Star Tech Journal

STAR*TECH Journal
March 7993
Prince's Corner
Donald B. Prince
D&RMusic
Bozeman, Montana
THE PROBLEM WITH FLIPPERS
The problem with flippers is
not the flippers themselves, in
as much as the maintenance
and the quality of repair they
receive. I've seen an awful lot
of good flipper coils changed in
haste, without troubleshoot-
ing the problem to a definitive
conclusion.
When the flippers don't work,
it's not always the flipper coils.
Matter-of-fact this is usually
the last part to go bad, and ifit
is bad, something else is wrong
too. A coil doesn't burn up by
itself, it usually has help.
Since a lot of the problems as-
sociated with pinball ma-
chines are flippers, I came up
with a list of checks I do when
troubleshooting flipper prob-
lems.
I
No FLIP OR WEAK FLIP
I
····•·1)••·J>hYSical1y • cHeck the····flipper••·•
hv¢f fotnon ~conformity .••
for broken \ViresoUthe
·•····flipper .•. ·•coils .• • • an~ •. •. the••••·~.nd-6f-•···
§'Yin~ i(~.0-~'.l S;Vits¥, . . also~
clj.~Gk th~.·.f11pper sw1tch~s.
Chet~~-p.S.$"7itchforbll.rllSL
Check
This list is
good to run
down if
~ili~1~i!l~lli:ti
you're not
doing routine
maintenance
on your
· >sic
•••··•· ·•t·••·•,.•·•· ...............
•k· s< •t·•.h·••·.·.·.•.·.····
·· 1 d· ·.·•.••·'
·•· · ·t·. e •/•'
1s cow
1n a
WotH 'coiL sleeve,• •. •worn
pinball
11
machines ...
toil.··
lt~~~¥il~l~I
i11 tlie•••flipperJinlc Holdthe
fljPP¢1'. \Vi.th ()n~ . .lia11d . ~ncL
>>move.the.flipperlinkbacRand .• •
After establishing the no flip
or weak flip condition, turn the
power off and lift the playfield.
f~iiB~s~~t;~~YG;:;i~
linkis. Further investigation
'\Vilfteqajre disassembly of the
•