(Topic ID: 317219)
Linked Games
Old Chicago
Bally, 1976
Topic Gallery
Hopkins, MN
Quoted from undrdog:Any ideas?
New coil wouldn't change the extra power drain on the left side.
Flipper blade points filed clean and smooth ? EOS blade points filed clean and smooth, and opening at the same time as the right side ?
LTG : )
Clean, not filed. New coil buzzed louder than the old one.
Im embarrassed at the lousy soldering job and old wire. Going to replace that last link of wire from whatever gadget it comes from & see if that helps.
I suspect some sort of short circuit.
If you really want to run down the problem you can swap parts from the right side to the left.
If that doesn't fix it, then it must be in the wiring. Honestly, I would probably look there first.
Could it be that the EOS switch is shorted so the low power left flipper winding is never getting switched in? That would put a heavy current draw on the transformer which might drop all of the output voltages.
Does the right flipper cause the GI to flicker at all? That would be the the high current draw for the fraction of a second after the flipper activates until the EOS switch opens.
/Mark
I’m resoldering the wires to the coil. If that doesn’t fix it, I’ll rework the EOS. It’s missing a screw, anyway. I have some fish paper and spacers handy, in case I need to rebuild it.
No flicker at all on the right flipper.
Problem still happens.
Resoldered the coil wires.
The EOS switch wasn't making contact at all. Sanded cleaned and adjusted. Checked EOS switch w/ multimeter. No shorts.
Correction to what I said above: The lights do dim almost imperceptibly for just a blink when the right flipper is pressed.
Haven't checked the fuse holders yet, but it seems like the same fuse would control both flippers and a problem with one would be a problem with both.
I'll do anything I can to keep from having to unbundle wires and check them... but if I have to that'll be another step for me around the pinball learning curve.
Quoted from undrdog:I'll do anything I can to keep from having to unbundle wires and check them..
Before you do that. I'd grab a meter. And from coil wire to where it gets power, and see if a wire is drawing more ohms than the right flipper coil's wires.
LTG : )
Quoted from LTG:And from coil wire to where it gets power,
Must be the center lug, correct?
If you short the right flipper EOS switch with an alligator clip jumper do you get the lights to dim the same way as the left flipper is doing? That might help confirm or dismiss the shorted EOS switch theory.
Don't keep either flipper on too long though. The high power coil can overheat very quickly.
<<The EOS switch wasn't making contact at all. Sanded cleaned and adjusted.>>
This switch is closed when the flipper is at rest just like the other flipper, correct? I ask because you didn't mention this flipper also being weak, and it would be a total wet noodle if the EOS had never been closed if everything is hooked up right.
I’ll double check, but that's how I think it was. Funny thing, when I put plastic between the leafs, the flipper acted the same. But, I did not put a ball to the flipper to see if it was weak. I just pressed the button and it sounded the same each way and the lights dimmed.
This is a replacement coil. I wired it the same as the original. Could the terminals be switched on current day coils?
There are a few ways to identify or confirm which lugs are which like:
- the two lugs with thicker (lower gauge) wire are for the high power coil
- the two lugs with thinner (higher gauge) wire are for the low power coil
- the lug with two wires around it connects to both coils
- the two lugs that measure the lowest resistance (when disconnected from the game) are for the high power coil
- the two lugs that measure the intermediate resistance are for the low power coil
- the two lugs that measure the highest resistance are for both coils
etc...
A normally closed EOS switch should be wired across the low power coil to bypass it until the flipper has traveled through its full swing.
Details and photos at https://www.funwithpinball.com/learn/flippers-coils-and-power
Couple of things:
The 50V solenoid circuit should be entirely separate from the 6v light circuit. If there was a short from the flippers to the GI, you would probably get bright bulbs and/or a blown fuse. You don't. You get dim bulbs, IMO indicating that applying the flippers drags down the whole transformer output, including GI. I wouldn't mess around pulling a wiring bundle apart.
1. If your EOS switch was dirty, or open all the time, it would likely result in a weak flipper, not dim bulbs on an unrelated circuit.
2. Ditto for the actual flippers switches.
3. Ditto for crappy soldering.
so switch filing, cleaning etc. is a bit of a red herring IMO.
You mention that upon further review, the right flipper DOES dim the lights, but only for a split second (likely until the EOS opens). This to me indices that functionally, your EOS on the "bad" side isn't working.
I think you said it was stuck open once upon a time. Again, this would not give you dim bulbs, but a weak flipper. So I think we can rule out the EOS itself.
>>What this appears to point to is that the coil is wired incorrectly. Such that the hold circuit is never working right.
When did this start? Why did you change the coil in the first place?
You may want to post pictures of your left and right flipper, including the wiring. If you have pictures from before the swap, post those too. If you don't have those pictures, consider it a lesson learned and take them next time. It is easy to get turned around with "left and right" vs "inside and outside" on flipper wiring.
