(Topic ID: 215903)

weak inconsistent upper flipper on Bally Twilight Zone

By Jerky2pinball

5 years ago


Topic Heartbeat

Topic Stats

You

Linked Games

#1 5 years ago

I am helping a guy with his Twilight Zone. Nearly every board is new within a year. The upper right flipper is very inconsistent. It never strikes with the force it should, maybe 75% of it at best. It will sometimes act like it wants to flip yet only twitches. Then it will sometimes hit with medium force to weak, but never how it should.
Any Ideas?

Don

#2 5 years ago

Coils and rebuild kits are cheap.

#3 5 years ago

Clean the optos on the flipper button opto board. Check that the coil stop isn't bent or something and leaning in or out, should be straight up and down.

If it hasn't been rebuilt, plunger, coil sleeve, coil stop, will help.

LTG : )

#4 5 years ago

If cleaning don't help, swap the flipper cabinet button optometrist boards to see if problem moves.

#5 5 years ago

I had the same problem a few years ago on my TZ. Game had its original flipper opto boards. Cleaning helped slightly, but replacing the flipper opto board completely solved the problem. Give it a try. Also, to diagnose you could try swapping the flipper opto boards and see if the problem follows to the other side.

#6 5 years ago
Quoted from RVApinballer:

I had the same problem a few years ago on my TZ. Game had its original flipper opto boards. Cleaning helped slightly, but replacing the flipper opto board completely solved the problem. Give it a try. Also, to diagnose you could try swapping the flipper opto boards and see if the problem follows to the other side.

Same here. I rebuilt this and reseated that and was losing my mind until I replaced the flipper board and it fixed everything.

#7 5 years ago

I forgot to mention when putting it through test mode it operates fine, which is why I don't suspect the coil. The flipper board was replaced a while back with a magnetic one. I can move the magnets around and get a better power than what I had, but still not right. It has no optos on flipper board.

#8 5 years ago
Quoted from Jerky2pinball:

I forgot to mention when putting it through test mode it operates fine, which is why I don't suspect the coil. The flipper board was replaced a while back with a magnetic one. I can move the magnets around and get a better power than what I had, but still not right. It has no optos on flipper board.

Hmm. Well that probably rules that out. I have those magnet boards on my Dredd and they are a bit fiddly to set up but once you get the magnet aligned right (and glue it down) they seem to work fine. You might try switching the left and right tho and see if the issue moves just to rule it out.

#10 5 years ago
Quoted from Jerky2pinball:

I am helping a guy with his Twilight Zone. Nearly every board is new within a year. The upper right flipper is very inconsistent. It never strikes with the force it should, maybe 75% of it at best. It will sometimes act like it wants to flip yet only twitches. Then it will sometimes hit with medium force to weak, but never how it should.
Any Ideas?
Don

Quoted from Jerky2pinball:

I forgot to mention when putting it through test mode it operates fine, which is why I don't suspect the coil. The flipper board was replaced a while back with a magnetic one. I can move the magnets around and get a better power than what I had, but still not right. It has no optos on flipper board.

The flipper test only tests the coil. It doesn't test anything else. Plus, unless you're really good with timing of the coil firing and rolling a ball in front of the flipper, you can't really compare a ball hit in test mode with one in game mode. I would:
Check EOS switch alignment and gap. See if that helps.
Get rid of the magnetic boards, put opto boards back in. See if that helps.
Rebuild flipper anyways. It's cheap, and unless YOU did the rebuild before, you don't know the last time it was done.
Check coil values. (Does it have the right coil?)

..And so on.

#11 5 years ago

Those magnetic flipper cabinet boards are garbage.

#12 5 years ago
Quoted from cody_chunn:

Those magnetic flipper cabinet boards are garbage.

To their credit the manufacturer of these boards was getting around WMS licencing issues by NOT using optos.

These days the patent which related to "using optical devices to sense the flipper button" has now expired (20 years is up).

#13 5 years ago
Quoted from Jerky2pinball:

I forgot to mention when putting it through test mode it operates fine, which is why I don't suspect the coil. The flipper board was replaced a while back with a magnetic one. I can move the magnets around and get a better power than what I had, but still not right. It has no optos on flipper board.

thats the problem those magnets are a pain in the ass you always have to adjust them.stick with the single newer flipper boards

Promoted items from the Pinside Marketplace
$ 24.00
Various Novelties
Pinball Photos LLC
Various novelties

Reply

Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.

Hey there! Welcome to Pinside!

Donate to Pinside

Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!


This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/weak-inconsistent-upper-flipper-on-bally-twilight-zone and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.

Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.