A Tale of Two Pin*Bots

So... last October or so, I bought a Pin*Bot. PB has long been one of my favorite pins. It's brutal left outlanes make me weep like a baby girl, but I love the backglass art, I love the cabinet art, I love the sounds and speech, I love the playfield art, I love the helmet toy, I love the miniplayfield, etc. I LOVE Pin*Bot. I found one in pretty rough shape, but its PIN*BOT, so I bought it anyway. It was part of a group of pins, so the actual price for it wasn't bad at all, and it's better off in my garage than in a barn, right?

Fast forward to February. I bought ANOTHER Pin*Bot. Again, another group of pins, and this PB was in much better shape than the earlier purchase (which was still sitting, untouched, in my garage). Well, I got home, and packed it away. Didn't even turn it on... until today...

The plan is to fix up both machines, and donate one to the church across the street, and keep the other for my collection. The 'worser' PB works ok. I've turned it on and played a quick, unleveled, game here and there, but the cabinet is trashed. I'm not a big cabinet guy, but I'd love to try repainting it and restoring it. That's always been my plan. Here's a photo of the bad cabinet, but it looks even worse in person...


So, tonight I fired them both up. The better-looking-but-allegedly-far-more-broken PB fires up right away. Looks pretty great too! It's sitting on the floor, but I try a game... The balls don't kick out into the shooter lane. The drop target bank doesn't rise. The visor doesn't close. The eyes don't pop out. Hmmmm... could it just be a bad fuse?

...

YES! It is, just a bad fuse. Swap fuses and everything works great! Or, everything works great for just powering it on for five minutes. I turned it off and will dig deeper soon, it was getting dark.

Then I turn to the dirty, ugly game. Power it on. Half the backglass doesn't light up. The alphanumeric displays are very very very broken. It looks like the alien from 'Sphere' (15-year-old spoiler alert) is trying to communicate with me during attract mode. I switch it off. Looks like I'm in for the long haul on each...


I'll keep you posted, and with a little luck we'll all be able to play one, or both, of the 'Bots later this month at the second Duke City Pinball Open House!