Okay folks, finally finished my PinBot and everything works perfectly except for the vortex ramp. I bought a reproduction one and installed it. Problem is that the ball never even makes it to the 5K drop through hole. I noticed that the piece of spring metal at the bottom of the ramp was sitting up about 1/8" off the play field. I used a dremel tool to shave the plastic down and then used a dab of RTV to hold the spring steel ramp down so it is completely flush with the play field. I put a new high power (blue) spring from Marco in the ball shooter. If I pull the ball shooter back about half way there is just not enough power to get up the ramp. Pulling the ball shooter back further puts more power behind the ball but then the ball seems to jump around when it hits the rivets holding down that spring steel and he ball again never reaches far enough up to even get to the 5K drop through hole.

Thinking about trying to shave down those rivets but don't know if that is wise. I don't want to have to redo them if I go too far and PinBot obviously worked with the rivets before.

Any ideas or suggestions would be most welcome. This is a great game but it bugs the hell out of me if everything doesn't work.

Thanks!

Al

All,

Thanks, there were three problems. First I didn't take enough plastic off the vortex ramp to make it flush with the playfield. I ground it down even more with the Dremel tool and a file and then put another dab of RTV to hold the flap down on the plastic. This made a big difference. Second thing was to put in a new shooter sleeve to take the play out of the shooter rod due to wear of the old sleeve. Third was, as you said, alignment. I was able to get the shooter tip to hit the ball in the center but it is hitting it a bit high. Correcting the height pushes it off center and being off center is much much worse than hitting the ball a bit high and putting some spin on it. I will eventually get around to routing the opening for the shooter some so I can correct the height adjustment. But right now it works pretty well. So well in fact that when I had my wife come down stairs to admire my handy work and she played a game on her first shot the ball all the way to the top of the ramp!! It is a bit finicky and sometimes just doesn't make it up the ramp at all but that is part of the fun I guess. If you could reliably shoot it to the top every time that would take some of the challenge out of the game. I did put in one of Marco Specialties red springs - the highest/strongest spring. This is probably too much so I may go back to the blue spring which is one step down from the red.

Again, thanks everyone for the comments and suggestions. PinBot is pretty awesome. Even my wife who is a big EM fan likes PinBot.

Al