johnmcmillan's Collection last updated 07/30/2010 viewed 783 times, rating: 4.2 (5 votes) Please log in to rate this Collection! From: Central TX,TX USA Specialty: First generation Solid-State Member since: 06/13/2009 johnmcmillan owns these 7 pinballs: pinball name DB manufacturer condition is it for sale? notes pictures BARRACORA Williams (USA) Set up, plays! Never Main feature of this game is the backglass. In near mint condition; it's simply stunning. The playfield is mylared and other than touch-ups by the prior owner near the bonus inserts; is in very good condition with no scratches or wear. Cabinet is in good shape (some scratches and small gouges) with coin door in very good shape and fully functional. Game is very reliable. Improvements include: Removing the battery pack from the MPU board and brand new flippers. I also replaced all of the bulbs, cleaned all inserts, waxed and cleaned the playfield and replaced numerous switches. Displays are near perfect and reliable. The game play is difficult and unique with the sequential drop targets and sound effects. Instead of a credit knocker; there's a bell. Overall, a pretty nice effort from Williams and rare to boot. COMET Williams (USA) Set up, plays! Maybe This game was neglected when purchased but the backglass was near mint so I decided to buy it. Overall, this pin is a study in contrasts as some areas of it look really exceptional and others are only average. Playfield (non- mylared) is average with some dry rot at the bottom which has been improved with a much needed cleaning and wax. The rest of the playfield is average-good with some minor wear near the kick-out holes. The corkscrew ramp has some rough spots which I had to patch. The middle ramp and jump ramp are near mint. Cabinet in good shape with very few scratches. The backbox is in near mint condition. Plastics near mint. Other improvements were a flipper rebuild, new credit/match display, new target decals and some minor touch-ups. Will eventually need some new displays. Overall, a great reliabile pin. EARTHSHAKER United (USA) Set up, plays! Never The most reliable pinball in my collection. Playfield is in very good condition. The plastics are near mint. Cabinet in good condition with no fading but does have some minor scrathes on the side decals. Backbox cabinet in average condition. Backglass is very nice but has a couple of small blemishes caused by mishandling the glass. The only major things I had to do to this pin when I bought it was a major cleaning of the playfield and ramps, replace all of the playfield inserts, and to repair a faulty chip on the MPU board (woudn't retain high scores). Only need for this machine is a new optical drop target board. Game play is beyond fantastic and this is definately the most bombastic game in the collection. SOLD: JULY 2010. FIREPOWER Williams (USA) Set up, plays! Never Of all the games I've purchased, this one was in the poorest shape. Purchased for $400; the only reason I completed the sale was because it seemed to be working 90% and I figured it would be a good player after some cleaning and proper care. In addition, it had clear displays and a new sound card. The problems in no particular order: 1)Bad backglass was flaking in the planet areas and the light was streaming through, (2)heavy wear on the bottom of the playfield, (3)dirty playfield, plastics and cabinet, (4) no speech, (5)ghosting player 1 & 2 displays, (6)missing bulbs, and lastly: (7) weak flippers. Since the backglass was trash, I patched the gaping holes in the paint with various colored tapes. What did I have to lose? These actually improved the backglass more than I thought. Then I cleaned all of the plastics, replaced almost all of the bulbs, cleaned and waxed the playfield, replaced the power supply, reset the sound proms in the sound card which fixed the speech problem for the most part. I patched the lower playfield with special vinyl paper, alot of scanning; and patience. In addition, I repaired the flippers, made numerous adjustments to the switches and displays. After all that: the game seemed to work 100% and actually looked good. But the gremlins started back: constantly ghosting displays drove me crazy (especially having to remove the backglass all the time). In short, new displays were going to have to be purchased. I also realized that the speech board was going to have to be replaced (intermittant phase outs) and this additional expense made me put it up for sale. After two weeks on Craiglist, I sold it for $550. The new owner had some spare parts to fix the problems. SOLD: APRIL 2009. SPACE INVADERS Bally (USA) Set up, plays! Never Overall, this game is in great shape. The playfield has no mylar and only has a small blemish around an insert. Except for a scratch on the R&S of Invaders on the backglass (which I caused!), both glasses are pretty much mint. The cabinet is in good shape with only minor scrathes and very little paint fade. I recently replaced the bumper caps with new ones and put new graphics on the top of the pops. I had to replace alot of bulbs and had to take the battery off the MPU board due to failure and minor corrosion. My biggest issue I have with this pinball is the humming from the sound card. Despite a replacement of all capacitors; it still hums. I recently replaced the high voltage displays with pinscore displays and in my opinion they are multiple times more impressive.