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Pop Bumper Assembly Basics

Jersey Jack Pinball·video·25m 13s·analyzed·Jan 16, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.019

TL;DR

Jersey Jack technical guide on pop bumper assembly maintenance and alignment.

Summary

Butch Field of Jersey Jack Pinball provides a comprehensive technical walkthrough of pop bumper assembly maintenance, adjustment, and troubleshooting. The video covers switch alignment, coil safety, gap adjustment, common failure modes, and preventive maintenance practices using a functional Plexiglas demonstration unit connected to a Wizard of Oz machine.

Key Claims

  • Pop bumper coil lugs carry 70 volts when power is on and coin door is closed

    high confidence · Butch Field, safety warning at beginning of video

  • The actuator must be centered in the switch spoon for proper pop bumper function in all directions

    high confidence · Butch Field, repeated throughout video as central technical principle

  • Pop bumper switches can be tested for centeredness by pushing/pulling on the spoon to detect movement of the actuator

    high confidence · Butch Field, demonstrated with misaligned example

  • Wire breakage is the most common pop bumper failure (9 out of 10 times) due to vibration from repeated kicks

    medium confidence · Butch Field, general statement about failure patterns

  • Modern Jersey Jack games detect stuck-closed pop bumper switches and report error messages at power-up

    high confidence · Butch Field, demonstrated on Wizard of Oz machine

  • Pop bumper bodies and skirts can break if the mechanism stops working and can't 'defend itself' against ball impacts

    high confidence · Butch Field, explained as consequence of non-functional switch or coil

  • Sheet metal screws used on pop bumper caps should be backed off (reverse clicked) before going forward to avoid cross-threading plastic

    high confidence · Butch Field, demonstrated technique with verbal click confirmation

  • Over-tightening lock nuts on pop bumper mounting can pull screw nails through the playfield and damage the top surface

    high confidence · Butch Field, warned as 'very very bad thing'

Notable Quotes

  • “if you touch that you will know it anybody helping you gets up against there the knuckle anything will get a good shock there”

    Butch Field@ 1:22 — Safety warning about high-voltage coil lugs

  • “it's very very important that it right there in the center of that spoon”

    Butch Field@ 3:31 — Central technical principle repeated multiple times

  • “one pop bumper kicks the ball and it knocks it into another pop bumper that pop member kicks it back towards the other pop bumper if these pop bumpers any one of them stops working I like to say it can't protect itself or can't defend itself anymore”

    Butch Field@ 14:18 — Explains cascading failure mechanism and why all bumpers must work

  • “pop bumper is a very very violent mechanism again kind of like a flipper there's a lot of vibration in the mechanism underneath the playfield”

    Butch Field@ 13:15 — Explains root cause of wire breakage failures

  • “whenever you're either tightening or loosening these three lock nuts no upward pressure through the play field”

    Butch Field@ 21:50 — Critical safety/quality principle to prevent playfield damage

Entities

Butch FieldpersonJersey Jack PinballcompanyWizard of Ozgame

Signals

  • ?

    design_innovation: Jersey Jack pop bumper design allows centerline-aligned switch-to-actuator coupling with adjustable sensitivity; coil mounting and ring-rod assembly architecture

    high · Detailed technical walkthrough of Jersey Jack specific assembly methods and parts

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Jersey Jack uses 6-32 lock nuts, sheet metal screws with threaded plastic bosses, screw nails with fin shanks for playfield mounting, and specific tightening protocols

    high · Repeated references to specific fastener types and detailed tightening procedures

  • ?

    product_concern: Pop bumper wire breakage due to vibration is the dominant failure mode; requires periodic inspection and replacement

    high · Butch Field states '9 times out of 10' failure is wire breakage, and emphasizes need for constant monitoring

  • ?

    technology_signal: Jersey Jack games include switch fault detection that reports stuck-closed pop bumper switches at power-up

    high · Demonstrated on Wizard of Oz machine; contrasted with older Williams games

  • ?

    operational_signal: Detailed preventive maintenance procedures for pop bumper systems including switch gap adjustment, coil mounting verification, lock nut inspection, and wire routing checks

    high · Entire second half of video dedicated to inspection and maintenance checklist

  • ?

