I missed an important note in the first quote. I didn't realize that he instructed her to release the flipper. The ball drained because she released the ball. Not due to the machine killing power.

The second quote makes me very happy as a tournament director and player. That's important information to know.

Thanks for the clarification!

Marcus

Yeah I don't see any issues for tournament directors and using spike games.

Gottlieb did it with full AC disconnect to get their UL listing. At one point, Data East games (or were they Sega?) were shipped with a Fish Paper/Cardboard bezel encasing the entire cash box area so there was no access to any voltage other than what was on the coin door. I don't think you could even reach the tilt bob. Then either Williams or Sega came up with the idea of disconnecting the higher voltage secondary AC from the transformer. Which again, made sense since the transformer was located fairly close by the door hinge. Earlier Interlocks were there only for Memory Protect circuits.

If everything is now 48VDC or less, there is no requirement for the disconnect. I would question the move of the power switch being UL related. It was never an issue as long as all connections were properly covered and dead metal grounded. But moving it to the head eliminates a butt load of wire and hardware to save on cost. And regardless of your thoughts on the move, it makes total sense as an engineering design point.

Anyone know if there is a service outlet in the head now?

Yep, @ lower right corner of the head.

Except when one of the bulbs on the spotlights falls out and you open the coin door, ball drains and ends the game.

GOT doesn't cut power to the flipper when the door is opened, because it doesn't have an interlock.

The issue the OP is having is that he had enabled the coin door ball save feature, but it doesn't work, because there isn't an interlock (or other switch) at the coin door to know that the coin door is open.

Solution to all problems:
- Stern removes menu setting for coin door ball save
- GOT owners and tourney directors learn that flippers (and everything else) will be energized when the coin door is open

Its a huge pain to have someone keep the flipper button pushed while there is someone else playing to the left & right of the machine & Im trying to take the glassout & do whatever service is needed. Its hard to have a customer that involved with you when trying to preform service.

They don't have to hold it the entire time you're servicing it

Yeah this is great! We spend so much time during our tournament setup disabling the interlocks on any games that have them so we can place balls on flippers with the door open during any stuck ball/malfunction issue.

I understand that, I guess once that coin door opens I want the customer back from the machine, just 12 years of coin op route operating and a million comments when trying to do my job I wanna focus at the task at hand. I wanna make the process as easy as possible for me & my customers.

Nope. That won't matter either as you trap the ball, hold it, and when you open the coin door the flipper stays active until you let go. So one person cradles while the other gets the glass of and the LED out off the playfield.

It shouldnt take 2 people to perform minor service issues like this.

In a tournament they aren't going to allow Chuck to do all this himself.

Totally agree.

Yeah that damn Spike system!

I want unfused bridges back, I liked melted input power harnesses and 20 pound game specific transformers to scavenge to fix machines! None of this PC compatible plug swap-able supplies for ME!

And 40 pin interconnects, wft? I like having ribbon cables and 6 modules in the head all jammed into the head!

And SCANBE sockets and security PICs and 8 ROMS to burn to update speech and massive 10watt resistors on the lamp matrix to suck up power! Oh yeah Stern better cut that out! I LIKE 60Watts of power per game.

And don't get me started on flash-able firmware updates!!! I didn't buy my erasers and burners so so folks could use these newfangled thumbdrives!!!

DAMN YOU STERN!!!!!

You're going to get over it, because it's almost never going to happen. Trust me, all us W/B guys dealt with it.

Did you have coin door ball saver set to ON? If you did then there's a bug somewhere.

For anyone that needs to handle it themselves as mentioned. Cradle the ball, open the door, go into the test menu (flippers will die), fix your problem, exit the test menu when you have everything ready to roll and it should get you right back to where you were.

That's the proper behavior if Coin Door ball saver = ON.

Can you take a video and email it to me at [email protected]?

Would love to make sure this is sorted out before TPF/Nationals/Pin-Masters in a few weeks

Wrong. It actually does not cut power to the coils. Get a meter out and test the coils while in the service menus. You'll find the HV power is still present.

All it does is have software cut the energized coils (as if you released the button) but the HV is still present. There is no benefit to disabling the coils during switch test as it is an actual useful test to have coils run during this menu item (older games allowed it also if you enabled HV in switch test).

