Agree with above, if you are lucky you have a enough time to drink some ice cold beer

I have Titans on mine, might get a loop perhaps 5 or 6 times at best but nothing where I had to nudge the machine.

I had to do something bc once my ball gets in that spot it won’t stop bouncing.
For the first time I was able to use my dads old advice, and I put a second rubber on.
The extra tension keeps the ball from getting stuck. I imagine every machine is different and for most it is not a problem.

I get it too on my machine, but it breaks free a few seconds later.

Either use a second rubber or switch the white rubber out with a black one. Black rubber is less bouncy compared to white.

Thanks. That’s very good info as well..
Once mine gets in there it’s like a perpetual motion machine... and my game is wedged in to the point that removing the glass is headache.

The continuing saga of my slingshots.

They have been working more than not but they sometimes drop out during a game.

This morning for about ten games they were fine' Tonight they have failed from switch on and I can't get them back.

I have checked the switches and they are okay.

When the switches are made to contact they do not fire the coil but instead they light up the prime directive lamps and the red and blue police lamps under the ramp.

I am pretty sure that I am missing something very simple. Maybe the cap on the switch or maybe a bad diode. Would these things cause intermittent drop out and fail of the switches or should I be concentrating on the switch matrix.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Can you do a line item breakdown from when all was working well to when the Prime Directive lights started acting up when the slings are activated?

There is not really an item breakdown.

Basically what happens is I would be playing a game with the slingers working fine and at no particular common time or action the slingers are dead.

I know that the slingshot coils are not linked to the switch matrix but that the eos switch on the coils are. When I do a switch test the eos switch registers as either left or right slingshot.

When I test the slingshots in game mode the switches light up the prime directive lights and the police lights.

Also when playing the game the police lights seem a faded version of their normal brightness.

Bare in mind that the last time they went off like they are now the very next day I started the game and they worked fine. Bizarre really, and frustrating as hell.

I am confused. I thought Robocop does not have EOS switches on the coils.

I am still dealing with my outlanes not making the siren sound on the first time thru with the ball. Sometimes they work correct. Most times they don't. I know it is not related to your problem, but the hit or miss part is familiar.

My Police lights were not working at all. And then I installed LED flashers and they started working; I discovered many of my flasher were burnt out. It was nice see P-O-L-I-C-E light up for a change. And then they went dead and I have not had time to look at them.

I understand your frustration. Unfortunately, my knowledge base on pins is still " got lots of learning still to do", especially with DE electronics. But I am thinking it is something to do with your board(s). I had pop problems; I replaced many transistors that looked like they would do the trick as I was learning to be the schematics. And I could not get them fixed and sent the MPU out for repair and all is good since; Naturally, I was not informed of just what the problem was.

I know you sent your board out for repair. You might have to do so again. Bad chip on the MPU maybe?

I think the board is fine as the fuses are intact and the issue is intermittent but it might be resistors on the board.

I am convinced that it is a switch on the green or yellow targets as this has affected the pin before.

As far as the eos switch is concerned I am calling it an eos switch but it is the switch under the coil that registers after the stroke of the slingshot kicker coil.

I am like you in that I am new to pinball fixing.

I am away on vacation next week so it will keep and I have ordered transparent target replacements from Germany so I will be working on the switch banks when my holiday is over, I will keep you up to date.

As far as sound issues I have noticed that all sound cuts out all sounds in favor of the machine gun when the spinner is hit but my siren on the outlane works every time.. Good luck with that.

My P.O.L.I.C.E. lights were not working (among a lot of other things when I got the pin) and I didn't know until I found a loose purple wire on connecter ? at the bottom of the PPB (I think). All of the wires there are purple (violet). This also reinstated the flashers under ed209 and the top left ramp.

I really want to go on a pinball engineering course but I don't think they exist in the UK.

Speak soon. Stay safe.

I’ve heard people hate fixing these pins, mpu board can give you a lot of head scratching like the flipper issues you can get. All you can do is check all the switches/diodes, coils, connections, shorts and then you will need an expert to look at boards or give you advice otherwise you will be going round in circles getting nowhere.
Regarding the slingshots, pops mine were iffy because someone had repaired the tracks where they had burnt out by the transistors with wire but the wire was not contacting properly and vibration was causing it to cut in and out. I know you had your board repaired so will be good but maybe worth pulling out for a look and checking for dry solder joints if you have checked everything else.

My brother visited at the weekend and brought his partner who has two young girls who managed to break the coil end stop on one of my flippers which was new, if I had told them to stop banging the flippers constantly I would have been the kill joy. Last time they play

My switches have a diode on one and I think a capacitor on the other. Do you know what size the 'capacitor' would be?

