zaterdag 23 augustus 2008

Pinbot Restauration Blog 23 Aug 2008

Yesterday I grabbed the microfibre cloth and scrubbed whatever I could reach on the playfield. Most of it is black, but the light coloured decorations on it looked awfully dirty, so I worked my fingers to the bone, trying to get it off. There's this undefinable brown muck on it, like real dirty frying grease.

That fancy blue shiny cloth is not so fancy anymore, some of the threads were badly cut. And it's filthy!

dinsdag 19 augustus 2008

Pinbot Restauration Log 19 Aug 2008

Managed to repair the elastic on the 13th. I fixed it with superglue. Dad's suggestion, and I'm amazed it works. I couldn't restore it myself, as it required for many covers (and screws) to be removed. But the rubber band is back in business.
The slingshot is still not functioning properly. It won't give points or cause flashing, although it bounces back. The ramp and outhole still give errors in test.

I now hold the top 3 scores, close to beating my father's cheating. And today I managed to balance the ball directly on top of the pin in front of the drain.

dinsdag 12 augustus 2008

Pinball Restauration Blog 12 Aug 2008

Yesterday evening, while my father was playing, the elastic on the left slingshot snapped. Much to my surprise: I thought the one on the right would give in first.

He asked me to attempt to repair it with superglue. I did, but when I wanted to put the band back, I discovered I needed to unscrew the entire lane cover first.

So there'll be no playing for a while... :(

maandag 11 augustus 2008

Pinbot Repair Log 11 Aug 2008

I've been a little low on the updates... it's just that there's not much to do until I'm able to pick up the lamps and rubber bands in a week. Another trip to Arnhem, yay.
In the mean time, I solved the high score issue by playing my fingers to the bone, scoring immensively on one ball and reaching 5,8 million points, thus knocking my father's fake score off first place!

The dirt is still an issue. I can't stress enough how dirty it is. You just can't get below the glass without your hands getting dirty. Every wire you touch leaves these dark smudgy stains... every ball lodge salvation is icky...

woensdag 6 augustus 2008

Pinbot Repair Log Aug 6 2008

I'm now convinced the machine is either haunted, or has a will of its own.

The left slingshot will sometimes work, and sometimes not work. Actually it always works, but won't always score points. Fortunately it only scores 10 points per hit, so I can live with that.

The timing is still giving problems. Yesterday the drop targets would resurrect quicker than the ramp would lower.
(when you hit a drop target that's lit, the ramp goes up. You can then shoot a target under it for a lot of points, but the time is limited. The time that one or two targets stay down, is also limited. Usually the ramp lowers way before the targets resurrect, but yesterday it was the other way round.)
Right now, it's "repaired itself": the ramp lowers once again before the targets do, but strangely there is still not much time between the two, even if it was there before.

A few days ago I advanced to the planet "Earth". It took us some time to figure out that making it so far meant the first "special" planet is Mars, not Jupiter. (For the record, you start at Pluto (Ahhh! Good old days) and make your way to the sun).

I also cleaned the table a little with a dry microfibre cloth. It got incredibly dirty! Maybe I need to use some cleaner. Thing is, in order to clean it properly, we need to unscrew all the dealies first, which is going to take a long time.

zondag 3 augustus 2008

Pinbot Restauration Update Aug 3 2008

Been a while since last blog... The errors still haven't been found out, and worse there's a new one. Left slingshot is now refusing to work.