The auto kicker in teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is not getting the ball into play with good reliability. Half the time, its a roll-back and then there are two balls in the lane for multi-ball.

Current solenoid is a DE 22-600 and it just does not feel like it has the power. I tried a second 22-600 solenoid with the same results.
http://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/090-5023-0T
Is there a stronger solenoid I can try?

I saw were action pinball said a 23-750 solenoid would be more powerful so when I removed a known good 23-750 from another machine to test, it performed even worse. Shortly thereafter, the transistor driving that solenoid shorted out. So would moving to that different solenoid really cause the transistor to short?

Is it possible the transistor was degraded to the point where it could not provide the correct power to launch the ball? I am going to order new transistors but also want to order a stronger solenoid as well...if I could just figure out what solenoid to order.

So can anyone tell me what the strongest solenoid is for the auto launcher function. Better too much than not enough power.

Thanks for any assistance.

Okay guys. Replaced the transistors and the kicker has just enough additional power to get the ball up and around. But there is no margin and sometimes it returns to the plunger. In short, the solenoid just needs some more power.

So what are my options for adding more power? Are these coils running on DC current? Someone even said that there is likely 70-80 VDC being provided. Man thats a lot of volts and cant imagine why this is still an issue.

Tried the new recommended (supposedly better) solenoid from action pinball. And it performed worse than the original one. I gotta get this fixed ASAP for an upcoming show.

Thanks

I replaced the busted OE kicker and added the newer DE kicker like found on Batman, Jurrasic park:
http://www.actionpinball.com/parts.php?item=515-5044-01

I just welded a tungsten weight to the top it to give it more moving mass and that helped a bit. But I still think the solenoid just needs a bit more power. As a last resort, will go with the Stern setup.

Does anyone know the voltage of these solenoids? Cant quite get a good reading with a meter.

Thanks CP. I will do more analysis on the items you suggested. I do think the solenoid is getting ~70 volts. I measured this when the transistor shorted so I ASSume this means power delivery is acceptable. Could be wrong though.

The addition of the tungsten weight to the top of the arm really did help a great deal. It kicks the ball successfully maybe a bit better than 9 out of 10 times. But I will certainly continue to work on it.

Power supply seems to working good but the high voltage DMD circuit is jacked up, but we have a 5v LED DMD installed, so no issues there.