Slamtilt on tournament games

This is what happens when you don’t have the office of Adam Lefkoff representing you in a malfunction ruling!

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Actually… Unless it’s a Gottlieb (which I’m less familiar with and I can’t download the manual), DE/Sega/Stern all had 0-1 slam tilt switches, and Williams/Bally all had 1.

Both Stern and JJP currently do not ship with slam switches, at least that was the case awhile ago.

Stern hasn’t had them since around RCT, I remember because it makes game dev way more irritating.

Ah yes. It got much better with the 4-button door because at least then you can go enter-exit instead of having to do enter-enter-left-enter. :wink:

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Wpc uses one on coin door and one next to cash box all the way through CC

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The switch isn’t there, but SAM games support slam tilt. The labeled two wire connector is on the inside of the coin door. It works (with a switch installed), gives a dull buzz and reads slam tilt on the display. It’s a dedicated switch, as is the tilt bob switch. Not sure about Spike games.

Some System 11’s have a slam tilt switch on (under) the playfield (Big Guns, Earthshaker), and some don’t (Taxi). The only slam tilt switch that is relatively easy to permanently defeat that I know of is Gottlieb System 1’s. Remove a jumper on the CPU board, or something like that. Otherwise, with the amount of games Papa has, that’s gonna be a lot of work.

Our local Stern Kiss has a slam tilt switch on the coin door. I know because a player recently wanted to turn up the volume during a league match and slammed when he closed the door (which he didn’t do violently).

Edit- It was not added by the operator.

Huh, funny, it’s not listed in any of the manuals I looked in.

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I will say one last thing this, if normal nudging causes the game to slam tilt, it’s simply not right.

By the way you are right on one thing, WPC games have a small slamtilt to the left if the coinbox, I forgot that one because they are always bent out of shape and nonworking.
but on the other hand, modern Sterngames don’t have any slamswitches at all, making them great tournament games.

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I wasn’t doubting you, I was just surprised it wasn’t in the manual!

They are in the manual. Slam tilt is in regular switch matrix, column 2, row 1 for most all WPC games. Were you looking at dedicated switches?

ONE slam tilt is. Obviously if there is more than one, they are wired together. But there doesn’t seem to be actual mention of the cabinet one (no drawing or anything). DE/Sega/Sterns that I looked at have a drawing for the slam switch on the coin door.

Seems like coin door and cabinet parts documentation has been hit and miss for most manufacturers. The only hit on ‘slam’ for all WPC BOMs is a switch and cable for SC. I always assumed it was because the cabs were built elsewhere, and things like the coin door (and maybe cab slam tilt) were part of a complete cabinet assembly.

The one on the door causes the vast majority of the problems. People figure out to bend the contacts away from each other on the big one in the lower cab, but the door switch gets missed. It’s a smaller switch (easier to miss) and people don’t want a switch blade sticking out when they open the coin door. I’ve seen it a few times on customer’s games. Never a problem with the lower cab switch.

Gottliebs coin door ones are normally closed. Much more fun!

Slam Tilt switches are dialed this year for Pinburgh!

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+1

AWW YEAH

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Oh dear. I’ll have to start nudging less than usual.

I’m a bit late to this, but it looks like you didn’t get an answer yet so I’ll try to help (especially since I haven’t got anything to contribute to the main thread!). The slam tilt sensor is indeed a different mechanism from the tilt. It punishes serious abuse of the game by (in a modern game, at least) rebooting the machine, ending the game in progress (for all players). Since this is obviously a very disruptive thing to happen in competition, tournaments and leagues usually hand an automatic loss (or a zero score) to the person who slam tilted.

When the slam tilt is working correctly (i.e. not too sensitive), it shouldn’t happen from normal nudging, even a hard nudge or an epic slide. It won’t even normally happen from a death save. Banging the coin box or picking up and dropping the front end of the game are good ways to get one.

The most common slam tilt sensor is basically a metal V that’s a bit springy. When the cabinet is banged hard enough, the ends of the V close, causing a slam tilt. If the two ends are too close together, or if the coin door (a common spot for the sensor) is loose, it can be too easy to close the switch. A tournament director may have to make a call about whether the slam tilt is working as expected, which, as you can see from this discussion, can be contentious.

I’m definitely not a pro, nor do I know much about pinball machine mechanics, so I’m sure one of the whiz kids around here will correct anything I got wrong!

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