Taiyo "Mars" Arrival

[emmadog]

UPS guy made yet another stop to the house to drop off the Taiyo a couple of hours ago. I mentioned to the seller to please pack it up very carefully and he really delivered. I'm about to email hm and thank him for the great job. It had glass so I told him not to ship that especially after reading Eddie's broken glass story. Anyway, the coin tray was wrapped in a block of styrofoam and the front of playfield itself had a couple of layers of bubble wrap followed by a layer of cardboard then another sheet of styrofoam. The whole machine was then wrapped in more bubble wrap followed by sheets of foam then placed in the shipping box. The box was then wrapped with very thick brown construction type paper. A very professional job.
As for the machine itself it is in great shape, particularly the playfield. A little dusty on the coin tray but that's about it other than the missing coin strip mentioned in another thread. I plugged it in and it powered right up so I dropped some balls in the pockets to test all the game functions and everything works as designed. It also has a speaker which sounds when a game is started and may sound for other things as well, just not sure yet..
In the pic I have the 4 center numbers lit as well as a column to yield 4 tokens as displayed in the upper right. I used Sacajawea dollar coins and they worked just fine. For better pics of an identical machine see Eddie's thread although I believe his does not have the bonus mode or it is different somehow.
The sci fi theme of this one is great and will complement the Satomi's sci fi theme nicely when it's back from the programmer. I'll make a video later of this on youtube.

[Lt Teddy]

Fantastic after seeing and hearing and being a receipient of bad shipping and packing it is nice too see one arrive from clear across the country in nice as shape as it left. Congratulations on another great purchase and would like to get in line for your castoffs as I am sure you are getting full. Arepachi would be my first choice.

[emmadog]

Thanks Lt. Yeah I may be getting rid of a few machines in a month or so. I'm thinking 2 L-man power flashes and 2 of my arepachis. I know, sounds crazy but that will leave me with my latest two sci fi arepachis which are my faves, a t-bird and L-man power flash, and my 2 practically pristine single shots that I received a couple of weeks ago. That's 6 machines total and they are all outstanding examples of their type of pachinko.I love my other two arepachis and they work great so it would be hard to part with those!! We'll see.

[Moparformances]

Nice looking Machine

i realy hope he can find the token mech and other parts..

[emmadog]

Thanks. My main concern is getting the strip but I've got a couple of back up plans if not. Best case is an exact replica using Eddie's to cast from. Worst is using my other taiyo's as a template for a machine shop. I can live without the interior coin rejector as that is all it does is reject wrong sized coins which isn't a problem for home use.
Just made a video-youtube is processing it right now so it should be ready soon.
P.S. Congrats on your and Lt's recent machines.
Here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqiElREFmQw

[outdoorenth]

Wow, that machine looks very cool! Congratulations and glad it arrived safely well packed.

[new in town]

Congrats

Thank you for posting the Video.

[teachermaniac]

Wow - those are nice machines. I love the purple cell on the one you featured in the first photo.

And, if you get rid of an Arepachi, let me know. I'll make room for that.

[emmadog]

Forgot to mention on the video that a ball in each corner pays out 10.

[Lt Teddy]

On my jan ball if you get the eight numbers on the outsid edges not counting the corners the machine goes into a frenzy flashing all of the lights and pays ten. Kind of cool but scared me the first time I hit that. Thought the machine had a seizure.

[emmadog]

I'm out of town right now but I brought along the Taiyo to work on during downtime. So far I've removed all the circuit boards, coin mech, plastics, and pretty much everything but the brass nails. I polished the plastics and cleaned the boards and plugs with appropriate cleaner and all electrical contacts to include wires. Fortunately the machine wasn't that dirty to begin with. Interestingly the 16 pockets along the bottom are individual micro switches as opposed to the normal "contact" type of switch in other arepachis that I've seen.. Also there is an 8 position DIP switch on the main board. I'll see what that controls later on. The machine is back together and working properly but I am currently retr0brighting the front plastics. They're now about a third as dark as they were to begin with. The pics show the parts right after removal.

[emmadog]

I still have not played around with the DIP switch to see what it does. I was concerned about possibly damaging something by changing the positions but my engineer contact said that was not an issue. The only thing he mentioned was that any changes might not take effect until the machine is turned off and then powered back up. I'll look into that a little later. Anyway, I have the machine set up in the team room/lounge that I currently share with about 20 others that are quite a bit younger than the game itself. Most get a kick out of it and have never seen anything like it. Pretty funny. Actually they really enjoy it since it pays out about 1.6 tokens for every one deposited. There are two counters-one shows tokens deposited and the other shows payouts so it's easy to see the tally. I need to read up on my nail bending manual. The pic shows one of the guys trying to develop a strategy.

[emmadog]

I read up on the nail manual and paid particular attention to the two columns of nails above the 4 and 13 pockets. These are above the two parallel nail columns directly above the pocket. When hit, these each light up a corner light. In conjunction with the other corners there is a pay out ten. So these nail columns flare at the bottom and narrow at the top and have a certain name which I don't recall at the moment. Anyway according to the manual one of the second set of nails down from column top are bent. If done right it's not noticeable but will push the ball just enough to miss the nail column directly above the pocket. So I tried it and sure enough most of the time the ball is directed away. I also tweaked the nails around both bonus pockets and now the machine is winning. Yesterday 277 tokens were deposited/games played and 231 were paid out.

[emmadog]

I was impressed with this pic that Cystic set me so I figured I's post it-I don't think he'll mind. What you're looking at is a replica of the coin insert/return strip (that's missing on my machine) that was cast to make sure the mold is accurate. The color is correct and the darker dots won't be present in the final piece. I think it's very interesting how the Taiyo bird logo as well as the Japanese characters are reproduced faithfully on the copy. Also present in the pic are the original button (top) and 3 copies in various colors-the characters are also visible on the buttons as well. This process looks like a lot of fun and a great way to make your own replicas as long as an original is available. Thanks again Cystic and Sharmoni.

[Cystic]

No I do not mind but I wish you had waited to post this one as it is in the final colours. This one has a flaw along the back but the next one should be perfect. I was able to cast studs in the back with no problems.

[emmadog]

Very impressive indeed. I knew if I posted a pic of a prototype you'd hurry up and create a finished copy! Seriously, that piece has exceeded my expectations and I am planning on learning this technique myself. I have a few parts that are very faded and/or cracking due to age.

[Eddie]

I would have supplied my plastic for the mold however it turned out to be riveted to the machine and I didnt want to cause any stress fractures while attempting to remove it. It appears that youi did a fine job without it.

[emmadog]

No worries, Eddie. I used your pic of the pocket cover for this machine and thanks for that!

[emmadog]

Ok, I have to brag on Cystic here-he did an outstanding job on replicating the blue plastic coin insert, payout/bonus button strip using Sharmoni's as a master. The details are all there and the color is perfect. The part has not been polished and will be smoother and more shiny once I do that. In this pic I just trial fit it, I still have to put the arrow decals on. This machine is almost complete-I'm still working on the number plate and pics will follow...

[Moparformances]

Cystic
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