Yeah I direct short can do that.

Usually you blow a transistor before it happens though, I think.

Yeah I was trying to use my meter like a good boy and the diode seemed to test okay. Obviously it wasn’t okay.

Hi All,

Can anyone tell me what size these locking nuts are, As I live in France everything is metric.

When I look on pinball web sites they just give a size and not what its for.

Any help much appreciated

Flipper locking nuts (resized).jpg

Just take the bracket to the hardware store, get new nuts and bolts that fit.

Thank you for the quick reply

But everything over here is metric, so nothing will fit. All I will do is mangle the threads up on the base plate

Don’t worry about the threads. Get a screw that is smaller than the plate hole and put a nut on the back of it.

It won't really be a locking nut then though?

They're 6-32 iirc

Put a lock washer underneath it.

The mounting plate is 6-32 thread.

You would have to drill and re-tap it for metric.

6-32 is available at most big hardware stores in Europe.

Way simpler to use 6-32 screws and nuts.

You dont want the screws loose in the holes. This is why the holes are threaded, it insures a snug fit.

It's not necessary to use the Keps nuts.

You can add a star washer if you want to a small screw.

Keps nuts were a pre-loctite solution. They don't hold as well.

New games eliminated keps in favor of standard regular nuts with loctite 242 (blue color) applied to the treads. Better and cheaper.

So any nuts and bolts that fit with blue loctite are perfect if you want to drill and tap.

In fact, use blue loctite on almost everything to keep things from falling apart.

Use some medium strength loctite, like the factory did. Won't matter if you have a starwasher nut or not.

^^guess that was already covered.

Hi fellow country man. Shifting to metric will be musch easier for you and I... You will find what's needed at your local DIY store.
But prior to that, get a calliper (pied à coulisse) to measure the diameter... Drilling holes to allow your new screw to pass through, may be necessary...

This option will be faster and cheaper... That's the way to go except if ya wanna stick to originals absolutly...

Thank you very much for all the help.

Have sourced all the parts needed from Amazon USA, and they were a lot cheaper than pinball shops here including postage. (Mad that)

I'm rebuilding flippers for my Funhouse. Should I follow recommended 1/8" EOS gap or gap which is recommended by operations manual 0.062"? I would not like to ruin my new EOS switches by arc. But shouldn't capasitor prevent arc?
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I remember asking vid1900 this very question a few years ago. He said to go with what the manual says to do. My question was about a later system 11, I forget which one. Probably the same flipper mech as Funhouse has.
What I have adopted to use is nice, cleaned 1/8" and a 1/16" drill bits for feeler gauges. the 1/16" slides through the gap unrestricted, while the 1/8" does not fit through the gap.

This was Vid's and my PM exchange on this question.

Dozer1 ---- Vid, you always say that an EOS switch needs to be set to have 1/8" gap. That is .125". My system 11 manuals say to shoot for .062 which would be right at 1/`16". I know you have tons of experience with this stuff, so did you find it works better at 1/8" then the recommended 1/16"?

Vid1900 --- The 1/8 works good for most games, the sys11 you can indeed go 1/16.

Hoping for some assistance here. Recently, my IMDN Pro upper left flipper has been giving me some problems. Initially when playing the flipper reacts exactly as it should, however, after approximately 7-10 games, I've noticed that it stops returning to it's normal position after flipping, and increasingly stops reacting all together, moving very little. If this has been covered, my apologies in advance. I have done some research on Pinside but haven't been able to find this issue. I have checked the EOS gap and seems to me to be fine.

I should mention, that the coil is warmer than the others in comparison after play.

Thanks in advance for any help/guidance!

EOS 1 (resized).jpg

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Rebuild it he flipper with new parts. The rebuild kit is like $25 from pinball life.

Thanks @chuckwurt

Dumbass question. The upper left flipper is a mini flipper. Does this make a difference in which kit I order? The only one I can find is this one. https://www.pinballlife.com/new-style-flipper-rebuild-kit-left-and-right-flippers-for-sternsega.html

The actual flipper bat itself is the only thing different. Everything else is the same.

First, just make sure you have a proper gap between the flipper bat and the bushing. Loosen the bat, and retighten it with a credit-card thickness gap. A lot of new games have been shipping with no gap at all. This does get worse over time until you start seeing the issues you are having.

Noticed on my Iron Maiden, that the bumper pad is different than all my other Stern games. The base that fits through the hole is thinner and flat, so it installs much easier. But the pad itself is thinner and seems to move around a bit.

All my other Stern games have the pad with the cone shaped base, so I was thinking to replace them, unless Stern did this intentionally. Does anyone know?

Also, any tips on getting those cone shaped pads installed? Get it into that hole is near impossible.

Thanks!

On my Williams flash, since it is a 3-flipper machine the lower right flipper has a multi-layer switch that is riveted together. My question is not around adjustments but around cleaning. I thought I read somewhere that switches can’t be thrown into an ultrasonic as it will get the pads between the leaves wet and that will ruin them. What do you do to clean the switches?

