Just picked up my first pin - Atari Space Riders

gobsgraham

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Hey Everyone,

I have wanted a pinball for a while now and finally picked up my first one last night. It is an Atari Space Riders and is only a few months younger than I am. The cabinet is in okay shape and the backglass looks great. The playfield has a few issues that could be touched up but overall I am very happy with this. Sorry about the blurry cell phone pics.

Now for the bad news. It doesn't work. The guy said he was playing it and the ball got stuck. He smacked the side of the cabinet a few times by the Auxilary board and it just died.

Right now the bulbs in the backglass come on, I hear a bit of a crack on the speakers and there is a single dot on the bottom right corner of the ball counter (I think - could be the other small display). I checked all of the edge connectors, reseated and wiggled them. I also reseated every molex connector. I have found a bunch of repair guides and I will start going through them tonight. I can't wait to get this thing up and running and let my 6 year old play on his first real pinball machine.
 

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Cool! I love Atari pins!

I would start by checking voltages at the power supply and then at the MPU. Hopefully it's a power problem and not a logic problem with the MPU. There is not a lot of info out there on Atari pins.

I noticed that you are in Calgary. I'm in Edmonton and travel to Calgary quite frequently (my family is there). If this game turns into a nightmare project I would be interested in a trade for something less busted. But... only if it comes to that. I hope you get it working. If you have questions just ask here.
 
Thanks Lindsey. I appreciate that. Hopefully I can get it working but I will keep that in mind. If you have any working pins that you would be willing to trade, I would consider it. Something kid friendly as it is for me and my son. I am also looking for a dead/empty widebody pinball cabinet for a VP project I eventually plan to do. That is the reason I bought this one but after getting it, I woulnd't be able to destroy this one. I would rather you had it or someone else that will appreciate it.
 
If you can use a multimeter, the guys here can be an invaluable asset to your new-found hobby (as I've recently discovered!).

Also, I'm going to suggest you bookmark www.pinrepair.com
in particular:
http://www.pinrepair.com/begin/index.htm
and then once you've got that read through:
http://marvin3m.com/atari/index.htm

Of course it all depends how much you want to get your feet wet. You can do the cheapie "get it running, and worry about broken stuff later", or you can really work over all the boards and hammer out every tiny little detail.

Either way, congrats on your first pin, and pictures pictures pictures!!!
 
great pin. i'm going to bet that you'll have some logic board repairing in your future. there's only 1 board, that basically runs the whole thing. the lights in the backbox are just 120 volt fed, so if you plug an Atari pin in, you'll get lights.


With that single board setup, parts of it can go bad, while the pin still works. i got mine up and running with a multimeter, fixing components on the board here and there. never got it 100% working...i sold it to a friend with A LOT more pin knowledge than i'll ever have. it was just a bit wide to fit in with my collection and in my gameroom.

it's a cool title, old school atari widebody pinballs were great. congrats...
 

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great pin. i'm going to bet that you'll have some logic board repairing in your future. there's only 1 board, that basically runs the whole thing. the lights in the backbox are just 120 volt fed, so if you plug an Atari pin in, you'll get lights.


With that single board setup, parts of it can go bad, while the pin still works. i got mine up and running with a multimeter, fixing components on the board here and there. never got it 100% working...i sold it to a friend with A LOT more pin knowledge than i'll ever have. it was just a bit wide to fit in with my collection and in my gameroom.

it's a cool title, old school atari widebody pinballs were great. congrats...

This is a pretty common story. The Atari pinball system is flat out poorly designed and prone to failure. Not only does the giant all-in-one board suck but it's in the bottom of the cabinet. That might not seem like a big deal but the mechanisms they decided to design from scratch rather than use the stuff that had been working for several decades also sucked and metal parts would find their way on to that board shorting stuff out. They also decided that they didn't need a plastic cover over it.

You could have a lot of problems on that board and still have the game playable. It's a far cry from a simple Bally MPU with a couple of PIAs that you can troubleshoot with a nice little test ROM. You're going to war when you buy a non-working Atari pin with board problems. They're also not even close to being documented as well online as virtually every other pinball system. I have a few of them to restore and I would like to change that in the future but we're talking years into the future.

That said... it's just a whole crapload of logic.
 
Thanks Lindsey. I appreciate that. Hopefully I can get it working but I will keep that in mind. If you have any working pins that you would be willing to trade, I would consider it. Something kid friendly as it is for me and my son. I am also looking for a dead/empty widebody pinball cabinet for a VP project I eventually plan to do. That is the reason I bought this one but after getting it, I woulnd't be able to destroy this one. I would rather you had it or someone else that will appreciate it.

I might have something for you. I'm actually parting out a couple of cabinets right now but they're too far gone. I can't think of any widebody cabinets I've got off the top of my head but I do have several standard size cabinets that might be a candidate for VP.

Actually... I thought of one. I have a Panthera that was in a fire. It wasn't burnt at all. It's just smoke damaged. It's complete but I'm not sure if it's worth restoring. The cabinet is fine it would just need a clean/repaint. That might be something to consider. Maybe I should do that myself. haha

I could probably come up with something in a working but unshopped pin in trade for the Space Riders. I do have a soft spot for those Atari pins (I like a challenge ;))and I've already got Airborne Avengers and Middle Earth. Send me a PM to discuss if you're interested in a trade.
 
This is a pretty common story. The Atari pinball system is flat out poorly designed and prone to failure. Not only does the giant all-in-one board suck but it's in the bottom of the cabinet. That might not seem like a big deal but the mechanisms they decided to design from scratch rather than use the stuff that had been working for several decades also sucked and metal parts would find their way on to that board shorting stuff out. They also decided that they didn't need a plastic cover over it.

You could have a lot of problems on that board and still have the game playable. It's a far cry from a simple Bally MPU with a couple of PIAs that you can troubleshoot with a nice little test ROM. You're going to war when you buy a non-working Atari pin with board problems. They're also not even close to being documented as well online as virtually every other pinball system. I have a few of them to restore and I would like to change that in the future but we're talking years into the future.

That said... it's just a whole crapload of logic.

Way to crush any bit of confidence I had on this one Lindsey. Just kidding. I have heard they are painful to work on. My logic board did have a plastic cover over it so the parts wouldn't fall on it but that doesn't mean the damage isn't there. He did say he was smacking on it when it died so likely a cold solder joint cracked somewhere or something fell and shorted somewhere.

I will play with it on the weekend and see if I can get anywhere. Let me know if you are ever coming down to Calgary and maybe we can talk about a trade. Unshopped is much better for me than completely dead.
 
I love Atari pins!!! I had a chance to play Superman this past year and I was hooked immediately! I think "they" get bashed for the gameplay because of the widebody aspect which sometimes equates to slow moving ball action...

I would love to own a Atarians but man this thing is pretty rare...The only ones I haven't played yet are Time 2000 and Roadrunner....
 
Way to crush any bit of confidence I had on this one Lindsey. Just kidding. I have heard they are painful to work on. My logic board did have a plastic cover over it so the parts wouldn't fall on it but that doesn't mean the damage isn't there. He did say he was smacking on it when it died so likely a cold solder joint cracked somewhere or something fell and shorted somewhere.

I will play with it on the weekend and see if I can get anywhere. Let me know if you are ever coming down to Calgary and maybe we can talk about a trade. Unshopped is much better for me than completely dead.

haha! Yeah... could just be something simple. That's always an option too. I just try to prepare for the worst with Atari pins.
 
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