Dont know if this is someone here or not.
Acrylic protector custom made to protect plastic #5 near thebkenney hole/kyle ramp

Just ordered one

ebay.com link: 0

A belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of the South Park Pinsiders, and all of the other Pinsiders as well! This is a great group and I'm very happy to be a part of. Thanks You All! I'm a new pinball owner and this group has helped me, and my kids, want to continue with the obsession.

Okay, so now my Kenny optos have stopped working. The left transmitter light is still showing a red light as before, but when the beam is blocked with a pinball, the switch doesn't register. I went into diagnostics, and it's showing the Kenny opto as being an "active switch." My hunch is that it shouldn't be doing that...can anyone confirm that the Kenny opto is NOT supposed to be "active" unless the beam is being physically blocked?

So if I'm correct that the Kenny opto switch is not supposed to be "active" then this must mean that somehow, the light is not making it from the transmitter to the receiver. Yet I'm looking at it, and it looks like the receiver is glowing red, which means the light is in fact reaching it.

So what the heck am I supposed to do?

Any help out there?

Thanks.

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No, nothing happens when I block the beam...which is why I'm theorizing that it's tripped (active) because the receiving end isn't registering getting the beam. The two LEDs don't look out of alignment, and the receiving side is "glowing" with the red light coming from the transmitter, so I assumed that they must be in alignment. But I'll try wiggling both sides and see if it makes a difference.

The Kenny opto is active when you break the beam. Just tested on mine, I had this issue with mine at one time. I had to reflow the solder on the receiver LED. The led wasn't sitting tight to the opto board and was out of alignment. Resoldered so the LED was sitting tight to the board and this worked for me. Or possible broken wire coming from receiver board somewhere?

One tip for those who have got their Kenny optos working... drop a small drop of epoxy on the base of the led between the clear LED envelope and the board. This prevents the led from vibrating and breaking the leads and stabilizes the solder joint so it cracks less. Notice I said cracks LESS, not stops it from cracking. Also, once the LED is epoxied to the board, direct ball strikes will not knock it out of alignment. When replacing the LED, just dyke the old envelope off the front and sand away the old epoxy with a dremmel. Works 100% like factory after the repair, stays fixed longer than just reflowing solder joints, and requires no added opto protectors. But hey, what do I know about pinball?!?

Great advice, however, after looking at this a little bit more, my problem turns out to be more complex. On the opto receiver board, there is a second LED that activates in order to indicate when the beam between the transmitter and receiver LED has been broken. When I block the beam with my finger, the second indicator LED on the receiver board now lights up. This means the LEDs are working as they should, and the opto receiver board can tell then the beam has been tripped...however, the pinball machine itself does not recognize this, and instead shows the beam as being tripped at all times.

I'm not sure where along the line of communication between the tripped LED and the controller board in the head box the communication is breaking down. I ordered a new opto receiver board from pinball life and will try replacing the old one. If that doesn't solve the problem, then I'll be in trouble!

Yes, if the PIA is shot, this.could cause the symptom, however, I would think you would have more issues on other switches. So most likely I would venture a cracked solder joint on the output pin to switch wiring harness. Reflow solder and recheck.

I got the new OPTO receiver board today, installed it, and it works. I haven't got the electronics skills to troubleshoot the old board. But yes, it probably was an issue with the pins.

I'll hold on to it in case I need to salvage the old LED light bulb.

Thanks for the responses!

The plastic holder for my translite is looking kind of old. Where would I get a new one? I ordered a new translite and would like to just swap out the whole thing.

Also, is there a clear coat I can put on the Kenny wood that feeds the hole? I don't really want to cliffy it.

Here are the trim pieces for the translite. Marco carries them but looks to be out of the lift channel at the moment.
https://www.pinballlife.com/backglass-lift-channel-for-stern.html
https://www.pinballlife.com/side-backglass-trim-for-stern.html
https://www.pinballlife.com/backglass-top-trim-for-stern.html

How big of an area do you need to touch up in front of Kenny? If it's just the edge use some clear nail polish and put some mylar over the area. I think any paint coating is going to crack eventually.

That's just the edges, what about the clear part?

For Kenny, it's wearing about an inch.

EDIT: Wait, my SP has a flexible material for translite instead of a back glass. Is everyone else's this way?

