Today the scoop on our Tron started acting weird. When a ball went in there nothing would score, and no lit features would activate, but the ball would immediately get kicked out, so the game obviously knew the ball was in there. Occasionally the lit features would score, maybe 20% of the time, but mostly not. I had previously seen this on two or three Metallicas, and always assumed it was a software issue specific to that game. Now having seen it on our Tron, I am guessing that’s not the case. Anyone know what this is? I checked in switch test and the switch is not stuck on or anything.
Saw it on a Metallica too. Less than 1/3 shots would reward mystery/eb/ciu.
For whatever reason, Metallica got a bunch of mis-adjusted scoop switches right out of the box. I fixed two (one pro, one premium) at the Marco booth at CAX before the launch party tourney. Apparently right around then Stern got a new scoop guy on the line. Don’t think it was bad switches. Adjusted both and they were fine for the rest of the weekend.
MET and Tron may use the same scoop switch, which isn’t the dreaded forked switch TSPP, Ripleys and LOTR uses. Those are horrible. Scoop switches take a lot of abuse and dirt. You can try blowing it out with compressed air to see if that helps. First though, order two more of those switches. They’re cheap and very important. If the compressed air doesn’t help, you can try a factory reset before the new switch arrives.
I just had to change the forked vari-target trough switch on my Ripleys. Very frustrating when it goes bad as the vari-target scoop starts modes. Ball search eventually kicks it out and you can only start one mode from the lower scoop.
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Replace the switch! I’ve had a couple of these with the same symptom…work great in test mode too…but still a flakey switch.
I had the exact same issue with tron right out of the box. A small switch adjustment and I haven’t had an issue since.
So I noticed that in switch test, when I put a ball in the scoop, the switch would activate very quickly, then deactivate. Looking at how the ball rested in the scoop, I noticed that it would pass the ‘high’ point on the switch and when it came to rest, the switch was sitting almost entirely on the other side of the ball. What I ended up doing rather than bending up the switch was to slightly bend the end of the scoop inward so that the ball at rest would sit a little higher up on the switch. Worked like a charm. I really hate getting into bending switches too much, it always just seems to end in pain.
Stern service bulletin:
http://www.sternpinball.com/service-bulletins/service-bulletin-186-scoop-switch-adjustment
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