I like that, looks good!

Help! A ball keep getting stuck to the left of the "S" target in the STAR area. The ball gets lodged between the standup target, the rubber from the sling and an LED between the Star Child area and the left orbit.

Anyone else having that problem? Any ideas to prevent this from happening?

Thanks.

You need to push the "S" over to the right and make sure you tighten the bracket holding that letter from Nader play field. With enough hits targets can shift left or right on play fields of all games

Hi all,

I have had my Kiss Pro for about 9 months ago and I really enjoy it. I have a new issue that I was wondering if anybody has seen before. It seems the opto sensor in the demon head no longer register. This means that no song, d-e-m-o-n lights, or bass guitar shots are counted. It will however register for the a virtual lock if the lock light is lit. Are there two separate ball sensors under the head?

I thought maybe the opto sensors became loose and misaligned. After poking around under the head, it looks to me like they are in there pretty solid. Besides the sensor going out, what else could cause this? I have had a node board go out on me and one of the insert RGB LEDs go out. The machine has about 2000 plays on it.

Also, is there a good write up somewhere that explains how to remove the head? It looks like this is required in order to get to the opto sensors.

Thanks for any insight,
Rob

A lot of info here at this thread https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/kiss-le-151-kissues-and-mods I would however try some canned air first and a cutip before taking apart the head. I had a an opto wire come unsoldered once, other than that no issues with that.

Thanks for the link. I am working my way through all the great info. What do you mean by "cutup"?

-Rob

Cutip

Q-tip

If there's something wrong with the optos, try the switch test for those optos before taking apart the head. If they work ok in switch test, it might not be worth taking the head off. You'll need to pass something back and forth the optos during test to see if they work (put a ball on a magnetic wand, or pass nut driver back and forth).

Ok, all fixed. It turned out to be a broken wire on the transmitter side. Here is how I diagnosed and fixed it;

1) With the game in switch test mode when I unplugged the RX board and plugged it back in, I got sound indication. When it was plugged in it showed that the switch was closed; meaning it thought there was a ball blocking the beam and the RX did not see the TX. Plugging and unplugging the TX board did nothing.

2) I wiggled the wires for the TX board and it didn't change anything, but I noticed that one of the wires seemed to have more movement than the other. I guessed the wire was broken.

3) Unfortunately Gene's head had to come out to do a proper check or replacement. I removed the cape plastic and the clear plastic piece right underneath (2 screws). I then removed the head and shooting tube (or whatever the proper term is) as one unit. There were two screws for the head and 4 for the tube all removed from the top. I didn't need to remove any more plastic as there are through holes to unscrew, however I ended up losing two washers through the PF and into the cabinet. It took a bit of jockeying to get the pieces out from behind the ramp.

4) The bad news is that even with the head removed the opto sensor cannot be pulled out. However I did find a sneaky way to get to it by swinging the outside guardrail (for the right side of the center ramp) out of the way. There are two screws holding this down that are burried under some fire plastic. I was able to carefully pull the plastic up enough to get a small socket on the screws. The bottom screw was fairly easy was removed. The top one took a bit more plastic bending, but it only needed to be loosened enough to allow the metal guard to swing out and away. Once that was out of the way, I unscrewed the TX board and pulled it out. You can see the attached picture for what it looked like.

5) It was a simple matter of resolding, but I also put a bit of hot glue under and on top of the wire itself to help with vibration dampening. It looks like the shaker motor could have caused the wire to snap. The wire is pretty thin and makes quite a bends before it is soldered into the board.

6) Putting all back together was a bit harder because there were washers to be realigned. I removed on piece of clear plastic on the left side and used some long needle nose pliers to line up the washers on the right side before screwing in the 4 screws for the tube part.

I plugged it all back in and it works perfectly. Thanks for the suggestions.

-Rob

20170306_190733 (resized).jpg

So I took apart that area of the playfield to get at the STAR target and you can't really push the target. At least not without a hammer and that is not gonna happen. I also looked under the playfield to "tighten the bracket" and it as already tight and there is no way to adjust the position of the target from under the playfield.

