Star Wars (LE)
Stern, 2017
Star Wars (Premium)
Stern, 2017You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider VirtualMayhem.
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Quoted from mike_fuller:After playing around with it some more today, I can hear the motor/gearbox skipping after a while of moving it up and down. I'm going to order a replacement motor and see if that fixes it.
Hi Mike,
Sorry for reviving an old thread but I seem to be having the same fork ramp problem you did. The fork is randomly moving up/down during gameplay. Sometimes it stays in the correct position for a while but then it starts moving again. What did you do to fix this?
Craig
Quoted from VirtualMayhem:Sorry for reviving an old thread but I seem to be having the same fork ramp problem you did. The fork is randomly moving up/down during gameplay. Sometimes it stays in the correct position for a while but then it starts moving again. What did you do to fix this?
Quoted from PinMonk:Check that the switches are all staying activated when the forks are up. It may be that the switch that tells the game where the forks are isn't staying depressed and you just have to bend the switch arm out a little so it stays activated when the forks are up.
My apologies, how would I check this - in the fork test settings in the menu? I can check basic stuff but not familiar with this one 
Quoted from PinMonk:The forks on that are on a servo or motor driven and the switches register as the assembly pushes over them while moving up and down. The switches you want to make sure are working are switch 61 (home/down), 62 (mid), and 63 (up). Do the fork test and see if all three positions are registering properly. There are basically 3 switches at the bottom of the assembly and one of more of them just need to be bent outward to register better (or you may have a wire broken off one or a dead switch, but those are less likely).
Got it. What I noticed doing the fork test is individually the seem to work then when checking I think up it would sometimes start searching all three stops - down, mid, up something like that. I assume that shouldn't happen and it should just stay in the position selected on the switch check. If thats the case I can lift the playfield and try and bending the one closest to "top" out a bit..
Quoted from PinMonk:Yeah, it's usually just an activation issue with the switches where the switch arm bends away over time. Bending them out a bit more should restore the connection more solidly so the switches stay activated.
Ok I am looking at the fork assembly and I believe the switches I am interested in are the small levers in the picture that touch the motor mechanism. They seem to be spring loaded - all 3 seem to be solidly connecting to the center area. I forgot to check if the screws on the center piece or the two on each arms where the bracket is are loose - could that cause a problem?
Is it safe to do the fork feature test when the game is lifted out of the playfield to see what these are doing when going through each individual test? I feel like I might be close to figuring this out, I dunno lol
IMG_3185 (resized).jpgQuoted from PinMonk:As long as the balls are out of the game, sure test away.
The switch arms rest on a switch that makes them "springloaded", but the arm has to go low enough to push in the switch at the base of the switch arm far enough to make a "click" and activate the switch. That is usually where the trouble lies - the arm is depressed, but not far enough to make the "click" in the little post at the base of the arm.
If you can post a higher res picture (select "original size, no rescaling" from the dropdown menu in the attach image area) before you attach an image to your post that would be helpful. The other one is so small, I can't really see much.
I posted a higher res image - one thing I noticed is at the switch on the top it looks like the arm is a little out of the black switch - pulled away a bit (not flush)?
Quoted from PinMonk:That is much better. The top one is probably just further away due to gravity.
Did you do the fork test with the playfield down? All switches register? I'd do the test with the playfield up and see which of the switches is the one for "up" position and bend that switch out a little so it gets a more definite "on" when the center thing rolls over it then test again to make sure it's still working and try that in the game.
Thanks again for the help! In the game specific test fork menu there are switches 55, 56 and 57. 55 and 56 register and 57 is where it normally fails to register and it spins until it finds 57 register again. The switch 57 position is on the very bottom of the picture above. What is looks like in the switch test is when 55, 56 positions are reached the switch test keeps that number lit. When it hits 57 it register extremely quickly if at all. I've tried to bend the gold arm of the 57 switch back towards the black housing it connects to and that helped for a bit during the test with a pretty consistent connection at 57 but it was still extremely quick and didn't stay lit. Gameplay wise it didn't change anything the ramp basically goes through all 3 positions sometimes stopping at 57. Are there any other adjustments on the roller arm part I should try? There isn't a lot of room between the roller arm and that center steel cam piece to adjust. Can I buy just what little switch assembly/roller arm part and replace just it?
Actually this might be the part - at least it looks like it. The manual shows the entire fork assembly but not the part # of each piece:
Quoted from PinMonk:You CAN just replace it if it's bad, but if it's just bent too far, you'll be in this situation again since switch arms just bend over time. Plus you need to solder to replace the switch. Easier to make it work right if that's in the realm of possibility.
You want to bend the switch AWAY from the housing toward the nub that activates it in the middle so less pressure from the nub will activate the arm sooner. Basically bend it like the green line below...
You can also loosen the two screws holding the switch VERY SLIGHTLY (like, 1/4 turn) and that will let you angle the switch body for better switch activation.
[quoted image]
Thanks for the image mark up - very helpful. Trying to bend the end of the arm up on the roller end and its not moving much at all. Trying to depress the switch and then lift up on the roller and not getting there. I'm going to keep trying to bend it maybe find something to press down in the middle and bend the end. Loosening the screws did not allow for the switch position to rotate.
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