Topics

Pop bumper assembly mechanicsprimarySwitch alignment and adjustmentprimaryMaintenance and preventive careprimarySafety procedures (high voltage, moving parts)primaryCommon failure modes and diagnosisprimaryTechnical specifications (voltage, fasteners, tolerances)secondaryParts replacement and wearsecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.85)— Educational and helpful tone; presenter is patient, thorough, and experienced. Focus on practical problem-solving and safety. No criticism of competitor products or games.

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

0:11
[Music] welcome back football fans butch field of Jersey Jack pinball I'm going to continue our look in detail at some of the more common play field assemblies in pinball today's focus will be the pop bumper assembly there's four of them on this Wizard of Oz game let's not waste any more time looking at my face let's start talking some pinball here we have a pop bumper assembly demonstration device that I put together using a piece of Plexiglas as the playfield and of course many of our parts it's completely wired into my Wizard of Oz pinball
0:42
wired into my Wizard of Oz pinball machine so the coil is connected as well as the switch that activates it so it's fully functional this is what the assembly looks like from the underside see I can trigger it again here a quick word of caution when you're working underneath the play field and the game's power is on and the coin door is closed these coils will all be energized the high voltage is turned on so in this
1:12
high voltage is turned on so in this particular assembly you need to watch out for these two lugs here if they both have 70 volts on them so you touch that you will know it anybody helping you gets up against there the knuckle anything will get a good shock there so you've got to be really careful the switches on the other hand are low-voltage so you can touch the blades in the contacts and all that however there's a biting type of of danger also if you close the switch this activates
1:43

design_philosophy: Jersey Jack pop bumper design emphasizes replaceable individual components (single rods, plastic bodies, skirts) rather than complete assembly replacement

high · Butch Field notes 'nice about the Jersey jack part is that you can just replace one piece' when ring and rod assembly breaks

  • ?

    content_signal: Jersey Jack producing detailed technical maintenance videos as educational content for operators and collectors

    high · This is professional production video from Jersey Jack channel with 35+ minutes of detailed technical instruction

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Standardized adjustment methodology using Plexiglas playfield for visibility, switch adjuster tools, business cards for gap visualization, and parallel viewing angle for precision alignment

    high · Multiple specific techniques demonstrated for achieving and verifying proper switch alignment