That should just be regular 1/8 tempered glass cut to 26" x 19-1/4" x 1/8". I would call a local glass shop, even if a vendor has it it would be expensive to ship. You could use plexiglass but I don't think it will be any cheaper and it will scratch easily.

Thanks, wow, I didn't know it was supposed to be glass. :/

I love my Cartman hole protector. Kudos latenite04 for handing out the Mr. Hanky arms too.

Is there any way to keep the balls from getting stuck in Kenny's arms? It's been kind of a known issue the last 2 years I've owned it, but was wondering if there's a fix.

I don't have any springs. What do they look like? Up near his arms?
I have to wait until the 2nd ball search when he pops forward and the ball falls into the hole.

Marco has them. 265-5051-00. $4.95 each. Be careful not to tighten them too tight or they break off. Voice of experience. Probably what happened to yours. They also protect the optos from being banged.

Ah, I have one of those in the coin box, have had it since the beginning. When I asked about it I was told that they all break and no one uses it anyway. Never thought about it again.

Yes they do apparently break, but, so do other things in life. Nothing is forever. They do prevent the ball getting stuck and banging the optos. I did not have them when I got mine and I had to adjust the optos frequently. So for $10 I put them in.

I have made a coin door decal to match the speaker panel decal.
Let me know if anybody wants one. $10 including postage (coin decal only).
Speaker panel decal $35

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I'd totally grab this from you if I had the game... Still looking for the right purchase... LOL

Jeff

Would you go $40 for both? What I am really in the market for, however, is cabinet decals that are more color matched to the original artwork... I’ve heard tell the ones available right now suck... so I haven’t even considered buying them.

I'd take the ones on eBay, but don't feel I'm qualified to install them without screwing it up. Wish it wasn't over a grand$$$ to have someone install them for you.

What? Someone gets a Grand for putting cabinet decals on cabinets?!? Does this include complete cabinet prep, painting, sanding, and application? It better. I put decals on my AFM cabinet, took all of about two hours but I had already sanded and painted the cabinet black. Me and my wife did it together, nearly cost me my marriage, but we got it done.

Ha! Yeah, includes cleaning and sanding. I've been told if you get and cheap quote and it doesn't include that then it's too good to be true.

I think it all depends on the quality you expect afterward. I sanded the cabinet, primered it with grey, shot it with rattlecan black semi gloss. Took all of a couple of hours. The cabinet looks fantastic, just don’t look at it from oblique angles. I did NOT fill in any gouges, or make sure is was smooth as a baby ass, so the underlying imperfections do show up if you look for them, but hey, it looks good from 2 feet away, and I’m not selling it before I die, so win/win in my book.

I added a 3d printed towelie character in my machine ... fits perfect on the bumber

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That's awesome. I might copy.

Okay, I've had it with my Kenny opto switch. I recently replaced the receiver board, and it's broken again in less than 100 plays...now constantly showing the switch as "active" despite there being nothing blocking the beam. So what I think I'm going to do is bypass the entire mess and just put a Magnetic Reed Switch along the subway underneath the Kenny hole.

If I were to do this, my understanding is that the MRS (now supposedly available here:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/mrs-are-no-longer-unobtanium#post-5420596)
simply needs to be wired into switch leads that run into the opto receiver board. Trouble is, there are 7 wires running into the opto receiver board. So I need to figure out which two wires need to be attached to the two leads running out of the MRS.

If I'm reading this schematic correctly, I need to attach the MRS leads to the GRN-BLUE and WHT-RED wires.

(1) So on the MRS, I just attach the white wire to the WHT-RED wire, and the green wire to the GRN-BLUE wire, and the thing should work?

(2) Is there a better MRS for this use? The MRS I found is designed to be attached to a bowl on CFTBL or Diner, so it might not work great adhered to the flat surface alongside the bottom of the subway under the Kenny hole.

(3) Any reason why bypassing the opto switch in this manner might not be a good idea?

Thoughts???

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My SP started randomly restarting a couple days ago. Sometimes it happens a couple times within a 30 minute period, sometimes once every several hours. What should I check?

