Can anyone who has had success with fixing the grinding sound from the beacon help me understand what they had to do? I've greased the gears, and then I put a little grease at top base of the lightbulb on the outside between the socket and the plastic shield. I then used a little piece of paper to work the grease down further into the space between the socket and the surrounding plastic. None of this seems to have made any difference so far. Let me know if I'm missing anything. Thanks in advance!

EDIT: For those in the same boat, I had to grease the bottom below the gear as well. This fixed the issue.

I’m having an issue with the lock that I was wondering if anybody else has experienced. When one ball is locked, the lowest drop target will raise randomly without a second ball being locked. I cleaned the optos and noticed that they are partially obscured by the wire ball guides in the lock. Is this normal? The optos seem to work correctly when in switch test mode.

EDIT: Just had it happen a bunch more times, this time with the middle target (no balls locked). It happens without the ball being anywhere near the lock, and the game seems to realize that there is no locked ball, so it puts the target back down eventually. Also of note, it doesn’t play the “ball locked” animation, nor does it launch another ball. Not seeing any errant opto switch reporting when in test mode, drop target test passes as well.

EDIT 2: Had a game where it launched extra balls now as well..

Thank you for the response, I appreciate the information. It seems like only the opto board’s 5v power is using an IDC connector. I’m wondering if this is what Scott is suggesting to replace? The wires going to the optos themselves appear to already be molex style. The opto board for the trough appears to be all IDC, maybe that’s what he was referring to.

Another question; There is a plastic film on the LED displays. Has that just never been removed, or is that intended to remain?

Thanks!

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Changed the IDC connectors to molex connectors, problem resolved. Thank you!

I've been having issues with my right flipper collapsing when held after being hit by the ball, especially when coming from the scoop. I've done some digging and found this thread about a similar issue https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/tna-r-flipper-weakness-issue

I've done a full flipper rebuild including bushings, ensuring to leave some play between the flipper bat and bushing, lowered the coil power in the settings from 28 -> 23, checked the flipper switch gaps & cleaned their contacts. I don't experience any issues with weak flippers outside of this issue of the right flipper collapsing. I haven't broken out the multimeter because I'm unsure what I'd be looking for, but does anybody have suggestions or experience with this issue? It seems that consensus is that this type of issue is caused by the coil getting too hot and the lack of an EOS switch, but I'm unsure what is left that I can do to fix this. Would replacing the coils have any impact on heat?

Stumbled upon this old comment, but I don’t see these settings in the service menu. Are they not in the public 1.4.2 build?

EDIT:
Found it. It’s under “machine(standard)”, not “machine(coils)”

Thanks!

Tried a few more things. Increasing the flipper hold boost from 3 to 4 definitely reduced the knockdown, but you can tell that the coil is getting hotter. The right flipper started to really weaken when compared to the left, I’d assume because I tend to hold it more often. I saw a suggestion somewhere to lower the flipper hold boost to reduce heat, but that did not work at all. With flipper hold boost set to 2, the flipper just collapses the first time it is hit from the scoop.

Still on the hunt to see if there is a remedy.

Thanks for the reply. I’ll test the coil resistance in a few minutes and post what I find. Here is a photo of the coil stop that I just put in. It’s from this kit from pinball life https://www.pinballlife.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=PBL-100-0112-00

It did come with EOS switches, which aren’t pictured on their site, so maybe I was given an incorrect set?

I think the coil stop looks like the A-12111, but I’m basing this on the gold coloring alone. Not sure if there are any other good indicators to look for to tell the difference.

I really appreciate the help with troubleshooting. Thanks again!

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I'm getting ~4.2 ohms across the main coil of both the right and left coils, and around ~125ohms on the higher resistance path. It looks like that is close to the expected values for the FL-11629 coils.

Nope, I didn’t remove anything

Thanks for the suggestion. Voltage on the coil looks good, 49.2v. I've been playing quite a bit in the last few days. The flippers have still been falling a little when hit hard, but I haven't had them fully collapse in a while. Is it expected for them to collapse about 1/3 of the way and then recover when hit from the scoop / hard rebound? Or should they always be pretty rigid?

Turned up my power supply, now we're at 51.5v. Behavior appears the same. I did find something interesting though; The right flipper is the one that seems to be prone to collapsing, yet the left flipper doesn't respond to the left flipper hold test. When I do the right flipper hold test, I can hear the plunger moving a little inside of the coil, and if I physically hold the right flipper bat half way up, it does get pulled up the rest of the way as expected. With the left flipper I don't hear anything, nor does it get pulled up when assisted. I wonder if the issue could be something up stream?

I’ve got my flippers down at 22, that seems to be the right balance for being able to hit the scoop without being too low. Coil solder looks good, power filter board solder looks good, I think my next step is to go through the rest of the machine and change out every IDC to Molex, because I feel like that can’t hurt.

So far, they have all pulled off surprisingly easily. I’m about half way through, so let’s hope that continues for the next half as well. I have avoided doing any connectors where the wire doesn’t terminate at the connector, those will end up being a bit more work to convert to molex. I can post some pictures when it’s done.

Looks very nice!

I just wanted to mention a bug in the code that I’ve encountered a few times, although it may be a known issue. I’m running build 1.4.2, and if you tilt the machine while the ball is in the upper playfield, the ball will not be fired out of the scoop until ball search occurs. On the bright side, it gives you a nice long time to think about your mistakes haha.

Hope this info is helpful!