    • if you close the switch this activates some of these switch activated assemblies like a pop bumper is the thing will kick it's going to kick it's gonna kick just like a ball hit it and if your finger gets in between there you can get smashed pretty good so again be careful with the power on the two lugs be careful with activating devices you know interrupting op those things like that with your fingers that make trigger and device to kick you can smash your finger pretty good so just as a general rule it's better to work on your game under the with the power off unless you absolutely
    2:15
    with the power off unless you absolutely need to use power to test something so just keep that in mind pop up her adjustments deal exclusively with the switch that activates the pop bumper I'm gonna zoom in a little bit here where the switch and bracket is mounted on the playfield and how well it's aligned with the actuator that's coming through the playfield on the skirt is very important that's one point of adjustment and the other is the
    2:45
    of adjustment and the other is the sensitivity of the switch itself that is how close the blades are together how well they're gapped the key parts and mounting of pop Mumper switch correctly and aligning it properly are shown here the pop bumper skirt which sits on top of the playfield goes through the pop upper body and base through the playfield sticks out the bottom and the actuator for the switch which is on the very end of it here that needs to ride exactly in
    3:17
    of it here that needs to ride exactly in this pop bumper switch spoon so it needs to fit right in the center of that not up on the edge not in anywhere around the outside of this right down in the center it's very very important that it right there so how you get it there is you attach this top bumper switch using the two holes in the playfield and it has oval tight mounting holes so there's some freedom to move it around and twist it and do those sorts of things so that this will be held in
    3:49
    things so that this will be held in place by the pop bumper body and screws and springs and everything that they go through the playfield and this switch then you need to bring it up there and put it directly in the center of that spoon as you mount the two screws and tighten them down firmly you could kind of see through the spoon there that it's kind of translucent so you can see when that actuator is not in the center now it's in the center so you're gonna have to move this around adjust it tighten it
    4:22
    to move this around adjust it tighten it check it do one screw at a time I usually start with this closest to the actuator screw it down get it pretty snug then snug the back screw check my alignment and then go back to the front screw tighten it a little more back screw and go back and forth like that making sure that the spoon doesn't travel or twist or move and get off of that actuator it needs to be right in the center that's very important so if we look at the underside
    4:53
    important so if we look at the underside of the assembly and I zoom in just a little bit here on the switch you'll be able to see how well that spoon is centered on the actuator coming through the playfield from the pot bumper skirt I back out again you can see what's going on here as the ball comes in pushes against the skirt it forces that
    5:24
    pushes against the skirt it forces that actuator uphill a little bit inside that spoon and that actually causes the switch to close and it doesn't matter what direction the ball comes from as long as that actuator is in the direct center of that spoon so ball hits pushes closes the switch tells the computer fire the pot bumper there's a ball sitting on the skirt right now it kicks pulls the plunger in here and this makes
    5:57
    pulls the plunger in here and this makes contact with the ball forces it against the top surface of the play field and kicks it away from the pop-up er the real advantage of a Plexiglas play field to show you what's going on here and I zoom in a bit see the actuator on the spoon now the ball can come from any directions don't think effect if i zoom in real tight on
    6:30
    think effect if i zoom in real tight on the profile of the switch itself you see that how well that's gapped determines the sensitivity that is how far this poplin poor skirt has to be pushed off of the center of the spoon there for the actuator to make contact with the two blades and that's which gap can be set extremely small so that the polymer is very sensitive and it'll work well from all directions so long again as that
    7:03
    all directions so long again as that actuator is in the dead center of that spoon and held in place firmly another important point to make while I'm in really tight on the switch here is you don't want any gap whatsoever between this blade and that spoon actuator you see how that touches the back of the spoon that's critical if there becomes a gap in there and you start trying to adjust your gap your switch where it's not touching the spoon then the spoon doesn't move enough to hit that blade
    7:35
    doesn't move enough to hit that blade and your pop bumper is still very weak doesn't react very well to the switch very very important that that blade touched the back of that and then that you gap using like we did with our flipper cabinets which this stiffener here to adjust our gap never adjust this blade right here it should always be right next to the back of that spoon this is your adjustment and you don't bend the blade the blade has got positive pressure back against the
    8:06
