A few week ago a Stern Disco EM turned up on ebay, Mark.c was the seller, I was the buyer.
Seemed to me to be a cheap, interesting EM project. Freight was a high percentage of the total cost, but that's the price to pay for living in Australia's premier city.
It arrived at the Sydney depot from where I picked it up. Was on a pallet, well packed in bubble wrap and encased in shrink wrap. A heart skip moment as I removed the plastic wrapping and lifted the head off - the BG had shifted and was half out of the head - luckily nothing broken.
Got it home for a closer look. Play field is in good condition, a bit dirty on the bright yellow bits but will clean up ok I think. Just one broken plastic and a few loose inserts. Apron is really nice. BG has a few scrapes and flakes and has been coated, the artwork is questionable, but it was the 70's. Cabinet ok, just the usual scrapes and bumps. No legs as advertised. Internally a fair layer of dirt and grime. Counter shows 47,369 games from 36,578 coins.
Set it up and before applying power I went through to check every fuse, appears the previous owner had a penchant for overly large fuses - all oversized, the most outrageous was 35 Amp! Next I operated all coils by actuating them with my finger, all moved freely and the contacts mostly appear to operated correctly. All the score reels moved freely. Measured all coil resistance - one burnt out and the chime box has suffered a fairly serious misadventure at some stage.
I don't yet have a schematic or manual, my hope that it might have been inside was in vain, but there was a score motor cam drawing and the labelling inside the pin is really good - every coil labelled, including part no and function. On that note the quality of the construction seems top notch. I've been reading the Marvin guides to EM repair and I reckon it might well be possible to fault find this without a schematic - I'm trying to get it but it might be possibly just by careful observation ...
Applied power and ... dead as a dodo, not a GI lamp, motor noise, relay click, spark, nothing, nada. First thought was a missed fuse somewhere, so got the meter out and checked the transformer - all ok, so gave the score motor a step by hand, reapplied power and it sprang to life. Ran around the playfield touching switches and a reasonable percentage of them work, a bit hard to tell exactly as the burnt coil is for a score unit. The bumpers and slings seem a bit sluggish.
Anyway, just a preliminary look for me, and a few pics. I'm happy with the purchase and think it will be fun to bring back to life, not sure of it's playability or keepability. I'll limit myself to one machine in bits at a time, so I'll do no more until I get my Gorgar back together, then I'll add to this thread.
