Williams Blackout, flipper voltage?

AE35

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Hey !

I'm having a horrible time with weak flippers on my Blackout(system 6). I've
changed everything, plungers, EOS etc.

Then I sort of got thinking, do these flippers run at ca. 28V like the other coils
in the game? Did they first get to 50V flippers on later games?

I just tried measuring the voltage at the button leafs, they say about 35V...

I thought that Williams always ran their flippers at 50V:(

Thanks!!!

Nicholas
 
I thought that Williams always ran their flippers at 50V:(

Not on that game. Williams didn't adopt 50V flippers until some time later. This was a complaint that the designers had. Several of them talk about that in interviews. Specifically Steve Ritchie regarding Black Knight (and he's right IMO).

Take a look at the schematic. Should show +38VDC going to the flippers.

EDIT: Could be cabinet switches, connectors, contacts inside flipper relay, etc...
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the quick reply...I'm very sad to hear that!! My Bally Star Trek from 1979
has very strong flippers, so I just thoug....well:)

Any tips regarding what I can do? Can I buy lighter flippers or use any other
tricks to up the power?

Thanks!

Nicholas
 
Honestly I wouldn't start messing around with different coils until I was certain I'm getting the maximum current flow to the existing coils. Otherwise you're just masking another problem.

What you might want to try is manually energizing the flippers straight from a good ground source and see if they are stronger. That would eliminate all of the connectors in the path between the power supply and the coil. If they're strong with this test you know you've got a problem somewhere limiting current flow. My guess would be it's most likely a connector problem somewhere.

Given the fact that it's both flippers I would look for where they have a common ground source. Could also be that you've got a problem on the positive side of the circuit and you're only seeing it in the flippers. You might not notice as much with the other coils.
 
As Lindsey said....make sure the cabinet switches are clean (clean with a file), and the "end of stroke" switches. Lack of good contact with both of these switches can rob a lot of power.

Edward
 
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