WCS94 optic switch issue

bongoben

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My father's WCS84 has issues. The story of my life. Anyways, something is up with the optic switch on the hole just to the right of the goal. When you start a game the coil shoots about 10 times like it's trying to get something out of there. Then when a ball goes into that hole it doesn't recognize the ball is there. So, the coil works but the switch doesn't seem to do anything. I've never worked with optic switches so I'm not sure where to even start. Any recommendations?
 
So, let's break it down

The game thinks there's a ball there at the start, so it fires the coil a lot. Why does it think the ball is there? An opto has been tripped. Tripped, meaning the beam isn't registering. Either the transmitter isn't transmitting or the receiver isn't receiving. Normally, this is fine... that's how the game knows the ball has passed, because that beam is broken. But, when it's broken forever, then the game doesn't know when the ball is there or not. It will only try so many times before it goes "I quit."

So yes, when you shoot the ball in there, the game has no clue it's there.

How do you decide which side is bad? The easy way to test, at first, is to use your digital camera or cell phone camera, and use the screen on there to look with it. You point your camera or phone on camera mode at the transmitter. You will see a faint blue glow. You can't see this glow in normal light, but cameras can pick it up just fine. If that's not glowing, it very well could be the transmitter. If it IS glowing, then the receiver is bad. Optos can go bad, but a lot of times, it's what's around the optos that go bad such as components or even flaky soldering/wiring.

So, take the balls out, pull the playfield all the way out, then all the way up so you can work on it. Take those parts off and start testing them.
 
So, let's break it down

The game thinks there's a ball there at the start, so it fires the coil a lot. Why does it think the ball is there? An opto has been tripped. Tripped, meaning the beam isn't registering. Either the transmitter isn't transmitting or the receiver isn't receiving. Normally, this is fine... that's how the game knows the ball has passed, because that beam is broken. But, when it's broken forever, then the game doesn't know when the ball is there or not. It will only try so many times before it goes "I quit."

So yes, when you shoot the ball in there, the game has no clue it's there.

How do you decide which side is bad? The easy way to test, at first, is to use your digital camera or cell phone camera, and use the screen on there to look with it. You point your camera or phone on camera mode at the transmitter. You will see a faint blue glow. You can't see this glow in normal light, but cameras can pick it up just fine. If that's not glowing, it very well could be the transmitter. If it IS glowing, then the receiver is bad. Optos can go bad, but a lot of times, it's what's around the optos that go bad such as components or even flaky soldering/wiring.

So, take the balls out, pull the playfield all the way out, then all the way up so you can work on it. Take those parts off and start testing them.


Beautiful... and thank you. I'll spend some time with this the next time I'm over there.
 
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