Star Tech Journal
Issue: 1993-December - Vol 15 Issue 10 - Page 14
December 7 993
STAR*TECH Journal
REDUCING
PINBALL SERVICE CALLS ...
Todd Erickson
Summit Amusement
St. Paul, Minnesota
SERVICE = $$
The new Williams Bally
pinballs will take in a lot of
money and have a high resale
but they won't necessarily
have a bottom line correspond-
ing to the income derived. The
problem? We all know the an-
swer to this one: Service.
The modem pinball requires
much more maintenance than
a video game. What is really
needed is to reduce the total
maintenance/service on the
machine.
How's a 50% reduction in ser-
vice sound? Think then your
game would be more profit-
able? Sound impossible? Well,
it's not.
With the assistance of Dan
Galarde, Director of Quality at
Williams, we discovered some
interesting things ...
STEEL BALLS
First was that the most com-
mon dirt on the playfi.eld was
iron! This had to come from
somewhere. Where? The steel
ball has been damaged since
the first plunger hit on day
one. The surface damage turns
the ball into a small file caus-
ing even more dirt on the
playfield. One solution: Re-
place the ball with a chromium
steel one. This helps. They are
1-1/16" steel bearings.
STEEL GUIDES
11
The bottom line is
that your game
will take in more
money and your
The piece of stainless that re-
ceived the most damage was
the flipper return guides (the
guides that are located left of
the left flipper and right of the
right flipper). On older games~
these stainless steel pieces
had a lot of damage. I have
replaced these guides with
custom Lexan. I've tested this
set-up for over 90 days and
have cut the cleaning in less
than halfl
REPLACE IT
profit margin will
be larger too ...
A win-win
situation.
11
I feel that the ball should be
replaced every year on the new
hot games today. While we will
get some ball damage in that
time, it's cheaper to replace
the ball that to perform the
cleaning (and prevent the ex-
treme playfield damage). I
also feel that the game will
earn more money if it is clean.
Note that a real high earning'
game can get real dirty in 2
weeks. Incorporating these
improvements will increase
STAR*TECH Journal
REDUCING
PINBALL SERVICE CALLS ...
Todd Erickson
Summit Amusement
St. Paul, Minnesota
SERVICE = $$
The new Williams Bally
pinballs will take in a lot of
money and have a high resale
but they won't necessarily
have a bottom line correspond-
ing to the income derived. The
problem? We all know the an-
swer to this one: Service.
The modem pinball requires
much more maintenance than
a video game. What is really
needed is to reduce the total
maintenance/service on the
machine.
How's a 50% reduction in ser-
vice sound? Think then your
game would be more profit-
able? Sound impossible? Well,
it's not.
With the assistance of Dan
Galarde, Director of Quality at
Williams, we discovered some
interesting things ...
STEEL BALLS
First was that the most com-
mon dirt on the playfi.eld was
iron! This had to come from
somewhere. Where? The steel
ball has been damaged since
the first plunger hit on day
one. The surface damage turns
the ball into a small file caus-
ing even more dirt on the
playfield. One solution: Re-
place the ball with a chromium
steel one. This helps. They are
1-1/16" steel bearings.
STEEL GUIDES
11
The bottom line is
that your game
will take in more
money and your
The piece of stainless that re-
ceived the most damage was
the flipper return guides (the
guides that are located left of
the left flipper and right of the
right flipper). On older games~
these stainless steel pieces
had a lot of damage. I have
replaced these guides with
custom Lexan. I've tested this
set-up for over 90 days and
have cut the cleaning in less
than halfl
REPLACE IT
profit margin will
be larger too ...
A win-win
situation.
11
I feel that the ball should be
replaced every year on the new
hot games today. While we will
get some ball damage in that
time, it's cheaper to replace
the ball that to perform the
cleaning (and prevent the ex-
treme playfield damage). I
also feel that the game will
earn more money if it is clean.
Note that a real high earning'
game can get real dirty in 2
weeks. Incorporating these
improvements will increase
Future scanning projects are planned by the International Arcade Museum Library (IAML).