Lostcause

Can a bad diode cause them to stop working completely?

I am not an amateur at changing out diodes

You can check the diode with a multimeter on diode test setting, not sure what issues they can cause but I know they can cause problems.
No idea what size capacitor but each switch should have the same set up of diode and capacitor I think.

I will get the magnifier out.

Like you, I am in (permanent ) learning mode of this DE beast. The only diodes I see on the drawings are on the switch return rows at CN10. There are no diodes connected directly to the switches like my classic Sterns.

EDIT: I spoke incorrectly. The switch matrix blueprints show every switch as having its own diode.

Can you post a picture of this?

If it is what I'm picturing, then I think I have an idea on what's going on.

Some pics of mine, sling switches have a resistor and capacitor each side. Coil has a diode. Found one of my wires off, karma
Edit: Looks like some screws loose too.

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Definitely fix the wire. That happened to me before, which made my slings less responsive.

That's the setup I have as well. One resistor and capacitor on one switch and none on the other. The two switches at the rubber run on the same circuit. The only switch that needs the diode is the one going to the MPU.

Mine appear to just gave a capacitor? On one of the switches and a diode on the switch attached to the coil.
Any help?

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There's your problem. You need a resistor for those capacitors in order for them to work properly.

Most likely the capacitor is sending mixed messages to the PPB's relay, which is preventing the relay from firing off the coils. The resistor prevents any excess current from escaping from capacitor when a game is running.

True.

This is Hipster's right sling.

1f1f365ed59c3e19e06b0dabdaf91feb896eee67 (resized).jpg

Here is mine.

The resistor is there. But one leg is hanging in the air. My radial lead cap is there, but it also has a leg hanging in the air.

IMG_6754 (resized).JPG

But on the other switch on the right sling, someone has added a disc capacitor.

IMG_6755 (resized).JPG

So, my right sling is not in much better shape than Hipster's until I get that resistor fixed.

But I am not having any problems with my slings as Hipster is dealing with. Am I just lucky?

There is a diode installed on the one switch (not pictured) and the diode is shown on the blueprint. But neither the cap nor the resistor are shown on the drawing anywhere that I can see. So, unless you just know they need to be here, you will be clueless with looking at the prints.

My left sling has some leads where a cap used to be but the left sling has nothing in the way of a cap or a resistor.
===============================

pg.35 bottom bar.... far right ALL [ 100 Ohm 1/4 W 22uf 25V ]

Thank you.

My resistors or caps were not connected when I got mine as they had come loose but I soldered them on straight away, I had issues but mine was to do with the tracks on the mpu board that had been repaired badly.

You're fine because you have the resistor. Even with the caps not being hooked up correctly, the resistor is doing it's job. What's happening with Hipster's machine is that the caps' excess energy is discharging back into the PPB's switch matrix. In short, it's throwing off the PPB's ohm reading for the slings.

My resistor has been disabled. Sorry for the slang and not writing in a more clear manner.

Would these work? I ordered about 100 of these last year.

Screenshot_20210619-150843_eBay (resized).jpg

Does the resistor fit to the same lugs as the capacitor (I'm clueless with electronics)

For those who haven’t added a lexan deflector in front of the yellow target bank, I highly rec if your machine has air balls.
I’d say it cut my glass clanks by 90%…

No, one of my pics above shows it’s not. I’ve zoomed it in a bit for you.
A9956BD7-9D6F-49A0-8B7F-4CADBF13B0AD (resized).jpeg

Never had air balls on mine but fitted the protector there and the rest of the lower playfield, if you adjust the targets right you shouldn’t get air balls. Think cottonm4 adjusted his and it stopped. I can hit mine hard with no air balls, comes back bloody fast though.

Thanks for that. Are the colours on the resistor gold black purple yellow?.

I'm trying to find out if they are the same as the ones I bought last year. 100 1/4 47r.

It should be stopping them 100%. After I made that deflector and installed it, all of my air balls went away. The deflector is great. It works. But I made something else that I like much better.

Yes. I removed the 3 yellow stand up targets from the play field, then I unscrewed the black metal "L" angles that stand behind the targets and hammered them straight; This metal is soft so flattening it out is easy to do. Then I reinstalled the SU assembly. And then I cut a small block of wood and located it behind the "L" angles and screwed it down.

The block of wood keeps the "L" angles from bending backwards and kills the airballs. I have my new plastics on and they are not in danger of being broken.

IMG_6768 (resized).JPG

I have kept my deflector installed but I cut it way back and all it does now it provide an attachment point for a Comet Matrix light strip I used to light the targets up.

