Bobby Orr's Power Play
Bally, 1978Yes,
you read right... I think someone previously went nuts with this thing and the flippers are way too strong. Ball keeps rebounding and banging in the glass.
How would I fix this? I guess the first step would be to check whether the power supply outputs a correct 43V. If this checks out then what?
How did he super-power those things?
Thanks!
Phil
Man I'm not so sure about this.
It seems almost every time I hit the up post standup target the balls goes banging in the glass.
It does happen sometimes with the drop targets as well.
Anybody else own that machine and can confirm they get that behavior as well?
Everytime I hit the flippers I can notice the lights in the room dim a little!
If I were to try and get the flippers a little weaker, how would I go about that?
You can do what stern did on Meteor's upper flipper. Add a 5 watt resistor (25 ohms???? It is the same value as one of the smaller cement filled resistor you will see on the rectifier board).
Another thing to consider is adjust the EOS to open earlier. This can take some of the power off of the flippers.
Also, it sounds like your balls are ramping off of stand up targets. The targets should be striaght up and down or slightly angled where the ricochet goes into the PF and not up into the glass.
Did you check to see that the coils are the right part number and that they haven't been substituted with something stronger? One trick to make a flipper stronger is to remove a few turns of the heavier gauge wire, so you might inspect the paper jacket for signs of tampering too.
There's only one "stand up" target on Power Play... right beneath the pop bumper, and yeah, if you have strong flippers, it's gonna pop off there... like he said, bend it foward, a little, gently... and put some new target foam behind it.
Alright,
I haven't had much time to work on this machine but finally got around to it... I noticed that not only are the flippers too strong, but pretty much every solenoid is. The [insert real name of the two triangle things on either side of the flippers - I'm drawing a blank, too much inhaled lead fumes] sometimes kick the ball up in the air, as do the pop bumpers.
Lights go dim in the room each time I hit the flippers - they do too with the Surf Champ next to it, but much less.
I checked the test points on the solenoid driver board and TP5 gives me 14V when I should get 12V +- 1.4V, and TP4 260 when it should be having 230 +-27.4V. Everything else is within the ranges.
I'm not sure I understand how this goes. Isn't the flipper coil voltage supposed to be 43V? If so where should I check it?
slingshots... 
you aren't high tapping the transformer by any chance? on an em, this would cause this type of behaviour, not sure if ss machines would be similar...
Wow, didn't think of that one.
You might be on to something - http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/tech-fyi-early-bally-ss-transformer-wiring
I checked my outlets and I get 120V - my transformer seems to be set to 115V according to the post above. I'll try to switch it to 120V.
Quoted from PhilGreg:Lights go dim in the room each time I hit the flippers - they do too with the Surf Champ next to it, but much less.
Then I also suspect a bad power supply in your home.
Large currents do cause a voltage drop, but should never happen when hitting flippers.
Regarding the strong flippers: you should measure 43V on the coil itself. If that's correct also the power supply is ok.
Quoted from PhilGreg:Wow, didn't think of that one.
You might be on to something - http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/tech-fyi-early-bally-ss-transformer-wiring
I checked my outlets and I get 120V - my transformer seems to be set to 115V according to the post above. I'll try to switch it to 120V.
worth a shot, anyway...
Yep, tried it out.
I think it did help it down a little bit - not sure if it's anything more than the 4% difference between 115V and 120V or anything more - I think the pop bumpers are more reasonable and the lights don't dim as much. I also pointed the up-post target way down toward the playfield.
Anyway, result is I still get some airballs from a dead on hit to the target, but I haven't really seen any others from the slingshots and pop bumpers in a couple of games.
The ones I get don't bang on the glass as hard either so in any case I think I'll call this a closed issue and reevaluate in a couple weeks.
Thanks all for the tips!
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