Jungle Lord - Ball wont pop into plunger area

[vertygo]

Love it, played it alot last night, but this morning the ball(s) won't pop up in front of the plunger. I don't really know all the terminology yet, so I apologize. But basically the plunger area is empty, there is a ball in the recessed area directly beside it, and the other ball is sitting behind that.

I gather that the game thinks there is a ball in play, but even if I take the ball out and start, it wont pop the next ball into the plunger area after the current one drains.

Jungle Lord is a System 7 pin if that makes any difference.

IPDB Link

Also, what are the 3 AA batteries for ?

Cheers

[SirPeale]

The batteries are for saving settings.

Check the switch on the ball drain, make sure it registers.  In fact, it's a good idea to check all your switches to see if they're operating correctly.

[vertygo]

How would I test them ?

Also, I want more power in the flippers, should I get a specific Jungle Lord flipper rebuild kit ?

[ChadTower]

If you're going to rebuild the flippers you want two of these.

[smartbomb2084]

Your shooter lane delivery problem could also be solenoid related.  As far as testing switches and solenoids go, it is explained in detail in the operations manual and/or operator's handbook.  If you don't have them you can download them from IPDB.  The three AA batteries need to be changed immediately, unless you have already done so, or know how old they are.  Better yet the batteries should be removed from the CPU board and relocated with a remote battery holder so if they leak no board damage will occur.  If you want to rebuild your flippers don't buy the kit from the previous post.  Your flipper bases have non-removeable coil stops.  you need to buy newer style bases and the coinciding rebuild kit so you can get new coil stops with the kit.  Just as I have done with my FIREPOWER.

[smartbomb2084]

I disagree with the previous post.  I work for an operator in the coin-op business and  I have changed many flipper plungers and links along with coil stops on Williams' flippers and have ALWAYS had more than a little incremental bump in performance.  Even with a clean coil sleeve if the punger has mushroomed it will drag inside the coil and cause friction weakening the flipper.

[vertygo]

smartbomb2084: do you have a link or recommendation for a replacement coil assembly ?

[ChadTower]

If you want to rebuild your flippers don't buy the kit from the previous post.  Your flipper bases have non-removeable coil stops.

Sys6 and 7 pins had differing flipper mechs depending on whatever Williams had on hand at the assembly line that day.  There's no way you can know which he has without looking at the machine.  I've worked on a bunch of Sys7s and it seems to be about half and half which machines got which mechs.  My Laser Cue has all removable coil stops - my Black Knight has about 75% removable stops.  My Jungle Lord has mostly fixed coil stops.

[ChadTower]

Even with a clean coil sleeve if the punger has mushroomed it will drag inside the coil and cause friction weakening the flipper.

Anything else will just be an incremental bump unless there's a physical problem.

A mushroomed plunger is a physical problem.

I rebuild all of my flippers on anything older than a DMD machine.  I take the DMD machines on a case by case basis but anything before that usually has enough wear in the linkages and pitting in the EOS switch that it really does make a difference.  Plus most of the older machines I've done have had broken bushings, so if you're going to do those three things, may as well just start over and rebuild.

[smartbomb2084]

I rebuild the flippers on EVERY game.  On WPC games usually all that needs replaced are the flipper plungers/links and the coil stops.  The parts are cheap enough and everybody wants strong responsive flippers.  Without them you might as well play an EM six-card bingo game.  As for not  'knowing' what kind of flippers he has, you did the exact thing that you are calling me out for.  That PinballLife kit you linked doesn't have coil stops in it. Why is that?  It is because maybe all these games came from the factory with the coil stops attached to the base plates? It wasn't untill FIREPOWER II that things changed. If this game has the original flippers it probably has SEVERAL physical problems.  But hey, we arent trying to aggravate anyboby, we are all friends here and good pinball people too----right?

http://www.pbresource.com/   The Pinball Resource will help you out with the specifics. Just give them a call during business hours (9-5 EST I believe). They don't have a toll free number so use your cell phone if you have to. ( 845 ) 473-7114  Just tell them you have a JUNGLE LORD with non-removeable coil stops, if that is truly the case maybe they were changed, and you want to rebuild the flippers and convert them to assemblies with removeable ones.  It may help if you can call them with the game nearby in case they ask you some questions.

CHEERS!

