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Wanted Ae-26-1500 coil - trying to make a kickout weaker on TOM

David_Vi

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5Years
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Sep 3, 2019
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Anyone got a spare hanging about?

Want to put a weaker coil in my TOM trapdoor kickout. I've replaced nearly the entire mech, with correct springs and still it likes to go sdtm or too far left on the flipper.

A few folk seem to have changed theirs to lower power coils and had it behaving as you'd expect so I'd like to give it a go.

Usually I'd add a star post rubber to the plunger to give the kickout less umph but can't do that with this one as it's a counter balanced mech with springs on either end.

While on this subject, someone told me that B/W often put stronger coils in games than they required because they knew they games wouldn't get maintained much. I wonder if that's any truth to this?
 
While on this subject, someone told me that B/W often put stronger coils in games than they required because they knew they games wouldn't get maintained much. I wonder if that's any truth to this?

I found another instance like this with Black Rose. It wasn't long after unpacking one before I saw a Test Report saying "Up/Down Ramp Intermittent". I thought this was due to the lifting ramp being different to the usual type; the lifting ramp is free to fly up (like a gun-port) and crash down onto the retaining latch, possibly pushing it open and allowing the ramp to drop again. Along with tightening up the latch adjustment, a weaker coil seemed to cure this problem. A software cure for it may have been to hold the lifting arm for a moment, to cushion the landing, or 'learning' how much power to use when lifting the ramp.

Popeye STE used to have a tendency to send a ball exiting the Bluto's Jaw lock mechanism directly through the flipper gap. My crude remedy was to tilt the whole thing as it attached under the playfield, with washers under (or above, depending on how you look at it) one side of the assembly.

But regarding Williams actual policy re. coil strength, at a tech seminar which I attended Tom Cahill from Williams gave advice on flipper coils, for those wishing to update some older games to the parallel-winding type. He recommend no higher than the standard 'Red' coil for Pin-Bot, as stronger would break posts, or the mid-power Green for the upper flipper on High Speed, which as I recall originally had the same rating for all three flippers. Also, a development-only coil was mentioned which could follow Arnie's instruction, and "Destroy Everything".
 
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Tom trapdoor kickouts are notoriously weak, if you have a strong one then you are doing well. If it's kicking straight down the middle then you have an alignment problem.
 
Tom trapdoor kickouts are notoriously weak, if you have a strong one then you are doing well. If it's kicking straight down the middle then you have an alignment problem.

I've even drilled out the mech holes so I can adjust the alignment and its still unreliable.
It might be the trapdoor and how it can move slightly. That's what I haven't replaced.
 
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