Taiyo-Electron Challenge*Ball "Rock Paper Scissors"

[ballsofsteel]

Yeehaw! Another craigslist road-trip adventure brought to a successful conclusion. Gee-whiz electronic marvel is in the shop.

arrgball.jpg arrgcell.jpgcoinput.jpg

Camera batteries ran out so more pix will wait for another post.

There's a handy hole poked in the side to access the latch - what's inside.....

Well knock me over with a feather - looks like it's all there. No little plugin cards missing. No unwanted residents to evict.

Clear the rat pizza tokens from the payout column and coin return. Count up balls and it's short a few.

Plug cord in. No smoke or sparks. Flip switch to 'on'. Still no smoke. Red 'STOP' light is on. Put coins in payout. 4 coins in turns off the red light. Put in a few more.

Put coin in 'COINPUT' slot. Ball drop coil pulls in 'thunk'. Put some balls in some slots and some grid lights come on. Make a row across. Push 'Coin Account'. Motor whirs. Spits out a coin. Smile big and play with it some more.

My impression would be that the contraption mostly works. There are a few lights on the grid that don't light - probably bulbs out.

Sometimes payout shorts a coin. It seems like the solenoid is cycling faster than the coins can drop. There isn't much to the electronics in this thing. My guess is that a dried out capacitor has affected the timing of the circuit that controls the payout relay. The caps in here were designed to last ~10 years or so and now they're pushing 40. I can replace the whole batch for a few bucks. I might just do that and see what happens.


At about the same time that I was putting this here prize in the car and pointing toward home, some kind fellow put an email in my inbox with glad tidings. Look for it in the Pinball section.