Thursday, June 20, 2013

new record for Problem -> Repair time (weak flipper)

I was in the middle of playing a game when suddenly the right Royal Flush flipper went "soft".  It lacked any real power.    The full cycle of it seemed to falter partly under the weight of the ball, then finish it's flip.

I raiesd up the playfield and took a look.

Here we have the 2 flipper coils just resting.  Note the bend in the switch plates on the left (bottom) flipper switch.

Left flipper button depressed.  Note the good gapping.

here is the limp right flipper when activated.  Less of a gap

the switches there are "End Of Stroke" switches.  I'm not sure of the physics of it, but obviously when the flipper gets to the end of where it is supposed to be, the switch opens.  Something something FLIPPER POWER!

There's a thin strip of something running in the middle of these switches.  Not sure what.  But it was bent up on the left (bottom) flipper, so I tried bending it up a bit on the now-limp flipper.   I don't think it's metal, so decided against further attempts at bending.
I bent the right flipper's bottom metal strip down ever so slightly to accentuate the gap, modeling the left flipper's more closely.

Closed it up, put the ball back in, slid on the glass, locked the lock-bar, closed the coin door, fired it up, entered a quarter, plunged the ball... and BOOM, flipper worked perfectly again!

From problem appearance to fix:  10 minutes.  WE HAVE A RECORD!   Woooo!


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