Pin-Bot (1986 Williams Electronics)
Click on Backglass for IPD listing.
The Story: As I've said in the past, video games have been my passion since my early years. Not so much pinball, but I lived for the video arcade back in the day. When at home the alternative began with the Atari 2600. Well, much like video arcades, it's time had come and gone, and the Nintendo NES was the hot new console of the time. There are a few games in particular I remember playing it it's early years. Super Mario Bros. (of course) and Contra really come to mind. Such fond memories of playing those games for hours. Another one is Pin-Bot. Sure, Nintendo had it's "black box" version of Pinball, but Pin-Bot put it to shame. Such a neat game. Nice graphics, fun gameplay, and stellar sounds. This was by far one of my favorite games on the Nintendo and still is today. But back then, that's how I got my pinball fix. I never even knew back then that Pin-Bot was an actual coin operated pinball machine. Of course nowaday's I can say I've known about it for years.
Now fast forward to today. I have what you might call "the sickness". I've been blessed with a stellar collection of arcade games and a few pinballs as well. At this point in my collecting "career", I've aquired so much that I've had to rearrange my layout several times just to shove another game (or five) in the lineup. I already have Elvira, Xenon, Olympic Hockey and even a Video Pinball has made it's way in. That was really enough for me. but like most "addicts" out there, I'm still constantly scanning the local Craigslist for more and more bargains.
The Score: Yep, another CL find. But to my defense, this one wasn't overpriced like most, and was only 20 miles away. The seller had listed 3 machines. A Nintendo PlayChoice, a Kings of Steel pinball, and of course, Pin-Bot. I just had to check these out. I pretty much ruled out the PlayChoice right away. Yeah, most collector's love those machines, but to me personally they are just a collection of Nintendo games in an arcade cabinet. While the hardware is different, the software is basically just Nintendo games on a timer. Back in the 80's, it was fascinating to see these machines in public. But nowadays, as a home console collector with numerous NES games in my collection, it just doesn't appeal to me. Aside from that, it needed the most work out of the three games this seller had. I just couldn't get close to his asking price. The Kings of Steel pinball was acually the nicest piece, but it just didn't catch my attention. Alli was also with me and she got bored with it pretty quickly. Obviously I was looking for one reason, and that was Pin-Bot. I had never seen one in person and just had to check it out. I think Alli really liked this one as well. But with that said, the seller was asking for $1,000, and it needed some help. The game worked, but had some lighting issues, a few broken plastics and was in overall original condition. I don't think it had ever been serviced, shopped or cleaned in it's 25+ years. But beyond that, it really wasn't too bad. I definitely saw the potential.
Now my expierience with these "System 11" pins is that the general lighting connector is just about guaranteed to be fried. Without even having to look I assured the seller this was most likely the case with this game, along with a few other issues. Yeah, I kicked the tires, but sometimes you have to when you really want a game that needs help. With that said, I knew it would be more time than money and after a half hour of haggling, we meet at $700. I was really hoping for less, but in the end it turned out to be a good deal for both of us.
The Service: As I suspected, the GI connector was cooked pretty badly. I really don't know if Williams just used sup-par header pins, connectors, or both. But just like Elvira, it was toast. Luckily I had spare headers and connectors laying around from Elvira's GI repair, so it didn't take much. I also had noticed large gaping holes on the same PCB board where the bridge rectifier attaches to it. I'm guessing this one also got cooked at some time. Someone shodilly replaced this part, but they bridged 2 traces together that had no business being together in the process. I had to clean that up. Once I made those repairs I powered the game on and was finally gretted with some illumination. Most of the lamps were original however, and some were blown, including all of the flasher lamps. During the shop out, I decided on a balanced mix of both incandecsent & new colored LED lamps for both the backbox & playfield. I also decided on black rubbers to replace the original (and brittle at this point) white rubbers. I did stick with white slingshot rubbers after being advised they provide better action than the black ones. With my wife's help, we disassembled, cleaned & polished the entire playfield, flattened some warped plastics & made a few quickie repairs to a few broken pieces. During the shop out I also noticed the flippers were also becoming brittle and had formed some cracks, so I decided to replace those as well. The backbox also features a plastic light bar topper with flashing lamps underneath. Like most (as I learned), this one was broken in several places. I searched high and low for a good replacement but never found one. All I could do here was to repair it as best I could and reattach it. It's not too bad, but will never be perfect. Oh well. I guess you can say like most flaws, it adds "character" to the game. Sometimes flaws are like trophies, and make great indicators of games that survived years of commercial abuse.
Another small problem was with one of the displays. One row of the segments for the main display was not coming up. I was really hoping this was a connector issue and not a bad display. Turns out it was just a broken pin between the glass display and the PCB it's attached to. A quick dab of solder was all it needed. While working underneath the playfield, I found several mounting screws were missing for some of the playfield posts. I replaced those. But then another small problem was noticed. The flipper coils worked fine, but I found that both had some strange capacitor attached that I had never seen before. One of the leg's had snapped off one of these but the flipper still functioned normally. Not wanting to take chances, I did some research. Thanks to a few fellow KLOV forum members, I learned that they are a basic component called a "Mylar Film Capacitor". They apparently aid the end-of-stroke switch in some fashion and prolong it's life. The part is very inexpensive so I decided to replace it.
