Adjusting/cleaning Williams leafs???

Thomas

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Whats the best way to clean and adjust the Williams leafs on my stargate control panel. It is working but seems off/slow/sticky yikes!
 
get a cardboard emery board (nail file) and put it between the leaf contacts, squeeze the leafs together, and slide the emery board back and forth to clean the contacts. Then adjust them so that you have about a 1/16" gap. Make sure that you can see light between the contacts when they are apart, and that when you push the button the bottom leaf bends a little under the pressure of the top leaf...
 
That worked great and feels a whole lot better now. My joystick needs to be rebuilt, its still a little funky, but it will half to wait. Money is to tight right now to buy the kit from arcade shop.

Thanks mod that's the first time I have had to clean any leafs.
 
That worked great and feels a whole lot better now. My joystick needs to be rebuilt, its still a little funky, but it will half to wait. Money is to tight right now to buy the kit from arcade shop.

Thanks mod that's the first time I have had to clean any leafs.

Mod, you should know better that to do that!

The Williams button leaf switches are gold plated. Using any kind of abrasive will remove the gold plating and damage the contacts.

The proper way to clean them is with an ignition contact burnisher (available at auto parts stores, I think that is the right title for it). Or if you don't have that, use a scrap white business card. Slide it in between the contacts and press the button. Then slide the business card back and forth. This will remove the junk on the contacts and clean them without removing the gold plating. If it was from a bar or an arcade that allowed smoking, you may have to put a drop or two of rubbing alcohol on the business card when you burnish the contacts.

Using any kind of sandpaper will scratch off the gold which will expose the softer metal underneath. This will cause the contacts to start to pit and erode and eventually they will wear out. This was the greatest cause of failure in the cheap Chinese leaf switches that flooded the market about 15 years ago. They didn't gold plate the contacts and they are wearing out now. It is particularly bad in the pinball market.

ken
 
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