An investigative look into the spirit of the pinball tilt. With a calibration guide. As well as introducing an inexpensive modification, that will enhance performance.
I used to repair pinballs in pubs. I certain pubs I learned to close the machine every time I went to my car to get spare parts as players would spray plastic spray or hair spray on the tilt, almost invisible for the eye but making the tilt to malfunction. On bingo pinball machines the would drill a hole in the wooden cabinet to spray the tilt. Smarter is using “cold” spray, this works for a minute or two but then disappears leaving no trace at all. Like the earbuds hack!
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Nice explanation and fix for the swing. However, have you ever tried to invert the tilt bob and install it ABOVE the ring? This is the way the tilt mech was shown in most manufacturers' parts catalogs, and I've found that the recovery time is much shorter due to the shorter period with the weight closer to the pivot. Additionally, it is easy to find the center point of the ring by moving the bob down (or up, if you have it mounted as you've shown) until it almost fills the ring, making it easier to gauge the space around it.
Thanks for the comments. I left out a few tilt-related themes for time and content considerations. Amongst this, all the electronic stuff that can cause ghost detections of tilt/slam-tilt or an unreliable tilt. It is quite common. But also with no short answer, as this can be a number of things and complicated to explain. The matrix'ed design of pinball switch detection is a sensitive deal. Everything has to work, as one malfunction can ripple to problems elsewhere. Which is one of the arguments for taking out slam-tilt switches. So any slam-tilt detection is per definition the game and not the player.
Tilt mechanisms came about to prevent severe physical attempts to bully the machine, so while allowing for the traditional nudge play, it also prevents players abusing the machines in places where there is no attendant on station to discourage/discipline such abusive play. The Tilt plumbob is thus the reasonable/safe limit of nudging a player can do without harming the machine.
I would assume the plumb bob should be the only way to tilt. But there are two different other ways to tilt a pinball machine. The slam switch tilt near the coin door. And I forgot the name of it but tilt mechanism with the ball. Which let's be a little confused. Because the other two are redundant compared to the plumb bob. Which is why is the reason for the other two if the plumb bob is all you need.
Slam tilt switch discourages abusive location players from kicking the coin door, among other bad things. Rolling ball slam tilt was to prevent jerks from lifting the game off its front legs
Thank you for the informative video. Saw this on FunWithBonus's website. I do have a question: What would cause a game to give warnings when the ball hits a specific switch? There was a monster Bash near me that had a problem with registering warnings whenever the ball would roll over the right inlane switch, and that has puzzled me to this very day
@@Titanic4 Yeah, that would totally track. Granted, I didn't know at the time since I only understand 'low level' arcade technician stuff (coin jams, ticket jams/replacements, replacing microswitch buttons using quick connectors instead of soldering) and thus Electromechanical machines, to me at the time, ran on magic.
What is the name of that old western themed pinball machine? when you shake the machine you here a John Wayne type voice go "WATCH THAT TILT THERE PILGRIM"
