Hello, again!

Last night I finally had an hour to do some more work on the pinball game.

The first order of business was to objectively test the strength of the solenoids with the original cores, and with the newer, seemingly stronger cores that I had found at the surplus store.

I put together a simple ramp with holes drilled into it to fit the flipper assembly, a post, and the flipper stop. I had to slightly trim one of the flipper linkages to fit the new core (the notch is a tiny bit narrower and shallower then the original), then tested them one after the other.

I first tried flipping a pinball, but I wasn't able to get reproducable measurements. The ramp was at a significant angle, and the flippers weren't up to the task of lifting it reliably. On top of that, as you could guess, the position of the ball on the flipper made a huge difference in height. I needed something I could repeatedly test, place in a consistent starting position, and measure.

I decided to use one of the lenses, and it worked beautifully. I could place it on the same spot on the flipper, and measure how high it went each time. My measurements are showing me that the new core is about 50% stronger than the old, within the original solenoids. This is definitely the way I'm going to go forward, and I'll replace all of the cores (flippers, slingshots, and bumpers) with these new cores. I should get some good movement out of the ball now!



I also wanted to show the scale of the iCoaster pieces, so I placed a ramp and the "elevator" on the POTC graywood to show what is possible...

I have a lot of layout work to do, which I can hopefully get to this weekend. I'll update again, soon!

Larry