I have a Close Encounters pin. It has a spinner that I’ve never been able to really rip. I read Vid’s recommendations for spinner adjustments. Bought the lube/oil he recommended and did my best to get it to spin as freely as possible. It spins a lot better, but now I noticed it doesn’t register points for every rotation. It’s like it can’t keep up. My question is - Should it? I don’t know what expectations should be for that era pin. If it should, any thoughts on what adjustments should be made? Thank you in advance.

#2 3 years ago

CMS

Xenon75

Pinside member

11y 86,800 1,968

How close is the switch gapped? If it is not opening very far, then when it spins fast the computer will not see it fully open and still think it is closed. Also Gottlieb spinners of this era are pretty terrible so you do have to temper your expectations a bit.

#3 3 years ago

TOX

ChrisHibler

Chris' Pinball Repair

Chesterfield, MO

12y 120K 9,993 46

as Xenon75 mentions, you may have to temper your expectations.
The marketing for System 80 games (System 1 successor) was that the game would never miss a switch closure.
I take that to mean that missing a switch closure, especially something like a fast spinner, is possible in System 1 games.
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.ChrisHiblerPinball.com/Contact ... for board repairs
http://www.PinWiki.com - The Place to go for Pinball Repair Info

#4 3 years ago

BWK

Krupps4

Pinside member

Minneapolis, MN

5y 95,050 2,103 2 12

Quoted from Xenon75:
How close is the switch gapped? If it is not opening very far, then when it spins fast the computer will not see it fully open and still think it is closed. Also Gottlieb spinners of this era are pretty terrible so you do have to temper your expectations a bit.

This is very helpful. Thank you! My expectations are tempered. They always have been with that pin. Haha. I think the switch gap is pretty small. I’ll make an adjustment and see if it helps. Thanks again!

#5 3 years ago

TOX

ChrisHibler

Chris' Pinball Repair

Chesterfield, MO

12y 120K 9,993 46

You could try an experiment.
I've never done this, but you could replicate the Bally solution to this by soldering a .05uf capacitor across the switch.
Solder the legs of the capacitor to the solder tabs for the switch.

I have no idea if this will help or not, but it won't hurt.
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.ChrisHiblerPinball.com/Contact ... for board repairs
http://www.PinWiki.com - The Place to go for Pinball Repair Info

#6 3 years ago

BWK

Krupps4

Pinside member

Minneapolis, MN

5y 95,050 2,103 2 12

Quoted from ChrisHibler:
You could try an experiment.
I've never done this, but you could replicate the Bally solution to this by soldering a .05uf capacitor across the switch.
Solder the legs of the capacitor to the solder tabs for the switch.
I have no idea if this will help or not, but it won't hurt.
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.ChrisHiblerPinball.com/Contact ... for board repairs
http://www.PinWiki.com - The Place to go for Pinball Repair Info

Thanks for the tip! I will look into it.

#7 3 years ago

BIL

dothedoo

Pinside member

12y 106K 7,265

Unfortunately, CE3K uses a plastic spinner which is designed poorly. No matter what you do I don’t think you’ll get decent rips out of it, at least nowhere near what you get from metal spinners of the era.
Since the link between the spinner and switch wraps around the spinner, it can be a point of high friction. See if you can remove it and polish the metal smooth and clean out the groove in the spinner. I haven’t tried this so I don’t know if this can be done without damaging it. You may have already done all you can do for this type of spinner.

#8 3 years ago

MWM

Hayfarmer

Pinside+ Frequent

5y 163K 15,864 5

Only solution I've seen but not tried is to drill out and add weight to the spinners. Gottleib spinners are pretty sad, such awesome pins tho!

#9 3 years ago

MWM

Hayfarmer

Pinside+ Frequent

5y 163K 15,864 5

I wouldnt try unless I had a replacement in hand

#10 3 years ago

SMK

TheLaw

Pinside+ Addict

Ann Arbor, MI

12y 162K 48,038 19 30 1

In saw Yancy mention this recently...

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-pinball-network-/page/32#post-5715140

#11 3 years ago

BWK

Krupps4

Pinside member

Minneapolis, MN

5y 95,050 2,103 2 12

Quoted from TheLaw:
In saw Yancy mention this recently...
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-pinball-network-/page/32#post-5715140

This seems to be a really great tip and makes some sense to me. I’ll look into it. As dothedoo suggested I did clean out the groove out the link between the switch and spinner and added some lubricant. It doesn’t really rip but it is better and based on what you guys are saying that sounds like as much as I can expect.

Promoted items from Pinside Marketplace and Pinside Shops!

$ 4.00

Playfield - Decals

Gottlieb Diamond Pop Bumper Decal

UpKick Pinball

From: $ 5.00

Playfield - Other

Conjoined / Siamese Double-Post, any color (including white)

Rocket City Pinball

$ 89.00

Electronics

Gottlieb System 1 Driver Board - LISY Development

That Old Pinball

Hey modders!

Open a free Shop and start selling on Pinside

Your shop name here

Reply

Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.

Hey there! Welcome to Pinside!

Donate to Pinside

Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!

This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/spinner-question and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.

Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.