Last night a nice kid comes in my pin shop, and give me some money to play the games. He plays Lost World, but then tells me the flippers are acting up, and dont' fire at all. I noticed one of the flippers was stuck up a little maybe 1/4 of the sweep. I said, I'll fix it, you go ahead and play something else. I started by looking at fuses, and sure enough, F4 I think 5 amp slow blow? Anyway, I replaced it, and the left flipper started working, but the right one wasn't working. I also noticed a burning smell coming from the inside of the cabinet when I was looking at that fuse. So, underneath the table I find the coil is BLAZING hot! I managed to get it off, and I see the coil sleeve has melted. So, I replace the whole thing, put a new coil I happened to have in my kit - Gee. It's kinda nice to have a few spare parts of common solenoids, and switches, and fuses and such that one might need. I put it back together, and the flipper worked now, but I put my finger on it, and almost instantly it's getting hot again. When you hit the flipper button, you SEE a spark from the end of stroke switch, but it seems that it was adjusted such that it would spark, but then fall back just where it activated the first coil again. Adjusted the switch so it worked properly, and all was well.

Shortly thereafter, he tells me ANOTHER game, this time it's Stellar Wars, has a flipper problem as well! Sure enough, same problem. Luckily the fuse blew before melting the coil this time. The left flipper had the same Mis-adjusted switch, but the right flipper the coil stop had come partially loose- one of the screws fell out completely, and the other one was almost out. These screws didn't have the tooth-lockwashers to hold them from coming out.

The first game was on me, I had seen that the right flipper dimmed the lights on the cabinet when it was held in, but I guess knowing that it seemed stressed, I never held that flipper in for any length of time. The Stellar Wars was a game I took in on trade, so it had been at a customer's house for several months, and the owner didn't know to check to make sure screws and nuts, and things were kept snugged up. This game, and several others I've found seem to have problems with screws and nuts backing out. What are you supposed to do? Teach the owners how to go through and make sure posts are tightened down, and that nuts under the playfield don't look to be missing or out of whack?

Anyway, I didn't watch the kid play, but I gather he must have been holding in the flippers long enough to cause a problem with the end of stroke switches. That is what wouuld cause the problem right? I played several games on these two machines, and never had that happen. I've had a few people come in play up to now, but nobody else seemed to stress the games enough to cause that blown fuse, or worse, the melted coil.

lessons learned! When cheking the tightness of playfield, cleaning and waxing, also look to make sure essential systems like EOS switches are working properly- Not just that they seem to open (or close) correctly when held in place manually, but when the power is applied and the switch is held in, that they are working properly, thus avoiding a melted coil, blown fuse, or worse!

-Brian

Didn't refuse his $$$. I don't blame him, actually if he played all the games that way, I assume he did, the. The EOS must be working for the rest of the games!

I recall someone saying a while back that a locked in solenoid can cause a solenoid to get RED hot. I can definitely believe that! It was still too hot to touch 5 minutes after he played the game and found the problem with the flippers.