Anyone else think of a solution to my KISS Star child "S" target issue? I'm at a loss at this point.

Ironically, I'm having a problem with the ball getting stuck between the S in the star targets and the opto problem described above in the last two posted. I was planning on bending the S target back in place. Hopefully I have better luck. When I was inspecting the opto issue I noticed the spinner underneath genes head. I didn't even know that this existed. When is this spinner supposed to engage during game play?

I believe that it spins every time the lock is not lit. This way it keeps the ball from falling into the VUK until it is time to lock. In the service menu there are two different spin tests, so either there are two different speeds or that it can spin both directions.

Rob - did you notice if the spinner was working when you were having trouble with the opto reading the shot? The spinner isn't working and I'm pretty sure that the shots weren't going to the kickout in the back of genes head before the opto went out. It's likely that these two issues are related.

No, the spinner shouldn't work because the opto is what tells it a ball is coming through.

Go to the switch test and unplug/replug the tx, then the rx individually. Watch the display to see if it changes each time That is what helped me narrow down my issue.

This sounds like what ours has been doing. What a pain in the ass that I have to take apart a game with 50 plays and do all this work to it. Stern QC is a joke.

I don't think it is a QC issue, but rather an electrical/mechanical design flaw. The way the wires are routed from under the PF and basically looped all the way around the opto boards to be soldered in place just invites stress breaks at the solder point from the kind of vibration the machine sees. The wire gauge is too small to take that kind of punishment in my opinion. That is why I added a dab of hot glue between the top of the opto board and where it solders through. That should be enough strain relief and vibration absorption from happening again.

It is certainly possible that this specific failure didn't show up in their in house testing, or if it did wasn't root caused correctly. I sent my thoughts to Chas so perhaps it keeps their eyes out for similar problems in the future.

I posted my fix for the "S" problem in another thread. Basically, you can bend the target back in place under the playfield with a pair of needlenose pliers.

STAR S Target (resized).JPG

STAR S Target Fix (resized).JPG

Thank you!!! I'll try this before tearing the playfield apart.

Chas is great and he has passed off several of my fixes to no avail. Saucer eject fix-add two washers move coil eject back a hair, NOPE, Stern doesn't want to pay money for two washers. Wires being run through magnet belt fix- run on outside and zip tie to side, NOPE, Stern doesn't want to football for a zip tie and so forth and so on. I can go all day.

Any one able to tell me if I can remove these optos without taking the entire head out? Looks like I can just unscrew them from the metal "tube" as some one put it.

IMG_3464 (resized).JPG

If you have that in there, you may be using mine. Does it have I was made for lovin you, cold gin, New York groove too? There would also be a live Detroit rock city and demon multi has god of thunder.

Yep, it has all those. I still really enjoy this game

I thought the optos were under his head

Those look like opto boards to me? Two screws...out.

The one right behind his head might be problematic. I bet thats the one that has a broken wire too...grrr..

Any one has schematics of head disassembly?

Nevermind...didnt know stern gave that shit up on their website.

Seems like I may have a flakey opto. During test it works, put it back together, still having issues. I wiggled the wires a bit (none were broke fyi) and then it seemed to work fine for 2 games in a row. Well see how long that lasts.

Not that I know of. I ended up taking the head off as well as both ramps and pretty much every plastic on the right back side. After that it was simple. I tried to fix the optos with my solder kit, but I just ended up replacing both optos. The sell them at macro specialties for around $20 for the set. Needless to say it was a pain in the ass.

No schematics needed. Four screws on each side. That's it.

Mine was broken on the opto itself. I'm not sure you could tell if that's the case without taking it apart.

Difference between pro and prem/le. The latter (like chitown's) has optos in the head tube for the physical lock mechanism. All versions have the single opto switch for registering balls going under the head.

