(Topic ID: 332078)

Surf Champ Ball and player count misaligned

By ccgoudie

1 year ago



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  • 6 posts
  • 4 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 1 year ago by DaMoib
  • No one calls this topic a favorite

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Player unit G level switches (resized).jpg
Player Unit Home (resized).jpeg
#1 1 year ago

Greetings again oh purveyors of pinball repair knowledge.

While working on a stubborn problem on my Surf Champ scoring, I decided to clean the ball
count/player mechanism's switches (the entire mech drops down easily with one thumb screw for relatively
easy access). At that time, I was manually clicking through each cam location to get switches to
open and close so that I could clean them appropriately. Now all kinds of weird issues occur like ...
while playing in single player mode the 1st ball scores correctly on the 1st player, but the second ball
scores on third player even though it's single player (and of course the lights between players
don't come on correctly anymore in the back glass). Yep, I have somehow misaligned the ball
count/player count mechanism, and I don't seem to be able to reset it manually (by manually releasing
the Solenoid to where it rests after a spring return, nor by resetting electronically (by powering
all the way down and back up).

Could one of you who understand that mech (or even if you don't please hazard a guess) tell me or even
show me a picture (or video) of where that mech should reside at start state. I'm pretty sure I've just
either misaligned it slightly or put it in a state to which it can't recover from while manually moving it.

I'm actually getting pretty good at working on this machine, but there are an absurd amount
of wires in this 4 player EM, and from 1973 until now a lot of them have lost the colors with
which they were coded.

Any help or guesses are very much appreciated,

Thanks,

-Craig

#2 1 year ago
Quoted from ccgoudie:

where that mech should reside at start state

The last page of the Surf Champ manual shows that in the start state, the single tooth on the black cam should have the cam follower on it.
And in the start state, the wiper should be on the disk to light the backglass lights for for player 1 ball 1.

#3 1 year ago

Here's a pic of the rotor in the start state (Player 1, Ball 1)

Player Unit Home (resized).jpegPlayer Unit Home (resized).jpeg
#4 1 year ago
Quoted from HowardR:

The last page of the Surf Champ manual shows that in the start state, the single tooth on the black cam should have the cam follower on it.
And in the start state, the wiper should be on the disk to light the backglass lights for for player 1 ball 1.

And that contact on the 5th stack resets the ax relay, many a time I need to clean it.

I like to take a sharpie to these steppers as well when disassembling...

#5 1 year ago

Thanks all,

I won't be back in front of that machine for a couple of weeks, but the help is very much appreciated.
I'll let you know how it goes. That position is indeed where the unit sits when reset, but now I need
to look at the 2nd ball postion. That's where it starts scoring on the 3rd player when it should continue
to score on the 1st player.

-Craig

#6 1 year ago
Quoted from ccgoudie:

... At that time, I was manually clicking through each cam location to get switches to
open and close so that I could clean them appropriately. Now all kinds of weird issues occur like ...
while playing in single player mode the 1st ball scores correctly on the 1st player, but the second ball
scores on third player even though it's single player (and of course the lights between players
don't come on correctly anymore in the back glass). Yep, I have somehow misaligned the ball
count/player count mechanism...

After re-reading this, and considering you were cleaning the player unit switch stacks, I think the first thing you want to check is the P2G, P3G, and P4G switches on the back of the player unit. If these switches don't close properly as the player unit is incrementing through the unused players, the PU will stop short of the next correct player/ball position.

Player unit G level switches (resized).jpgPlayer unit G level switches (resized).jpg
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