Genco pinball machines

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jimmy55
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Re: Genco Airport pinball restoration

Post by jimmy55 »

Slow progress but I now have the playfield stripped off and here are the results. 60 odd years of dust to remove which should make it a lot brighter. Main concern is how unstable the middle area is around the bumpers. I have bought some Ronseal 'Diamond hard' quick drying varnish, so I hope 'It does what it says on the tin'! ....I will try either brushing or airbrushing if it thins OK. Once its stable I will just have to touch up the damage.
The top wooden section is fine and just needs a polish.
Anyone heard of London Automatics before? Intrigued as they were very close to where I was born and not an area you would imagine an amusement supplier to be.
Also would love to hear from anyone with a scamatic for replacing that Selenium rectifier with something more stable.
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special when lit
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Re: Genco Airport pinball restoration

Post by special when lit »

Completely forgot about this!


bridge.jpg

The lug top right, which is the opposite way to all the others is the +DC output, the lug diagonally opposite, bottom left, is the -DC output. The other two lugs are the AC inputs. The 'hot' one is the one that should be fused between the transformer & rectifier.
Hope this clears things up.
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jimmy55
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Re: Genco Airport pinball restoration

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Thanks for that... just need to get my head around how that relates to the tappings on the old one. I'll have a look tomorrow! Cheers.
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badpenny
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Re: Genco Airport pinball restoration

Post by badpenny »

The site of their office is now a car salesroom Robins and Day Hanwell. Situated on 144-156 Uxbridge Rd , Hanwell.

Selenium rectifiers or toast racks as my Dad used to call them can be changed with a suitable silicon rectifier and a wire wound series resistor (for surge limiting).
As yours is working simply measure the input and the outputs that tells you what you need. It's when they've already broken down, twisted or short circuited that it becomes more difficult as you can't measure what it's doing. Incidentally you will know if it's gone from the smell, it is truly horrendous. My Father was an aircraft electrical engineer (Chief Electrical engineer for BEA no less) and the gag used to be to place a selenium plate under the cushion of one of the seats in the crew room where the night shift tended to crash out when skiving. They weren't in there for long.
So if it's gone west and you need to calculate its range each plate of a rectifier can withstand about 30V of reverse voltage and each square centimeter of it's surface can whithstand 100mA of current. You should count number of plates connected in series and calculate area of plate utilised.
Go to Maplins and confuse the hell out of the bright young brains they employ who are a whizz at giga byting torrents and overclocking application platforms within an HTTP environment on toast!
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jimmy55
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Re: Genco Airport pinball restoration

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Thanks BP. The two projects that I have on the go couldnt be more different. The Bally Pinball is solid state and a bit of a mystery if one of the IC's has gone west but the Genco Airport is very much 'Old Skool'
Was your dad based at Heathrow? ...just up the road from Hanwell
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Re: Genco Airport pinball restoration

Post by slotalot »

badpenny wrote:each plate of a rectifier can withstand about 30V of reverse voltage and each square centimeter of it's surface can whithstand 100mA of current. You should count number of plates connected in series and calculate area of plate utilised.
IMPRESSED OR WHAT!....... :zapa: .... But is that Whitworth or Metric??? !PUZZLED!
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badpenny
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Re: Genco Airport pinball restoration

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Solid State electronics are based on witchcraft, the trificult bit is getting the blue smoke back into the little bobbly plastic thingummies once it's escaped.

Little bobbly plastic thingummies with blue smoke intact, waiting to be fitted to the latest candle.
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My father was based at Renfrew (now Glasgow International Airport, I believe). He often had to attend Heathrow as he and his counterpart at BOAC were both answerable to the same Board.
In the event of AOG (Aircraft On Ground) for electrical failure it was their job to attend and decide if it was too serious to condemn flight and pay for local engineers to repair. Obviously the most economic solution was for the Chief Engineer in question to complete remedial works in order to get it back home (without passengers) for works to be completed. Renting a space on a foreign apron was, and still is, excruciatingly costly.
What hacked my father off was whilst he was covering Europe and often attending to stricken propeller powered planes stranded in Iceland or Helsinki his opposite number was sent to Hong Kong or Americaland for days at a time to assess VC10s etc.

The grass is always greener isn't it?
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jimmy55
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Re: Genco Airport pinball restoration

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Our Whirlpool Fridge freezer developed a fault which meant a new PCB and control unit.... cost about £180+vat plus fitting. After a while 'googling' known faults, the culprit is was one capacitor (cost 90p ebay). You can't trust those little boxes!
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Re: Genco Airport pinball restoration

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In this hobby we are one of the last band of engineers, repairing broken bits.

The rest of the world are just fitters. :#:
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jimmy55
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Re: Genco Airport pinball restoration

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Interesting... here's another in the same series as mine, but the owner has it running on 6 volts. Sounds like good option.
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trevmo
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Re: Genco Airport pinball restoration

Post by trevmo »

The device with the captive ball and five switches is an early form of score motor. The idea being that a ball is shot around the track by a solenoid when a certain feature is achieved. This then rolls over the switches, increasing the score by five units.
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jimmy55
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Re: Genco Airport pinball restoration

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Thanks for that Trevmo .....looks like I'm missing a solenoid in that case. Maybe fits in the hole on the top surface? I wonder if anyone has a pic. I'll search one of the pinball forums now you've given me a lead.
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trevmo
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Re: Genco Airport pinball restoration

Post by trevmo »

I owned an Airport many years ago and, from memory, the device that sent the ball round may have been something like a slingshot, used behind the rubber rings either side of a modern pintable. I think that it was mounted underneath the track, with a hole for the actuating arm to poke through. I am fairly sure that the large hole in the top was simply to allow you to drop a ball in.
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Re: Genco Airport pinball restoration

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http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/290828317209? ... 97.c0.m619

The 6V Archer is now up for sale I see!
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Re: Genco Airport pinball restoration

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Nice stack of writeable CDs/DVDs though ......
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Re: Genco pinballs

Post by pennymachines »

Tally Ho - another Genco pinball that sold at Acle Auction Gallery, 30 July 2011.
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Re: Genco pinballs

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Any idea what it fetched PM? ......Glass looks in poor condition unfortunately. I'll have to keep my eye on Acle, It's not far from me!
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Re: Genco pinballs

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jimmy55
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Re: Genco pinballs

Post by jimmy55 »

Just had a look ....£110. Probably not bad for its condition. Cheers PM interesting find! And a bit more realistic than the £50,000 insurance valuation on the Archer recently listed on eBay (which sold for about £450ish).
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Re: Genco pinballs

Post by pennymachines »

jimmy55 wrote:I'll have to keep my eye on Acle, It's not far from me!
Last week they sold this 1933 Bally Smack 'Em pintable (wrongly dated as 1920s) for £180.
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