I had the same problem. Bending the ears on the buttons resolved the problem for me.

Exactly, it's completely adjustable with the blade switches to your personal preference. Not so much with optos.

Simply bend the outside (upper flipper) flipper button switch blade closer to the others so that it makes contact sooner with the button press.

--
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because leaf switches work best, just adjust as needed. opto flippers you cant do certain flipper tricks clean.

I prefer leaf to opto most of the time. Easy to fiddle with if not working perfect.

Are optos more reliable? Would a route operator prefer reliable opto over the ability to do adjustments to a leaf switch? Just curios, not trying to criticize Woz or anything.

no optos are not more reliable. they are more expensive and lag in flipper reaction time., thats why you cant tap pass well with fliptronics flippers. analog over digital anyday in my mind. analog is exact, digital is not. thats why vinyl 12" records sound better than any digital music item.

It seems like optos would be more reliable since they have no moving parts to wear out

But they do.

Leaf is best.

Either it works or it doesn't

the opto flipper setup has a plastic actuator that moves in and out of the opto eye when you press flipper buttons. those in itself can be a pain to align properly. opto flippers honestly do have a different feel that leaf switch style. leaf switches are more player controlled and is noticed when you are a serious player.

Great analogy. As a serious audiophile, I'll agree that good vinyl playing through good tubes is king.

This doesn't make any sense at all. Leaf and opto switches work the same way on modern games. If you want to argue that CPU controlled switches have less control than older switches that bypassed CPU control where the leaf directly actuated the flipper, ok I can accept this argument. But just being a leaf switch has no bearing on the amount of control.

The leaf vs opto are identical in control. Both have the same flipper button that allows a button press from 0 to N distance. Unlike a microswitch, a leaf/opto has a range of throw and the switch can be adjusted to engage at any point. The leaf engages by two blades touching. The opto by the interrupter moving away to allow light through. There is no more control in one vs the other and both can be adjusted to trigger sooner or further from the button push throw. There is no difference in play in just the switches. Optos were used because lead contacts tend to wear out over time. Leaf switches are just fine though in my opinion.

The different "feel" between leaf and opto is that you can just barely make contact with the leaf, causing a less than full voltage contact.

I always look like an idiot when I first step up to an unfamiliar game, flipping like crazy, but I'm getting a feel for that contact point.

I understand this, but isn't that only on the older games where the EOS is actually conducting high voltage to the flipper coil? For example on a game like Laser Cue, or Embryon, where you have a double stack EOS and you can "dual stage" the flippers. Meaning you can flip the lower right flipper first by pushing the button in half way, then push a little further and the upper right flipper will fire. Also fiddling around with the flipper buttons on this vintage machine you could do little tap passes.

However on a new game like WOZ I would assume only low voltage is passing thru the EOS switch. The game switch matrix would see that low voltage as either "on" or "off". So there wouldn't be this "less than full voltage contact" you speak of, would there?

On those little taps, I've already broken the circuit, before the EOS switch has even been engaged.

No one I know has actually got their WOZ yet, so I don't know if there is 70v at the flipper switches or not.

It sure would be cool if there was.... I know of one new company that has "fully analog flippers" on their games.

true below...at bottom.
you can control how much current passes pressing a flipper button against a leaf switch pending how hard you press.
optos are either on or off.
so optos play different.
try to do tip passes or tap passes on congo or any other wpc game that uses fliptronics, then try the same thing on any leaf switch dmd game.
same thing goes for doing a live catch.....or even cradle seperations.

MArkmon- im not sure how good of a player you are, but if you can do every move shown in pinball 101 for example, try those moves on 2 different machines.
example- have one congo set up with optos, have another congo setup using leaf switches.
report back once you have tried this.

This still doesn't make sense. A less then full voltage contact doesn't drive the flipper less in a CPU controlled flipper. It either tells the CPU to flip or not. I guess it could machine gun that message, but that's the same as if you have an opto where the interrupter is partially engaged.

I can accept this if you're comparing fliptronics to non fliptronics. In one, the CPU gets the message and pulses the coil. In the other, the leaf actually completes the hv circuit. But the difference here is not the leaf switch. It's the CPU control. A CPU control by a leaf or an opto won't be different - or shouldn't be. The amount of voltage going through the leaf is not variable in a CPU controlled flipper. It simply sends a message to the CPU to pulse the coil or not.

I'm not saying it can be done on every game.

do the test i gave you and report back. its simple. hands on is the only way to understand. i designed and built a machine in my college class with the same questioning and proved my theory to the prof.

i forgot to mention. same goes for cross hatch style flipper cabinet switches and leaf switches that have smaller circle contacts. the reason sopranos, HRC, Sharkeys shootout, Elvis, RBION, LOTR and other early sterns (later sega) have weak flippers is because of the cross hatch contacts they used on cabinet flipper switches. when i bought those early sterns NIB i instantly switched them out with williams cabinet flipper switches and they never get weak like wet noodles, no matter if you play game after game. the lotr at this past chicago expo was mine and i was asked more than once how both flippers were strong enough to hit the ring even after non stop gameplay.
cpu controlled has nothing to do with it, thats why EOS switches have to be fresh and properly gapped as well.
its about current being applied.
again, with an opto its all or nothing.
with leaf switches it matters how much pressure you apply, what size the contacts are on cab switches and EOS, and how clean those contacts are and how far the gap is.
how about light sockets that are cpu controlled? the lights' brightness is based on the analog socket itself and how clean it is, how the connection is and so fourth.

First, I dispute that any of those games you mentioned have weak flippers. I've also had lotr, stock coils but properly rebuilt flipper mechs and the flippers are crazy strong. I was able to backhand left ramp and knock the ball out of the ring even after hours of play. Same with my ripleys.

Second, you keep saying about current being gradually applied. But flippers controlled by CPU do not get current applied by flipper switches nor do they get current cut by eos switches. Instead, they get a set pulse from the CPU when it senses a switch hit, which is either on or off.