingly. It features the old style Black and White vector monitor as well. However…. the game is just compelling! It draws you in to play better and see if you can further along. If you happen to have one or even know where one is located, please drop us a line, we would love to have it in our collection or at least play it.

Tail Gunner upright by Cinematronics

Tail Gunner 2 cockpit by Exidy

Screen shot, old style vector graphics that rule!

All we can say is wow! This is a really cool mock-up that made its way to our local distributor for some modifications. It was originally just an internet game from Old Spice, but someone decided to up the ante and make a full size arcade game. We had a blast playing it and have always loved the sense of humor that Old Spice uses in their commercials. Arcade games come and go…… Pong, Space Invaders,  Asteroids, Defender, Pac-man, Ms. Pacman, Galaga, Robotron…… and…… Dikembe Mutombo’s 4 1/2 weeks to Save the World for Friendship!  Haha!

The full machine

Side art featuring Dikembe, a sub sandwich, and his bear side kick

Screen shot of the main screen

We had a pinball repair come up for a Stern SHREK machine recently that had a bad drop target. We carry all the parts for drop targets….. except for this oddball! When we found the culprit, it ended up being a broken ledge in the drop target channel and we knew right away that this would have to wait until parts arrived. In order to get the customer up and running we employed a temporary fix on the pinball using….. electrical tape. While we try to be prepared for all issue with pinball machines. sometimes we run into things that are not possible to predict. Luckily for those occasions…… there is tape. By the way, this could have been the permanent fix because it worked so well, but we would rather fix things the right way! Haha!

Pre-Fix drop target

“Tape Fix” drop target

Bad part and replacement part pics of the culprit

Gottlieb did not make a ton of games and some of the ones from the early 90’s are extremely hard to find. This one is an Operation Thunder of which there were only about 2500 made. What makes this one even more rare is the fact that the owner has kept in incredible condition. It only had a flipper and saucer issue that were easily fixed. I love my job!

We had to get rid of our Home Use Only Ms Pacman / Galaga Reunion machine a few years ago and have missed it ever since. When we came across this one, we were so happy to get another. It is in amazing shape and actually has fewer plays on it than our original machine! Ms. Pac-man and Galaga are just great games and this machine faithfully reproduces them and has new controls with digital components! Also, through a series of moves with the joystick at startup, you can play regular Pac Man!