For us New to this hobby

Steelhorse

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Overwhelmed when I first looked under a pf was like there is no way I could work on this, and looking behind the backglass at the boards and circuits, the soldering involved ( I have never soldered NOTHING before). I was like maybe I should not own one of these pinball machine's. Well after searching the web and finally finding this forum I have grown more confident in service for my first pinball machine. Iam still abit hesitant on any board work or anything behind the backglass, I haven't had any issues with nothing behind the backglass from looking at everything seems fairly NEW like conditions, no battery acid or burnt marks on the boards. My point is newbie's it will get better if you allow yourself to learn, I was working under the pf one day and my wife says looks like I was having fun as I had a smile on my face as I was under there, and thats what I never did at first, but it's what I do now :) thanks to Lindsey, tomdotcom, rare hero, jar155, Ken Layton, Quattrohead, and a few others I want to thank you for the help! Newbies DONT GIVE UP on your machine(s), the internet is your best friend, read, read and read more, your confidence will rise. I learned how to solder by watching Youtube videos, and put on 2 new EOS switches with ease and confidence when I did my flipper rebuild kit. If I didn't own a pin I would not even wanted to learned to solder. Stick with it and smile while you are repairing, put the radio on and just think when everything is put together, fixed, etc. it gonna be fun to see the fun that people get from these machines while playing. I need more tools for this hobby as I dont have everything to diagnose everything on a pin, but I'am collecting tools here and there. Newbies hang in there, learn to fix your own machine :) THE PARTS ARE CHEAP!
 
Ya more thing It's one of the last things made in the U.S.A! I just put my son's bike together for Xmas and the damn thing is now made in China, Schwinn use to be American made!
 
THE PARTS ARE CHEAP!

hehe... Apparently someone hasn't gotten to a 'big boy' broken part yet! :D

Sure a part may only be a few bucks, but to shop out an 'okay' condition game, you're gonna need more than a few of them cheap parts to do the job right. It's pretty easy to rack up $100+ parts orders for a single pin.
 
Yeh, wait till you need to buy (or find) a plastic ramp or a habitrail for your machine. I wish those were cheap.
 
Congrats! I was scared of pins at first too - but fixing them actually makes more sense to me than vids. I learned how to solder by doing cap kits ...but on vids - if cap kits, new power supplies, or new roms don't fix the problem - I'm stumped! The "flow" of pin problems seems much more logical to me....or, at least the problems are pretty similar from game to game. The Marvin 3M site has been invaluable...pretty much every answer you need for fixing a pin is there...and RGP is really helpful if you're stumped and need quick answers.
 
Without the help from you fine folk my machines would not be in the shape they are in currently. I also would not own a DMM and sure as heck would not be ordering parts to repair my baby pacman board myself.

Pinrepair.com is an amazing resource, but for an extreme noob like me this site has been the most help.

Now I just have to get up the guts to ask you about a converted arcade cabinet i want to convert more ;)
 
hehe... Apparently someone hasn't gotten to a 'big boy' broken part yet! :D

Sure a part may only be a few bucks, but to shop out an 'okay' condition game, you're gonna need more than a few of them cheap parts to do the job right. It's pretty easy to rack up $100+ parts orders for a single pin.

Well what I should have posted was it's "Cheaper" to install the parts and fix things yourself. No have not had any "big boy" broken parts yet. When I do, I'll deal with it then. I'am glad nothing major has broken or burnt-up, thats a good thing. The boards seem like new condition, all the soldering looks professional as there is no burnt marks on the boards from messy work like I have seen on 1990's machines and newer.
 
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