This Coil Burns Up On EVERY Pinball Machine! - 1964 Gottlieb Ship Mates Repair MOD To Stop It 

Ron is so good never loses his cool just keeps working through it great person to teach others with these videos. I watched tnt clearance video yesterday Todd has an EM in great shape with a short in it somewhere for $350 Ron would have that pinball working in no time easy money. Chicago Coin Twinky

I would suggest buying a cheap doctor's stethoscope and using hot glue or silicone sealant, affix a cardboard tube from a paper-towel roll to the business end of the stethoscope. Now you have a very directional audio "sniffer" which will make the noisy coil obvious when held up to it, no need to touch it.

Put a stronger spring on (take one or two loops off the existing spring) or bend the tab that the spring attaches to so it will pull harder and pull the relay off. The one that works likely has a switch that pushes it open more.

Thanks for the video. A couple feet of plastic tubing helps locate sounds. I think my wife is magnetized...

When a coil is engaged with dc power the north and south pole stays in the same position and makes the bolt it sits on a weak permanent magnet , when you disengage the coil it will stick a bit. If you look at your working coil, it has two sets of switches, and that makes enough pressure on the plate to release it from the coil, one tip is to use a piece of tape on the end of the solenoid bolt, to make it weaker in magnetism. The fire door hold magnets we use in Norway runs on 24V DC , and those magnets have a little spring loaded plunger in the senter of the magnet to eject the door away when the fire alarm shuts of the 24V DC to the magnet.

Nothing worse than a buzzing relay. I use a small bridge rectifier, 5W resistor and a cap to fix noisy lock relay. That way you do not need to buy a new coil.

Swap the springs that pull the levers back? Just a theory, but maybe all that heat for all those years has just fatigued the elasticity of the spring.

FYI, to find a noisy relay, get a short length of dowel, touch one end to your tragus (the fleshy flap partly covering your ear canal) and the other end on a relay. The sound transfers through the dowel really well, so you can move the rod from relay to relay and quickly find the source of the noise. A bit more dangerous, you can use a large screwdriver instead. Make sure you put the screwdriver handle to your ear (the pointy end's a bit too dangerous to have next to your ear canal). Also works for finding noisy bearings in motors. Always use something that's too large to fit into your ear canal. A trick I learned when I was an apprentice Lift Mechanic.

The spring has been heat soaked too long, and has lost it’s temper. So, it has lost it’s spring tension. Need to replace the spring, or bend the armature away from the coil a little bit so the weak spring can overcome the residual magnetism when the coil is de-energized.

Ronnie, please explain the difference in the level of burnt for “slap the crap up” and “slap the hell up”. I don’t understand technical jargon sometimes. 🎉🎉

it might be possible to shim the relay so the armature cannot contact the core, which should greatly reduce the effect of the residual magnetism. the shim can be pretty thin, like a piece of paper in thickness.

George is definitely hanging around this machine at present. He gets around. He was here in Australia last week, doing tricky stuff on a machine I was bringing back. Get a grip George. Take some time off. Ronnie needs a rest.

Helpful Videos! I also have the Ship Mates and it worked well until it startet tilting me all the time 😢

Running DC through a coil will magnetize any steel involved. AC demagnetizes. Take the diodes out. Add a big resistor to reduce relay heat.

Have you thought about getting a decibel meter and wave it around cabinet to look for the source of the humming? I've never tried it but just thought of the idea when you were looking for that humming.

The transformer mod basically makes it run at 50% duty cycle. Half of the AC wave it will be on and the capacitor will help hold it on during the other half until the AC wave inverts again. Its like its being run on a PWM coil driver but without the driver.

I'm thinking of that funny 80's movie "I'm Gonna Get You Sucka".

The R relay doesn't have as many contacts pushing back on the plate as the 30V Hold...put more spring tension on it and it should work fine then. All R has trying to open it is that spring (and one contact).

The sticky relay, try putting electrical tape between metal actuator to metal coil core from touching metal to metal.

You've rectified the coil supply to those two relays. This will (slightly) magnetize the cores, making the armatures stick to them. This doesn't happen when using AC.

A trick is to take a wood dowel and put i end against the side of your ear and move the other end around against stuff when you get to the noisy part it will get loud at your ear.

The metal insert in the coil has probably got magnetized. Can happen if metal slaps against metal just right, too

You are a great teacher. I love the way you show schematic, show actual machine. Some are chopped, some are multi problems. Thank you from Bill. P.S. I think you would eat the DC Eletronics hobby for breakfast. Grab a few low cost componet packs from amazon, start a segment on your program, Yes, with your analytical mind and experience in logic paths, trouble shooting etc. I am in. God bless.

Lock Bar looks like people were using the middle of the front of the machine to pop the tops off of Beer Bottles

Yodelayheehoo

Thinking about this again, the magnetized insert is probably because its now high voltage DC. With no reversal of the magnetic field you are just magnetizing the insert. If you add a resistor across the diode it might help but I'm not sure what value... and the capacitor might need to go away... and at that point why mod it? Just for that one coil, maybe use that coil with _just_ a resistor inline instead of the mod to avoid magnetizing the insert?