[vertygo]

You guys have been really helpful, I really appreciate it. Definitely going to attempt to fix/break/repair again this pinball machine.

Thanks!

[vertygo]

Well, I looked really closely at the coils, etc. and compared them to each other and to pics of new ones online, and they look really used (obviously), but to the point of replacing imho. Springs are completely warped, and almost look droopy.

The original question of getting the ball to pop into the plunger area seems to be the leaf type switch at the drain area. I think the contacts are dirty or something cause if I hold it manually, seems to work, and work more consistently afterwards. Will continue to poke and prod randomly..

[vertygo]

I don't agree, there is definitely a power issue between the two flippers. One side can't push the ball to the second level, and the other side can but barely. The reason I mentioned the springs is just to point out the lack of maintenance and general age of the parts in question.

[SirPeale]

Have you disassembled the assembly yet to see if it's mushroomed?  If it has then it will have serious drag.

[vertygo]

Yay, me again.. replaced the batteries in my jungle lord while the machine was off, now it only boots up with 00 00 in the display, is that Audit Mode ?

Tried the open door, on off a few times quickly trick, didn't work.

Is it time to replace the 5101 CMOS RAM chip ? From what I tried finding out myself (before posting here) that seems the most reasonable fix.

Sheesh, and I thought owning one of these beasts would be FUN.. 

Thanks

[smartbomb2084]

Did you install the batteries correctly---with all of the '+' ends to the right?  They are not alternated like most battery powered devices.  As for the zeroes in you display, are all of the displays showing all zeroes?  If your game is booting up in bookeeping mode then the player one display should have a 4 digit game number in it and the rest of the player displays should be blank.  The credit display should show '04' and the ball in play display should show '00'. 

Did you try adjusting the bookeeping total and game adjustments with the coin door buttons as described in the manual?

Half the fun of owning a pinball is fixing it.  They are like old used cars.   They can break down anytime.

[vertygo]

Yes, batteries installed properly (first thing I checked).

Nope, it's definitely 00 00 in the credit / ball displays and 00 player 1 display. Players 1 - 4 also blink 2,000,000 (with player 1 being the only one that alternates to 00)

I did try manually changing the settings (ie, restore factory defaults) which displayed fine, but didn't make any difference to the boot up. Also did the light/sound tests fine.

This being my first, it's a little frustrating, but you're right about it being fun. I didn't even know there was "settings" to a pinball machine.

Cheers!

[smartbomb2084]

I don't know, call me stupid but I'm not 100% convinced this game is booting up in audit mode. When you tried the on/off trick, which is something I hate doing, did you do it with the coin door open?  It must be done that way so the coin door interlock switch is open.   Check to see if you loosened a ribbon cable on the display driver board.  This can cause weird display information.  If this game is booting up in audit mode why aren't we getting a 503 and the flipper ROM number in the player one display?  Can you play the game?  Are the playfield feature lamps strobing like in attract mode or are just a few of them locked on?  Changing the batteries in the original battery holder can be a nightmare as they are really stuck in there and you end up flexing the board a lot which can cause chips mounted in the crappy sockets they used to become intermittent.  Are you sure you didn't damage the battery holder in the process?

[vertygo]

I don't know, call me stupid but I'm not 100% convinced this game is booting up in audit mode. When you tried the on/off trick, which is something I hate doing, did you do it with the coin door open?  It must be done that way so the coin door interlock switch is open. 

Yes.

Can you play the game? 

I did get the flippers to work, but I don't know how, and for the moment they are unresponsive.

Are the playfield feature lamps strobing like in attract mode or are just a few of them locked on? 

Strobing.

Are you sure you didn't damage the battery holder in the process?

I'd like to say for sure I didn't damage the holder, but obviously something is going on so it's a possibility. I was surprised at how stuck they were in there, and I was extra careful pulling them out. Made sure not to bed the battery holder, didn't put my other hand against anything, etc.

Is it possible that these errors would be from it not registering that there are any batteries there ? If so, maybe it's the batter contacts on the harness (batteries themselves were brand new out of package, fyi)

[vertygo]

Ok, Just to add some info, if I manually advance we get:

2503 2

  04 00

and the flippers work.

I'll try unplugging and replugging everything the connections later tonight.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions, btw. Really appreciate it.

