How safe is it to bypass this? The thermistor In WPC?
Never do it?
Ok for a couple of power cycles?
... Ok for longer?
... Altan
(Topic ID: 159376)
It is really cheap to replace....
Not sure why you want to eliminate it?
I dont know if you can live without it, but it is there for a reason.
Pinwiki explains what it is for fairly well.
http://pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Williams_WPC#Failed_Thermistor
Question was just for informational sake.
Fwiw, pin wiki says you can bypass it for testing... I'm wondering the long term impact of this.
Still interested in thoughts about bypassing and how long it's safe to bypass.
Fwiw, I'm going to replace mine.
I measure up to 2.1 vac drop across thermistor after 10 minutes of warmup.
Also, and this is great news, when I bypassed the thermistor, the GI doesn't dim as much (still does) when all roadshow flippers are activated.
Thinking a common cause of GI dimming with flippers might be thermistor.
Not much love for this topic 
Common sense would dictate that bypassing the thermistor occasionally is ok. After all, if you start your pin, play it for a while, and then toggle to power (maybe you didn't like how you are playing that game), you are effectively bypassing then the thermistor --Because it didn't have time to cool down.
Pittsburgh, PA
I would say the lack of response is maybe an indicator that the answer would be no. There's not much in a pinball machine that is just there for 'show' if you know what I mean.
Just leave the game on all the time. Problem solved.
I think it's a good idea to replace the Thermistor if you're seeing a big voltage drop across it. It can't hurt.
Quoted from swampfire:Just leave the game on all the time. Problem solved.
I think it's a good idea to replace the Thermistor if you're seeing a big voltage drop across it. It can't hurt.
Agree and in progress (ordered).
Still interested in how safe it is to run without a thermistor (meaning bypassed)... Pinwiki says to try it. So is it ok for 100 games? 10 games? 1000 games?
Does it make sense to measure the voltage drop like I did rather than run without it bypassed? Perhaps running with it bypassed isn't the best approach?
I realize a goal of the thermistor is also to prevent the circuit breaker in the home from triggering...
Sana'a
Quoted from altan:Still interested in how safe it is to run without a thermistor (meaning bypassed)... Pinwiki says to try it. So is it ok for 100 games? 10 games? 1000 games?
It protects switches from welding together, blowing fuses, protecting caps.
A game or two is fine, but don't push your luck.
Quick follow-up... Got my thermistors from GPE and swapped out the one in my Road Show.
Happy to report that with the new thermistor the GI lighting behaves like it did when the thermistor was bypassed. I didn't measure the voltage drop across the new one, but it must be pretty low (given the previous sentence).
My Road Show always had more GI dimming than usual... now it has what I'd consider normal dimming (when 4 flippers are activated!).
Got dimming GI? It might just be the thermistor.
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