    positive pressure back against the stiffener and you use your switch adjuster to adjust the stiffener and thereby change the gap so a good way to avoid that gap occurring between the bottom blade of my switch and my spoon is to use my switch adjuster when I go to put a new switch on and I bend near the stack again just slightly downward so they make sure that that bottom blade is contacting this spoon and when I add this to the
    8:41
    this spoon and when I add this to the bottom of the playfield it's going to push against the bottom of the actuator part of the skirt and it's gonna push that gap closed even more and then I'll make my adjustment using the stiffener up there want to make sure I have a good positive pressure though between that bottom blade and the spoon so when I'm adjusting my pop bumper switches I like to lean my playfield up against the back box and get alongside the game so I'm
    9:11
    box and get alongside the game so I'm looking parallel to the back surface of the play field and then I kind of get where I can see both of the blades on my pop-up or switch like I'm looking here and maybe get something like find something in the background that's white or maybe put a business card in here and make it a little easier to track that gap as I'm changing it so just anything you can do to get where you can look at both of the blades perfectly in parallel and find something light in the
    9:43
    and find something light in the background between them so that you can see the gap a little better really helps a lot I've got everything plugged back in again all the wires for the switcher connected again so I'm going to zoom out a little bit here and show you how little movement off of perfectly vertical with that actuator it doesn't take much salt to trigger that pop bumper in any dress now if you get
    10:15
    pop bumper in any dress now if you get your pop bump or switch gapped too tightly and it's stuck closed the game knows that you notice when I hold down the actuator the pop bumper kicks once and stops even though the switch is still closed right now it takes another opening and closing of the switch to reach RIT so your game won't sit there and locked on like some of the old Williams games used to if that pop bumper switches stuck closed and you'll get a notification in your error messages when
    10:47
    notification in your error messages when you power your game up telling you to check that switch because it's stuck closed now I know what you're thinking I'm sound like a broken record here telling you you've got to get that actuator right in the center of that spoon in order for your pop bumper to work well and you you're saying yeah I got it I got it you know if you don't have to tell me anymore but that's kind of hard to see under there butch how in the heck do I see where that actuator is how can I tell if it's right in the middle there when I'm working on a real
    11:17
    middle there when I'm working on a real play field here not your plexiglass toy here well there are a couple of tricks that you can use to see if it's centered in fact one of them is to push on the spoon itself like I'm doing right here push down on this back of the switch and the spoon and if you see the actuator move to one side or the other it's not in the center if it's dead center it won't move when I do that another way of
    11:49
    won't move when I do that another way of doing it is to pull back on it and watch this actuator does it move side to side this one's well aligned in a minute here I'll take it apart and I'll make it where it's not aligned and show you how one looks that is not aligned properly okay so I took the screws loose on the mounting bracket for the switch and deliberately misaligned this one so it's not in the center anymore when I push on this now watch what the actuator does when I lift on it what does the actuator
    12:20
    when I lift on it what does the actuator doing it's moving so that's telling me which direction it needs to go see I'm forcing it back to center by pushing on it and that's forcing it to bend and if you miss adjust the switch like this it'll be very sensitive only in the direction in which it's off-center every other direction the sensitivity will either be diminished or non-existent because it's just not going to be able to push on that skirt quite enough to make it make contact
    12:51
    make it make contact so again lifting and pushing so it tells me the sinner needs to go that way because I'm seeing how that's moving each time it's moving back away from me so I need to loosen the screws and slide the whole switch over until that's in the center and tighten it back down again and that's how you can tell pop bumper is a very very violent mechanism again kind of like a flipper there's a lot of vibration in the mechanism underneath the playfield so when the bob bumper kicks it vibrates
    13:23
    so when the bob bumper kicks it vibrates all of this quite a bit and what tends to happen when the bumper is not working nine times out of ten is because a wire either broke off of the coil or a wire broke off of the switch because of all the vibration in that area because the pop bumper is kicking all the time so this is basically all you see of a pop bumper above the playfield surface ball comes along hits the skirt from some direction pops and forces the ball away with the ring and rod assembly which is
    13:55
