Players 2 and 3 having intermittent problems with 10K scoring... trying to hunt down subtle issues.

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Symptoms:

single 1K scoring always works and rolls over 10K ok.

Players 1 and 4 work good so I’m ruling out Z1 and Z2 relays (?).

Problems are with the “fast” scoring of 5ks and bonus scoring. Getting occasional double scoring giving 2 clicks for 20k instead of a single 10k rollover.

9th position 1K switch gap cleaned up a bit of it if gapped wider... closer makes it worse, but if I go too far then I don’t get the score at all, so I don’t think it’s just that relay.

With a handy dandy lightbulb testing jig I can see that whenever I get a double count it looks like I’m getting two quick pulses on the signal... so I think electrical and not mechanical issue... but where’s it coming from?

I figure either a dirty contact making two pulses; or a race condition where I’m getting a 10k pulse at both the end of the 9k score and again on the next pulse for 10k.

5k rollovers are pulsed by motor 1A, and I’had mostly gotten them cleaned up by increasing the gap on the 9th position switches.

Bonus scoring is pulsed from motor 4A and 4D plus a lot of other things in the path including the bonus stepper. The timing of how 4A/4D both advance the stepper and also provide a pulse to L relay at the same time through that may also come into play.

There are two separate switches on the 1K L relay that advance the 1K and 10K wheels separately ... so possibly timing between those? I cleaned both of those L switches and seem to have made it a bit worse, getting more double counts than before, and now double counts again on the 5k rollovers that I thought I had licked...probably mucked up the gap a bit.

Haven’t gone digging for P2A and P3A yet. Although those are what is unique to those players’ scores.

So... continuing to clean and gap switches in the path to see if I can rectumfy the situation. Has anyone hunted down this snark before, and can point me to likely culprits?

Sorry for long post and a lot of details... hoping someone with a TA and their schematics can provide some past experience.

Thanks!

You follow my logic too... if it’s only two players then it should be in their unique components... however there is a difference between 5k rollovers and bonus scoring which have different circuits involved. Maybe that just makes it more difficult on the player specific issue.

I’ll tighten the stack ... read that often enough and forgot to check. Not sure how to increase tension much, without closing the gap ... two subtle bends I guess... one at base to increase overall tension, then another closer to the end to increase gap again? Or vice versa? Increase gap at the base then bend in the end to increase tension?

Players 1 and 4 don’t look a lot different from 2 and 3... pretty wide gap that angles out right from the base.

From Facebook group it was also suggested to check the tension spring that pushes against the reel to limit its horizontal movement too .

I’ll need to check again but I think I followed the slight double pulse further back than the 9th position switch ... maybe not enough to cause the 1000’s reel to double count but because of one more switch it ends up as a full double pulse on the 10k.

I think that’s why I was going back to look at the L switches and motor 5 pulse switches... if I could clean them up a bit for all situations it may make my 2 and 3 player positions work ok.

I’ve learned the hard way though a few times that the more you try to adjust, the more problems you may make for yourself elsewhere.

I do have sluggish rollover to 9. Is the spring tension just the leaf switches or is there a spring in there too that is adjustable... or something to (gasp) lube? I’ll need to pull one and look closer.

Since I was in checking the mechanisms I cleaned up the numbers, which required me to rotate the wheel... none of the reels seemed to move unless I manually pulled back the lever that releases them... so think I’m ok there.