Sunday, May 26, 2013

Ok ... officially dead

while I do still have the machine. It has been sitting collecting dust since my last post. ..... Real life sucks

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

keeping this alive

I'd like to say I'm still working on this project, but I haven't in sometime. I still have the machine and all the parts. The igt arm is installed and the auto stop chip is half soldered in. One of these days ... One of these ... one of ... one ....

Thursday, September 10, 2009

The Before Shots

I just got back from vacation, and as promised, here are the before shots of the Mr. Magic pachislo slot machine.

Monday, August 17, 2009

some issues

I'm still alive I swear!! I had some Internet connection issues and time restraints. I will post a few pics in the next few days. I have pics of the items i got from ebay. I also have pics of my pachislo slot machine before any work has been done to it, for a before and after pic set.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Thank god for Ebay

The belly glass and the play field glass were not illuminated corner to corner and were somewhat dim. I decided to replace the bulbs, so I went out last night and purchased 2 F8T5 fluorescent bulbs from wal-mart.

After installing the play field bulb I realized the bulbs were quite a bit dimmer and have a more yellow color temperature than the original. I decided to hop on ebay and see what kind of options were available as far as F8T5 bulbs were available. I noticed that they sell "black light" tubes in this form factor.

One possiblity that I'm looking at now is to have a black light in the play field and use colors on the reels and play field that glow under blacklight.

While I was on Ebay I bought a set of 50 wedge bulbs for $14. I also bought an IGT S+ arm for $19.99, and a set of IGT buttons for $12.99. I will post pics as well as installation pics when everything arrrives

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Current plans

I would like the end result to be as complete of a modification as possible. I have decided to work on things in phases.

Phase 1: Lighting. Replace all the current bulbs with brand new bulbs. The current bulbs are somewhat dim and one of them doesn't work.

Phase 2: Arm Kit. Install a Vegas style pull arm. I would prefer an IGT arm if possible. I have looked at many options and these seem to be the best bang for the buck. I've look at some of the aftermarket kits and they seem like expensive junk.

Phase 3: Auto-stop Kit. These kits allow for the reels to stop themselves, instead of pushing the stop buttons. I have look at a few kits and none of them seem to work with this machine. I may have to burn a custom pic chip for this.

Phase 4: Cabinet modification. After installing the pull arm and auto-stop kit, I would like to remove the joystick and stop buttons. I will then add some sort of covering to where they were to hide the holes. The wood portion of the cabinet is made of black painted plywood, and it looks like garbage. I think i will add some sort veneer or laminate to the sides and top.

Phase 5: Artwork. I will change the artwork on the reels, play field, and belly glass. They will all match some common theme. A few ideas I have been kicking around are:
Star Wars
Family Guy
Star Trek
Futurama
Las Vegas
Money
Monkeys
psychedelic 60's
And a few other ideas

Phase 6: Sound. This seems like it will be the hardest of all the mods. I would like to completely remove all the current sounds from the machine. I will then use sounds relating to whatever theme i decide to go with. The only way I can see to make this work is some sort of custom chip sets. I would have to cut all audio out at the speaker level. I would then need to have a chip that "listens" to certain events from the machine and trigger a custom sound chip.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Welcome

Welcome to my blog!!! This Blog is setup as a way to document the modifications that I intend to do to one of my pachislo machines.

A few weeks back I purchased a "Mr. Magic" pachislo machine from a user on craigslist for $65. I brought it home and cleaned it up. Everything on it worked fine, however it needed a little bit of TLC. The machine had been sitting in the guy's basement for a few years and needed some deep cleaning. I grabbed some orange cleaner and some paper towels and got to work. I was getting into every nook and cranny , and even started pulling some of it apart to clean it. That is when inspiration struck and I decided to make this pachislo my project.

I have owned a different pachislo , "Sindbad Adventure", for a few years now. It was fairly expensive and rather high tech. I dared not mess about with it for fears of breaking it, besides, I like it just the way it is. So I do know a bit about them.

I had read on various forums of people modifying their pachislos to varying extents, and had always felt that it was pretty cool. The information however is spread out, and I have never seen a complete , from start to finish modification how-to. That is what I intend to do in this blog. I will post EVERTHING I do , and how I do it. I will post things that work, and things that don't work. I will post ideas and thoughts, and will accept ideas from others as well. I will also keep a running tab of costs, and answer any questions any one may have.