Pinbot question - spiral ramp issue and left eye lock issue

bongoben

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Pinbot question - spiral ramp issue and left eye lock issue

So I picked up a Pinbot from KLOVer YODAinMN a couple weeks back... it's my first pin although I have just under a year's worth of experience working on my father's T2 pin he picked up at the end of last summer. Anyways, I've have a couple late night opportunities to play it and am very happy with the cab. I wish I had more time recently but life gets in the way. Anyways, I noticed right away that the spiral ramp seems to be giving me some problems. When shooting the ball it barely gets enough power to get to the first hole on the ramp. I've made it up to the 2nd hole twice but never beyond that. And most of the time the ball seems to hit something on its path to the ramp that causes it to ricochet and not even have enough momentum to make it to the first hole. The shooter spring felt a little loose so I bought all the pieces to rebuild that from marcospecialties.com including the highest tension shooter spring they have. That didn't change anything. Is there a part that can get out of line on this? It's almost like the path doesn't cradle the ball up the ramp and instead it bounces around so much that it looses all of its momentum before it even gets there. The game is level and I have tried an angle anywhere from the front feet sitting all the way at their lowest level up to about half way. Any higher and the gameplay starts getting really slow as the table gets closer to sitting completely flat. So what am I missing?

The only other issue I'm having is when the visor rises. The right eye locks the ball fine but the left eye is "hit or miss" (no pun intended) in that the switch sometimes registers the ball locking and sometimes doesn't. The last test game I played tonight I noticed that when I locked the left eye it still didn't register the ball as locked but the "solar loop" sound played repeatedly as though the ball had passed over the switch on the blue ramp about 25 times in 10 seconds. I assume there is a short somewhere in the wires but I need to take some time to trace them to see what I can see.

Sorry to be long winded. Anyone have any ideas on what I should look for?
 
"please... help" (in the voice of Lilu from 5th Element)

I have a nice sized blood blister on my finger when it got caught in my needle nose pliers while I was trying to get the rusted on leg levelers off lastnight to replace them... it's acting as a constant reminder of my Pinbot woes. I haven't read anything else online of anyone having this problem with the spiral ramp so I may be alone on this. I figure I may be taking the entire game apart to clean and replace rubbers anyways so I will deal with this problem then... BUT, I would LOOOOVE any pointers. I'm really excited to get this thing working 100%.
 
So I picked up a Pinbot from KLOVer YODAinMN a couple weeks back... it's my first pin although I have just under a year's worth of experience working on my father's T2 pin he picked up at the end of last summer. Anyways, I've have a couple late night opportunities to play it and am very happy with the cab. I wish I had more time recently but life gets in the way. Anyways, I noticed right away that the spiral ramp seems to be giving me some problems. When shooting the ball it barely gets enough power to get to the first hole on the ramp. I've made it up to the 2nd hole twice but never beyond that. And most of the time the ball seems to hit something on its path to the ramp that causes it to ricochet and not even have enough momentum to make it to the first hole. The shooter spring felt a little loose so I bought all the pieces to rebuild that from marcospecialties.com including the highest tension shooter spring they have. That didn't change anything. Is there a part that can get out of line on this? It's almost like the path doesn't cradle the ball up the ramp and instead it bounces around so much that it looses all of its momentum before it even gets there. The game is level and I have tried an angle anywhere from the front feet sitting all the way at their lowest level up to about half way. Any higher and the gameplay starts getting really slow as the table gets closer to sitting completely flat. So what am I missing?

The only other issue I'm having is when the visor rises. The right eye locks the ball fine but the left eye is "hit or miss" (no pun intended) in that the switch sometimes registers the ball locking and sometimes doesn't. The last test game I played tonight I noticed that when I locked the left eye it still didn't register the ball as locked but the "solar loop" sound played repeatedly as though the ball had passed over the switch on the blue ramp about 25 times in 10 seconds. I assume there is a short somewhere in the wires but I need to take some time to trace them to see what I can see.

Sorry to be long winded. Anyone have any ideas on what I should look for?

This is actually very common on Pinbot (I have had two and both did the same thing).....

Loosen the shooter housing and slide it up as high as you can and retighten. Also check to make sure it is centered. Pinbot is notorious for having shooter issues/vortex ramp issues. You need a nice clean/centered shot on the ball or it will hit the gate flap and bounce, or hit the entrance to the vortex ramp and bounce too.....

