A few of the flippers on my TZ get weak after the game gets good and warmed up. The lower left flipper and upper right flipper both get extremely weak, the lower right flipper loses a little bit of snap but you can still make shots with it and the upper left flipper doesn't seem to be affected.

The correct coils are all installed and the mechanicals (plunger, stops, paws, springs, EOS, etc.) are all fine.

When the game is first powered on after sitting for a while (ie: everything is cold) all of the flippers work perfectly.

As the game warms up, the UR flipper goes weak first, followed by the LL flipper, and then the LR flipper.

I did a little reading on PinWiki tonight and the info there seems to suggest bad LM339s on the Fliptronic board. I assume if I had a supply problem from the power driver board that all of the sols would be affected, so the LM339 seems to make a lot of sense.

I read that incorrect fuses can cause this problem so I'll check those out tomorrow.

I also read that the flipper opto boards can sometimes cause this behavior (although I don't understand how). I cleaned the flipper optos and there was no change in behavior. The switch presses and the EOS all register normally. The UR flipper switch test was initially unstable (open-closed-open-closed-open-closed) but went away after I cleaned the optos.

Lastly -- if I run the flipper solenoid tests once the condition starts, the only test that fails is the hold power for the UR flipper. On that test, the flipper barely moves at all. The high power test seems to be normal. The high and hold power tests for the other three flippers also seem normal.

So for the experts out there -- does this sound like an LM339 going wonky after it gets hot or are there other things I should check out as well?

Randy

Ok -- I do think problem is with the Fliptronic board. I swapped in a know good board from another game and after several hours the the flipper were fine.

What was odd, however, was when I did the Flipper Coil test with the other board installed and the flipper working normally, I found the hold power test for both lower flippers and the upper right flipper could barely move the bats. Not sure why that would be.

In all three tests, the flipper moved probably 1/16" and that was it. This is different from what happened last night.

Anyway - I'll check the rectifier on the original board. Maybe it's breaking down when it gets hot.

The rectifier checks out but since that's not under load it's not a given. Also, if the rectifier were bad, I'd expect all of the flippers to go limp at the same time and/or that they would all be equally weak - which is not the case. Still thinking it's the LM339s but don't have a good way to test them to confirm that suspicion.

That makes perfect sense Mot. I did have a flutter before I cleaned them so I suppose I could have an intermittent board too. Thanks for the înfo.

Thanks mot. Yeah, the problem changed with the other board so I'm pretty sure the problem lies there. I may change out the flipper boards just to be safe. Cheap insurance.

Thanks for the feedback. I have LM339s and sockets coming. I really think that's where the problem is.

Still having the same issue gang. Here's what I've done since my last post:

1. Socketed and replaced both LM339s on the fliptronic board.
2. Replaced flipper coils, plungers and stops.
3. Replaced rectifier on fliptronic board
4. Swapped flipper opto boards from another game that has strong flipper.

With all that -- the flippers are still weak. I can just barely make the ramps in some cases and the cross-playfield shot to the from the UR flipper over to the Camera/Town Square just lazily rolls over there.

The flippers do not nearly have the power they should.

I just pulled up the TZ PAPA video just to make sure my perspective on this wasn't wrong and the flippers on the PAPA game are easily more powerful than mine.

I have good line voltage to the game and good voltage to the fliptronic board. The game is level and pitched correctly.

I'm at a loss. Headed back to PinWiki to see what else I can find.

Appreciate the replies.

@shlockdoc - As a matter of fact, I did add a ColorDMD but the problem existed before that. I will pull power to the display and see if that makes a difference.

@pincredible - will get some pics up later. I bought coils and parts from PinballLife. Orange coils on the lower flippers, green on the UR. There is a genuine WMS yellow coil on the upper UL. The UL was fine so I didn't bother replacing that.

All parts were replaced per the book. The coils I took out were also factory correct and genuine WMS parts. I am sure I put those in when I got the game back on the late 90s because everything was shot.

Here are the coils & mechs:

TZ_UR_(resized).jpg

TZ_LR_(resized).jpg

TZ_LL_(resized).jpg

Yes. I was sure to put an appropriate amount of play in the assembly.

Coils in the pictures are brand new from PinballLife. The ones I removed were original WMS coils. The plunger travels with no resistance or binding.

Thanks. Will go back through the mechs tomorrow. I will be the first to admit I suck at soldering.

Hi Chris - I moved the Fliptronic board from my Corvette to the TZ and it was better but not perfect. I'll swap them again tomorrow to see what I get.

Ok -- thanks to skywalkers excellent eyes and noticing the crap job I did installing the coils, I went back and re-checked those. Two of the coils weren't seated correctly in the bracket (per the pictures) so I corrected that issue. I also re-checked and re-gapped the bat-to-bushings clearance just to make sure those were correct.

The flippers were still weak. That test was done with the flipper opto boards from my CFTBL installed in the TZ. I installed the TZ flipper boards in the Creech and it played fine, so the opto boards are ruled out IMHO.

Next, per Chris' comments, I moved the Fliptronic board from the Creech over to the TZ. Per my earlier test of installing the Corvette board in the TZ, there was a noticeable and consistent improvement in flipper power -- especially in the UR flipper. I need to install the TZ board in the Creech to see what happens but the shots on the Creech are not nearly as long as those on TZ so I am not sure I'll notice a real difference even if the flippers are down on power. I'll report what happens.

There isn't much info about the Fliptronic boards on PiniWiki. I guess I'll check the voltages at the coil lugs to see what I have there.

Thanks again to everyone for taking the time to read the thread and make suggestions.

