Jump to content
Due to a large amount of spamers, accounts will now have to be approved by the Admins so please be patient. ×
IGNORED

we all float down here - Bally , Circus (1973)


Recommended Posts

You'll float too.

 

IMG_3856.jpg.48eabc3001e6d722f89253f85ea633f8.jpg

 

As my newly acquired pinball found a place in my garage and I started to have a good look at it in the dim fluorescent lamps, it looked like some creature that was alive and an uneasy feeling came over me.

 

IMG_3852.jpg.58691e0aa0d59a7223b021e722d3acae.jpg

 

 

FEAR

 

Those of you who a fan of Stephen Kings work will know of Pennywise the Clown also known as IT. It is an unreasonable and pitiless creature which is a bully at it's core. Was this machine the mechanical form of IT, sent from another dimension to cruelly taunt, bully and harass me? Would it have a warm and cordial manner to give me a false sense of security before bringing me back to reality that it was sent to torment me. Would I be able to turn the tables against it, overpower it, bend it to my will and defeat it?

 

IT is a shapeshifter. The current form of IT is a decrepit looking machine that has been washed by the waste of the sewers. The paint has been washed away in certain locations, in others it is cracked and missing. It's outer skin has expanded in places and creatures have feasted upon its bones. Red cancers have formed on some of the metal components. Solenoids have expanded and blistered like festering sores. On closer inspection it once had a vine growing through the backboard, camouflaging it during its long hibernation.

 

IT's face is completely gone, there is only the empty vastness of space in its place with pin pricks of light. It is unable to move as its legs are missing, unlike the spider form of IT only 4 are needed. IT no longer talks, the chime box is missing and all you can hear is the hum and clunk of its insides as it comes back to life.

 

 

119060334_circus(1of1)-5.jpg.78a3e7ef901f7ab6f458e3b193effa58.jpg 448783536_circus(1of1)-6.jpg.bc863d8030dbed467cfbfd21cb0aa219.jpg 1368419909_circus(1of1).jpg.6c927649ad8536c2f74ed6f9df30e593.jpg 728892597_circus(1of1)-2.jpg.4812214530258671ff9cd765bc19354e.jpg 739971064_circus(1of1)-4.jpg.3d2fa1bc653b76b4ff984b5258bd3ca3.jpg 587907345_circus(1of1)-3.jpg.1e1cbde53d652d333f31b31eb647361e.jpg

 

Stare into the Deadlights with me as I battle the bully and make IT shapeshift into a new form.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

These are the things IT needs to help it shape shift:

 

(list updated as necessary as things are discovered or found) 27/12/17

 

Schematic

Chime Box

Circus Glass

Back Box door

Legs (would love to find some original 70's bally legs but worse case I will just buy some new ones when necessary)

Bell unit that goes onto the match counter (chimes the 10 point score)

 

Things that need to be fixed

Player unit does not reset all the way back to player 1 sometimes

Game start does not start a game - coin switch does

Credit unit in back glass is seized

Pop bumper slack

bonus unit seems sluggish

a switch takes bonus off instead of putting it on

 

 

 

If you can help with any of them or sourcing them give me a PM.

 

Cheers,

S

Edited by simonsrat
Link to comment
Share on other sites

ITs first form was a pinball manufactured by Bally in 1973. There were 3550 units manufactured, IT is numbered 2241.

 

667020604_circus(1of1)-14.jpg.6ce8fb4a8b06f9ec93e6f9866640a9e0.jpg

 

It obviously was once a fine looking creature as Mr Ivan gave it the Bally tick of approval and sent it out into the world.

 

628931126_circus(1of1)-15.jpg.47f7d33092164d83ffa18ce25b9fe0eb.jpg

 

From ITs birth in the USA, IT made its way across the Atlantic to Germany where it was branded by Lowen-Automaten. This could explain the missing chime box, as there are a few reports of machines being shipped to Germany without factory installed chimes. (No wonder IT is tormenting me, it has been silent for its entire 44 years.) A few other hints on the machine point to IT living in Germany. IT even vomited up a German coin while I was moving it around.

