James’ Blog

Drops n Rails

Posted on August 23rd, 2006 by James.
Categories: Pinball.

Now that Rachel and I have been playing for quite a bit, a few little areas for improvement have become apparent.

  

This is the top drop target. It’s right at the top of the playfield under the borg ship. It’s got a big solenoid to raise it up and a much smaller one to make it drop down. Whenever it pops up it has a tendency to click up and down lots before settling. It usually pops up and down about three times before it locks up properly.

This isn’t usually a problem, unless you fire the ball from the plunger selecting any of the “Lock Ball” options.

What’s supposed to happen is that the target drops and lets the ball go straight into the lock, then the target pops up, a second ball is auto-fired from the plunger, which bounces off the drop target and goes down to the playfield.

However, what is happening, is that when the target is supposed to pop up, it’s clicking up and down a few times. So sometimes it’s still clicking up and down when the second ball has arrived, so the second ball goes down the hole instead of into play. .. Points wise, this isn’t so bad as it usually kicks off a borg multi ball! 😉 .. but it’s not he way it’s supposed to be played, so it’s got to be fixed!

If you look carefully at the solinoid tip you can see a little key shaped bit of metal that pushes up the drop target… and it’s bent down a bit. Looks simple enough to fix! I took it off and fitted it the other way up, so that I didn’t have to take time to bend it flat.. Bad decision! Now when it’s in the down position, the drop target is way too high and the ball can’t roll over it!! [doh!]

The screw at the bottom adjusts the down rest position. Loosening it, lowers the drop target.. but, because the metal bit is bent up, I couldn’t lower the target enough! Bah!  .. I took the key bit off and broke out the mole grips 😉 Mole grips are awesome for this kind of thing. They’re like piliers on steroids.

I love the bit in Kill Bill when the sword maker dude says of his funky new sword; “If on your journey you encounter God, God will be cut” .. Well if you’ve got a pair of mole grips, you’d have God’s nads off in seconds 😉

I’ve got three pairs. A small on for getting in cramped places and grabbing stuff and two large pairs for exactly this kind of thing. With the mole grips on either end of the metal key, I barely had to flex my enormous toned arm muscles to get it flat 😉

I fitted the new flat key and with the playfield vertical, got Rachel with her tiny girly arms to reach round the back (oh-er!) and tell me when the target was flush to the playfield, while I adjusted the screw.

It’s a definate improvement, but it’s not perfect. I still heard an extra click a few times, but not every time like before. I think I may look at adjusting the spring on the back of it later, but today I was also looking at the rails and the 2x Shuttle target.

The 2x Shuttle target is to the left of the beta ramp.

Looks fine doesn’t it! Well, that’s what I thought, but at least three times now the balls hit this target and when it’s bounced back, it’s jumped over the rail above it!! and one time it touched the glass! It didn’t sound like it hit hard enough to break the glass, but when it happened, it did make me check my trousers.

I took a good look at it and I can’t really see anything wrong with it. The only thing I can think of is that the spongy bit behind the red target is a bit soft.. so when I push it with my finger, the top compresses a lot and the bottom not so much.. I guess this could mean that when the ball hits it very fast the target bends back and points up slightly.

Short of changing the sponge, I decided to bend it slightly forwards from the mounting bracket under the playfield. Only a tiny bit, so the difference is barely noticable unless you’re looking for it. I’ve tested it a few times since and it looks like it’s working, but only time will tell if it’s still going to make the ball jump!

Next up is my right rail. The one with the loop in it which the ball is fired down. A few times the ball has got caught under the end, where it’s going very low to the table, so when I changed the rubbers I put an extra washer under it to raise it enough for the ball to pass. That works great for balls coming from the flippers, but I recently discovered that balls fired from the left cannon don’t quite make it!

Voila! My new super enormous washer 😉 Made from a tiny brass ring I found on the floor of my garage, sandwiched between two regular washers, that just happen to be exactly the same diameter!

I also flattened out the two metal bits closist to the playfield a touch, as they were quite angular before, for no real reason. To flatten them a bit, I wrapped them in paper and squished them with my mole grips (Muhahaha! All will be crushed under my power!) [ahem]. Now the ball still zooms through the rails perfectly and you can fire the cannon up the right with no problems 🙂

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