IMG_6770 (resized).JPG

The deflector works, but the block of wood works just as well, if not better, and it stays hidden from behind the targets. Plus, anybody can find a small chuck of wood for this fix, perhaps. easier than they can find a piece of plastic.

I see the problem with the my deflector, I cut the length back too much..
So does the wood block just give support to the back of the targets, absorbing the force from the ball?

I see the problem with the my deflector, I cut the length back too much..

the block is probably even better

Yeah, the deflector needs to extend out from the targets at least 1.5".

Yes, the wooden block sets right up next to the "L" angles and keeps them from bending backwards. The backwards bend is what causes the airballs. Stern did not design Robocop to have all these destructive airballs and Stern did not distribute defective Robocops. It is just that over time on route that the "L" angles bent backwards and now the ops had to deal with all of the broken plastics.

An easier fix is to add a piece of foam behind each target. That's what the previous owner did on my machine and it works extremely well.

Note:
All Data East spot targets have had black density foam backing.

I should of said that the previous owner replaced the foam.

In that case, you are lucky that the capacitor is also hanging one leg in the air. It's not making a complete circuit, so it's not affecting the PPB.

Thanks for that info. I was able to bend the metal backings straight again. Added some foam as well. No longer have any air balls...but as someone mentioned the ball can fly back at you very quickly..

If you don't back up those metal backings with a piece of wood, or some other material, they will just bend back on you again. Just the farm won't help you.

I like quick fly backs.

So I have fitted the resistor and nothing has changed. When I press the rubber onto the switch it lights the 'Prime Directive' lights and the 'Police' lights but does not fire the coils.

Am I looking at the Qs now on the MPU as the fuses to the coils and the connectors are fine?

Please note that these slings worked fine for over a year without a resistor until I fried the board by fitting the wrong coil as a replacement. After the board was repaired about three or four months ago they worked fine again for all of this time then became intermittent. Could a switch burn out or break and look fine?

In my experience if the switch on the sling is shorting it machine guns the coil. Is this correct?

Thanks in advance.

In my experience, slings machine gun when the sling switches are not gapped wide enough. Too narrow of a switch gap and the bouncing rubber will just keep kicking that switch together.

I'll look in my manual and see if I can see anything, but in looking at the manual, it looks like the Prime Directive lights are part of the back box flasher lights.

It's a tricky one because I feel that it is a short but those switches for the slings are not part of the switch matrix. (At least that is what I am thinking) but they are connected somehow because when I make the switch it lights those lamps.

Over the last few weeks the slings have worked fine if a little weak and have failed during a game but then reinstated themselves in the same game. This is what makes me think it is a short somewhere.

It could, of course, be the MPU.

The sling switches are a part of the switch matrix. The Prime Directive lights do not appear to be part of the switch matrix.

Page 36.

Switch # 21 is the left sling. (The text shows the point switch and the other switch ( for the turbo sounds I assume)).

Switch # 22 is the right sling. (The text shows the point switch and the other switch ( for the turbo sounds I assume)).

Another switch matrix chart appears on page 20 and both slings are shown as #21 and #22.

IPDB.org has the complete manual shown on its pages.

https://www.ipdb.org/search.pl?any=robocop&search=Search+Database&searchtype=quick#1976

Here is page 36. All of the wiring for the switch matrix is contained at CN8 and CN10 on the MPU.

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CN 8 are the switch drive columns.

and

CN10 are the switch drive rows.

CN8 and CN10 are on the bottom of the MPU drawing.

There are 4 more pages of the schematics on the MPU that might/should say where the switches derive their power from, but I still have a lot of learning to do with the schematics to see how a sling switch and a Prime Directive light have any way of hooking up.

Screen Shot 2021-06-27 at 9.56.38 AM (resized).png

WOW Cottonm4. This is quite something because as you were studying the manual I was reseating the wires in both of those connectors. CN8 is fairly new to the board and was fitted very professionally but CN10 is old and in a poor condition and I need to change it.

I had a feeling that it was connected to the P.O.L.I.C.E. lamps because mine were not been as bright as they are normally and the 'L' was out. I then re-seated the connector on the lamp board. I then swapped out the lamp holder because as you are aware some of the smaller ones don't sit correctly in the housing as was the case with this one.

And guess what?.................................................................the slingshots are back to normal. Great result.

Thank you for pointing me in the right direction (as usual).

UPDATE!!!! - The slings have gone off again. This is soooo frustrating. I need to find a darkened room somewhere.

Sounds like you need to re-pin someconnectors