1406528766_circus(1of1)-11.jpg.5c0be915f8ba25781af17dc127b985cb.jpg

694063518_circus(1of1)-12.jpg.900b4e34269bf184449ea97783ad6c2e.jpg

1477136216_circus(1of1)-13.jpg.327e8dcc3704f509ecb0d5a8cb6526f2.jpg

270059282_circus(1of1)-16.jpg.1432e807a2034a698c7be6b8abaccf53.jpg

 

IT tormented hundreds of people across Germany as it moved from Beer Hall to Sausage Hut to Pretzel Bakery and back to many other Beer Halls. Taking coins from unsuspecting people and returning nothing but pain and misery. Eventually the villagers worked out the evil that was IT and started to ignore its seductively flashing lights. The villagers banded together and drove it out of the Beer Hall into some farmer's shed and this is where it hid and hibernated for many years. During this time is when IT shifted into its current form, the paint ran with water, people tattooed it with Niko pens, vines grew through its head, its face was smashed into a thousand pieces, the legs were used to prop up a part of the shed that was falling down. Eventually someone came across IT hiding and seeing the pure evil in it decided to remove its presence from Germany. IT was tricked into a metal container and was then sent across the seas to the remote island of Australia.

 

The container containing IT was opened in Brisbane. From the docks it quickly changed hands and then hid out in a garage for a while. Eventually this became too much for that custodian and he made his best effort to make it gone. This is where I came across IT and was seduced by the allure of turning it back into its original form. Will I best IT or will I fail, and just be one of its many victims. Only time will tell.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Railways thanks for the help,

 

I have no experience with what the rear panel looks like or how it works. From looking at the cabinet it looks like it engages in the metal channel at the bottom and connects to a couple of bracket looking things at the top before getting locked by a lock located on the rear cover.

 

I ran the tape over the rebates on the side and got 715mm

for the height I measured from inside the metal channel at the bottom to the top rebate and got 640mm high

 

715mm - wide

640mm - high

 

thanks again,

Steven

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Someone read the hand written card that came with IT and said that the language used is Hungarian or Tsjech. It appears IT has been tripping and harassing people all over Europe. I decided to have a close look at the coin that IT vomited up and it was not German it is Yugoslav, from 1994.

 

1019543282_circuscoin(1of1).jpg.a413e31f375729e694d825acf0046eed.jpg

 

524977477_circuscoin(1of1)-2.jpg.479d70b05a8ce3aa5d06b00d527227d0.jpg

 

IT has possibly seen some great moments in history, the Fall of the Berlin war and the Yugoslav civil war. I wonder if IT will disclose anymore secrets as I try to bend it to my will.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am having some conflict with the cabinet / play field.

 

Option 1 will be attempting a total restore and making it like new.

 

Option 2 involves repainting the washed away sections of the play field in the theme of IT and leaving parts of the original artwork there as though it is being transformed. No matter what that clown stays as it is the best part of the artwork. There is some pretty cool IT artwork on the net which could be adapted to suit the stencil style graphics that the machine already has. With the cabinet I thought attacking it in the same way. Total refurb to new on half the cabinet blending into its current condition.

 

I do not have a back glass and so I would be trying to duplicate the original, instead of doing that could put my time into making an IT version in the same theme as option 2 with elements of the original Circus back glass and elements from IT.

 

I really like history and see merits in both a total refurb and locking away (sealing/maintaining) parts of the machine in its current condition to preserve its journey. I think just preserving the machine in its current condition is not an option as it is too far gone to look cool.

 

The original play field artwork on the machine is pretty "ordinary", the design looks rushed. So I have no real attraction to it, other than the clown, which is the bit that the artist seems to have put all their effort into.

 

Playfield.jpg.addbe40108fe1ae01c8053eb4c7e65b7.jpg

 

I have been thinking a lot about this as I have been playing with the mechanics of the game and decided not to make a decision until the game is mechanically working. Mechanically I already have the machine working 90% and can play a 4 player game. I was going to post about this soon.

 

Anyone have some words of advice?

 

Cheers

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I picked up the machine it would power up and flippers would work, scores would go up, but lots of things just did not look right. On getting the machine home I visually looked at it for things that looked weird and then turned it on and took a note of things that seemed to be odd. I wrote all this stuff down into a list.

