Found in the misty mountains near Mt. Fuji - Black Pyramid VP conversion build thread

[GraveD]

Hi, and thanks for taking a look at my thread. 

 

TLDR; see below

 

Brief background:

 

I've loved pinball since I was a kid and have many great memories of playing classics like Funhouse, Addams Family, Twilight Zone and Medieval Madness at pubs during my seminal years. 

This love hasn't waned and whenever I travel to the US, I hit as many pinball bars as possible. 

 

Living in Tokyo, Japan though, the pinball scene is grim. Just a few places with some machines on the edge of needing a complete overhaul, my enjoyment was limited until I discovered Pinball FX/FX3/M plus VPX and then Cleveland Software Design's PinOne controller. Playing pinball with proper buttons, nudges and solenoids had me hooked again. 

 

So I began my research.

Where could I buy a machine? There is no real market for them here and they are as rare as hens' teeth. 

Looking at Yahoo Auctions (Ebay equivalent) showed that a machine will come up on average every 6 months or so but nothing that suited a conversion. 

Scouring Jimotty (FB marketplace equivalent) showed some machines over the last 12 months but you have to be lucky. The last listed one was $650 for a Star Wars machine, non-working and no legs! (even if I had bought it, shipping legs from the US would be super expensive!)

 

I searched all mentions of pinball arcades in Japanese and sent them emails asking whether they had a non-working unit in storage that they were keen to get rid of but...no luck. 

 

So I looked into buying a flat pack from the US. Shipping is expensive and made it no go.

 

I looked into buying a prebuilt machine from Alibaba. I took a very close look but they were sketchy on the monitor details and I already had a gaming PC, and they won't sell a semi-completed version. 

 

So, as I continued to play pinball on my rinky-dink setup, consisting of a monitor in portrait mode, a 9" 2nd monitor as DMD and my Pinone, I would find myself every day checking Yahoo Auctions and Jimotty, wondering whether there was a new listing that I hadn't discovered.

 

So as a last-ditch effort, I put out a posting to Jimotty, with the hope that someone had a pinball and was wondering how to get rid of it and would sell it to me and......that's how I ended up in rural Shizuoka, driving through the fog on my way to a mountain wood hut to pick up this Black Pyramid machine that had been sitting unused for 20 something years!

 

The gentleman who owned it was living in San Francisco 40 yrs ago and fell in love with this pinball at the local bar, so he decided to import one into Japan when he came back 35 yrs ago. Unfortunately it stopped running 20 yrs and they never repaired it. 

 

TLDR;

 

I finally got my hands on a real pinball machine and will now convert it over to a VP. 

 

Here's what I had to go on.

"It hasn't run for years, and the power doesn't turn on but we have the key"

 

 

Externally it looked in good condition

 

 

 

So we disassembled it and packed it in the car

 

 

And lugged it up 3 floors to my study and put it back together. 

The Bally neon sign I picked up looks great. 

 

 

Although the game itself doesn't have the most playability (it's one of the machines I am able to play in a Tokyo arcade), the machine itself has a cool design, especially the playfield, so I plan to restore it, add addressable LEDs and frame it in respect for donating its body. 

 

Opening her up and I can see it hasn't been maintained...

 

 

Rubbers were stiff and some had split

 

 

There's not that much wear on the actual wooden playfield though, it's dirty more than anything

 

 

This target saw some heavy action

 

 

But...Japan has extremely hot and humid summers, which leads to...mold

 

 

 

So I am doing some deep cleaning of the playfield and bleach the posts to see how nice I can get it. 

 

Plans:

 

To keep:

 

Knock motor

Tilt bob

Coin door wiring & mechanism (need to research how to wire it up)

Solenoids for Phase 2

 

Main playfield monitor: LGC2 42" 

I know I'll need to route a channel to fit it in. 

 

Backglass monitor: 29" TBH I'm not fussed about the resolution here as I'm concentrating on the action, not the backglass

 

DMD: Standard 15.6" laptop monitor 

 

PC: 

 

【CPU】 Ryzen5 7600X (AMD)

【RAM】32GB (DDR5-4800)

【SSD】1TB (PHISON)

【GPU】RX6700XT (AsRock)

【MB】 A620M-E (msi)

 

Has been running 4K @60hz with absolutely no issues so far. Spec wise it should be able to handle 4k @120hz 

 

 

Controls: I plan to cut the various holes needed, disassemble the Pinone Controller and move it over to the cabinet. 

 

I'll need to buy a nice round launch button but I don't have much space, as the coin door is wide and it's a standard body pinball

 

Phase 1 is to get it working at this level and then look at Phase 2, which would be to add solenoids, SSF and contactors

 

 

I hope this is interesting for someone and look forward to your advice and comments. 

 

 

 

[Thalamus]

Hate to see that machine parted. To me, looks savable and I'm sure; if you can't - someone else will. Finding that buyer though.

What you are keeping, is things you can easily buy from anywhere else and all you need to do is to build or buy yourself a cabinet.

 

IMO. Building yourself a cabinet, and going for a wide body is a better option for VP,. Once you add more stuff to the cab, you realise that space for gadgets, speakers, cabeling, PC etc, adds up.

Edited Monday at 07:49 AM by Thalamus

[GraveD]

I checked fuses and found the main transformer fuse was blown. 

It lights up but won't go past the diagnostics check. I'm working with some people on the pinside.com forum on troubleshooting to see if I can't get it fired up. In that case, I'll see whether I can sell it or swap with someone who has a widebody cabinet. 

 

No space & no appetite to build from plans, so need a cabinet for my build.