Author Topic: Shadow Wall problems  (Read 156 times)

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Offline robm

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Shadow Wall problems
« on: December 26, 2010, 09:27:38 PM »
In my refurbishment of a project Shadow machine, the wall lock is having some issues.

What i understand is meant to happen, it the wall it hit once to light lock (opto switch), then again to lock the ball - when this happens, the magnet is meant to hold the ball for a few secs, drop the wall and flick it up into the lock area.

What happens on my machine is sometimes lock does not light until you are into the game a bit (i have tested the opto 100s of times and it works every time), but when it does light either of the following two things happen

1. Magnet grabs ball for a few secs, then it lets it roll back to the flippers (wall does not drop)

2. Magnet holds ball for a few secs, flings it up into the wall - which does not drop.

Now the wall drops every single time in the solenoid test BUT when you first switch the game on, it sometimes drops, but most of the time does not - although you can hear the wall up solenoid fire 3 or so times, and the target moves a bit from this action.

Its seeming to me that the signal is either too weak or two quick to actually activate the coil to drop the wall - is this possible, or would it be something else?

The wall target moves quite freely, and the spring tension to pull it down is pretty good as well.

Offline robm

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Re: Shadow Wall problems
« Reply #1 on: December 27, 2010, 11:03:06 AM »
I think i've figured the problem, but not a solution yet.

I pulled the assembly apart and it all seems OK.

I noticed by shining a torch in the coin door at startup (and holding the door switch closed) that the machine in its power up cycle tries to drop and reset the wall target.  What happens is that the target drops, and resets, but then tries to reset 3 or 4 more times - this is due to the fact that the pivot bracket assembly (C shaped bar on end of main solenoid plunger) rests on the microswitch at the bottom - making the machine thing the wall target is still down, hence why it tries to reset 3 or 4 times when it is already up.

Now this assembly is a bit flogged out, but i can't see how (even with a new one) it is meant to 'stay up' and not activate the microswitch, as the solenoid does not hold in, only fires to latch the wall up?

Can anyone take a picture of their setup, maybe the switch blade is the wrong shape - or is it something else?

Thanks

Rob