Hello, when I do the bowling skill shot at launch, I'm starting to see the ball roll back to the launcher and not register for it to go up into the alley. Any suggestions? Thanks all

Good to read, thanks. You can now fix it and so have a spare pcb

I don't know much about that component, but maybe your launcher isn't powerful enough?

I think you can adjust the coil strength of your ball launcher. Check in the settings.

Which fuse controls the three motors please?

F06. It’s silk printed on the pcb below playfield with ‘12V steppers’.

Thank you Rens. As always. do you have the part number for the fuse? My apologies, as I believe you provided it once earlier.

Thank you again

Dan

Page 12 service faq

https://www.pinballlife.com/20mm-slow-blow-fuses.html

Value you need is 1A slow blow. I see however that 1A is not present at the moment at PL. But, it’s a standard commercial available fuse 5x20 mm slow blow so you should be able to get it at many places.

I would advice to get all the values while you are at it. The values used can be found in the service faq or silk printed on the pcb.

thank you again!

What serial numbers are affected by this newer style pcb?

I'm having an issue with my TLB that I can figure out.

I've had my TBL for about a year and a half and this is a new recent problem. I have the latest software update installed.

During most games now, the upper flipper will turn on when no ball has even been in the upper playfield. Once this happens, I can hear the VUK for the upper playfield firing off every so often. The upper flipper will sometimes turn on and off as the VUK fires off.

Another symptom is that the VUK is sometimes having issues pushing the ball into the upper playfield. I also have an issue with the VUK for the shooter ball. It sometimes won't pop a new ball out for the shooter lane. It will try a few times then just fail to produce a ball. It some how thinks a ball is ready to be launched but its not.

Any idea what is causing this flipper VUK issue?

If you go into switch test, I wonder if the switch associated with the vuk is being activated. Sounds like it.

We don’t know exactly but a wild personal guess would be 700-750. Had only 3 or 4 pcs of this issue and all of them popped up within weeks after being delivered and where from 1 batch I think. So, I suspect all others are safe. Would not worry much about it.

It was just a matter of the pcb manufacturer cutting some the pcb just to small.

I would put tbl in switch test and hammer with your fist on the playfield to see if a switch will fire. As pinball coop suggests I think to its a switch issue.

For ball sometimes not coming up to the mpf via VUK see page 95 of current service faq.

Shooterlane coil. See if it is properly fixed and play with coil strength.

I talked with Robin and got the right to make a post a key post. This for all TBL threads.

So, if you have a post which you think should be a key post shoot me a direct message.

Most important rule is to only keypost those posts that are factual and, as such, free of opinions etc.

For anyone else having the problem of the ball blowing past the release pin on the bowling mech after it's launched, I may have a fix. I first made sure all surrounding parts were tightened and in place and experimented with the software settings, but still had the issue periodically. What worked for me was to cut a piece of Lexan polycarbonate to the same size as the top flat part of the release pin and glue it on top with Gorilla clear grip (dries totally clear). I added a small piece of mylar directly on top of the release pin to make removal easier if necessary. The bit of extra height has totally stopped the ball from rolling over the pin when it is launched, and the mech seems to work perfectly--at least after the last five games or so. It is also barely noticeable.

Has anyone tried titan slings bands? My left sling gets pummeled on the lower post near the trough, and the rubber wears thin very fast. Have to rotate it every week or so. Figure the titans material will hold up better, but don’t want to mess with the flow of the game either. Could look good in orange, too.

Oh well, either way, normal white sling rubbers are dirt cheap.

Do you perhaps have a picture so I can better understand what you did? Thanks.

Sure. Here it is. The tiny piece of clear Lexan sits on top of the flat rectangular part of the release pin.

CD9D6823-2169-4DCB-84CE-D9281040A9A4 (resized).jpeg

I'm still confused by your problem/solution here. Are you saying the pin wasn't raising far enough and so the ball wasn't sticking in the cradle correctly after having the ball fed to the orange cradle? So you effectively raised the height of the release pin to try to make it more effective to block the ball? Are you sure the pin was actually extracting correctly and not simply binding?