    with the ring and rod assembly which is this metal part here that's the ring and then the rods hold it underneath to the plunger so you need to keep an eye on your pop bumpers and make sure they're working at all times because they are generally set on the playfield in groups of three four - and they can't tend to fight with one another a little bit so one pop bumper kicks the ball and it knocks it into another pop bumper that pop member kicks it back towards the other pop bumper if these pop bumpers any one of them stops working I like to
    14:28
    any one of them stops working I like to say it can't protect itself or can't defend itself anymore so when a ball smashes into it if the switch is not working or the coil is disconnected or something like that it doesn't actuate and the ball smashes right into the plastic body of the pop bumper that's very bad because it can crack and break it we all know when plastic and steel meet which one's going to win so we need
    14:59
    meet which one's going to win so we need to make sure our pop bumpers are working all the time so that they can defend themselves and make the ball kick around like they're supposed to and make things lively in a pinball so this is above you the puff bumper it's got a typical pop bumper cap on it two Phillips screws hold it in place depending upon the game and whether it's a limited edition or a standard there might be different types of artwork or plastic pieces or even 3d sculptures on top of the pop bumper itself but you'll
    15:30
    top of the pop bumper itself but you'll need to remove those if you want to work you know on the pop-up for itself you're gonna pull it off of the playfield in this case use a number one phillips screwdriver to remove the two Phillips head screws and remove the pop bumper cap so I've removed the pop bumper cap and you can see inside this particular bumper has a 12 volt LED three LED light in it or again some games will have a RGB LED board inside there different
    16:00
    RGB LED board inside there different ways to light the bumper some of them aren't lit at all in fact like in Wizard of Oz so the first thing I need to check is above the playfield and that's how tight this pop bumper body is it's held in place by these two Phillips screws that's a number two phillips screwdriver that you use to tighten those and they actually screw the bump bumper body sandwich the skirt and the base and a spring all together and screw them into the surface of the playfield and this should be very very tight you should not be able to wiggle a pop bumper body back
    16:31
    be able to wiggle a pop bumper body back and forth with your hand if it is it all loose you need to tighten those two screws and get this pop bumper body tight it's going to get smashed and vibrated around with the ball it needs to be very tight so when I reattached my pop bumper cap to my pop bumper body I used two of these sheet metal screws so they have a point to them they're not machine screws and that means that there are threads cut in this plastic pop bumper body that I need to align with the threads on this screws same as when
    17:03
    the threads on this screws same as when I put something into the bottom of my playfield so what I want to do is use a number 1 screwdriver like I said of Philips I don't want to go backward I want to go clockwise until I and light pressure until I hear a click there it is now I start going forward and now I've aligned the screw with the threads that are already cut in the pop bumper body do this one also listen there it went now I
    17:34
    this one also listen there it went now I go forward and when I tighten those down they will tighten down every time if I just put a screw in there and start going clockwise and start screwing and cross thread what's already cut inside that plastic potm upper body then I'm gonna eventually get to the point where they're stripped out after a few times of doing that and I won't be able to tighten that pop bumper cap on to that pop bumper body anymore same thing with wooden holes things you'll need to check underneath the playfield periodically for tightness are
    18:05
    playfield periodically for tightness are shown here so you've put a lot of effort into getting this switch aligned properly with the actuator there we want to make sure that that stays tight so these two screws need to be good and tight all the time remember a lot of vibration going on around this pop bumper if you look up underneath with the two yoke pieces and the plunger here attached to the rods of the ring and rod assembly in two places there's a 632 lock nut on each of those they have a threaded end on the rods and those lock
    18:36
    threaded end on the rods and those lock nuts from time to time will work their way loose and fall off you need to make sure they stay on tight that's what allows the pop bumper to pull that ring and rod assembly down when I say tight on these two 632 lock nuts that are holding the yokes to the ring and rod assembly I'm just talking snug it's very important that they not be over tightened so if you over tighten them you can break the threaded portion right off the end of the rod which is not too hard to do actually and then you have to replace that whole piece so you don't want to do that want to make sure
    19:06
    don't want to do that want to make sure they're just snug so you bring in your driver down and you're turning you're turning when you meet the resistance of hitting the yoke you stop and make it good and snug and that's good on both sides and make sure they stay that way it's a good idea to keep an eye on your switch as well make sure none of the blades break off and this spoon stays in one piece sometimes the actuator will wear a small hole right in the bottom of that spoon and then it causes your pop bumper to not work properly sometimes the spoon breaks off I've seen that before too
