(Topic ID: 140168)

Pop Bumper not Popping (Sometimes)

By wizard_mode

8 years ago



Topic Stats

  • 4 posts
  • 3 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 8 years ago by zombywoof
  • No one calls this topic a favorite

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#1 8 years ago

Hi all,

My middle pop bumper on my sorcerer fires good for a few pops then it stops. At first it was never firing unless it was hit really hard, so I took the opportunity to rebuild all 3 per vids guide. Now I notice that the middle one fires a few times fine then it does not fire at all even when the leaf switch is visibly closed. I was thinking of replacing the switch but I notice it is not a standard switch. Looks like a capacitor and resistor are wired in as well.

Does anyone have an idea why the bumper fires a few times then stops then starts back up after some time? Is something heating up too much and causing the circuit to open? Could it be a bad capacitor or resistor?

Thanks in advance,
TJ

#2 8 years ago

Could be any of these:

Broken lead on the switch capacitor.

Broken lead on the switch resistor.

Coil has a broken wire making intermittent connection.

Cold solder joints on the connector that operates the coil on the cpu board.

Cold solder joints on the driver transistor.

#3 8 years ago

Thanks Ken for the reply. I visually checked for broken leads but maybe I'll take a closer look with my meter later. For the coil wire do you mean the main wire that wraps around the solenoid body under the paper? Where can I find the driver transistor and the cpu board cold solder joint? Do I need to remove the board to check this? Sorry, I'm a total noob who just bought my first machine this summer. I appreciate the help...

#4 8 years ago

The transistor for the lower jet bumper is Q81 for Sorcerer.

You'll definitely want to do as Ken suggests, but I have a game specific observation that might prove relevant. If the angle of your playfield is too shallow, that particular pop will often fail to register contact.

When I first got my Sorcerer, I noticed that the lower pop would often not fire when hit. I followed the usual troubleshooting best practices, but could find nothing wrong. A while later, while fixing a busted seam in the cabinet, I figured that I would replace the rusty legs and leg levelers with new ones while I had them off to clamp and glue the seam. I set the front levelers all of the way down and the back all of the way up. This made, at most, a one degree difference in the angle of the playfield. The change was like night and day. The lower pop fires correctly for just about everything but the most slow, floaty contacts now.

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