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Shadow Wall problems


robm

Question

In my refurbishment of a project Shadow machine, the wall lock is having some issues.

 

What i understand is meant to happen, it the wall it hit once to light lock (opto switch), then again to lock the ball - when this happens, the magnet is meant to hold the ball for a few secs, drop the wall and flick it up into the lock area.

 

What happens on my machine is sometimes lock does not light until you are into the game a bit (i have tested the opto 100s of times and it works every time), but when it does light either of the following two things happen

 

1. Magnet grabs ball for a few secs, then it lets it roll back to the flippers (wall does not drop)

 

2. Magnet holds ball for a few secs, flings it up into the wall - which does not drop.

 

Now the wall drops every single time in the solenoid test BUT when you first switch the game on, it sometimes drops, but most of the time does not - although you can hear the wall up solenoid fire 3 or so times, and the target moves a bit from this action.

 

Its seeming to me that the signal is either too weak or two quick to actually activate the coil to drop the wall - is this possible, or would it be something else?

 

The wall target moves quite freely, and the spring tension to pull it down is pretty good as well.

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Rob,

 

The wall can be a tricky thing to sort out. Is there ANY divot on the playfield in front of the wall? Even the smallest amount can cause great grief. I think from memory the game disables the wall target is it detects a problem.

 

Also check the pivot bracket assembly. The hole gets 'reamed' out from wear and should always be replaced. Check the switches are registering and is not bent out of place. Make sure the spring is still OK.

 

You should be able to find the pivot bracket assembly locally nowadays.

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Thanks Marty,

 

Will have a good look at the mechanism tommorrow.

 

I filled a small divot with Knead It, sanded this back and painted it, and covered with mylar - i noticed after i painted that is is slightly raised towards the back of the machine (less than 1mm) - do you think this would cause any issue?

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Hi,

 

I had a simular issue with mine.

No fixed by adding a some sticky foam to the top of the pivot arm.

When I got the machine they had something simular attached that wore off.

 

The arm was not pushing up high enough to catch.

 

Good luck on yours,

 

Red

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I think i've figured the problem, but not a solution yet.

 

I pulled the assembly apart and it all seems OK.

 

I noticed by shining a torch in the coin door at startup (and holding the door switch closed) that the machine in its power up cycle tries to drop and reset the wall target. What happens is that the target drops, and resets, but then tries to reset 3 or 4 more times - this is due to the fact that the pivot bracket assembly (C shaped bar on end of main solenoid plunger) rests on the microswitch at the bottom - making the machine thing the wall target is still down, hence why it tries to reset 3 or 4 times when it is already up. (then i'm assuming the machine thinks there is an error, and disables the wall feature)

 

Now this assembly is a bit flogged out, but i can't see how (even with a new one) it is meant to 'stay up' and not activate the microswitch, as the solenoid does not hold in, only fires to latch the wall up?

 

Can anyone take a picture of their setup, maybe the switch blade is the wrong shape - or is it something else?

 

Thanks

 

Rob

 

http://i837.photobucket.com/albums/zz299/rjmilla/P1020740.jpg

 

http://i837.photobucket.com/albums/zz299/rjmilla/P1020739.jpg

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From memory Rob, the switch should only activate when the target is down.

 

To confirm this, go into switch test mode and activate the switch by hand. It should register as 'switch target down' switch 51.

 

---------- Post added at 10:34 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:33 AM ----------

 

Argh, yep - just looked at the pic more closely. Its the bottom of the target which should activate switch, not the bracket pivot assembly.

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Excellent, thanks Marty - after much fiddling, i finally got the blade adjusted correctly.

 

It has to be downalmost parallel with the target, and jut out only enough to get activated by the target and not the pivot assembly.

 

All working!

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Excellent, thanks Marty - after much fiddling, i finally got the blade adjusted correctly.

 

It has to be downalmost parallel with the target, and jut out only enough to get activated by the target and not the pivot assembly.

 

All working!

 

Nice to hear it is now working.

 

Here is your photo of where I added the felt material to build it up so it pushes the wall up enough to enguage properly.

(worked for me)

 

 

Red

here.thumb.jpg.c3550e581aa4f8bab9331b7eb8011e7f.jpg

Edited by Redback
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Hey Red,

 

You'll find that your pivot assembly is probably worn badly. There should only be a small hole but yours would most likely be reamed out quite large with a lot of freeplay hence the need for the foam. Both parts are available locally and easy to replace.

 

---------- Post added at 03:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:13 PM ----------

 

Good to hear mate. They are fiddly to get right..

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