Your solution doesn't look durable to me.. and if the problem was the pin's height, I would focus more on the physical assembly as something must be amiss. I'd try to modify the pin plunger itself to try to adjust it's travel as the last resort. Trying to glue stuff to steel to adjust it's shape isn't going to hold.

I'm open to ideas but am not sure what else to try. I can't see anything awry with the physical assembly. I tried to bend the pin so it sits higher but was not successful. You may be right that the solution is not durable. I guess we'll see.

Simply look at the pin when it fails to hold the ball. In many cases the pin is binding and simply not raising enough to hold the ball. It fails to return completely to the raised position. The correct fix for the binding pin is adding a bushing like I outlined here https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/a-lotta-ins-a-lotta-outs-tbl-maintenance-thread/page/27#post-7036761

The binding can be intermittent and work fine in test, but fail in game play. So I encourage you to check out the pin's position in the game during a failure vs just testing with the coil test or by hand.

If it holds the ball fine during a test, or after manual reset.. but fails during play to hold the ball.. it is almost certainly just binding against the bowling alley and not returning to it's full upright position. The bushing fixes that by ensuring the pin stays centered in the hole.

Thanks for the explanation and detailed instructions of your fix. It does sound like that’s my issue. Unfortunately, getting the bushing in there sounds pretty time-consuming. If my ghetto fix fails at some point, I will go that route next.

Now if anyone has ideas of how to stop my Jesus ramp from rejecting balls on hard shots I’d be grateful. I tried adding dead drop foam and bending the bracket slightly, but those things didn’t help (foam made it worse).

I placed a rubber "wedge" along the sidewall on the left (looking up the lane) of the Jesus lane right at the back. This kicks the ball slightly right and towards the VUK. I've had nearly no shots coming back down the lane ever since. If it didn't work, I was going to pull out the part that Rens posted above but I haven't had to so far. Good luck

I’m not sure but will check. Thanks for the info and pictures.

We needed to remove the MPF to do basic service and were hesitant to de-couple the shaft that goes thru the playfield. We are not sure if the stepper motor has a home position and then keeps track of its rotations thru a feedback signal, or if it is just a two way motor with switches? Any thoughts? Anyone know the procedure for this?

It’s a stepper motor but acts like a two way motor with switches. So, no worries there.

Instructions on how-to are in the service faq.

Is there a way you can KEY the service FAQ and other such important documents?

They are brought up a lot and while I have them bookmarked now, they were hard to find originally.

I'm struggling keeping balls held.

After watching this video, I wonder if Papa Pinball guy has his table set correctly and mine is off? See this tutorial here:

In this video, there are two things this guy can do that my table does not let me do at all:

1. Hit Jesus backhand from a held ball. There's no way I have the power in a backhand to do this.
2. If during a multi ball scenario and there is a ball held in the right flipper, if there is a ball coming down the exit ramp from the upper playfield, he's able to hold both balls after the ball from the upper playfield falls into the held ball. In mine, the ball exiting the upper playfield will push the ball off the flipper.

I'm certain I'm at 6.5 degrees because I drew up in CAD a 6.5 degree wedge, 3d printed it, and used a standard bubble level to get level.

Does this guy have different flipper settings and/or incline? TBH, watching him play, the game plays a little easier than mine. He's definitely able to do some things that makes for easier play.

Chris

I did get last week the right from Robin pinside to mark key posts. Just not have the time yet to go through all pages.

If you could PM the links I am more than happy to key them.

Just keying any post with the link to the service FAQ would be great. Or just make a new post with the link. That doc is super helpful.

On mine with the front leg bolts all the way in and the back leg bolts almost all the way out I think it was about 6.7. I've since put the back legs at about the half way point and it seems to play a lot better. I don't know what it is now 6.2-6.3 maybe. Is it "correct" that way? Probably not, but it is the highest I can put it where I can backhand both Jesus and the Dude, and make it up the Walter ramp most of the time from the left flipper, with the flippers at default power.