I tell folks, you need to aim the opts, get it working well, then stabilize the leds on both receiver and transmitter boards by putting some 5 minute epoxy underneath the base of the leds and the boards... goo it on there so there is no gap between the base and the board, let it cure. Problem solved. The opto leds get hit by the ball, the led bends over a little bit, The base wedges against the board thus putting huge stretching force on the leads of the led. This will cause them to eventually fail. By stabilizing (bonding) the leds to the board with epoxy, there is no rocking and wedging to pull on the leads, the solder joint is protected, the leads are protected. There was one guy who 3D printed LED protector shields to prevent ball strikes, but coming from the aircraft lighting industry, this fix worked for Leds that were getting hammered due to the same force, except it was vibrational input (actual mass of the LED being flung back and forth) causing the failures.

Doing what you said is not required, there is a switch in the subway that backs up the opto already, so not sure why you would need to go to the trouble of adding boards and switches, but you could do it if you feel the need. I was having the exact problem you are having, but since the epoxy, no failures. Good luck.

Look for dipping in p/s voltages...put a scope or meter on 5v and wait for the reset, look to see if power dips or not. Try all your voltages... that’s were I would start.

I no longer own SP (or any Whitewater, for that matter), but if memory serves, there is a potentiometer on the board that can adjust the 5V. I had this same thing happen on the Monopoly that I owned at the time, and that fixed the problem.

Okay, I don't think I have much to lose with your approach, so I'll buy a new board, and coat the base of the led in epoxy, and see if it holds up.

However, I have a question. You mentioned the switch in the subway backs up the opto. On my machine it does not. I tested that switch with the diagnostic menu, and can see that it registers when I trip it manually with my finger. However, during gameplay, if I shoot the Kenny hole (with the non-functional opto) then the balls rolls down the subway over the switch, BUT the game still registers the ball as if it had just gone straight into the Cartman hole. So the Kenny switch appears to serve no purpose...at least on my machine. Perhaps there's ANOTHER problem going on. Which is difficult to diagnose because, as I said, the switch menu indicates that the switch is in working order.

I would recommend that you test that switch by rolling a ball over it. Sometimes you are able to trip a switch with your finger, but not with a ball. If this is indeed the case, then a height adjustment would be in order.

Yes, this, but I don’t know if the software compensates for the opto failing like a Williams machine might. Seems to me B/W had a patent on that, so not sure. But my machine, when I first got it, needed all kinds of love, the Kenny opto included, along with trough switches. But when playing it, prior to fixing the opto, you could kill Kenny. So what he said, check with a ball.

Adjust the LEDs and aim them before epoxying them. I left mine in the machine after aiming and glued them as they sat. I pondered removing the boards to do it, but was afraid I might nudge them out of alignment in the process, so glued while in place seemed to work. I let the 5 minute start to thicken up so as not have it run all over, but still cling and stick and flow under the LED. This is more art than science, but I have a LONG history of using 5 minute epoxy in RC aircraft.

Hello All

Just picked up south park last friday, its my wife's favorite pin and its playing great. Had a few questions though, my toilet seat was missing the guide. I searched the forum and was not able to find any fixes. My fix was to super glue a black drill bit holder to the lid, works great actually but is a bit big. Does anyone have any suggestions for a sticky 3m type guide.

Also I made it to spooky vision and feel I have the rules down. However, even with LED's I am confused as to what part of the face lights up when a character is collected. I can see it flashing when started in the eye ball but can barely see it solid once completed. Is there a fix for this, any type of super bright LED.

Thanks in advance.

Also anyone have a video with Pinsound and/or color DMD.

No Pinsound, but ColorDMD and some other upgrades featured. I'd also like to hear a Pinsound conversion.
For the toilet guide, I looked up foam strips on eBay. I'll see if I have some extra.

Alright, now I'm sold. That looks really great. Is that the LCD or the LED colorDMD. I think its the LCD but couldn't be sure, those look really smooth on the cartoon pins like south park and family guy.

Another thing that you might consider is foam insulation strips, like what you might use around an air conditioner. You can get them in varying widths, or even trim it down to size. You can get it at Home Depot or Lowes.

The playfield is really clean. I haven't inspected the inserts from underneath. I can see the lights in the eyes flashing but don't see them solid when you complete the mode. I have watched quite a few videos and I can't actually see the faces light up on any of them when a character is completed. I am confused as to how are you to know which one is done.

FYI in case it wasn't mentioned previously, for non-GI sockets, you need non-ghosting bulbs.

Plain led's and an LED OCD board smooth out the jumpy/ghosting inserts as well.