(Topic ID: 100945)

AC/DC ball will not launch from mini playfield

By jpc211245

9 years ago


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Topic Stats

  • 19 posts
  • 9 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 9 years ago by jpc211245
  • Topic is favorited by 2 Pinsiders

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#1 9 years ago

I have a Luci and when I enter the mini playfield the ball drains then it will not relaunch, and it makes this loud ticking noise. The ball is not hitting the kicker that's shoots it back up the mini playfield. Any ideas on what might be wrong? I am a total newby and any help is appreciated. Thanks

#2 9 years ago

One other bit of info not sure if it matters. I installed a topper last night and it was not having this problem with the mini playfield prior. Also I noticed that when I lifted the playfield the balls came out of the main launch area and slammed the back of the machine. That has never happened when I have lifted the playfield before.

#3 9 years ago

Always removed balls before lifting PF fully up as they will damage something. Sounds like a wire has broken off maybe the lower PF eject coil.

#4 9 years ago

Thank you for the tip. I will examine it closely for a wire issue. The ticking noise is rather loud.

#5 9 years ago

there are 2 'clear' wires that are connected to the optos on the lower playfield, these in turn connect to a small green board near the main flippers. try reseating them on the green board, i.e take them off and put them back on again.

#6 9 years ago

I dont own a ACDC, but you should be able to put the game in coil test mode (using the service buttons on the coin door) and test that coil out to see if its doing what it should. Is it possible that the ball(s) on the lower playfield arent resting in the proper place to allow the coil to hit it correctly? Is the playfield sitting level after you had it raised up?

Good news is that pinside is awesome and the peeps here will be able to help you out and get ya going.

#7 9 years ago
Quoted from jpc211245:

I have a Luci and when I enter the mini playfield the ball drains then it will not relaunch, and it makes this loud ticking noise. The ball is not hitting the kicker that's shoots it back up the mini playfield. Any ideas on what might be wrong? I am a total newby and any help is appreciated. Thanks

I had a bad opto on the lower pf which makes the pin keep kicking the ball for the lower pf. Test the pair by the kicker.

#8 9 years ago

I have the same problem going on now. There is a cold solder joint on the small board that the opto wires run to. When I remove the female connector, the male connector on the board moves. Need to see if Stern will still give me a new board or I'll try to fix.

#9 9 years ago

Thanks everybody for all your help. I have tried reseating the opto wires without any luck thus far. The coil test has been done and it is working fine. The playfield was sitting level so the balls should return to the normal position. I am trying to upload a video of the issue but so far I have not been able to make that happen either. Thanks again eveyone, without you all I would have no shot to fix it.

#10 9 years ago

I haven't had a look at mine but there must be a switch or Opto that the ball rests on then that tells the coil to fire? Maybe do a switch test to make sure that's working use a torch I use my iphone torch to have a good look for broken wires they can be hard to see hope this helps.

#11 9 years ago

it sounds like you a problem with the opto's or the opto board. look in to the lower playfield. where the ball rests. stern opto's light up red. no light means that they are not working. check the board connectors like luckymoey suggests.

#12 9 years ago

Thanks all, It seems that the opto plugs are secure as I reset them. When I look into the lower playfield there is a red light that looks like it is coming from the right side of where the ball rests. If I use the mini flippers it will sometimes launch the ball as expected but there is a significant delay along with the before mentioned rapid ticking noise. The opto wires do not appear to be cut.

#13 9 years ago

I was able to get a video of the problem.

#14 9 years ago
Quoted from jpc211245:

I was able to get a video of the problem.
» YouTube video

Wow that is strange. But I would suspect something is wrong with the lower opto switch which is causing the coil to fire really quickly. I would test the switch in switch test mode. I would also say that is a nasty bit of programming causing that.... Stern games seem to have poorly written (buggy) ball search / problem handling routines. There is absolutely NO WAY a coil should be allowed to chatter like that from a software perspective if a switch problem exists.

Rob

#15 9 years ago
Quoted from Rob_G:

Wow that is strange. But I would suspect something is wrong with the lower opto switch which is causing the coil to fire really quickly. I would test the switch in switch test mode. I would also say that is a nasty bit of programming causing that.... Stern games seem to have poorly written (buggy) ball search / problem handling routines. There is absolutely NO WAY a coil should be allowed to chatter like that from a software perspective if a switch problem exists.
Rob

Well that might be a bit unrealistic. Yes, I'd agree there is a switch problem. However, I don't think any pinball company could write software that could account for every single failure that could happen. It's not medical software, it's a pinball machine. The type of testing required to find every possible failure is massively expensive and time consuming. With an obvious issue like he has the thing to do is track down and fix the bad switch. Not blame programming and ball search routines.

#16 9 years ago
Quoted from DaveH:

Well that might be a bit unrealistic. Yes, I'd agree there is a switch problem. However, I don't think any pinball company could write software that could account for every single failure that could happen. It's not medical software, it's a pinball machine. The type of testing required to find every possible failure is massively expensive and time consuming. With an obvious issue like he has the thing to do is track down and fix the bad switch. Not blame programming and ball search routines.

I'm just stating that I am really surprised at the amount of obvious issues I see with the error handling and ball search logic on my 2 Stern games (ACDC and MET). Anyhow, as to the problem the guy is having. I'll just go over again some basic troubleshooting:

I'm assuming it's the launch coil that is chattering?

Coil test. Does the coil chatter like it does during gameplay in test mode?

Switch test. Does the switch for the mini playfield ball area work at all? Does it show signs of being intermittent? You will probably need to raise the playfield so the ball rolls forward. Check for the switch opening and closing intermittently. You can flip the flippers or gently nudge/tap the playfield to induce vibration which can reveal intermittent switches. Don't tap on the clear window though....

Is there anything causing the coil to stick in the extended position? If it's getting stuck, it might be interrupting the opto switch and causing this behaviour too.

Rob

#17 9 years ago

I had the same issue with my Luci, I replaced the optos and all is good

#18 9 years ago
Quoted from DaveH:

Well that might be a bit unrealistic. Yes, I'd agree there is a switch problem. However, I don't think any pinball company could write software that could account for every single failure that could happen. It's not medical software, it's a pinball machine. The type of testing required to find every possible failure is massively expensive and time consuming. With an obvious issue like he has the thing to do is track down and fix the bad switch. Not blame programming and ball search routines.

So I was working on my ACDC tonight, started a game and turned off the high voltage (opened coin door) to test something. After several minutes in test mode I closed the coin door and the ball serve vuk goes nuts firing like a machine gun so I quickly turned the game off before something fried. I never saw anything like this happen on a WMS game and I've worked on many of them. I think this happened because the ball save was trying to serve a new ball and it couldn't so the coil activations started building up. When high voltage was restored, the coil started firing.....

Coils should just never behave like this because it's a possible fire risk for a location game. And problems like this in the core operating system should be fixed and not ignored. Unless the core o/s is a mess and they can't really fix these things without huge changes.

Rob

#19 9 years ago

Thanks for the help everyone, and you were right on with the optos. The issue is now fixed as the optos and the amplifier board were switched out. It now works perfect!

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