(Topic ID: 219468)

EM Puzzle: Williams 4-player tilt switch. Let's fix it.

By NicoVolta

5 years ago


Topic Heartbeat

Topic Stats

  • 139 posts
  • 16 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 5 years ago by CactusJack
  • Topic is favorited by 3 Pinsiders

You

Linked Games

Topic Gallery

View topic image gallery

0Fan-Tas-Tic-Work-12 (resized).jpg
0Fan-Tas-Tic-Work-11 (resized).jpg
0Fan-Tas-Tic-Work-09 (resized).jpg
burns (resized).jpg
fanfail2 (resized).png
Pinball (resized).png
IMG_5971 (resized).JPG
fanfail (resized).png

You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider CactusJack.
Click here to go back to viewing the entire thread.

#107 5 years ago
Quoted from rolf_martin_062:

(I am interested in) Do You want to open an topic "Hard to understand wirings" (or an other / better title) --- we could talk about "WHY is in my JPG the Outhole-Switch (my blue A) wired to Motor-IND-D-Switch --- WHY did Williams not wire "my blue A" simply to "common wire yellow". Greetings Rolf.

I have nothing useful to add to Nic's mystery switch but i can answer Rolf:

As you know "D" is when they desired to drop out the outhole relay. "A" Prevents the outhole process from beginning unless the score motor is at the beginning of a cycle. With it wired directly to the yellow wire, the outhole process could begin mid cycle if the score motor was on the move.

#119 5 years ago

Rolf,

So your suggested changes in Green is simply to prevent the game from continuously resetting the Player unit each ball when only a 1 player game is selected?

Pros:

Less where and tear on Player unit reset coil

Cons:

Added cost of
2 leaf switches, plus labor to add them to switch stack during pre-assembly.
A few feet of wire needed to incorporate additions to lower relay board assembly.
Two more switches that can fail causing issues for operators.

Conclusion:

System works fine without said switches and without the added cost or potential failure.
Games were only designed to work reliably for 3 to 5 years. After that, one could say they intended for them to "fail" so they would be replaced with a new purchase. We are lucky that they were so "over engineered" to last that 5 years without major failures that we still have them running today after 30 to 60 years of use.

#129 5 years ago

Why do I get the feeling this discussion has become a lot like an Immigration / Border security debate? LOL

Personally, I concede that Nic has found a potential problem in the failure of one switch, that, for all OUR purposes, seems to offer no obvious reason for its presence. In hopes of protecting the potential of a melt down of any 1 or 2 of 7 coils, the "mod" seems reasonable to me.

But, back to the actual purpose of the switch. Obviously, the switch is contained on the TILT relay. Therefore, since the existence of the TILT function is to prevent some and many kinds of "Cheating", the addition of the switch had to have been to prevent some form of cheating that was either reported from the field, or "realized" by one of the engineers while reviewing past or current designs. And yet, none of our bright minds, can point a finger at a single apparent, specific, reason. Partly due to how the rest of the circuits involved don't appear to require the same protection. Nor was the "change" implemented on single player games.

In reviewing schematics from Big Chief (4P) through A Go Go (4P) and Casanova (2P), there was an obvious change in how they "Disabled" power in the games in regards to Tilt or the presence of a TILT relay. If you look at a Single Player Game like Hot Line, this was the era when TILTing ended your game. There is no TILT relay, only Game Over and Reset to control power to playfield scoring features. As was mentioned, with Big Chief (as well as many single player games) there was only a single TILT disconnect switch on what I will call the return rail (Common, not the fused power). It would be my theory that it was found this single switch was taxed with too much current to handle everything and may have required frequent cleaning and adjustment. Therefore, as was mentioned previously, the power rails were separated sharing the load between two different branches (Tilt Disconnect was moved to the Power rail (not common) and fed playfield style coils and relays. At some point, someone felt it necessary to add a disconnect to the relays in the head and our switch in question was how they did it. Not thinking through the scenario that Nic has presented that if this switch fails, it allows a score relay hold circuit to energize, thereby energizing other coils should a score drum solenoid not be allowed to move and hit its EOS dropping out the score relay.

I honestly don't think that the design engineers would run "what if" scenarios for the potential failure of every single switch contained in a game (I could be wrong). Obviously, they would look closely over and review anything in regards to extra credits, replays, or unwarranted scoring to protect the interest of the operator. And re-visit a design anytime something was reported from the field.

As to reports from the field, it would have to be a pretty wide spread problem to ever make it back to the factory. If a game failed on location, the tech repaired it. And moved on. Only if the same tech, had to make the same repair over and over again, or over multiple titles, would they probably make the effort to call their distributor or talk to the factory directly.

As to cut and paste design, I have no doubt, this was how it was done. Once a design existed, and it was found to be reliable and cost effective, it would simply be repeated from game to game without change or modification unless something came to light to warrant such a change. Hell, I found this out when I had a Fan-Tas-Tic body with no head. I had a NOS backglass. So, I junked a tattered Jubilee and found there was only the need to add a single wire to an empty Jones Plug pin to make the Jubilee head work 100% as a Fantastic. Even most, if not all of the colors matched up on either side of the jones plugs.

#133 5 years ago

I think the kind of "Cheating" this was designed to prevent is the kind when you take your fist and wrap in on the front edge of the back box frame, or slap the side panel in an effort to cause the relay(s) or their switches to bounce a bit. At the kind of force we would fear would break a backglass but the general public could care less about damaging. Regular old shaking isn't going to do it.

Maybe the 4 player head is more flimsy and requires the extra electronic protection a single player head does not? I can see the engineers taking off their steel toed work boots and smacking the front edge of the test games in the lab. I do not believe WMS ever put a slam switch in the head like Gottlieb did????

#136 5 years ago
Quoted from bingopodcast:

The ball index relay doesn't even come into play on a tilt.

How so? The Ball Index relay is FORCED on by the TILT relay so that even if no scoring has happened on the playfield, the player loses the ball in play (no air ball or free ball re-served).

Rolf, it does seem odd that they would draw the same switch two times on the schematic. But wire colors seem to prove they are actually the same switch. It is much more clear that they drew the switch twice when it comes to troubleshooting either circuit.

#139 5 years ago

Rolf,

Both Williams and Bally used the Arrow with "Map Coordinates" to direct you to where the rest of the switch is used. The Schematics would be WAY TOO confusing if they ran lines for every one of the connections. They had been doing it that way for many years. So, for me, it is not "Very confusing". But I can see for a person new to EM troubleshooting, it could be VERY confusing. 1960's Williams schematics are often confusing to me compared to the 1970's ones I grew up with.

I have seen many 3 leaf Make-Make switches. Like your example, often on Spinning Target (Spinnners) and Gottlieb used them on many Roll Over and Targets when the target was used to trip a bank relay AND also needed to score something. It was a way of isolating the two circuits and NOT having to double stack two normally open switches (4 blades). It probably saved a lot of extra wiring too.

Promoted items from the Pinside Marketplace
From: $ 12.99
Cabinet - Other
The Pinball Scientist
Other
$ 99.00
Playfield - Plastics
Starcade Amusement
Plastics
From: $ 5.95
Playfield - Protection
The Pinball Scientist
Protection
£ 45.00
Electronics
Retro Electro Designs
Electronics
$ 2.50
Various Novelties
Pinball Wheezer
Various novelties

You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider CactusJack.
Click here to go back to viewing the entire thread.

Reply

Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.

Hey there! Welcome to Pinside!

Donate to Pinside

Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!


This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/em-puzzle-why-did-williams-do-this-and-should-we-fix-it?tu=CactusJack and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.

Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.