Stargate automatic ball launcher

[thewebexpert]

When multiball kicks in, there is a automatic ball launcher or kicker that pushes the ball up the right side "lane".

The actual pendulum piece was not working well, the metal was worn and a part that should not move, was moving, so I replaced that, however it still does not have enough power to constantly push the ball up the the ramp.

I hear that I can replace the coil with either a new one or a stronger one. Is there some kind of numbering that tells me how strong it is? Like for example the colour bands on resistors ... I just do not want to be randomly ordering parts that may not fix it.

Derek

 

[g-man]

Gottlieb has a stupid way of numbering their coils in that it doesn't appear to be related at all to the resistance or gauge of wire or number of windings.

The shooter lane kicker uses the same coil as those two crazy fast kickers, I believe, which is an A-19300. That basically means nothing because apparently this is a 25 gauge wire coil with 1075 turns and a resistance of 7.8 ohms. This is a pretty strong coil as indicated by the fairly low # of turns.

If you wanted a stronger coil, it looks like an A-21741 is a 23 gauge with only 575 turns, so it should be a rocket, but (a) I'm not sure what would need to be done in order to swap in a coil of such low resistance and (b) I'm not convinced that you have to.

If the 19300 coil used to be sufficient to launch the ball, why is it no longer ? Is the launcher itself so worn that it is not effective ? Coils really don't lose power...they either keep going or stop working altogether. As long as the coil stop, plunger, sleeve, etc are in good shape, the coil should just keep doing what it's been doing.

You could just call Steve Young at PBR and ask him your question. He would be able to tell you in about 0.3 seconds.

 

[thewebexpert]

Looks like I will do a quick rebuild too see if fixes it, will also check to make sure it is the right part. It has never worked 100 % since I got it ....

Sent from my GT-P7500 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

[tom_454]

I had similar issues with my No fear and Shadow when I first got them. In both cases changing the coil sleeve helped a little but didn't completely cure the problem. After pulling my hair out on No Fear I finally decided to cut/strip & resolder the wires to the lugs as the current ones looked "tired" (frayed wires/bent). Presto - everything worked great after that. I did the same thing when I had the issue with my Shadow and it worked once again.

Good Luck.

 

[thewebexpert]

so you did not replace the actual coil? Just resolder the wires and replace the sleeve?

 

[tom_454]

so you did not replace the actual coil? Just resolder the wires and replace the sleeve?

That is correct. I did not replace the coil.