Also, check the metal spring/flap at the vortex ramp entrance, it needs to be nice and flush against the side rail or the ball will lose all momentum there.


As far as the switch, if it is working sometimes, I am willing to bet that it just needs a slight bend upwards to retension it to hit the switch mech reliably. Grab those needlenose and tweak it upward slightly. Use a ball (not your finger) to verify it is working properly.

The other switches that display this behavior on Pinbot often is the two switches on the visor motor underneath the PF that tell the Visor when it is up and down. The are forever needing tweaking as the motor cam bends them outward. (Sounds like you are fine there though)
 
This is actually very common on Pinbot (I have had two and both did the same thing).....

Loosen the shooter housing and slide it up as high as you can and retighten. Also check to make sure it is centered. Pinbot is notorious for having shooter issues/vortex ramp issues. You need a nice clean/centered shot on the ball or it will hit the gate flap and bounce, or hit the entrance to the vortex ramp and bounce too.....

Also, check the metal spring/flap at the vortex ramp entrance, it needs to be nice and flush against the side rail or the ball will lose all momentum there.


As far as the switch, if it is working sometimes, I am willing to bet that it just needs a slight bend upwards to retension it to hit the switch mech reliably. Grab those needlenose and tweak it upward slightly. Use a ball (not your finger) to verify it is working properly.

The other switches that display this behavior on Pinbot often is the two switches on the visor motor underneath the PF that tell the Visor when it is up and down. The are forever needing tweaking as the motor cam bends them outward. (Sounds like you are fine there though)

Thank you so much for the response. I was planning on removing a number of pieces on the machine to clean up the playfield a bit and re-rubber some of the hard to reach spots so I will double check the metal flaps around the vortex ramp while I do that. I didn't even think to check the angle the shooter is at so I will look at that also. It will probably just end up needing to be tweeked just right to get it to work.

As far as the switch on the ball lock I had assumed that it was also just an adjustment there too but since I hadn't gotten that far in repairing this thing I figured I'd ask to make sure it wasn't something as obvious as that.
 
I replaced the rubbers and plunger on mine recently and have been having the same problem. There is a really huge rubber that is along the posts before the vortex near the side. The one I pulled out had been ziptied and I did not do that when I replaced it. i figured that was the problem. Good thing you posted this before I pulled the mini playfield and worked on it. I now have more stuff to check.
 
I replaced the rubbers and plunger on mine recently and have been having the same problem. There is a really huge rubber that is along the posts before the vortex near the side. The one I pulled out had been ziptied and I did not do that when I replaced it. i figured that was the problem. Good thing you posted this before I pulled the mini playfield and worked on it. I now have more stuff to check.

Are you talking about the long one on the right side in the pop bumper area or the smaller one on the left just as you go from the pop bumper area into the chute to get to the vortex ramp? I had noticed these also and wondered if the ball was maybe catching an edge on one of these? How was this zip-tied? I don't want to do this myself as I would hope I can correct the problem without having to resort to zip-ties, but I am curious as to what you mean.
 
Are you talking about the long one on the right side in the pop bumper area or the smaller one on the left just as you go from the pop bumper area into the chute to get to the vortex ramp? I had noticed these also and wondered if the ball was maybe catching an edge on one of these? How was this zip-tied? I don't want to do this myself as I would hope I can correct the problem without having to resort to zip-ties, but I am curious as to what you mean.

Right side of pop bumpers

At work currently, so I am winging it a bit. Check out my amazing photoshop skills :)

4560905179_00d7f03681.jpg


The rubber is the white line I drew and the purple is where they brought the rubber together with a zip tie. Not sure if all 4 posts have the runner around them, but the zip tie was between the 1st and 2nd post from the plunger side.
 
Right side of pop bumpers

At work currently, so I am winging it a bit. Check out my amazing photoshop skills :)

4560905179_00d7f03681.jpg


The rubber is the white line I drew and the purple is where they brought the rubber together with a zip tie. Not sure if all 4 posts have the runner around them, but the zip tie was between the 1st and 2nd post from the plunger side.

Going from memory here (it has been about 4 years since I disassembled my last Pinbot), but the right metal lane guide should extend just past the end of the long white rubber on the right side. Definitely no zip tie necessry, it is definitely an alignment issue. It is possible that someone put the wrong size rubber there, and it was a little too thick and protruding out a bit, but the rubber as designed shouldn't interfere at all.....
 
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