Both of my rails came dented from the backbox. Is there an easier way to remove the rails than to stand over them for 2 hours with a hair drier? I didn’t realize that they were glued in… but after nearly 30 minutes with a hair drier I realize that they are REALLY glued in.

Done.

And happy to see the document is helping you. A lot of personal time-effort went into making it after all.

Usually a rounded, plastic putty knife works though I haven't had to do it on TBL. Just work up carefully a small section at a time. The heat can soften the glue but I still find you need a putty knife to separate them. You often don't even need heat if you're careful just go easy on the decals where you'll be able to see them. Good luck!

I adjusted mine tonight and think it plays better at 6.2 versus 6.6.
I usually like a steeper pitch but 6.2 seems better on my TBL.
I can back hand the Jesus shot, but need to follow the instructions above to ensure it doesn’t brick out.

Any chance you snapped a pic of that wedge installed in your machine? Would be helpful to see what you did.

If not, could you possible circle on the pic Rens provided to indicate where you installed it?

Thanks!

Don't have a photo, sorry. It's just about a 1.5" piece of adhesive rubber I trimmed into a wedge. Stuck it on the back left side of the metal wall so any shots riding near the wall get pushed towards the hole that's over on the right. It's worked really well ever since.

I tried this based on your advice (I used some self adhesive dead drop foam) and it has been a big improvement. Thanks! Occasionally, a hard direct shot will end up in the shooter lane, but rejects are now pretty rare.

Any chance you were able to do it without removing the upper playfield? Perhaps with just removing the back panel? I had just removed and replaced the upper playfield to resolve another issue and don't really want to do it again

Thanks!

I hear you. Unfortunately, I think it would be extremely difficult to do without removing the upper playfield, especially since you’d probably want to experiment with placement while rolling the ball up the ramp. I used it as an excuse to clean and wax those areas, but too bad it’s kind of a PIA.

If you have a version with stepper motor connected to the MPF it’s really not a PIA. Think removing it is like a 15 minutes job. No horror stories there.

Thanks KSP and Cyber Ninja. This is good guidance. There is no way that I can hit Lebowski or Jesus backhand. I am a bit concerned however about the Maude loop through Donny and Donny Loop through Maude because the balls almost make SDTM at current incline. Less incline will likely bring the ball even close to SDTM.

I feel like there needs to be something in the manual that suggests -
"When setting up the machine, the following should or shouldn't be possible from regular shots through backhand and forehand" - Functional based abilities driving game setup.

I find that 6.5 is too vague and may provide outcomes that are undesirable.

Is anyone aware of a post around that?

Thanks for both of these suggestions however still no luck even with a longer bolt at the coil stop, and messing with the diverter locknuts/ramp connection points. I also had a local tech look at it and we're thinking its actually the bracket below the playfield was manufactured just a little bit off, allowing the diverter to drop down and 'twist'. Sometimes I'm able to fix it to work during coil test, but then during play it drops with more force and twists under the ramp...
Think a new bracket here might work?

Image_20220905_093227 (resized).jpeg

I think the bracket on the top side of playfield is adjustable?

I’ve owned a ton of pinball machines and have found having the right pitch is crucial. I have my TBL set now in the 6.2 range, which feels really good. I can backhand the Jesus shot (I find backhand rarely bounces out where the shot from the left flipper can bounce out. I need to adjust this as there are notes above on doing this). I can also backhand the dude shot and can even get it to the top when lock is lit. This also seems “safer” to me to backhand, as missing this shot with the right flipper seems to equal trouble for me.
I am absolutely loving the game, but also find it challenging and haven’t had very many good scoring games recently. Play better!!

Great advice thank you.

I think I've finally had enough airballs from the Jesus/Maude rubber post split that the spot light has finally quit on me. No more jiggling has got it working. Any pointers on fixing it or replacement parts? Could it be a loose wire at the light itself?

I assume you tried replacing the bulb? If so, I think the spotlight is a relatively standard part you can replace.

No I actually didn’t know it was replaceable. How does it work maybe it’s just a bad bulb I thought it was just an all in one integrated part that had to be replace.