(Topic ID: 204489)

Gottlieb AS-Relay

By Boise_D

6 years ago


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Topic Stats

  • 31 posts
  • 16 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 6 years ago by arkuz
  • Topic is favorited by 7 Pinsiders

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#1 6 years ago

I have some AS-Relay questions I hope someone can help answer.
1. The AS-Relay (on my game, Royal Flush), is involved in allowing the game to move on from player 1 ball 1. I found that nugget of gold on Clay's site after looking in all the wrong places. Is that shown in the schematic anywhere? Maybe I don't have a full schematic, because I couldn't find that.

2. I might be able to service my AS-Relay and get it working, but I'm shopping for a replacement too. I came across a list of right and left CAMs. Do different games that have AS-Relays use that many different CAMs? Anyone know which would be correct for a Royal Flush? Any advice on rebuilding or getting an AS-Relay to behave is welcome.

thanks

#2 6 years ago
Quoted from Boise_D:

Any advice on rebuilding or getting an AS-Relay to behave is welcome.

http://www.pinrepair.com/em/index2.htm#steps has a section "Gottlieb's AS Relay (the Miniature Stepper)"

Also, the Royal Flush manual has this page

Pinball (resized).pngPinball (resized).png

#3 6 years ago

AS relays are the work of the devil.

#4 6 years ago

RF/Card Whiz has three AS style relays. Which one are you working on.
The three are...
Bonus unit
Double Bonus Score Control
00-90 Unit

I suspect you are talking about the I relay, which scores bonus points. It gets a lot of work.
Replacing it would be difficult, and even if you found a replacement, it would need to be reworked too.
Take it apart slowly...clean...reassemble carefully. It's not that hard. Tuning it to work correctly is the tricky part. But with enough futzing...you'll get it.
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.ChrisHiblerPinball.com/Contact
http://www.PinWiki.com - The Place to go for Pinball Repair Info

#5 6 years ago

Why do you want a replacement? They are fully serviceable, and parts are readily available.

#6 6 years ago

Needs patience and subtle touch , and you can get it working .. unless you have a broken part or something >

#7 6 years ago
Quoted from phototamer:

Needs patience and subtle touch , and you can get it working .. unless you have a broken part or something >

the cogs can get chewed up, pbr actually has parts for these. But normally a little cleaning and adjusting you can get it stepping. Its nice to have a transformer and spare score motor on the workbench, you can then hit this with the pulses to see how it steps.

#8 6 years ago
Quoted from pinhead52:

Its nice to have a transformer and spare score motor on the workbench, you can then hit this with the pulses to see how it steps.

Great idea. I never thought of that.

#9 6 years ago

Be very patient. I repaired mine that is used as a match unit. It took me 5 attempts of taking it apart and putting it back together to get it to work.

I have another one here that is apart if you cant find parts.

#10 6 years ago

I was able to get my AS unit working on my hotshot without taking it apart. First I used a cotton swab and some 99% alcohol to clean the gear/ratchet by the coil. I also cleaned the back of the switch contact that'/s activated by the gear. Then I took some 600 grit sandpaper, wetted it with said alcohol and gently sanded off the gunk off the trails on the boards. Obviously don't do this if the traces look worn already, but in my case they looked good, just dirty. I also sanded the contacts on the armature so they were clean. I believe I also used novus 2 on the traces afterwards to give it a smooth polish but that's not needed.

After that I applied a small amount of teflon super lube to both boards on the unit. I then spent about half an hour adjusting the contact that is activated by the gear so that it wasn't exerting a lot of pressure on the gear, but was still activating and deactivating. Before it was frozen solid, and now it works like new.

#11 6 years ago

Use Noxon with a soft cloth to clean and polish the circuit boards. Sandpaper can cause issues.

#12 6 years ago

a pencil eraser can also work wonders on these boards. a little trick i remember from the back of a tyco slot car manual

#13 6 years ago

...slot cars. What a collection of those Aurora T-Jets I had years ago. Fun times!

#14 6 years ago

The normal step of the AS is 20. Royal flush bonus AS relay switches at 5 steps, 4 per revolution. The correct cam has 4 switching points.

#15 6 years ago

A tip I got a while ago was to never loosen both sides of the relay at the same time. It won't go out of adjustment that way and you can still disassemble it enough to adequately clean it.

#16 6 years ago

Adjust the upper switches out of the way until stepper is adjusted. Take one side off at a time and clean. You may need to loosen both sides if unit is racked. After you clean, lube, and square it up then adjust top switches.

#17 6 years ago
Quoted from dasvis:

AS relays are the work of the devil.

Yeah, they're fiddly but with a little patience they're not overwhelmingly bad. The best thing about them is they can be taken out of the game and put on the bench to work on.

