9 Feb 2010

Called Stern about Magnet

Still using the same fuse for the ring magnet after swapping to a 5A SB.
Decided today to go back and try a 4A SB again today Now it can't even do a "grab and drop", will blow that if the ball is coming up the ramp at speed.
Tried a 5A Fast (normal fuse) again and it does "grab and drop" over and over and even could "grab and throw"- but blows while playing a game.


Enjoying the game too much to lose the magnet feature, so put back the original 5A SB which works.

No permanent damage to the game has appeared so far. But I decided to call Stern technical support 1-800-kickers when they open around 9am.
Told Stern the problem with the specified 4A SB fuse rating. That I thought the switches were all good and working in test mode.
To my amazement, Stern said they hadn't heard of this fuse problem. I know my distributor already said he emailed about it. They got me to:
  • Start a game, test the magnet with a ball, by holding it just outside the ring on my palm and spinning the spinner with my other hand.
  • Banged on the playfield to see if any switches were causing the magnet to fire at the wrong time. That looked OK to me.
  • Measure the voltages on a few of the transistor tabs for HV coils which was about 73-74v DC. That's OK (when no load)
  • Measure the resistance of the coil at the backboard with my best DMM, I got about 3.3 ohms they said it should read 2.9 but it's near enough.
    With the black and read DMM leads touching together, the DMM should say 0 ohms. It showed a few tenths of an ohm, maybe 0.2 ohms.
    So I need to test this again after replacing the DMM battery.
After gathering the facts Stern said they would "do some research and get back to me". Had a discussion that you can't use ohms law to calculate the fuse current, as the coil is pulsed by switching the transistor on and off quickly (PCM).

If I had to guess, I'd still say 4A SB is under rated for the application.

1 comment:

  1. Once again, your blog came to the rescue in my very first week with my new LOTR machine. Today I noticed the ring had stopped grabbing the ball, but it was still starting the modes correctly.

    After reading these posts, I opened my backbox (for the first time) and checked the fuses. Sure enough, fuse F7 was blown. Took a quick trip over to Ace Hardware and picked up a 5A SB (plus a spare, just in case), and the ring is back in action again.

    Hopefully that's the last kink that needed to be ironed out, and now I can focus on destroying that ring!

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