VUK MOUNTS
SF2 has 2 VUK units and they are one of the most heavily used components on the game, after the flippers themselves. 50% of all shots feed right to them. E Honda, Zangief, Sagat, Ken & Ryu, M Bison, Balrog: each of those shots uses the VUK to get the ball back out.
SO when they are off, you REALLY feel it. The VUKs were limping a bit so I checked under the PF and the mounting mechanisms for them were loose. Tightening them up made the kickers play pretty much perfect!
But inspection gave rise to another head-scratcher: Why are there so many screws missing???
SO. MANY. MISSING. SCREWS. |
I went to Home Depot with screws from the machine in hand, and a lovely man in the screws isle helped me find replacements.
For your reference and mine, these are the screws that are used:
For your reference and mine, these are the screws that are used:
I added all missing screws and got it all tightened up. Hopefully with a full set of screws in there things will come loose less quickly.
SAME PLAYER SHOOT AGAIN ISSUE
While playing the game a problem would occur erratically. (and erratic is the WORST type of problem. Next to "thing catching on fire".)
A ball would enter the outhole, a new ball would be released to the shooter lane and then the machine says "SAME PLAYER SHOOT AGAIN!" over and over again. Uh oh!
here is the outhole mechanism |
2 balls loaded, 3rd ball would depress the switch |
This is the kind of issue that I would love to work on with an EM, because you know that by looking at the schematics you can unveil the procession of logic that results in any state.
On a DMD, I was worried it'd be a bit more mysterious. But luckily, I was able to solve it.
When the "Same player shoot again" would happen, I would note there was a ball still in the outhole. Why was it still there? Did the coil fail at kicking it out? Did the coil fail to fire?
I took off the apron and figured out the issue: there is a switch under there that indicates if a 3rd ball is loaded. When a ball is released in to the shooter lane, the other 2 balls are supposed to roll forward.
The switch was bent in such a way that a ball could be precariously balanced in there to have not quite enough gravity to overcome the switch's resistance. I think this is related to the fact I have the machine now set to maximum slant.
I was able to use needle-nose pliers to bend the switch a bit and so far so good: the ball is not getting stuck in there any more.
here is ball 3, resting perfectly on the switch, thus causing the issue. BEND THAT ISH! |
Problems solved!
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