learning pinball tech fundamentals

There are many great places to learn about pinball online, but instead of taking a pinball machine and then braeking it down in to its basic parts, how about we start with the fundamentals and build towards a pinball machine?  That's certainly an approach that jives even better with my own learning style.

I want to point out Mark's Fun With Pinball Simple Devices page, where he has an EM pinball machine broken down in to fundamental components, so you can see how every part operates in isolation.  From pop bumpers, to drop targets, to score motors and even the playfield magnets that give Twilight Zone The Power, there are many diagrams and videos to explore.

one example would be this stepper demonstration:

you can go to the site to view the video

 

There are also the education pages which "include short lessons that use pinball machine parts to explain scientific principles".

Click the above link to go to his Learning page, but also here is a paste of those main lessons:

Switches and electric current	Switches and electric current
Solenoids, relays and electromagnetism	Solenoids, relays and electromagnetism
Flippers, coils and power	Flippers, coils and power
Electromagnets and acceleration	Electromagnets and acceleration
Chimes, vibrations and pitches	Chimes, vibrations and pitches
Testing Solenoid Strength	Solenoid strength test

An incredibly useful visualization he has put together is the  Animated Schematics Diagrams for EM machines.  Perhaps you've seen the long-scroll that is an EM pinball schematic?  A lot of that can be readily explained with methodical patience, but it is definitely intimidating at first glance.  And even if you can trace some of the basic functionality like how your drop targets are scoring (or failing to score,) the introduction of the "Score Motor" can be a challenge to wrap one's head around.

This site has animations reviewing the score motor operation for numerous functions, from the context of schematics and I highly recommend checking it out: emSim: Animated Schematic Diagrams for EM Pinball Machines.  You can pause the videos and see what pulses are active from a score motor at any time.  Remember, a Score Motor is just a set of stacks of switches that are either on or off, depending on what part of the motor rotation we are at.

still from animated schematic diagrams

There is a lot more to explore on his site, including online EM classes, 

Once you have the fundamentals of operations and want to fix specific problems?  The best place to go is still Clay's pinrepair site: Pinball & Coin Operated Games to 1978.

Working on a more modern game than 1978?  Get started diving in to your system via pinwiki.