Flipper return lane guide plastic to eliminate ball hop on early SS Williams

[solar value]

Hi everyone,

I have made some plastics to eliminate the problem of ball hop on some early Williams SS games. I found that the ball wasn't travelling smoothly across the gap between the lane guide and the flipper causing the ball to be bumped up. This is quite an annoying problem because it means that the ball floats above the flipper rather than rolling down it making shots very difficult to line up. Before I installed these on my Black Knight it was very difficult to shoot the ramps to get back up to the upper playfield. In fact, the shot to the ramp on the far right was almost impossible to make on purpose and the ball only ever travelled up this ramp after being deflected by a slingshot. I can now execute much more controlled shots on the fly when the ball is travelling across this gap, which makes the game a lot more fun. Additionally, on Black Knight it is important to be able to shoot the ramps from a ball coming down the flipper return because the left return lane lights the mystery score for the middle ramp and the right return lane increases the value of the spinner at the entry to the left ramp. Both features are only lit for a short time and you can't score them if you catch the ball before shooting.

I made the plastics out of clear polycarbonate. They are quite thin so as to be unobtrusive and they follow the shape of the original metal lane guide. Nevertheless, polycarbonate is strong so hopefully they should last quite a while. The advantage of adding plastics rather than changing the postition of the screw holes under the lane guide or modifying the guide itself is that the addition of plastics is fully reversible. Here are some pictures of the plastics installed:







Note that the plastic closes off the gap between the guide and the flipper slightly and also lines the ball up better with the flipper as it travels down the lane guide.

Here are some videos of the ball travel both before and after the plastic was installed:

So what games will they fit?

The part number of the lane guide is A-8108 R (right side) A-8108 L (left side). The same plastic will fit both sides when reversed. According to the parts catalogue (thanks Swinks for the link) these will fit the following games:

Blackout, Firepower (right only), Black Knight, Jungle Lord, Pharoah and Solar Fire.

I believe that they may also fit other games but the holes will be in a different place, maybe people can suggest other games that they may fit and I could prepare some without holes for owners of these games to self-drill.

I have 8 of these plastics for sale. I am offering them for the introductory price of $5 for a set of two plus postage to cover costs. If there is enough interest I will do another run at $10 a set (the profile will be changed very slightly to improve aesthetics). They come with a protective plastic coating that needs to be peeled off before installation.

At this stage I am thinking I will send them express post so that there is a tracking number and postage costs are kept low.

Please let me know if you are interested.

Cheers, SV.

 

[Strangeways]

Brilliant.

I'd say they would also fit SYS 4/6 - Flash etc etc.

[indazone gav]

Great idea and well done but I have found that you can just adjust the height of the lane guide to fix this?? Worst scenario is the need to slightly rheem out the hole in the lane guide to get more adjustment(I havent needed to go to that extent).
Not trying to bag your plastic, just interested :)
Cheers Gav

[solar value]

Great idea and well done but I have found that you can just adjust the height of the lane guide to fix this?? Worst scenario is the need to slightly rheem out the hole in the lane guide to get more adjustment(I havent needed to go to that extent).
Not trying to bag your plastic, just interested :)
Cheers Gav

No worries, happy for feedback. Hmmm...didn't try raising the height of lane guide itself (if you meant relative to the surface of the playfield) but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't work with this particular game for the following reason:

The problem with the ball's line of travel is that the wide end of the flipper protrudes above the line of the lane guide. That is, when the ball travels down the lane guide it meets with a bump when it hits the flipper. I had to make the plastic overhang the guide by 2mm on the top side so that the lane guide is flush with (or just slightly higher up the field) the flipper where they meet. Now, the lane guide is 13mm off the surface of the playfield, and the ball is 26mm in diameter. In other words the lane guide touches the ball at its widest point already and heightening or lowering the lane guide relative to the surface of the playfield will therefore make the ball travel even lower down on the playfield (towards the apron) and the problem will be exacerbated.

If you meant raising the lane guide up the playfield away from the apron I did try that and it didn't work. This was because on my game the adjustment needed was about 2mm northwards which was way more play than I had to work with. I couldn't open up the holes in the guide because there are bell posts on the underneath this lane guide which are attached permanently by a flange in the top of the post. Therefore you can't really widen the hole without compromising the structure of the lane guide. This is another reason why I didn't want to modidy the guide itself. You could remove the bell posts, change the shape of the guide and then have the screws hold it all together but I didn't want to do that because it wouldn't be reversible. I also couldn't change the position of the holes in the playfield because (apart from the fact that it would be rather frightening) the lane guide is held in place by two screws and a bolt and t-nut. Therefore, I would have to have changed the position of the T-nut, which I thought was too drastic a modification.

Cheers, SV.

[indazone gav]

Cool, I meant moving the guide up the playfield away from the apron. It makes sense to me now with the bell posts :)

[deadlydave]

That's a great solution mate, well done 

[RatBag]

Great idea ,as far as Black Knight is concerned there are some proto type inlane plastics available that do the same job,maybe try and find an image for yours

[PinPal]

This is my BK proto guides, I had these on my BK for a while and then reverted back to the steel guides.
Here is a pick of my BK with the guides on,, sorry for the blurry pick...

[solar value]

Thanks for the info about the prototype plastics fellas, I was wondering if these would have an effect on the ball hop but has assumed that they would follow the profile of the metal ones. I will be gettng a CPR plastic set at some stage which includes the prototypes, I believe they have even printed the design on them the other way up because of popular demand.

No doubt back in the day they found that the plastic ones wouldn't hold up to ball strikes in that area. Pinpal, did you have them installed on top of the metal ones? Or did you swap out the bell posts?

Has anyone with any of the other games that use this lane guide noticed any ball hop? I'd be interested to know if any Firepower owners had noticed it on the right side, I know Cliffy in the US is also working on something to fix the problem.

[deadlydave]

I have the new plastics but have not installed yet, just checked the lane guides, the plastic ones are slightly wider than the original SS ones, by about 1 mm.
I just threw them in and make a good difference, ball transfer to flipper is smoother, I will keep these in 

Cheers
Dave

[solar value]

I just threw them in and make a good difference

So, Dave, do you have them on top of the metal ones or did you remove your bell posts and swap them over? If so, what method did you use?

I've just noticed that in Pinpal's picture you can see the light from the globe underneath the lane guides shining through the prototypes (looks cool), so he must have swapped out the bell posts.

[deadlydave]

I just mounted on top of stainless, the scews could be a bit longer now, I'll have to get some, would not be that easy swapping the bell posts. I've got to go to work soon, I'll try to post some pics later if I've got time.
Cheers
Dave

[deadlydave]

[pinnies4me]

Top idea, it's one of the problems I was going to address with Firepower when doing the playfield swap - the shot from the right flipper to the right top saucer is critical to multiball and always a problem with the slight jump that return lane has. I did adjust mine to nearly right, so expect to be able to sort it when doing the swap. But will definately make use of this idea if needed, thanks for sharing.

[massappeal]

Hi.  Would these fit Gorgar?  If so, I'd love to grab a set!