I recently picked up an F-14, and like many other posts I've read, the single pop-bumper is SUPER WEAK. I replaced the coil as well as the switch, which barely made a difference. When I run a coil test, and/or activate the pop bumper by hand, it seems plenty strong enough, it's just when the ball hits it, the pop bumper barely fires the ball anywhere. I've adjusted the switch properly, so everything is adjusted/new. I've tried various adjustments of the gap between the playfield and the pop bumper by adding some small washers to the pop bumper hoping that would help, but still it's just weak.
I came across another F-14 and the pop bumper, while still weak IMO, was popping at at least an acceptable level to make the game enjoyable. I did notice that on that game, the pop bumper switch has a diode, resister, and capacitor soldered on to some terminals on the side of the switch. I can't find anything in the documentation that mentions this, and my original F-14 (the one with the weak pop) didn't have those on the switch when I obtained it.
So my questions are:
1 - Are those 3 components needed on the switch? If so, why / what do they do?
2 - Is it possible that this is why my pop bumper is so weak?
3 - What are the specifications for those 3 components? Best I have found is it's a 100 ohm resistor, but not sure about the diode/cap?
I was thinking about ordering one of these: https://actionpinball.com/parts.php?item=SW-11A-35 to see if it would solve my problem.
Any help / insight on this is greatly appreciated.