Ball "lost" in The Twilight Zone? lol

[MultiHack3D]

Hey peoples!

I was playing a few tonight and got to a point were the game was looking for a ball missing and wouldent eject a new ball into play.

A (stock) TZ takes 5 metal and one ceramic ball, but now all of a sudden it will only play if I add an extra 6th metal ball?!

I have checked everywhere, (everything i can see from the top, and also under the PF the original 5 metal and one ceramic are there, what could cause this?

Im guessing its a bad switch or something?


Any ideas?

 

[dnewman]

First, are you able to find all 5 steel balls? One hasn't air-balled and lodged itself somewhere, right?

If all 5 steel balls and 1 ceramic ball are accounted for, you might check the ball trough sensor connection. There is an eddy sensor at the end of the trough that detects the presence of the steel balls, to keep track of where the ceramic ball is. There is a two wire connection from this sensor to a small board, and you may have to re-seat the connectors (it seems to be a common issue). I've heard that some people actually just solder the wires directly.

 

[Chris Bardon]

What do you mean it'll only play if you add another ball-will it go into a "looking for balls" loop?

Newman's right on the ceramic ball sensor-I had problems with that, and just directly soldered the trough sensor to keep it working, but that only detects whether the ceramic ball is in the bottom trough position. I'm pretty sure there are also standard trough switches in there that detect the other positions, so I'd check those first. You should also check the adjustments on the gumball machine-there's a setting to tell it how many balls to keep in there, and it's possible that got changed. Typically it's 3 in the trough, and 3 in the machine, but some change the gumball machine to 2. What I'd try next is to empty the balls, put them all in the trough, and let the game reload the gumball machine. That'll also let you test all of the trough switches.

 

[Menace]

As others have suggested, empty ALL of the balls from the game using the test menu. Once you are 100% sure all of the balls have been removed from the game this way make sure you have 5 steel and 1 ceramic. If you haven't removed the extra steel ball you had to add in order to get the game to play, you should hasve 6 steel and 1 ceramic. If you count the correct number of balls, then you likely have a bad switch in the trough or in the gumball lock, at which point you can test them using the test menu.

D

 

[MultiHack3D]

Sorry for the late response... I got the worst work hours ever... basically, all the time.. then sleep, rinse and repeat!

But yes, the first thing i checked was if there was a ball out of play/stuck. Also when I said add an extra ball I was meaning a 6th steel ball.

I checked the sensor connection and re-seated it. Felt like it did move a tiny bit. All seems well now!

I also got a chance to mess around in the menu/tests with the gumball... very cool.

The more I get my head under the PF the more im learning and the more I understand, I love it!

Thanks to all of you!... and being kind enough to share you knowledge!

It is VERY much appreciated!

..... Free Play For Ever LOL!

 

[Bigbossfan]

Hey Hack, I feel your pain. I'm still razzed to this day, because the same thing happened to me on my STTNG. I hunted high and low on my PF, emptied balls, etc etc, all to no avail. So I'm like WTF.....it couldn't have disappeared into thin air. So I added another ball and continued on playing for months. Then one day the pin wouldn't play anymore (Can't remember the specifics!) and as luck would have it, Wong was at my place and he decided to empty the balls.....sure enough that ball that had went mysteriously missing had shown up (I'm sure dislodged itself from whereever it was stuck) and was frigging up the opto's in the ball trough.

Needless to say, the good buddy that Wong is, has not failed to let me live this down and has made a point of informing my pinball "buddies" about this incident (Menace above being one of them). If I were you, I would delete this thread..........and never speak of it again!!

 

[mwong168]

You rang Reg? I've talked to Brock about replacing piccard's face palm pic with yours

 

[mwong168]

I figured out where the ball probably got lost on STTNG because when I was playing once I got an air ball just off to the left post of the Alpha ramp and it ended up behind the red circle here.



It must have happened to you again after we found that 7th ball in the pic above together. Months later when Barry and I came over to pick up FT and STTNG, I emptied the 6 balls and when I lifted the playfield another ball dropped out onto the playfield.

 

[Bigbossfan]

LMFAO.....asshole!!!!

 

[MultiHack3D]

LOL!