Sounds like ya got coiled by George👻

Be careful screwing around too hard people, or the anti-cheat switch may kick in..ie her husband😆

Feed Back from the transformer and /or one of switch coils ? Do you have a hand mic that you can use to zero in on the buzzing sound (ie. get the mic close to the buzzing device)

I still don’t understand how you are able to work on these with the mech board in the machine. My back hurts just looking at Jt. 😂. Fun watching your videos!

I remember when I would test the outlet in the 70s and it would be 105 or 108 In the 80s in PA I would get 110 or 112 I moved to Maine and they had a hydro plant that supplied tue east coast and I got 125 or even a little higher I was like WOW And back in the 70s and 80s the brownouts were all the time The voltage fluctuated all the time The grid has really become very good They didn't have PLCs back then and control boards They had to send crews out to the substations every time we had a lightning storm When I saw the PLCs and the new ISO control center in upstate NY in the 90s, it was amazing They monitored and controlled everything from Canada to Northern Pennsylvania A few miles from where I live they put in a backup control center for the Mid Atlantic region ISOs and Grid. I don't know where the primary control center is for this region I only know that the backup center is here because I worked cleaning out the facility that was bought by them to repurpose it. They have a lot of security including armed patrols and high voltage fences around the entire property. And it is all underground They have Homeland Security people there 24/7 The days of everything just being able to get up close to the infrastructure is long gone. They are doing the same thing with the Railroads.

Mechanic trick cut 3ft PC of a garden hose or any kind of hose & used it as Stethoscope cheap ez & convince to find out noises 😂 try u will see God blessed y'all

In a perfect world the flyback diode (the one that comes attached to the DC coil) and the capacitor would always allow the coil flux to collapse filly. If the diode isn't snubbing the flyback or the tank circuit created by the coil and capacitor is ringing enough you'll get a sticky situation like that. I'd suggest playing with placing various resistances across the capacitor legs

JOE CLASSIC, The 120VAC Hold Coil and 30VAC Hold Coil will dissipate less Heat running the Hold coils using DC voltage, any reasons why DC dissipates less heat compared to AC dissipating higher heat temperatures? Joe or Ron try using an AC & DC Non Contact Voltage Tester pen to find EM switches that aren't closing correctly by running the Non-Contact voltage tester pen on the EM wire it will detect the LINE BREAK by running up and down the wire its called an Insulation break test. A company called Heyiarbeit makes a Non-Contact Pen AC & DC modes for 12v to 250v plus does Insulation Break test. Try getting something like this to troubleshoot EM pinball games in the next videos because you PRESS the insulation break test mode and running it over the wire and relay contact switches to detect if its LINE or a BREAK. Its called "Inductance Breakpoint Test" you move the NCV sensor along the wire and leaf contacts until you find the BREAK

Ive had a Gotlieb Show Boat pinball machine from the 60s in the corner of our loft for quite some time. That just died all of a sudden. Thanks to this video I might be getting the nerve up to poke around and see if I can fix it. Thank you, looking forward to this series.

Ron, If you suspect residual voltage keeping the coil energized, hook up you multimeter and see if it registers AC or DC across the coil, there are a tone of inductors (coils with metal cores) all over the place and it may be stray current bleeding off all the other sources, I'd bet the coil drops out over night once all the stored magnetic flux fades. Or I am way off base but checking with a meter is how I would start my trouble shooting.

If I was looking over Ron's shoulder and hearing that buzz, I would have suggested that the buzz is coming from the sound board. Just to be mischievous!

A CRT degaussing ring works nicely to demagnetize relay armatures and coil cores. Check for burrs at the yoke / armature pivot points, and as others have suggested swap the spring or take off a couple turns.

120V through that door seems like a really dangerous implementation especially since that's where the coinbox and manuals are.

2 b... or... off of 2 b... or whatever.... That is the question? - Shakes-beer

Heh I was thinking replace that whole "hold" relay with a latching relay, so it's not burning up so easily, and either put an external "reset" button on the cabinet, or run that reset switch to something that will be triggered at end of game or on the kick switch.

Sounds like a 10 point target or roll over switch sticking as in a deformed plastic stops the switch from making and breaking.

Hello Joe's Arcade! I've used a degaussing coil to demag plates like this. Thanks for your great videos!

just kick the machine to turn it off instead of unplugging it (for it was set up to be turned off that way). then the switch will probably release.

I can't wait for a video on a old school pinball machine that hasn't been shown on the channel yet and is completely new to us get posted. I love seeing all the different styles, layouts, glass artwork, table art and all unique creations!

Swap it with the tilt relay - in theory, you should never energize that one

As Shango would say "its baked, BAKED"

Idk, that bounce switch sounds like a lot of fun, though...

That coil is “baked” (as Shango would say).

That is weird it pulled in and stayed pulled in

Is the metal that holds the coil magnetised?

Classic reverse engineering!

When you're trouble shooting, in my mind i try beating you to the cause of the problem, guess what buddy, you always win 😂. Awesome vid as always 👏👏

Tell George to let go of that coil! 😜

Yes the Bad Medicine reference once again. Jon would thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe that coil needs AC to work properly? Hmm.

Times they are a changing, great Seekers tune !