I never got around to replacing the flipper opto like I said I was gonna, but the flipper hasn’t given me any more trouble since then so I guess I’ll leave it be.
Archive for January, 2002
Flipper Behaving
Wednesday, January 30th, 2002Gnd. Short
Tuesday, January 29th, 2002Aw crap. Turned the machine on, and it starts firing solenoids like crazy and moving the guns back and forth and complains:
GND. SHORT, ROW 1 IS STUCK CLOSED
This ain’t good.
Test Report (cont.)
Tuesday, January 29th, 2002Test Report:
CHECK SWITCH 17 RIGHT INLANE
Phil sez, check left inlane too…
Tested right inlane switch (#17), it’s bad.
Tested left inlane switch (#26), seems fine.
Time For Some Work (cont.)
Monday, January 21st, 2002Hmmm…the gate seems to work okay. I’m suspicious. I decided to test the gate opto, and it fails the test. It appears to have stopped randomly opening and closing, so maybe the machine has decided it’s broken and is compensating by just using the moat optos…
Time For Some Work (cont.)
Sunday, January 20th, 2002Replaced the gate optos with new ones. Connected them to the playfield and tested, but they don’t work. I only have time to work on this sucker over the weekend, so I’m just gonna put everything back together for now.
I noticed that both moat flashers (#89) were out, so I replaced ‘em, and I had to resolder a broken connection on the moat-lock switch. Not sure if I broke it removing the moat or if it was about to break anyway or what.
Put everything back together in reverse order.
On the plus side, way in the back of the cabinet I found the spring that had fallen off the right troll, and I found a screw that had fallen out of the ‘Merlin’s Magic’ switch long ago.
Replaced ‘King’s Men’ castle lamps, replaced the batteries.
Test Report
Sunday, January 20th, 2002Test Report:
CHECK SWITCH 17 RIGHT INLANE
CHECK SWITCH 28 LEFT WIRE MAKE
CHECK SWITCH 41 RAMP MADE LEFT
Time For Some Work
Saturday, January 19th, 2002Time for some long overdue work. First step: ‘Castle Gate’ optos.
This is what I did to gain access to the gate optos:
- Removed castle shell
- Disconnected gate optos underneath playfield
- Disconnected moat switch and lamps underneath playfield
- Removed moat popper assembly (disconnect optos & solenoid). 3 screws.
- Gently remove moat. 7 screws. I noticed that the moat-lock gate was flipped around the wrong way.
- Disconnected ‘Castle Gate’ solenoid.
- Disconnected drawbridge motor.
- Disconnected drawbridge optos.
- Removed drawbridge/gate assembly.
- Removed drawbridge from drawbridge/gate assembly
- Removed gate optos from drawbridge/gate assembly
Here’s a couple pics from the disassembly:
The wire connections for the optos were as follows:
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[1] As you can see here, this wiring is backwards. Don’t know if I wrote it wrong in my notebook or if it was installed backwards by a previous owner.
Bank Target and Spiral Ramp Fixes
Friday, January 18th, 2002I glued the broken plastic piece on the drop target assembly with Medium Pro-CA modeling glue (Cyanoacrylate[1]). Plastic is nice and firm. Glued not just to itself, but also to the metal plate it’s riveted to. Yay! Here’s a photo after gluing:
Re-installed the assembly in the machine…works great.
Placed three thick washers (in addition to the one already there) underneath the bottom of the spiral launch ramp to give it a little more clearance.
Machine’s in good overall shape now.
[1] I said in the previous ST:TNG entry that I was going to use epoxy. Not sure why I didn’t. — 11/14/2006
Replacement Plate
Thursday, January 17th, 2002Received replacement leg-plates from Marco Specialties.
Replaced the front right leg-plate, which had the broken bolt. Also replaced the rear-right leg-plate ‘cause the threads on bottom hole were stripped.
Replaced the batteries.
Replaced the “Genie Eyes” lamp bulb.
Taped up and re-attached a broken plastic to the right of & behind the genie. The plastic was broken in half when I got the machine and the two pieces had been knocked loose and the ball was getting stuck behind the genie. Here’s a pic of the plastic:
Cleaned the playfield and the machine is sweet!
Flipper Sticking (cont.)
Wednesday, January 16th, 2002Power on this morning an right flipper is stuck again. Checked it later in the day and it was no longer stuck…Perhaps the opto is bad while cold. Gonna replace it and see if that fixes anything.