>> Perhaps a helpful Old Bally owner can post pictures of their setup?
You could also reference the IPDB for help. There are pictures posted there of the flippers.
You bring up a point about the coil. NEW is not "known good". Take your coils and measure the resistance across the various lugs. Compare back and forth. You may have 3 coils to work with? I'm not sure what the reason was for replacing the first one. It wouldn't be the first time somebody replaced a good coil for no good reason. Look at the wiring on the coils itself on the old and new coils. Look carefully at the sizes and numbers of the coil windings attached to each lug. One lug will have only a fat wire. One will have a fat and a thin wire. One will only have a thin wire. Do they match? Match the lugs with the coils facing the same direction, not with the coils facing each other. Do the PART NUMBERS on the coils match?
As I and several others have mentioned, you may want to swap side to side with the known good side. IF YOU DO THIS BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL OF THE WIRING. Label the lugs on the good side FUNCTIONALLY. Power, ground EOS etc. Know where your wires go on the bad side. Be sure you hook it up right. I suspect it is hooked up wrong, so don't shortcut this step!
Post those pictures, and good luck.
It may be a few days before I can get back to it, but here is the history of the coil from memory.
The old one was probably original. Old & original wrapper. Which rules out it being wired wrong unless some tech messed with it before I got the machine.
The coil was replaced because of the dimming issue and buzzing. I did take pictures but they were deleted after the coil was replaced and was doing the same thing.
I will verify the wiring as suggested. For clarity, here is the play by play. Installing the new coil didn’t change anything. So, I switched the wires on the two outer lugs. The flipper became weak. So, I switched the wires back.
In hindsight, now that we know the EOS switch wasn’t closed properly, the wiring may have been correct when the flipper was weak, after all.
I’m going to reverse the lugs, testing the coil while disconnected. Maybe that was it the whole time.
The wires on the coils are backwards from each other. The right lug on one has three wires and the left lug on the other has three wires. So either that is symmetrical and correct or the left coil has been wrong since before I got the machine.
It is a bitch to solder three thick wires to one lug. I’m thinking of soldering the three together to a jumper wire so there is just one wire to be soldered to the lug. Unless that is a Bad Idea?
Switching wires back and forth and trial and error is one way to go. Or you can have a look at the schematic try to understand how it should be wired.
Old Chicago Flippers (resized).jpg
The solder lug on one end of the high power flipper solenoid winding should have a single (black-yellow/83 or orange-black/78) wire on it directly from the flipper button. The lug between the windings should have a single short wire of unknown color (-J- is for jumper) to one side of the EOS switch. The low power winding lug will have some number of red/10 wires tied to it in addition to the other end of the EOS switch.
On the schematic the high power winding is the lower one, which is always active when the flipper button is closed. The low power winding is the other one that can be bypassed if the EOS switch is closed.
No time for repairs this morning, but a quick look reveals what is probably the culprit.
The flipper button wire is going to the center lug ( two wires ) on the problem coil and to the right lug (one wire) on the well behaving coil.
Ok, and here we go.
L lug & center - 17.7
L lug & right - 20.6
R lug & center - 3.8
Wiring up to the stronger and weaker coils as described above matches how the other coil is wired. And, it flips without dimming the GI. All I get is the same bare blink of a flicker as happens on the right flipper.
I blame whoever serviced the machine before it sat in a garage for a zillion years because I'm too inexperienced to have messed it up!
When you're done laughing, I'll explain: I'm really paranoid about getting this stuff wrong. I take pictures and am very careful. I really think it was wired wrong when I got it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!!
Although I confess that I didn't notice until this morning that the striped wire on the left coil was in the center but the striped wire on the right coil was on the right, but I'm generally unobservant.
Thank you all very much for your kind help!!
mike / undrdog
I was following this post because I had an issue not too long ago on my OC machine. Not because I had anything to offer. It’s just I am completely new to Pinball ownership and I wanted to see the outcome of the issue. And exactly as I expected. The same exact community helped me in a similar way.The knowledgeable Pinball community came to the rescue. I just really appreciate the willingness and the guidance they offer when a fellow Baller is in need. I hope someday to contribute in that area. Glad your machine is running Dog!
Thanks, me too! Cleaned up the drops, which were a little sluggish, replaced a pf lamp socket that was flickering and I’m calling it done.
Played a great game on it tonight, too. 250,000
A big part of fixing these old machines (after cleaning dirt/oil/soot) is correcting the sins of the past. Generally there have been a lot of fingers in there
Congratulations on getting to the bottom of it!
Dave
Quoted from dgAmpGuy:A big part of fixing these old machines (after cleaning dirt/oil/soot) is correcting the sins of the past.
Yup. On Heat Wave, the stop pin on the thermometer step unit was in the wrong hole. Threw off the logic / rules for the whole game. Caused me no end of trouble.
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