Little Pro manikin game works

The Southland Little Pro manikin golf game is restored :)

Just noticed I hadn't posted anything about it here the last weeks.
This was my christmas holiday project - it took me a few days to disassemble and clean everything. It wasn't too bad to get working (it's very simple technically).
Most things were working, it was more a matter of cleaning switches and adjusting, ..
It's a fun game, pretty easy once you get used to it, but still fun.

The TOP dvd about manikin games was a help. The resistor/varistor (whatever it's called) was also bad on mine, and another resistor too. Once these were replaced the golfer has enough power in his swing again to get the little metal balls to the end of the playfield.

Haven't had time to write something about it on the website, will do this once the gameroom is reorganised (now everything is too close together to make decent pictures).

gameroom reorganised

The gameroom is reorganised. One side now has all WPC games. Another game we bought is a Williams Diner pinball machine. Friends of us restored it (nos translight, some new insert decals, flamepolished ramps, ..) so it looks and plays very good. It's a nice feeling to buy a pinball game that doesn't need to be shopped, I can just put it in the gameroom and play it.. don't have to put extra time in to clean and adjust it.

In the past I preferred to buy bargains, games from operators and I would repair and clean them myself. But now I don't have any time anymore, so it's nice to buy a game that someone else has done all the work on, so I can just play and enjoy it.

On the other side of the room are all weird-sized games. Wide- and small body games.
Orbitor 1 and Black Hole have wide heads. All other games have regular or smaller then regular heads: Tommy, Little Pro, Outrun and finally Safecracker.

This means there are now 15 games in my gameroom :) It's nice to find space for an extra game in a gameroom of which I always thought it was full..
The heads are really very close together, and this extra game is only possible because Little Pro, Safecracker and Outrun are much smaller.. so I can't replace any of these 3 with a regular pinball machine. Not that I intend to ever sell my Outrun or Safecracker :)

My Fireball project game is sold :( I'll miss it but don't have time to fix it or place to set it up. Some day in the future I'll have room again for an electro-mechanical pinball machine..

The 8 ball project is also sold but still needs to be picked up. Once that's out of the way (it's currently in the middle of the gameroom) I will make some nice pictures of the gameroom, as the ones on my website are 3 years old now.

I also was able to test the Little pro. Good news is that it works on 220 volts and seems to run. You can start a game, a ball gets served and the manikin kicks it away. After 27 hits the game ends, so that part of the game logic also works.
What doesn't work is the switch that registers hole 1 (or the logic that registers a hit at any hole). Still need to troubleshoot this..
I was able to lift the playfield (wasn't very obvious): at both sides of the playfields there are 5 screws. 2 on each side are flatheads, you need to remove them if you want to lift the playfield.
Next step is to clean and shop this game and try to get it completely working..

Southland Little Pro manikin game added

This weekend we've bought a new game, it's a Southland Little Pro mini golf game, made in 1964.

I already knew it was for sale since Februari. We were a bit interested in it as it's a pretty rare game and from what I read it's fun to play. But it was a long drive, most of our weekends were already filled, and we didn't have space to put it. So I kind of forgot about the game.

Last week we got some magazines (Magische Machines by Henk de Jager) and in one of them the game was described. My wife therefor thought again about this machine and decided she really wanted to buy it. She phoned the seller and it was still for sale. We were just in time as their house was for sale and the machine was still in the basement.

So on saturday we went to buy the game. It's in quite good condition, legs are rusted and the bottom pannel had some moisture spots, but the rest of the cabinet is good, playfield is good, and backglass is perfect.

I haven't tested it (even haven't figured out how to open it) but it looks like it will work without a lot of problems.

We also got a large box of tokens. Not really valuable but we collect all different kinds of tokens and we didn't have this (they're from a company in London), and tokens are always useful (this Little Pro game needs them to start a game).

Problem is storage room.. but with some luck and reorganising the gameroom we can fit an additional game in there. I may also sell some of my project machines, I still have a nice Eight Ball and a Bally Fireball. Also have an Italian wallgame I need to fix up and sell (or sell as is) and two german wall-flipper games that I need to check if I can fix them..