I put the TZ Fliptronic board in the Creech and as I suspected, the flippers felt a little down on power versus the original board but that is a totally subjective statement. I was still able to make shots on the Creech without any major problems using the TZ board.

It's been a little over an hour since I made the board switch in the TZ and the game has been powered on the whole time. The flippers are still performing well -- not as good as I think they should, but they are much better than they were with the original board. The UR flipper still makes solid shots into the Camera and Town Square as I would expect.

So -- I'm back to something being wrong on the Fliptronic board.

Last bit of info for now: I show 75 VDC at each lug on LL, LR and UR TZ coils using the CFTBL board.

On the CFTBL, using the TZ board, the lugs read 85 VDC.

For comparison, I also checked my Corvette and those lugs show 71 VDC.

Per PinWiki, the Fliptronic board should supply a 70 VDC source to the coils. Given my readings, I'm getting good power from the board to the coils. I am going to assume everything is mechanically sound.

That means I am losing something when the circuit is grounded and the coil is energized.

This leads me to the transistors. It sounds like a TIP102, TIP36C and 2N4403 pre-driver are used to ground the circuit and ultimately energize the high power winding. If one or more of those transistors is weak maybe I'm not getting a good ground. From what I have read tonight, I may not be able to reliably test the transistors in circuit, but I found instructions on how to do that.

Does this sound like a transistor problem at this point? Is it possible to even have a leaky transistor that might cause me to lose some power?

Chris - I understand your warning. Not to ask a dumb question, but how do I ground the lug? Didn't I technically do that to check the voltage (red lead on lug, black to cabinet ground)? Or are you saying red lead on inside lug (orange wore with tracer I believe) and ground to one of the inner lugs (blue or gray with tracer)? I don't have the diagram in front of me right now.

I had a bad driver on one of my Cyclone pop bumpers and grounded at the transistor in order to fire the coil manually. Should I check voltages at the emitter by hooking up the DMM there and just hitting the flipper button to see what voltages are being output?

@dgoett: Thanks. I found some info in Clay's guide about grounding the lugs (duh moment after reading that) as well as info on testing the transistors.

@shlockdoc: Unplugging the ColorDMD didn't change anything. With the CFTBL board installed and the ColorDMD powered I am getting good (not great) flips.

Transistor tests are up next.

@Chris - not yet. Will try this later in the next few hours.

I did the coil check per Chris and don't notice any difference between grounding the lug and using the flipper buttons. I posted a couple of videos of the LR coil test here:

http://1drv.ms/1SLlDRc

I also checked the voltages on the TIP102s, TIP36Cs and 2N4403s while I had the board out again and everything was fine.

I put all of the original boards back in the TZ. I then shot a couple of short game videos showing weak shots from the right flipper. These are added to the OneDrive link in the previous post.

I had my daughter play a few games and she agreed the LR flipper was weak. At this point, I may just get a replacement board and then mess with this one as time permits.

Thanks Chris. About the only thing I didn't replace were the bats, the bushings and the EOS switches. I don't notice any binding and I would think if that were in play it would be really obvious.

Again, I really appreciate your help these last few days.

Check now. I put them in the wrong folder. They should be there now.

@Chris, all of the mechs, except for the UR, were just rebuilt with new parts from PinballLife. Stops and plungers were all identical. My daughter noticed the LR flipper was a bit lower than the LL so I re-adjusted that before I shot the videos and it didn't really make too much difference as you saw.

@mschonbrun: I don't think they are cracked but will re-check The problem gets worse as the machine gets warmer so I believe it is definitely electronic and not mechanical.

I am equally stumped. Unless something is going weird in the power supply and I'm losing voltage as the game warms up -- but I assume that type of problem would affect everything equally, and not just the right side flippers.

I found some info that stated a weak TIP36C can cause warm coils and weak flips, so I think I'll replace those and see what I get. What the heck at the this point. The old coils seemed to be warped (coil sleeves were jammed in so tight I couldn't remove them) so maybe that's what's going on.

Again -- I really appreciate all of the input and feedback from everyone.

I broke down and bought a Rottendog Fliptronics board which arrived tonight.

Problem solved.

The game flips perfectly now - even after the game is well warmed up.

The coils are also not getting nearly as hot with the new board as they did with the old board. I believe the coils were overheating which lead to the drop in performance.

There clearly is a bad component or two on the factory Fliptronics board. I bought all new transistors from various suppliers who had what I needed and will install those in the coming week.

I'll report back if that fixes things.

Thanks again to everyone for the assistance and suggestions.

To close this out - I replaced all of the transistors (TIP 36Cs, TIP102s and 2N4403s) on the original Fliptronic board this morning and reinstalled it. The game flipped fine.

So - bottom line, even though the transistors seems to test ok in circuit one or more of them ended up being bad.

As further proof the original board is now working fine, after I'd been playing for 45 minutes my daughter promptly stepped up and smoked me in a head-to-head game by getting LITZ with the original board.

Good luck with the repair. Make sure you replace the 2N4403 pre-drivers as well. I had to get the three different transistors from a couple of different sources (GPE and PinballLife) since one vendor didn't have everything.

The UR flipper on mine has been a little flaky for years but not bad enough to matter. It really got bad (along with the LR flipper) just recently.

Parts replaced in total on mine included:

Mechanical:
- flipper coils
- crank, plungers and stops

Fliptronic Board:
- LM339s
- all transistors
- Fliptronic bridge rectifier

In the end, I believe the root causes of my problem were the transistors and the coils going bad due to overheating (which was due to the bad transistors).

Good luck!