    19:38
    breaks off I've seen that before too over long periods of time they get a little brittle it's a plastic part so just keep an eye on that make sure everything's working well your diodes and everything are attached to your switch well and wiring all those kinds of things on the backside of the pop-up or bracket you see the two screws that hold the coil in place and mounting to a bracket on the opposite side the holes of coil in those need to be tight you need your coil held in place firmly all the time then these are the two wires that hook into that little light that's inside the pot bumper with these three
    20:09
    inside the pot bumper with these three 632 screws here need to be tight also and you don't want to over tighten those and I'll explain why in just a second here so the screw used to hold in these three places here hold the bracket of the pop bumper on the underside of the playfield is actually a screw nail it's got a fin shank on it here and it's driven through from the top side of the playfield and the fin keeps the nail from twisting underneath when you put on
    20:40
    from twisting underneath when you put on these 632 nylon lock nuts and hold your bumper in place but when you over tighten that you can actually pull on this through the playfield and you can make this screw nail want to come through the playfield and make an indentation in the top side of your play field so you don't want to over tighten these you want them to be good and snug and this to be solidly mounted however do not over tighten them here I've backed off one of the 632 nylon lock nuts off of one of these screw nails just to make another point here if I'm
    21:12
    just to make another point here if I'm removing that bracket or I'm putting it back on and I've got my driver here on top of that lock nut I don't want to apply a lot of pressure as I'm putting the lock nut in I just want to twist it and let the lock nut pull itself all the way on with that gap in there like he's shown here if I put pressure on this I will push this screen nail back up through the top of the playfield and it will start spinning on top and that shank
    21:42
    start spinning on top and that shank will act like a drill bit and tear up the top of my play field very very bad thing for that to happen so whenever you're either tightening or loosening these three lock nuts no upward pressure through the play field you're just enough to get the the driver onto the lock nut and then turn it without applying a lot of pressure very important okay where parts and things like that if you'll need to kind of keep an eye on and it might need to be replaced from time to time underneath the play field there's a spring that
    22:13
    the play field there's a spring that pushes a wing and rod assembly back up to its rest position if that spring breaks over time and it's getting compressed over and over again every time the popover kicks it can cause your ring and rod assembly to only go back up about half height or something like that and not work real real well won't give a good kick because it's only traveling half as far now so keep an eye on that make sure that your spring stays in good shape the problem for a work better this
    22:45
    shape the problem for a work better this metal piece right up on top of here the top yoke piece there's a fiber yoke and there's a metal yoke a steel yoke that steel one can break right in the center there a break right in half and then these two pieces will kind of twist outward and you'll notice that things don't look well lined anymore so look up under the playfield check on this metal piece from time to time make sure it's in in one piece and in good shape and your pop-up will work better awesome the ring and rod assembly itself can fail it
    23:17
    ring and rod assembly itself can fail it has threaded ends on the rods one for hooking into the yokes underneath the playfield and then one above to hold to the ring assembly so if either one of these ends breaks off of either one of these your pop bumper is only working about half as well as it should so keep an eye on those if you find pieces of threaded material with a 6:32 nut on it in the bottom of your cabinet it's likely one of these is broken off so you'll need to replace just the rod
    23:48
    you'll need to replace just the rod that's broken it's kind of nice about the Jersey jack part is that you can just replace one piece and the entire piece when your ring and rod assembly breaks a couple of last things to mention are the plastic bumper body and skirt pieces these can break over time especially if the pop humper stops working for some reason can't defend itself like I mentioned earlier the body can get broken and cracked over long periods of time usually these skirts
    24:19
    periods of time usually these skirts will get a little bit fragile a little bit brittle they dry out and they'll start chipping and little chunks will be popping out of them and then it's time to replace them but that's that's quite a ways down the road and if you keep everything else working well your bodies will stay in one piece for for quite some time too well I've tried to squeeze as much information that I can into this short video that I've learned about pop bumpers over the past 35 years or so working on pinball I hope you find the information useful I tell ya pop back in
    24:49
    information useful I tell ya pop back in for a new video go out there and see if you can't break that high score on your favorite game have fun guys [Music]