Aha - thank you. I think what looks brown on your phone might actually be red on my resistor. Thanks for the explanation!

So I replaced my 3 pop bumpers with new skirts, bodies and lamp holders. New bulbs too. Now 2 of the 3 won't light. I think they are soldered properly, but no matter how many times I resolder, twist the bulbs, try different bulbs I can't get them to light.

Could there be something wrong with the lamp holder? Can't imagine what, but I can't think of what else could be wrong.

Any advice appreciated.

sorry about that.

It is a 1963 Bally Star Jet. Using #47 lamps. When I plug it in all lights go on except 2 out of the 3 newly installed lamp holders in the new pop bumpers.

Don't have a meter.

Thank you again. Is there a good beginners guide to reading schematics that you recommend? I truly want to understand the electronics side of pin repairs better but have yet to find tutorials which assume NO working knowledge of electronic components or diagnostics.

In the meantime I am truly grateful for the help I get here on Pinside from yourself and others. Without it, owning pins would be out of the question for me.

So the reason I am rebuilding the pops on my Pinbot is that the upper pop locked up at PAGG a couple weekends ago (melted coil sleeve, fried Q79, blown fuse F4). What I noticed when I started taking things apart was all this white dust in the bumper nest area. I have been finding this every time I go to clean and wax since my playfield swap which included new bumper bodies, skirts and rings. I always thought it was from a bad batch of white rubber rings. Turns out it is from the ring shafts rubbing on the white plastic bodies. It is worst on the bumper that seized up, which has actually worn all the way through the body. I am guessing this is the cause of the meltdown? I do not see how to eliminate the play in the ring to prevent future rubbing. Even if I hold the rings perfectly centered in the bodies the gap between the ring shaft and the channel on the body is 1/16" at most. Is that amount of clearance normal? Is it normal to have so much play on the ring that it hits the bumper body? How do I put this back together in a way that prevents this from continuing?

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Vid, did I miss the part where you said 80% of my time would be spent dicking around with staples? Your pics have the playfield out but doing this in the game was not my idea of fun. Would you normally cut the leads at the first good spot or would you completely desolder the entire lamp?

Regardless, thanks for your input. Did 3 pops on my Jokerz and I refuse to say how long it took if you estimate 10 mins per. Only 'issue' was having to readjust one bumper spoon a couple of times before it felt right.

Damnit Vid! I never thought you meant pull the playfield out! Lol, I thought trying to solder against gravity was normal.

Seriously, I have to pull the interconnect board to redo J6 for the GI, should I just pull the whole thing out while its disconnected and align the pop bumper spoons? They seem right but the lower one did skip at least once in 50 tries

Apologies if this has been covered in the past, but I noticed a pre-assembled pop kit I got from PBL has the fiber yoke closest to the top of the pop instead of the metal one.

My question is if this was done on purpose and if it may be an approach that prevents the common cracking of the metal yoke? Even if the fiber yoke were to break it should be easier to service.

I've seen a few references to this being found but not clarity on if this was desirable. Here is a picture from PBL that appears to show it in the same position I found mine: http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=1513

-Jay

I wasn't paying attention when removing my pop bumpers to replace the skirts. Off of the lights there are two pins, one from the bottom of the lamp ( hot ?) and one from the surrounding case for the lamp (ground ?). These are connected to two wires, one with a resistor and one plain wire.

Which goes where ?

I don't believe it will make any real difference for incandescent bulbs, but know the LED's are polarized and I might as well put them back right.

Sorry, Vid.

Time Warp.

Thank you, Vid. You are the greatest

Hey Vid. Thanks as always, I have another question for you. After rebuilding my pops, when testing I noticed one of the pops hums when activated and gets much hotter than the others after about 10 tests. I did note that the coil stop was pushed out about 10-20 degrees, so I figured this might be the cause as it is it not at a 90 degree angle to the bracket. I cannot test this theory as the bracket broke (quite easily) when trying to eliminate the 10-20 degree difference. While I wait for the new bracket, is there anything else I should check for? If that is the issue, why would the coil get hot? Thanks again!

Vid, I replaced bracket and checked for uneven wear, none to be found. Coil still hums and gets hot when tested. Any ideas? It is not locked on.

Vid,

I redid my pops on Jokerz! (sleeves and spoons) and all three seemed fine.