[johnpurs]

The battery holders on these Williams games are junk system 3 - early WPC. The contacts usually fall apart when you remove and replace the batteries. This will happen even with no corrosion. I usually get a 4 position battery holder and solder  in a diode the input slot blocking the charging voltage from the alkaline batteries. As described http://www.pinrepair.com/sys37/index1.htm#battery here. Then extend the wires from the holder so you can put the battery holder in the bottom of the backbox or something. Put some kind of inline connector so you can remove the cpu or use alligator clips to hook to the old battery holder.

Also for your original problems The ball not kicking out is usually just a switch. You can clean the leaf contacts with a business card. Then adjust them slightly and it will work fine.

For the flippers I agree about actually changing out the base plates so you can have a removable coil stop. No need to replace a coil unless you can't get the sleeve out. The other rebuild parts are worth buying. You may want to replace or clean the Flipper EOS switches. You can clean them with a contact file as they are high voltage contacts. Also make sure the cabinet flipper button contacts are nice and clean as well. A file will do fine there too. Cleaning those switches could make a difference in flipper power. Also make sure the eos switches are not opening until they really are at the end of the stroke.

Note the flipper switches and EOS switches are the only ones on that game you would clean with a file. The rest can be cleaned with a business card or piece of scrap cardboard.

[smartbomb2084]

2503 2

04 00 

AHA!!!    NOW we are in audit mode!!! 

We have working flippers and no strobing feature lamps.  If you have strobing feature lamps then the game is in ATTRACT mode.  The reason you can't play it is because of your original problem of the game not recognizing one of the balls in the ball trough.  The game needs to know that both balls are in there in order to start.  Remove the balls from the game.   Remove the apron ( the metal covering that holds the instruction and pricing cards at the bottom of the playfield that covers the middle 'drain' ) and put the game in switch test as per the instructions in the manual.  Touch any playfield switch and you should see its switch matrix number in the credit/match display.  Now put the balls in the trough one at a time and see if the switches are recognized by the CPU.  The ball trough switches go out of adjustment frequently on these older Williams' games because the ball drains down the middle often with a lot of force bending the leaf blades apart over time.

[ChadTower]

You torqued the board when you took the batteries out and broke a connection somewhere.
...
Unscrew the MPU and driver board and disconnect and reconnect them (there's a 40 pin connector that interlocks them together).

Very likely in that interboard connector.  If he hasn't at least reflowed everything there this game is going to be one hard to diagnose issue after another.  The interboard connector on these era Williams games is trouble every single time.  I usually tear it out entirely and put in a new one but often just cleaning up and reflowing all of the solder points will do a good enough job to make it mostly reliable.

[smartbomb2084]

Yeah, he PUT it in audit mode.   The game didn't BOOT UP in audit mode.  Reading the thread helps.

[vertygo]

Just for update / archiving reasons, this is what I've found out.

Because the lights are doing their display mode thing AND I can run through the tests (sound, etc) that eliminates the cpu/cmos issues for the most part.

The advice I got from my not-so-local shop that I drove to today, was that the ball not popping into the plunger area was related to my boot up issues. A ball switch wasn't closing for a yet-to-be-determined reason (probably dirt, maybe a frayed wire, etc). So I will try that route.

Basically, it seems like it's coming down to a cleaning issue. (Oh wait, didn't everyone suggest that in one way or another ? damn n00bz never listen)

[ChadTower]

Did you check the interboard connector as jim suggested?  If that is crappy you'll be chasing issues forever.  That's not an optional fix on a Sys7.  It's one of the very first things that needs to be done.

[Will Repair]

...the ball(s) won't pop up in front of the plunger.

Did then solenoid try to kick the ball?  If not check the switches. If the switches work check the solenoid.  A jumper wire from the driver transistor collector to ground will check the coil.

...  the plunger area is empty, there is a ball in the recessed area directly beside it, and the other ball is sitting behind that. I gather that the game thinks there is a ball in play, but even if I take the ball out and start, it wont pop the next ball into the plunger area after the current one drains.

Make sure all the balls are in the trough and one isn't stuck in the playfield.

As for the other topics raised in this thread...

A 6 inch bastard file can be used to un-mushroom the plunger and coil stops.

A weak flipper usually only means that only the holding coil is working.

After changing the batteries the pinball boots into audit mode.  Cycle through the audit mode and the pinball will boot normally.