No matter what I adjust, all three bumpers on a PF swapped high speed are incredibly limp and weak.
Any ideas on what could cause this? It’s weird that it’s all three... I replaced the switch stacks which have the cap/resistors which I’ve checked. Should be wired fine but could this be the caps?
B3430974-B042-4E88-BB65-D83581470D73 (resized).jpeg35v at the lugs.
They just kinda weak plunge and I can hold them up with my finger. Little resistance. So frustrating.
The cap/resistor form a timing circuit called an RC network (guess why!) - it's there to provide a minimum pulse time so the coil reaction isn't too short.
Pull the connector off the input and try grounding the input pins on your mpu board that control each pop see if it's better - if it is, you have a bad ground going to your activating switches.
The inputs for the special solenoids are connector J18. Don't dwell on the pins too long or you'll blow a fuse/transistor - just a touch like you were testing the coil under the playfield via the transistor tab.
There could be cracked headers on your mpu as well - if they've never been resoldered, might be time. Suck most of the solder off first, don't just glob new/more solder on.
I tested this. Activating these pins absolutely fixes it and the coils fire much more powerfully.
What’s the remedy here? Just repin the Connector on MPU?
Quoted from slochar:There could be cracked headers on your mpu as well - if they've never been resoldered, might be time. Suck most of the solder off first, don't just glob new/more solder on.
I would try this next.
You sure you have the correct value cap in the circuit and it's pointing the correct direction? Sometimes the old caps are marked with the line meaning +, not -. Even new ones are sometimes different.
The lack of a tie point for the cap/resistor connection has no bearing on the circuit, it's just a convenient tie point.
Yet I still managed to screw it up! I really can’t see how.
I completely reversed one pop and went back to the old switch stack, cap, diode, and resistor. And pop was perfect.
I legitimately can’t see why. Everything should be wired the same, even without the tie points.
I have never heard of such a thing. Fascinating. That is probably it as getting the leaf contacts just so was also tremendously frustrating.
That really is strange, one would think that if a contact works well with high current, it should be even better with low current. But I have run into similar problems before, with high current contacts in a Fliptronic EOS switch. Maybe it has something to do with the voltage, high current points being silver alloy, and low current points are gold plated. Silver gets oxidized and low voltage does not make through the oxide.
I had a similar problem when I put the wrong switch contacts on my Getaway flipper buttons. High current ones didn’t work, only low current ones did.
Hmph....
I’m going to just crack the switch stack and replace the skirt/cup switch with the original to test. Less soldering!
your switch's shouldn't have anything to do with how strong the coil fires, just how long.
If you said that jumping the coil to ground it fires good and strong, then you
should have a grounding problem somewhere.
Also isn't 35 volts low for the coils??
I don't have a manual to check but I though they were 45volt coils.
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