Wiring

All posts tagged Wiring

At the end of my previous update, I was really close to having the repair work on Playball complete. I haven’t had as much time as I would like lately to look at the machine, so it dragged on a little longer than I had hoped. The time has come though to get the machine running 100% and returned to its owner. I had two issues on my plate to deal with. The first was the third base lamp occasionally not lighting up when it should and the second was the score motor continuing to run intermittently during play. The third base issue turned out to be a dirty shoe on the hit unit. I had somehow missed cleaning it along with the others in my last update. Nice and simple. That just leaves the dreaded score motor.

Playball pinball repair
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Playball has come along nicely since it was first dropped off for repair and it’s a satisfying feeling each time a forward step is made. Getting old machines back into a fully working state is what I love most about this hobby. I finished up my last update with an initial look at the three man on base relays. These are the interlock style relays, which have 2 coils to toggle its switches between state. In Playball, these control if a man is on the base or not. The specific problem I’m looking into is why the man on base relays do not reset as part of the game reset sequence. Currently, their state is carried between games.

Gottlieb Playball Pinball
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Since the playfield swap, Pinbot has been running really well and been a joy to play. Recently though, an error appeared when the machine was switched on. The game detected there were errors with 3 of the switches, and reported them during the start up sequence. They are reported as “switch adjust” errors and the knocker fires off 4 – 5 times for each one. It’s an obnoxious sound, and certainly gets your attention that there is an error. The game reported that there was an error with switches 35, 36 and 37.

Pinbot pinball
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One of the final assemblies to look at on my Last Action Hero is the drop target bank. Located on the left side of the playfield, it contains 5 targets, spelling the word crane. It’s use for the skill shot to begin each ball and also to activate the crane during the game. It gets a fair bit of use during play and I have no doubt can do with a clean.

Last Action Hero pinball
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Following on from where my previous update finished, I want to get the remainder of the playfield components cleaned and installed once again. I got through a lot in the last update, with just the ramps, rails, crane and tar pit to go. First thing to look at in this update is the large clear ramp at the top of the playfield. It makes sense to get this on first, as the rest can then be installed around it. The ramp had been set aside a few days ago, waiting for it’s turn to be cleaned. There are a few things attached to it and I plan to remove and clean also. Thankfully the plastic has not broken and it simply needs a good clean.

Last Action Hero Pinball
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