Star Chile plastic Protector Mod now available.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/star-child-flame-protector-mod-for-kiss-lepremium#post-3720683

When working on this machine can someone give me advice on how to keep the playfield elevated at about 90 degrees? The popout on the VUK needs to be re-soldered and I'm not too familiar with newer Sterns. In old bally williams I am able to lift the playfield and use the metal rod to prop it up against the cabinet head. Neither of these options appear to be available on this machine. I purchased second hand. Maybe my machine is missing a part?

Blanket jacket box and lean it on they, just make sure to pull playfield all the way forward d to where it stops on rails

I have been having trouble with the demon VUK lately;
1) Sometimes with the lock lit the ball would enter the head and then roll right back out, not triggering the lock
2) Also with the lock lit, on an increasing frequency, when a slow rolling ball entered the head, it would get stuck and not trigger the Lock, nor get kicked up through the mouth. It would take a ball search to get it to pop back out. If I looked under the head when it was stuck, I could see that it was resting just past the little metal speed bump wire that is pressed into the PF just before the saucer and against the very top of the VUK rod.

For review, the way the demon VUK works is that when the lock is not lit, the VUK rod extends up through the PF and prevents the ball from falling into the saucer hole for the shot out the mouth. When the lock is lit, the rod is pulled all the way down and waits for the ball to land in the saucer, then gets kicked up and out. My problems were due to the rod not getting pulled all the way down.

I studied the solenoid mechanism and I found three separate issues.

1) Looking at the spring that is responsible for pulling the rod all the way back down, you can see that at rest it isn't long enough to push the rod all the way down to the stopper. Probably with the aid of gravity this isn't an issue. But I decided to improve the design anyway.

20170424_143821 (resized).jpg

I printed a small spring spacer that pre-loads the spring a bit and pushes the rod fully to the stopper.

20170424_154351 (resized).jpg

2) I also notices that the rod didn't move that smoothly and noticed it was not well greased, so added a thin layer

3) After pulling the assembly apart I could see that there was a problem the rod itself. There is a roll pin used for the extension piece. On mine the roll pin wasn't capturing completely and allowed the extension piece to extend the length of the rod. It looks like the pin is just barely long enough and after some play had loosened to just allow enough slop. I hit it with a drift and better locked it in place. Honestly this was probably the biggest reason for the bad behavior. You can see at the end of the rod, the shiny areas where the ball was hitting it.

20170424_144016 (resized).jpg20170424_144038 (resized).jpg

Soon after posting I found i was mistaken about issue number 1. I can't edit the post, so please disregard.

(to folllow)

Is there a way to disable the gene head locking mechanisms? Mine keep firing over and over during games, it makes it unplayable. I tried cleaning the optos, tests all come out fine. I dont see any where in the menus to do this. I would like it to just be a virtual lock.

I need some help with my flipper, i have a thread started about it but not getting much info. So i decided to go to the other members of this club.
Does anyone know if this is the board that would run the flippers? I thought i had a bad board, so i swapped it with another in the game, and it is still having the same issue. So thought i would make sure this is the correct board.

20170609_183115 (resized).jpg

It aint your board then, It is probably a bad fuse, coil or soldered connector broke. try there

If it works in a coil test, would you think maybe soldered connection somewhere?

Proud new member of the KISS club with LE #46 and no regrets whatsoever! Shout out to a great pinsider, Iceman5000, for a great deal on a great pin!

Looks perfect! Congrats!

Man that's pretty! You're gonna love it.

Looking at possibly making a trade or cash purchase of a premium. How much extra would you pay for LE (over a premium) and say it was worth it? What do you think a good price is on a premium? I played a pro in Vegas and I just love the look and sound of the game. Code schmode I suck anyway.

Does anyone have a pic of how the cliffy shooter lane protector looks installed on there kiss?

See here for video on fitting.

EDIT

Thanks, do you know if the piece that goes under the wood rail should be flat?
Mine had a bend in the middle and the hole didn't line up with the screw in the rail.

Funnily enough I had real trouble fitting that so not really sure.