(no offense to the purists). I also added a few blue and red LED lights in the backglass for a more blacklight effect. Overall, a nice bookend to my tiny collection. SUPERSONIC Bally (USA) Set up, plays! Yes! This story will serve as a warning to anyone purchasing a project pinball. I purchased this game about five months ago for $75 initially as a parts game. I only bought it for the displays; sound card and switches for my Space Invaders. I quickly learned the sound card isn't compatible with Space Invaders and the displays were bad. Although complete, it was a disaster. Out of love of the game, I decided to restore it the best I could without breaking the bank. Well guess what? I spent much more than the machine is worth. The playfield was dirty and worn; the cabinet paint was worn, chipped, and filthy; and the backglass was a lost cause with the flaking paint(although it was complete after I found the big missing paint chip lying in the speaker). There wasn't any way I was going to bring this pinball into my house in this shape. By the way, the coin door inards looked like someone puked in it. In 5 months I've done the following to this pin: 1) Cleaned out cabinet by hand and vac. 2) Tried to clean cabinet but that was a lost cause. Repaint? What the heck. I figured about 3 cans of yellow, red, and blue paint and two weekends. Surprise; it took 4 times longer and 5 times the amount of paint. 65 hours later the cabinet looks great without being perfect. However, this is the last pinball cabinet I will ever repaint. 3) Cleaned playfield, playfield parts, and replaced rubbers. Playfield was so dirty it took 5 packs of magic erasers to clean. It looks better but wear spots will have to stay as I don't want to install overlays; mylar the playfield and mess with touch-up paint. 4) Removed all boards and repainted backbox. 5) Inspection underneath the playfield looked ok initially but there were problems. Had to replace several bulb sockets, almost all of the bulbs and a kicker pawl. Switch was missing a diode so I added and rewired the switch. 6)Outside coindoor cover was polished and cleaned. Start switch and coin switches had to be rebuilt. Coin door lock was replaced. Guess what? I still wasn't satisfied so I decided to completely take apart the coin door mechanisms and electronics and blast all the grime and puke off of them. Took me 13 hours and two weekends. 7) Backglass clearcoated. Results look good if your Concorde is flying through lightning! Paint delamination was too severe to get all the paint to stick flat (game was stored in a woodworkers garage and sawdust was underneath the paint chips) but the pieces were all there after my one hour exploration in the cabinet. 8) Replaced the solonoid/voltage board with a Rottendog unit due to a bad 5v regulator. This caused the reconditioned MPU to lock on and not boot. 9) All but one display turned out to be bad so I moved the good condition high voltage units from my Space Invaders into this pin. Reverse madness going on now. (10) Refabricated free ball gate linkage that was missing so the gate would work. This took 2 hours in a Home Depot over two weekends to find the right parts. 11) Replaced all "tombstone" drop targets. Normal Bally targets don't work in this machine. Total outlay (including the price of the machine is $900). In addition, I replaced almost all the circuit board .100 and .156 connectors Replaced faulty SCR on lamp board. Replaced both PIA chips on the MPU. Game was working great except for the weak CPU lighting. Take a guess what happened next? Bridge rectifier 1 failed and all CPU lights were lost. After careful evaluation, I decided to replace the board rather than chase my tail fixing a board that had been fixed numerous times earlier. Another $100 into the kitty. However, the new rectifier board resulted in fantastic CPU lamps. Was all this money and time worth it? Yes: in that I learned how to fix and restore a pinball. No: The money outlay! In short, I learned how to fix my other pinballs and I have the tools to maintain them. Nothing like bringing something back from the dead. I learned more on this pinball in 5 months than the prior 2 years. LATEST UPDATE: After 60 or so games, the MPU board has failed and will need an Alltek replacement. Another $200 into the kitty. I guess the good news is I'm running out of boards to replace...... SURF 'N SAFARI Gottlieb (USA) Set up, plays! Yes! My first pinball. Cabinet and backglass are in very good condition. Playfield is mylared and only has minor wear near the pop bumpers and VUK hole. Extremely powerful flippers, good rule set, and good flow make the game entertaining. The low voltage blue alpha-numeric displays make the game stand out (dot matrix displays came out two games after this one was produced) and the System 3 operating system is rock solid. Overall, an underrated game due to it's theme and the fact it's a late model Gottlieb. Only about 2100 were made but that's true about most later Gottliebs. I recently replaced the GI lights in the backbox with cool white LED's for a little more "wow" effect. These lights really bring out the colors in the translight. I've also put some other LED's into the playfield GI lighting as well. May sell this game in the next few years and buy a dot matrix machine.

DISCLAIMER: This page shows the pinball machine Collection of PinballOwners member johnmcmillan from Central TX, TX, USA. The coin operated pinball machines listed above, including their images, were uploaded into our database by johnmcmillan himself; johnmcmillan is the sole responsible for the information contained in this page. The pinball machines shown above are not necessarily for sale! Please refer to the 4th column in the list to know whether a certain pinball is for sale or not. Most likely johnmcmillan's pinball machines are second-hand (used) pinballs that were once installed in bars and other public places; their value as a collectible largely depends on appearance and functionality of every single machine.

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