Gottlieb Mademoiselle

[heathkit tv]

Thanks. The thing about all pinball machines is that they were built in pretty small runs. The were only 700 of the Mademoiselle made.

[Jeffhs]

How were you able to use this pinball machine without the scoreboard?

[heathkit tv]

As the guy with the suspended driver's license said about his car: "Runs fine without it!"

Seriously, about the only thing that didn't seem to function were certain bonus rounds (flashing lights and sounds) which were apparently triggered by a cumulative counter within the scoreboard. The machine came with a full scale blueprint (whiteprint actually) of the wiring diagram.

One of the first things I noticed is that one of the flipper buttons was plastic...found the other metal one inside and reinstalled it only to receive a shock LOL! Ya think that's why they went with plastic?

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by heathkit tv

One of the first things I noticed is that one of the flipper buttons was plastic...found the other metal one inside and reinstalled it only to receive a shock LOL! Ya think that's why they went with plastic?

That or else the machine may have had an AC leakage problem; if the latter, that may have been why the machine used plastic flipper buttons. Does it have a 3-wire grounded power cord? If so, the ground could have become loose or disconnected inside the machine -- a real setup for a lawsuit if the machine were to shock a child (or an adult, for that matter) using it in a public place. (There was a news item in the local Cleveland area newspapers and TV news awhile back about an eight-year-old boy who was shocked to death by an amusement park ride with a poor or missing AC ground connection at the fuse box, causing the rails on which the ride's cars traveled to be instantly charged with 110 or even 220 volts.)

These days the laws are very strict and specific regarding AC leakage in pinball machines or anything else powered from wall sockets and used in public places; units with any degree of AC leakage over and above a certain Underwriters Labs standard must be taken out of service and not used again until the problem is identified and corrected. I remember seeing a cartoon on television many years ago in which a man playing one of these machines was shown with sparks surrounding him and his feet well off the floor (that's how bad the pinball machine's leakage problem must have been); the game was called "Test Yours" and must have had one heck of a leakage problem or short to electrify the user that much.