As the architecture was already explained above it doesn't make sense to repeat it all here because you incorrectly assumed coil *power* was cut in the menus. There's a big difference between cutting power to the coils and having software deactivate active coils. Therefore, this is not giving stern a pass. It really is moving forward.

When there's no interlock switch, there can be no coin door ball saver. Perhaps it be renamed to "menu button ball saver".

Great thread! Lots of useful info and only modest drama.

(Edit:perhaps spoke too soon

Thanks!

Can you actually go all the way into switch test and see if it's still behaving the same way, instead of just the test menu? Curious if that will trigger it.

There is a big difference...

One system has high power there... the other does not.

The flipper being energized or not is downstream of that. Think of it as 'ignoring the switch' where the old model was 'cut the power'.

One solution is controlled by software and could easily be changed, the other could be a design constraint.

Wtf? The goal isn't for coils to appear to go dead when you open the coin door. The goal is for you to not get shocked accidentally touching a coil and ground. That was the only intent of the coin door interlock feature *ever*. You can get shocked the same if the coils killed by software or not. The software does not have the ability to kill the coil *power*.

The software fires the coils by grounding the transistors but the power is always present. On older games with an interlock, the power physically got cut when the door was opened so even if the transistor got shorted the coil could not fire. On the spike games, there is no way to cut high power because it's all tied to a single 48v source. So when the menus are entered any energized transistors are killed but the power is still present on all the coils. You surely can understand that without being a programmer right??

Having high power present on coils is not semantics. It's what the cut off was all about - nothing else. And you have no idea what is "physically happening in the game" you only know what you witness which has nothing to do with the possibility of getting shocked or not.

I don't know if I've ever had someone argue so adamantly on a point they were totally wrong about before like this. I'm flabbergasted

Switch test will reenable the sw control of the coils just like it has since whitestar. Nothing is changed there.

I thought it was to make it harder to accidentally send high power to the switch or lamp matrix ?

LTG : )

Right? I don't understand any other argument to be honest. I know I've accidentally dropped a screwdriver/wrench before and been like "damn... I almost caused a big mess there...".

Update on this (especially for TD's):

Game of Thrones will have the Coin Door Ball Save adjustment REMOVED from the setting menu on the next update.

Ultimately though with the interlock disabled you won't ever need to worry about trapped balls going into the drain because the flippers won't be disabled. You'll be able to open the coin door and grab the ball while the player keep any balls trapped on their flipper (or pulled out of the game and placed back on the appropriate flipper when you're ready to button the game back up).

If you are playing alone at home and don't want to take a advantage of a stuck ball in multiball, then you have to treat it like a WPC-95 game. Dump the ball into a VUK somewhere and open the door and jump into the test menu. This will stop the ball from kicking out of the VUK and you'll be able to unstick the ball and continue about your business.

Don't worry . . . it's not going to work

I'm not a fan of the cuts, but the improved margins from their cost cutting actually means they're best positioned to weather downturns.

If they ever face any real competition, they're also in position to significantly drop prices, still be profitable, and really put the pressure on the competition.

If they're going to make these kind of cuts though, I'd prefer they were limited to the pro line. Premium and LE line should keep all the quality and traditional features.

It does sound like Stern still has in mind a below-pro line, they've made noises as though the home-pin line may come back.

Does using the built-in switch of a UL listed power supply help with approval of the game?
There is also the cost savings of not running the power up to the front of the cabinet.

Every item on the Main AC input must be a UL listed component for the machine/device to get UL approval. This includes wires, fuse holders, EMI Filters, connectors, etc. Metal plates used to mount AC power devices must be grounded. All of this adds to the cost of building a game. If you can eliminate it, not only does it becomes easier to get UL approval, but you save money at the same time. So, YES, Using a UL listed power supply which encases all the Main AC and only outputs lower voltages, makes getting UL approval a lot easier. It may also help on the FCC Part 15 end since wires become antennaes and can radiate RF emissions making it harder to get it to pass for residential use.

Don't think these things happen only to save a few cents on the BOM.

Just as an FYI, Video games moved in this direction a LONG time ago. Lots of vids use standard (sic) PC power supplies.