coil power

spoonman

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Hi looking for some input.

My taxi has the right flipper acting up on it. It still works but has no power to bat the ball around only enough to hold the flipper up.

left coil has readings of (assuming lugs are facing you and at bottom of coil)
Left/Center 0.7ohms
Left/Right 4.4ohms
Center/Right 4.7ohms


left coil has readings of (assuming lugs are facing you and at bottom of coil)
Left/Center 162ohms
Left/Right 159ohms
Center/Right 4.4ohms

Could this be the transister that drives this or perhaps a short in the coil? I gather that the 160ohms is the side of the coil that will hold the flipper up when trapping etc.

I enjoy pinball but even after a couple years am still a rookie at keeping them working...i miss the pinrepair website.
 
Correct coils installed?

All diodes present and connected on said coils?

Taxi does not use transistors to drive the flippers. Have the flipper assemblies been rebuilt? New end-of-stroke and flipper button (cabinet) switches installed?
 
I had rebuilt the flippers about a year ago and they were working fine till recently.

I did not change the flipper switch on the cabinet, it was a little further spaced out on the right but after adjusting it still does not engage properly.

I bought the rebuild kits from pbr and they worked well for some time, it is possible i installed something wrong but tried to be careful to put it back the way it was when i did the rebuild (they could have been done wrong before so this might not have been the best method)

The only thing i can really do with the right flipper is trap the ball it is too weak to make shots with.

fl-11630 coils are installed and were put in new when i rebuilt the flippers and all of the diodes are present and connected/look fine.

the EOS on both of the flippers look the same, still look new and clearances are the same on both of them.
 
Well, if you have already installed new end-of-stroke switches and they are adjusted to open correctly, then the cabinet flipper button switch must be worn/pitted and should be replaced.

Remember, the contacts on the flipper button switch are tungsten and do not file easily. If they look worn, replace the switch.
 
well i just went and swapped the cabinet switches and no luck. Left flipper still works great and the right one is only strong enough to hold a ball and you cannot make a shot with it.

So i am guessing that rules out the switch on the cabinet, there is a small microswitch style switch that is actuated down with the flipper cabinet switch too, could that cause a problem? or was this the switch in question. i just swapped the long leaf one and left the little micro one.

what should I try next? do the readings I got off the coils suggest any other areas to look into?
 
Both coils should read the same....the second "left" coil readings (assuming you meant right) seems pretty high resistance to me.


lol yep thats what i get for copy paste should have been

right coil has readings of (assuming lugs are facing you and at bottom of coil)
Left/Center 162ohms
Left/Right 159ohms
Center/Right 4.4ohms

what could cause it too read so high?

maybe later this afternoon i will take apart both flippers and swap the coils to see if the problem moves too
 
Alright update time.

I went to swap the coils tonight and ran into an issue
it was hard to undo the right flipper the plate that secures the coil was a little loose. when i took it apart the sleeve was stuck in the coil and i figured i had the problem sorted.

so i swap the coils and now the right one has a good sleeve and i bolt the plate in so it is really snug now. toss the other coil in on the left.

power the game up and expect to now be able to flip good on the right and poor on the left....nope

i still have a good flipper on the left despite the sleeve being tight, right coil still only has enough power to hold the flipper up

pop it open and meter the coils and the right coil still mesures 160ohms between two of the lugs.

so i have swapped coils, swapped flipper switch from the cabint and still no go.

what should i try next?
 
victory is mine!

It was just not making sense to me. So I took a look at the EOS switches again and they seemed great. So I got thinking maybe something on the capacitor on the flipper, everything looked and felt ok...so i gave more of a tug on one of the leads and it popped off.

reflowed the solder and bam i have a fully working flipper again woohoo

I appreciate everyone who took time to give me suggestions. This has been sitting getting no play for over a month and it was a simple fix. Last month has been busy with other life stuff so not much time to devote to fixing it but i am glad it was simple and just got done enjoying a good game.
 
Woohoo! Love it when it turns out to be simple stuff in the end!

Did the solder joint break off at the lug, or did the wire just break off? Wondering if it was a cold solder joint.
 
it was a cold solder joint. Where the cap and one of the wires attach to a lug, it was attached seemingly fine. A good tug and it popped right off though.
 
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