Arcade Collecting > Pinball
Demo Man Cryoclaw Issues
pinballwizard79:
Thats a bummer Flake.
I wish there was something I could do to help man but IMHO if "the guy" fixing your machine is at his limit of patience maybe a refund is the safest route for you.
Then again you are right, machines are not flying out the door at cheap prices (much less loaded with LED's & somehow including return policies & pretty much accidentally free house calls:-)................Thats not something you will find anywhere else that's for sure.
I dont know much but maybe there is some kind of optical board at fault which these optical switches go to prior to the CPU, sound, light & etc boards?
That sounds like a semi costly but quick fix..........maybe the guy has identical boards from the same machine to temporarily swap with yours to see if thats the issue?????
Either way for some reason problems & pinballs travel together.
Flake:
Well "the guy" I think has swapped out boards as part of his trouble-shooting procedures so I dont believe thats the issue either.
I'm not certain yet but I really am leaning towards just keeping it. The game is actually still fun to play with the claw turned off. I suppose I could keep it turned off while trouble shooting the claw problem......my initiation ceremony into pinball if you will.
One nice thing is, it seems to be such a common problem there is lots of lots of threads on RGP about it. Maybe something there will help as well as the info posted here. I have already gathered quite of bit of information that has given me what is sure to be a wildly misplaced sense of self-confidence in my ability to eventually fix the problem.
Flake:
One more tidbit - upon game start, the elevator is supposed to go up and down and the claw is supposed to cycle right and then left. This isnt happening so even at the start of game play prior to any ball launch an issue exist. The guy has rebuilt a new elevator from other demo man parts and has cleaned the optos. Also instead of reflowing the solder points he pigtailed the wires directly to the opto board. This "fixed" the problem up until the point he brought it to my house then it craps out after two games. The seller is of the opinion that if the elevator doesnt cycle up and down upon game start the claw wont work from that point on.
So is the opto bad? If so how expensive is this to replace?
Flake:
Well my lame ass opinion is that something actually wrong with the claw itself, not the elevator. Upon game start up the claw should cycle right, elevator pops up, then the claw should cycle left. Upon start up the claw nudges right a very short distance but then stops. So it never makes it to the elevator and from that point on the claw doesnt work in the game. If, upon start up, the claw does a complete cycle like it should, then the claw works for one time then goes back to its problem.
So this leads me to believe (based on reading posts about this at RGP) that the optos under the claw itself either need cleaned or replaced. The problem with this is to access these optos you apparently have to remove all the ramps. I found a decent DM shop guide on RGP that outlines the ramp removal steps........but who knows if I'm up to the task.....
This has to be the problem, the seller has completely rebuilt the elevator and based on what is happening, it seems to be something wrong with the claw itself.
PBJ - I understand what your saying and I think this is something I could do. I did a switch edge test last night on the opto by the elevator and it works and I even cleaned it with a windexed Q-tip. That opto seems to be working just fine. So it has to be an opto in the claw right?? right??
pinballwizard79:
One day the dino on my Jurassic Park started missing the ball. Turns out it wasnt the up/down motor, the jaw or the entire dino at all.
It was the left/right motor, well the gears to be exact.
Over time the gears wore & became sloppy & when a moving pinball toy has just an inch of slack that can cause problems for working with a ball of the same size equal to its margin of error.
So long story short...................if there are gears maybe they are stripped?
Then again was that something you said was rebuilt?
BTW this is a weird problem indeed.
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