 

Using the list a a reference, I read a lot of stuff prior to starting to physically work on the machine. The following guides were very helpful.

 

http://www.pinrepair.com/em/index1.htm#top

http://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=EM_Repair

 

I also read lot of the Tech threads on the forum.

 

What I found was that a lot of the symptoms I had on the machine appeared to be related to the score reel or the coin switches. I decided I would attack the score reels first.

 

With the power off I set all the score reels to the "0" position. Turning the machine on caused several of the reels to continue spinning.

 

237465913_circuscoin(1of1)-4.jpg.8f8b331ee2188c01f44ab5850efcd3f2.jpg

 

I then used information from the web to service the reels that appeared to be having issues.

 

2056584489_circuscoin(1of1)-5.jpg.fbbf65d4221d16c2d1634e0b64943616.jpg

 

After removing a "faulty" score reel I checked the switches looked the same as reels that were not doing anything.

 

93782154_circuscoin(1of1)-8.jpg.7b9f4e72f98448e9b1e30320dc08c1a9.jpg

 

After checking for an obvious switch problem I then pulled the score reel off the unit which allowed me to see the things that make the score reel work.

 

2144507237_circuscoin(1of1)-7.jpg.7d96f08f964abad10acd33d59c5dcfbb.jpg

 

I turned the machine off while working on something then turned it back to test the repair. Apparently there are some nasty voltages involved in these old machines and I do not feel like getting zapped.

 

I found a lot of my issues were the plastic bits being stuck to the metal shafts. To fix this problem involved cleaning the bits with alcohol and where rust had caused friction sanding the metal with wet and dry sandpaper. Also spring tension caused lots of issues. Eventually I got all the score reels to return smoothly to the "0" position and the machine would stop trying to reset them. But the motor still ran continuously.

 

To be continued .....

Edited by simonsrat
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whilst it's good practise to turn the machine off, I think it's also a good idea to know which bits will really bite as there are times when debugging that I'll have the machine on, usually playfield up.

 

I haven't worked on a Bally EM, but on Gottliebs, they used plastic insulator instead of cloth on the high voltage coils. The really scary ones are also readily visible on the schematic on the 110v/240v side of the transformer. Eg Pioneer:

 

53437b9b6b24052e883397d0b67d19f4.jpg

 

So there's 3 bank reset coils that could be super owie. Also note that the switch is single pole single throw so a reverse wired line cord or power point leaves only the neutral switched (which on this machine I discovered by bumping above mentioned owie coil with the machine off at the cabinet but on at the wall).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

No. It is staring at me from the corner. Menacingly.

 

I have been working on my Conquest 200 and wanted to get it too 100% before attacking this project. This machine is frustrating, I get it to 100% then something else fails.

 

IT now has a set of legs so it will be able to stand on its own. I have also downloaded a heap of Pennywise fan art as inspiration. Rusty provided me the main body of a chime unit and I had the plungers arrive from RTBB last week. I need to get some Aluminium bar and try to make some chimes and then hopefully IT will have a voice. I do need to get some Jones plug connectors, but was just going to hard wire it in until I come across some. There is a jones connector in the machine waiting for a connection. Hopefully all the wiring goes to where it should be and it will be a simple fix. I also got my hands on a schematic so I can see how IT was designed.

 

So unfortunately nothing much to report, but I will update when it starts.

 

Cheers,

 

Steven

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I need to get some Aluminum bar and try to make some chimes and then hopefully IT will have a voice.

 

The Aluminum bar needed is Aviation grade Aluminum I read somewhere, hardware grade bar is too soft & has no real voice/tone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Aluminum bar needed is Aviation grade Aluminum I read somewhere, hardware grade bar is too soft & has no real voice/tone.

Structural grade 6061. I didn't hunt too hard, but I couldn't find it in 3mm here (in small lengths at least). I ended up using 6063 which is architectural. Doesn't sound 100% right, but better than nothing. My adventures with it are here: https://www.aussiearcade.com/showthread.php/91266-Gottlieb-Chime-Bars

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...