Taiyo

[emmadog]

Thanks very much and I look forward to having a visit.

Goes for anyone of course.

[candyflip]

Goes for anyone of course.

No, keep away the lot of you... they're MINE, MIINe I tell you!!

[emmadog]

i was in the middle of filming a vid of the machine with a real camera and the battery died. so i ended up playing about 50 games or so since i couldn't find the charger so the vid will have to wait but i did discover a couple new things. first is the black sticker pictured below shows what the single digit score display shows for the double digit numbers 10-15. letter A is 10, B is 11, etc.
secondly is the scoring. i thought something was faulty for awhile as sometimes getting the perimeter numbers awarded 3 and sometimes 6. the difference is whether or not the player has gotten the 6 or 11. these two numbers are also shown in the center of the left number circle to convey their significance. if either of those numbers has been hit before completing the perimeter numbers then it's a penalty of sorts and the award is just 3. if those numbers have not been hit then the award jumps to 6. an added bonus of completing the perimeter is that the 6 and 11 light also up . first time i've seen the strategy in an arrangeball of trying to hit certain numbers and avoid others. it definitely keeps the player engaged.

[emmadog]

Cleaned up the cel and removed the ball handling parts to clean them and the cel behind them. in the pics you can see the blue speaker cover that was taped over in an effort to mitigate the noise level. I pulled that off and the adjacent parts to give the magic eraser/soapy water treatment followed by Novus 2. Next is to polish the nails, remove all the pockets from the cel since theyre always filthy and then remove all the parts in the back for cleaning, specifically all the parts that come in contact with the balls. Then install a volume control and small on/off switch. And then find the battery charger for the cam to make a proper vid.
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1342916811.978463.jpgImageUploadedByTapatalk1342916865.680589.jpgImageUploadedByTapatalk1342916881.072540.jpgImageUploadedByTapatalk1342916894.949533.jpg

[emmadog]

Finished pulling the rear parts off and cleaning the gunk out of all the ball paths.
Visible is the blue plastic part that guides the balls to the shooter after the game start solenoid drops them. Above that is another long, rectangular blue piece that covers the leaf switches. It's held on by two wing nuts and two metal spacers. This part protects the switches yet is easily removed of adjustments are necessary.
The speaker wires can be easily disconnected thanks to a handy plug and is a departure from other Taiyos that are hard wired in. I installed a resistor since I didn't have a volume control on hand.
Interestingly the name of the machine is printed on the upper left hand corner of the matrix light circuit board.
Last pic is of the machine mounted on the left side of the row.
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[emmadog]

a better vid with narration. turn up the volume if you want to hear the machine's sound effects
Taiyo Electron "Piero" Challenge Ball - YouTube

[emmadog]

Decided to do some retr0brighting to alleviate the age related yellowing. The blue plastics had taken on a noticeably duller color and the white plastics the same, but not too bad. The worst of the yellowing happened to the coin strip and the plastic part around the keyhole. The whites improved the most with the blue parts not achieving the same level of original color. However, they are a significant improvement.
Below are some before and after pics.ImageUploadedByTapatalk1344018079.983145.jpgImageUploadedByTapatalk1344018102.173622.jpg
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[candyflip]

How did you do it?

[emmadog]

http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/
there's the link that explains the process. basically some dudes in germany figured out how to reverse the actual process that causes yellowing in ABS type plastics. ABS is used in everything from computer cases, gaming consoles, pachinkos, etc. the yellowish brown element bromine is added to ABS plastic during manufacture and as it is exposed to UV light, the bromine breaks free of it's chemical bond and yellows the plastic. so the retr0bright method uses hydrogen peroxide, a very small amount of oxy clean type detergent, and the sun or a UV lamp to force the bromine back into its chemical bond. in the process, the plastic goes back to it's original color or very close to it. it's an easy and cheap process to do and can be done by making the solution and submerging the parts or thickening the solution to a gel and painting it on the parts. the link above explains it in detail and has some amazing before and after pics of vintage computer cases, game consoles, etc.
i've done it quite a bit now and i use a UV lamp combined with a container wrapped in mylar to reflect the rays back on the plastic as much as possible. tin foil works well too. for small parts i just make the liquid version and submerge the parts.
i wasn't planning on doing it for this machine although a couple of parts had yellowed quite a bit. what made me do it was the fact that the machine is in excellent shape and after disassembling some parts for cleaning, i could see the original color on the rear of the the parts that weren't exposed to UV. having the discolored parts on a machine in otherwise great shape seemed out of place and i already had experience with the process. it took about 30 hours to get the parts to where i was happy with the outcome. anything is better than how they were and the white parts are very close to the original bright white and the blue plastics improved quite a bit but not as much as the whites which is typical from what i've seen. i didn't do the upper plastics that frame the upper part of the cel or the lower piece that covers and numbers the lower 16 pockets. i also didn't do the variouse white pockets on the cel itself-the score doubler pocket, UFO, and the two "sun" pockets. i may in the future though.