It the grand scheme of things, they're not as bad as the Ax/Bx relay setup, and certainly not as bad as the half moon credit unit. And as pointed out, Steve Young has parts for them.

#18 6 years ago

Watch out for the rotating points disc as it has been known to cut thru the nylon thru axle. Its a sharp blade when its in the slot. Later versions of these had ears on the points disc to prevent it creating play in the axle.

Alternatively, you can get away with bending the center of the disc up a little bring the points closer together.

1 month later
#19 6 years ago

I agree with the sentiment expressed by @dasvis:

AS relays are the work of the devil.

In my particular case, Royal Flush is not scoring the 2000 bonus but does score all the other points in the ladder, and the same in double bonus mode. However, when I raise the playfield, barely arm's length or tilted up all the way to vertical, it scores every bonus just fine. What the heck?

Any ideas on how this could be before I call an exorcist? I have cleaned the I AS disc relay nicely, but that did not solve the problem. I guess there might be a relay contact elsewhere (in the hellish drop target relay cluster perhaps) that is only making the right contact when the playfield is angled a bit? I've worked my way through a number of EMs, but will be glad to get out of this one, hopefully with the help of the experts here!

#20 6 years ago

Did you just clean the disc, or did you completely take apart the AS relay for cleaning and adjustment?

#21 6 years ago
Quoted from arkuz:

Royal Flush is not scoring the 2000 bonus but does score all the other points in the ladder, and the same in double bonus mode. However, when I raise the playfield, barely arm's length or tilted up all the way to vertical, it scores every bonus just fine.

Diagnose this circuit with Alligator clip jumper wires.

Pinball (resized).pngPinball (resized).png

#22 6 years ago

I cleaned and tightened the spring for crisp action but did not disassemble the whole thing, was hoping to spare myself that step considering it seems to operate correctly sometimes.

Will take a look at what jumpering tells me, and then might just have to hunker down and rebuild the thing if that seems necessary, thanks!

#23 6 years ago

Arkuz, I had a similar issue, except instead of a particular bonus not scoring, it was the 3,000 bonus light not lighting up. Same thing: I'd lift the playfield, and presto! The light would be on.

I found my problem to be a loose relay stack under the playfield in the trip relay bank (the one with the large reset bar under the joker rollovers). Tightening up the stack and filing the contacts clean seemed to have resolved my problems.

#24 6 years ago

Great tip, will inspect those stacks, thanks!

#25 6 years ago

Ok, those switch stacks are fine, and I recall having worked on those to get the bonus lights working right, which they still do. I have to step back a bit now though. I did another pass on the AS and took it apart a bit, adjusted it, and as far as I can tell, have it working/stepping correctly. But for some reason now the drop targets are not scoring as they go down. Not sure why that should be the case now, I'm trying to be careful about staying focused on one thing at a time. Guess I need to look at the drop target relay?

#26 6 years ago

Check your drop target switches

#27 6 years ago
Quoted from arkuz:

the drop targets are not scoring as they go down

Hitting a drop target should activate the Drop Target (X) relay
The Drop Target (X) relay should activate the Hole (G) relay
The Hole (G) relay should activate the 1000 (L) relay through the Bonus Unit (I) AS relay

So it's likely another problem with your AS relay, but check the sequence above.

#28 6 years ago

The drop target switches wouldn't all fail at the same time (none of the targets score now).

So, indeed, will keep looking at AS, and working back through L, G, and X. Will report back as this gets resolved (hopefully), thanks.

#29 6 years ago

I just noticed, arkuz , that you're not the original poster. So if you haven't already, have a look at my post #2
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/gottlieb-as-relay-2#post-4111169

#30 6 years ago

Yup, I have all the paperwork for this machine (schematics, manual) which includes these AS adjustment instructions. Will bear down on them closer as I keep probing, and maybe sacrifice a few chickens, thanks!

#31 6 years ago

The I AS relay is working perfectly, but after some more testing I realized all 1000 pt switches were failing to score. Eventually I determined they scored intermittently, at certain turns of the score motor, so I figured that for the culprit. It's always been a bit dirty, but it's not something I usually want to touch if it's working. This time I did a quick pass on all the contacts, and sure enough, the thousands are scoring again which includes the bonus. This is essentially resolved, except for the 2000 pt bonus scoring intermittently. Lifting the playfield resolves that, making it hard to troubleshoot, but as suggested by mbaumle it could still be the drop target relay switches. They are annoyingly difficult to get at, but I'll poke at those some more later, otherwise I'll need to try another pass on the score motor switches, always a last resort. But for now I'm in decent shape, finally!

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