![]() One guy was in architect school, and he designed a parking lot that simulated a pinball machine, with ramps that you drive up. They have to grow up in it and want it and know it. Is that a competitor? In order to be a competitor, you have to manufacture pinball machines. He has taken payment for a number of the games as much as two years ago, and he has yet to fill more than half a dozen orders. He’s made some samples it’s taken him two and a half years. One of our former distributors decided he should make pinball machines. “We are the only manufacturer of pinball machines in the world. At 67, with my eye-hand coordination, I represent the player in a pub who’s had four or five beers. So I play my 15 minutes a day, usually late at night when nobody’s around. We want to see if the computer inside the game is keeping track-are there shots being made, is the game playing too long or too short. “Part of the job here is that everyone must play pinball for 15 minutes a day. It was done with step-up units and relays, like one of those old telephone switchboards with the wires you plug in. ![]() Before the 70s, there were no microchips, no transistors. That’s more, I read, than the Ford Taurus. About three and a half to four man-days of labor. “There’s about 3,500 parts in a pinball machine. In 1986, we made a game that had a little map of America with a flag coming out of Chicago, and it said on this map, ‘Made in Chicago, Illinois, Pinball Capital of the World.’ We spelled “capital” wrong, but we didn’t realize that till we’d made the third game. Most of our parts are made in the Chicago area, either by ourselves or our suppliers. Detroit was once the capital of automobiles, and Chicago is and will remain the capital of pinball. Every morning my father got up at six to think of something he could call me about at seven. I proved they shouldn’t let me hold tools, ’cause I destroyed some games trying to put them together. It’s a wonderful thing, to work in a family business. “When I was 16, I started working summers, first in the stockroom, then as a personnel manager. He could walk by your desk, and you’d be working on something, and he’d say, ‘That number is wrong.’ I’d go with my father on weekends to his factory at 4242 W. My father started as a pinball manufacturer when I was two. “Except for a short stint of practicing law, I’ve been in the business of pinball my entire life. Best of Chicago 2022: Music & NightlifeĪ first-person account from off the beaten track, as told to Anne Ford.Best of Chicago 2022: Sports & Recreation.The transistor in question is Q15 and has been replaced with an IRL540N due to having a higher amp capabilities than the original. Could this cap be causing a ground short if it is failing and cause the transistor to short? The line going to the gate does have a filtering cap between the gate leg and the resistor coming from the signal. I feel the issue is somewhere on the board because I have blown the transistor with the the coil out of circuit. I know its not in the coil as I've connected the side that is not blowing to the one that is blowing and the flipper works fine like this. I've buzzed out the lines from all three legs of the transistor and I am not finding any shorts and signals go to where they should. This tested good but I replaced it with a new one anyway. ![]() The flipper coil has a diode across the lugs. I've a pinball machine that keeps blowing the transistor for the flipper coil.
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