All that was left after all that was to give the game a good cleaning, replace the original balls, sand & repaint the original legs which had some surface rust and replace the rather worn leg levelers. I also added a custom William's logo to the coin door. This is one game I truly can't stop playing. All those years of enjoying this game on the NES really bring back memories, and having the actual machine in my home on free play just multiplies the nostalgia for me. It has quickly become one of Alli's favorites as well. So glad I picked this one up and crammed it in.
Now fast forward to today. I have what you might call "the sickness". I've been blessed with a stellar collection of arcade games and a few pinballs as well. At this point in my collecting "career", I've aquired so much that I've had to rearrange my layout several times just to shove another game (or five) in the lineup. I already have Elvira, Xenon, Olympic Hockey and even a Video Pinball has made it's way in. That was really enough for me. but like most "addicts" out there, I'm still constantly scanning the local Craigslist for more and more bargains.
The Score: Yep, another CL find. But to my defense, this one wasn't overpriced like most, and was only 20 miles away. The seller had listed 3 machines. A Nintendo PlayChoice, a Kings of Steel pinball, and of course, Pin-Bot. I just had to check these out. I pretty much ruled out the PlayChoice right away. Yeah, most collector's love those machines, but to me personally they are just a collection of Nintendo games in an arcade cabinet. While the hardware is different, the software is basically just Nintendo games on a timer. Back in the 80's, it was fascinating to see these machines in public. But nowadays, as a home console collector with numerous NES games in my collection, it just doesn't appeal to me. Aside from that, it needed the most work out of the three games this seller had. I just couldn't get close to his asking price. The Kings of Steel pinball was acually the nicest piece, but it just didn't catch my attention. Alli was also with me and she got bored with it pretty quickly. Obviously I was looking for one reason, and that was Pin-Bot. I had never seen one in person and just had to check it out. I think Alli really liked this one as well. But with that said, the seller was asking for $1,000, and it needed some help. The game worked, but had some lighting issues, a few broken plastics and was in overall original condition. I don't think it had ever been serviced, shopped or cleaned in it's 25+ years. But beyond that, it really wasn't too bad. I definitely saw the potential.
Now my expierience with these "System 11" pins is that the general lighting connector is just about guaranteed to be fried. Without even having to look I assured the seller this was most likely the case with this game, along with a few other issues. Yeah, I kicked the tires, but sometimes you have to when you really want a game that needs help. With that said, I knew it would be more time than money and after a half hour of haggling, we meet at $700. I was really hoping for less, but in the end it turned out to be a good deal for both of us.
The Service: As I suspected, the GI connector was cooked pretty badly. I really don't know if Williams just used sup-par header pins, connectors, or both. But just like Elvira, it was toast. Luckily I had spare headers and connectors laying around from Elvira's GI repair, so it didn't take much. I also had noticed large gaping holes on the same PCB board where the bridge rectifier attaches to it. I'm guessing this one also got cooked at some time. Someone shodilly replaced this part, but they bridged 2 traces together that had no business being together in the process. I had to clean that up. Once I made those repairs I powered the game on and was finally gretted with some illumination. Most of the lamps were original however, and some were blown, including all of the flasher lamps. During the shop out, I decided on a balanced mix of both incandecsent & new colored LED lamps for both the backbox & playfield. I also decided on black rubbers to replace the original (and brittle at this point) white rubbers. I did stick with white slingshot rubbers after being advised they provide better action than the black ones. With my wife's help, we disassembled, cleaned & polished the entire playfield, flattened some warped plastics & made a few quickie repairs to a few broken pieces. During the shop out I also noticed the flippers were also becoming brittle and had formed some cracks, so I decided to replace those as well. The backbox also features a plastic light bar topper with flashing lamps underneath. Like most (as I learned), this one was broken in several places. I searched high and low for a good replacement but never found one. All I could do here was to repair it as best I could and reattach it. It's not too bad, but will never be perfect. Oh well. I guess you can say like most flaws, it adds "character" to the game. Sometimes flaws are like trophies, and make great indicators of games that survived years of commercial abuse.
Another small problem was with one of the displays. One row of the segments for the main display was not coming up. I was really hoping this was a connector issue and not a bad display. Turns out it was just a broken pin between the glass display and the PCB it's attached to. A quick dab of solder was all it needed. While working underneath the playfield, I found several mounting screws were missing for some of the playfield posts. I replaced those. But then another small problem was noticed. The flipper coils worked fine, but I found that both had some strange capacitor attached that I had never seen before. One of the leg's had snapped off one of these but the flipper still functioned normally. Not wanting to take chances, I did some research. Thanks to a few fellow KLOV forum members, I learned that they are a basic component called a "Mylar Film Capacitor". They apparently aid the end-of-stroke switch in some fashion and prolong it's life. The part is very inexpensive so I decided to replace it.
All that was left after all that was to give the game a good cleaning, replace the original balls, sand & repaint the original legs which had some surface rust and replace the rather worn leg levelers. I also added a custom William's logo to the coin door. This is one game I truly can't stop playing. All those years of enjoying this game on the NES really bring back memories, and having the actual machine in my home on free play just multiplies the nostalgia for me. It has quickly become one of Alli's favorites as well. So glad I picked this one up and crammed it in.