Gold plated contacts just need to be wiped clean.
Old tungsten contacts have to be filed.

You can put them in a tumbler if you want, it wont hurt them.

You can also remove the rivets, polish the copper and re-rivet them with a tool or press, or just bolt the stack back together

Ok, thwnks

I ordered the kit that Vid suggested for my Flash Gordon. I am confused about the switch or switches to use. Here are the flippers before I rebuilt them right, left and upper right. Will someone tell me what switches I need to order?

Thanks,

Brad

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380CA53C-4ABC-4638-B177-6E4D42D81C62_1_105_c (resized).jpeg

5A7190B9-6FCF-46A5-A4F6-99713D5C8DE4_1_105_c (resized).jpeg

Does anyone know where these two nylon washers go on an Embryon flipper rebuild?

B3F7106B-3FF2-4866-8CE8-55476CBF58F0 (resized).jpeg

They insert in the solenoid bracket that the plunger extends out of. The last post , second picrure.

Thanks - so here, between the coil and the bracket?
3737F3CA-C718-41B2-A6CC-00CDE96E8D88 (resized).jpeg

.

.

Next one over , furthest from the coil.

https://images.pinside.com/2/34/234460b819308e034ca34cf431635d9dfa0d40d0/resized/large/234460b819308e034ca34cf431635d9dfa0d40d0.jpeg

As the plunger exits the top part of the picture.

Dumb question. Or maybe not.

I am doing the WPC flipper upgrade to my Stellar Wars.

Overall it's pretty straightforward but I don have one question. When removing the "nail stud" that used to secure the old flipper button in place there are of course holes in the playfield. It looks like one of these holes it directly in the path of the ball when it rolls along the flipper. This will make the ball bounce when it runs over it.

Seems to me the solution is to reuse that one "nail stud" and just cut it short so it doesn't protrude below the bottom of the playfield.

Good fix or not?

Should be fine. When I converted my Pokerino I left all the nail studs in and just cut them off.

I ended up just leaving them out. Turns out the hole was closer to the bat than I thought so it doesn't affect the ball at all. Game plays so much nicer now.

Next flipper related question.

I see Vid wrote a guide on updating the old Bally linear mechs to WPC. I would love to do this to my Spectrum but I really don't think there is enough room for the base plates since Spectrum has about 80 million lamp sockets.

Has anyone done this with success on their Spectrum?

Sega Lost World, left flipper goes up then comes back down immediately with flipper button pushed in. This continues for a couple of minutes then seems to correct itself. So electronic and not mechanical I assume. Rather than tearing stuff apart and guessing, I thought I would go to the experts.

Check and clean your flipper switches. Sounds like it's losing power. Make sure there is constant contact when pressing the flipper button. I'd also make sure all your solder joints look good, coils and switches . If this doesn't work hopefully someone with better expertise will chime in.

Fixed. Someone changed the flipper button to one that was longer. He had to bend the switches to fit. Replaced it, as I fortunately had extras, straightened out the switches and it now works as it should.

Congrats. Thx for the follow up.

Funhouse WMS sys 11 wiring question. My rear left flipper is only getting low voltage and is extremely weak. I opened her up up and found this loose wire (I assume this is meant be soldered to the yellow capacitor pack but I could be wrong). I don’t want to blow up my board...any help is appreciated. Thanks! - m

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I have a judge dredd I’ve rebuilt a few times. Assuming the flippers are properly rebuilt (vertical gap is correct, etc), where would I go next for flipper coils that get real hot and weak after a handful of games ?

EOS switch.

Hi @vid1900,

Would you mind updating post 1179 for future Space Shuttle owner flipper rebuilders? The link to the EOS switch is dead. Thanks.

Uhmmmm, you should probably read up on this thread.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/wheres-vid1900
But I as well as lots of folks miss Vids update's. I am waiting on him to finish his thread on repopulating PF's.

Ha. Thanks man. I ended up getting some advice from Terry at pinball life and placed my order.

Those are some great folks at PBL!!

Here is a picture of my Spectrum with the mod done, haven't even put the flipper bats in yet!

I upgrade all the games at the Ottawa Pinball Arcade to Fliptronic style, but sub in the normally closed high voltage EOS and add the capacitor, using an 11630 coil. Works amazingly well on every Classic Bally and Classic Stern, and on Gottliebs and Classic Williams I use an SFL-19-400/30-750 coil.

You may have to move the wiring harness and maybe the odd socket, some games are tight, like the upper left flipper on Power Play. I had to trim the back of the grommet the link stops on so the playfield could go back down, there's maybe 1/32" to spare... and all 6 flippers on Black Hole was a task.

Spectrum was relatively easy by comparison. Squeezing 555 wedge LED's in all the sockets however? My hands looked like I'd been fishing through a bag of razor blades and needles for a week...

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