Lately I have noticed the bottom bumper just doesn't see to 'PoP' forcefully like I want to see. I assume its a spoon adjustment? I never took the playfield out so I installed just by eyeballing- should i pull the field and use the light shine method to center? I don't suspect any issue with the coil as it 'Pops" as expected sometimes (maybe 3 out of 10 are solid Pops) I need this fixed! Help please!

ok thanks - will do that tomorrow and report back. Cant be tonite as I have watched too much football today

Ok I have an IM with a pop bumper that doesn't work. The coil works and pops, but the peg from the skirt slides off to one side of the spoon so the switch doesn't trigger. I've tried adjusting the switch stack and there is no play between the spoon and the peg, but as soon as one particular side of the skirt gets touched the peg slides off to the side. It only happens when that side of the skirt is touched.

Is the peg on the skirt worn down or mushrooming? Is there anything in the spoon that might need to be cleaned out?

No it's like a 4 month old machine i got NIB. Spoon, peg everything looks brand new.

I need new shank screws for my AFM playfield. It's supposed to have screw-in ones (part #4506-01104-20) like you mentioned, but no one in the US seems to stock them. Marco has these (237-5957-00):
Where's the Head?
which would work, but there doesn't seem to be a slot on top to drive them in. How should they be installed? I don't think pressing (or worse, a hammer) is a good idea...what's the trick?

Thanks. Do they actually screw in (i.e. turn) as you're hammering? Seems like a pretty traumatic way to seat a screw...

Seems like these would be the best kind if they do actually "screw" in, otherwise it seems like the older fin design would be better...

Here's something not listed yet. I'm rebuilding a vintage 1960 Williams EM single player machine called "21" (card theme). The AC powered pop bumpers all use those old style "keyhole" slot metal yokes and fiber yokes which are no longer available. So apparently I need to convert the pop bumper assemblies to use the modern Williams parts. Here are the part numbers:

1A-954 (01-954) Metal Yoke, Keyhole style. Use modern Williams # 01-5492 Metal Yoke.

1A-1231-1 (01-1231-1) Fiber Yoke, Keyhole style. Use modern Williams # 01-5493 Metal Yoke.

2A-2527 (02-2527) Plunger, Jet Bumper, Keyhole style. Use modern Williams # 02-3406-1 Plunger, Jet Bumper.

10A-135 (10-135) Spring, Jet Bumper

Now over at PBR, they make a conversion kit complete with all the parts needed as # KT-WPOP-01 which uses Gottlieb pop bumper parts and a modified Williams 2A-2527 plunger.

So the thing that concerns me is the 2A-2527 plunger (made for AC powered coils) and the 02-3406-1 plunger (made for DC powered coils). Are they the same length and made of the same materials? Should I use the modern Williams parts (which I already have on hand) or should I buy the PBR kit?

For those of you that have the Bally Thumper Bumpers (gilliagns, Black Rose, etc..) the proper rod and ring is NLA. Hopefully yours don't break, or get a screw to break off in em!

Can someone recommend a replacement for #44/47 pop bumper sockets...I'm rebuilding my sorcerer and I prefer to keep using that socket since its the bulb I use for all my GI.

Pop Bumper lamp socket:

http://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/E-120-25

http://www.pbresource.com/sockets.html

# 131 lamp socket

Thanks KenLayton , I had found that, but wasn't sure it was right.

Maybe I should bite the bullet and go 555, I hate ordering another style LED. I was also hoping the replacement would hold the 44/47 better...

Any opinions welcome.

Hey vid,

I need to change the socket on one of my pops on my BSD. Do I have to disassemble the pop completely to just swap the socket? I was installing LEDs on them and sure enough, one socket was plenty tight and it bended to one side. Now the bulb on that pop bumper works in and out, comes and goes. It does not look like the leads broke off. The socket is still very much in place and no loose at all. So I was just looking to replace the socket but have no idea if The whole bumper assembly must come out. Do I even need to replace the socket given that it does work most of the time? Thanks!

Actually It bended a lot to one side while trying to install the led but it doesn't look broken or loose anywhere. But the light does come and go...maybe it doesn't need replacing?

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The backside? You mean the backside of the socket?

I did, I put a regular bulb too and It worked for a good 10 minutes and then it went off. So does this basically this means I don't have to replace it, just adjust it a little bit? Thanks!

Let me ask you this: If I ever have to replace one, instead of pulling the staples and to remove the old socket leds, can I just cut the leads, leave the part of the socket lead that is stapled under the Playfield there and just run a new socket, and solder the new leads to the old leads left stapled from the old socket?

I know that is not the best way of doing this but I don't have a stapler for wood and just need to know if doing what I just suggested would work. Thanks!

I followed this for mine.. worked out well..