Hi, my name is Nicholas Baldridge and I'm a technical support specialist for Multimorphic. Today I wanted to talk about the incredible Infinity Ball trough on the P3 and how it enables all these different unique and compelling gameplay experiences. I also wanted to take a moment and go over the similarities and differences between a traditional ball trough and multimmorphix infinity ball trough. It's really neat and incredibly easy to work on. Let's take a look starting with the traditional assembly. This is a traditional ball trough in a pinball machine. So these have been utilized since about the 1990s uh in this format but all ball troughs share a lot in common and that is switches which can be mounted to identify the number of balls which are installed in the trough. A switch which can identify if multiple balls are jammed. It's called a jam switch. And then a coil which kicks the balls up and out of this hole and into play. So, this particular one has a blue snubber at the top to deaden the impact against the metal upper bracket. So, the balls roll along these two wires inside and they're held in place right above the coil. So, when the coil fires, boom, it pushes a ball up and out. And this is very similar to the way that ball troughs in almost any pinball machine work. um from some of the very earliest ball troughs to uh some of the latest. Now the thing about older games is that they're less automated. So software does not control the pulsing of this coil or even there is a manual lever which pushes the ball up and into play instead of a coil. And sometimes the coil is mounted uh horizontally so that it kicks the ball across and into play. So this trough is fairly simple. And what you might notice is that there are a couple of potential failure points. One is if there are multiple balls trapped here, how does the trough handle it? And you may notice that there is no flap here which prevents balls from rolling backwards. So ideally the balls will land down here in the bottom and just roll. However, what can happen is that the balls can stack and that's why this jam switch hole appears here. Now this is an a trough which is used with optical switches. So optical switches will shoot a beam of infrared light and that's how they sense the presence or absence of a ball. The same can be done with uh mechanical switches, leaf switches or micro switches. This one just happens to be an optical switch draw. So if the balls are uh stuck here on this side, what happens? Well, normally this coil pulses uh say 30 milliseconds to kick a ball up and over and into play. If it senses this jam switch is open because optical switches are normally closed. So a ball interrupting that opto will open the switch. So if it senses that is open it will pulse this coil a little harder. So maybe 40 milliseconds. So it gives it a good solid kick to try to dislodge the ball and fight the effect of gravity. What happens if there are three balls which are stacked here? Then things get a lot more complicated. The game is essentially down. Disassembling this trough uh is only needed to be done for cleaning. Removing the coil is a matter of using these four number two screws and removing the bracket here to free the coil. And the bracket is another two number two screws. So a single tool allows you to take this coil out. And as you can see, this coil is connectorized, so the whole thing can be removed. Are you wondering how Portal is able to portal the balls from place to place? Well, I'm about to spoil a bit of the magic here. It's through the magic imparted by the infinity trough of the P3. I wanted to show you the similarities between this and a traditional ball trough. So all the balls are arrayed here on the upper trough and they fall down into the lower trough. Now the lower trough has a coil and this coil will stage a ball up here on the upper rail of the trough. Now if you notice this whole assembly here has multiple cutouts and these are reflective optos. So, as the balls roll along this upper rail, it tells the P3 where balls are located and how they may be utilized. So, the software of each individual game will be able to tell, oh, there's a ball present at Vuck 3. Time to kick it out. And it kicks it out. And as you can see, the rest of the balls contracted here and filled that space which was left. You can see that there are coils mounted underneath of each of these positions in between the white spacers. Each of those is a potential launch position. So a ball can be fired if a ball is present up into play. So let's talk about this coil. This is called the drain vuck or the trough loader. The drain vuck has to handle a large number of balls which may be in this lower trough. So, very similar to the traditional trough that we looked at before, there is a reflective opto inside of the shroud, which tells if a ball is present and if there's a ball stacked on top. So, similar to the jam opto that we talked about on the traditional trough, this has a stack opto. And if there are balls stacked there, the coil will pulse a little harder. It'll kick that ball with a little more force to try to get it up here into the upper rail of the trough. So, what happens if a ball cannot be staged? Well, the game software will automatically compensate and it will fire a ball from one of the other positions. So, for example, here VOC 7 does not have a ball present. And if VOC 7 was requested to launch, it would say, "Hey, there's no ball here." And it would look at the alternate for that launcher, which may be one or more of these other launchers, and say, "Oh, buck zero is here. Let's go ahead and kick a ball up." So, the Infinity Trough works in multiple ways. And one of the absolute coolest thing for me as a programmer, a third party developer for the platform is that the trough management is automatic. I don't have to worry about it as a programmer and programming trough management is very complex and there are a lot of things that could go wrong. So having that automated is such a boon to anybody who might be programming a game for the P3. So let's talk more about functionality though. So each of these positions has a coil underneath and that coil can kick the ball up. Now each of these coils can be independently tuned. And what I mean by that is that you can set the strength of any of these coils depending upon which module is installed. And when that module is installed and it senses that the module is in place, it will kick the ball at the strength that you have requested. So what happens if all the balls are pushed into this lower trough? Well, it's interesting that you ask that because that is actually the suggestion that we make when swapping modules. So there is a decal on either side that says before installing an upper playfield module remove all pinballs from the trough and place them in the drain pan. The P3 is constructed in such a way that it can handle this array of balls and in fact more than this array of balls. This lower trough pan can handle somewhere in the realm of 30 or so balls. 16 balls are required to stage the entire upper rail of the trough. And every two balls will be in a position that can fire. So everything in the P3 starts from zero. So if we have ball zero, one cannot fire until zero is out of the way. Then it rolls into zero's place. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14. So maintenance on this trough assembly is actually very straightforward as are most maintenance tasks on the P3. As these are reflective optos, if any of the trough switches are having trouble sensing a ball at a given position and simply swiping them with a Q-tip or ensuring that the balls are clean and shiny may be all that's required. The coils themselves have typical coil maintenance. So, uh, the brackets which hold them in place may fatigue over a long period of time. This is a P3 that I purchased in 2018, and I have never done a thing to any of the coils or any of the coil brackets on this assembly except for the drain buck. So, the trough loader bracket uh had fatigued over many many many many thousands and thousands and thousands of uses and so that bracket needed to be replaced. Well, it's two screws and two lock nuts and away you go. Most things in the P3 are constructed in such a way that they are easy to pull apart. uh to remove this drain pan which funnels the balls from the rear of the scoops. This area, if a ball were to fall from the wooden playfield module down in this area, there's two screws. Remove those two screws. This piece comes right off. This lower trough is held in place with four screws. Remove those four screws and the entire lower trough comes out, giving you access to each of the coils. And those coils are all connectorized. So you can just unplug the connector and if you needed to test the impedance of the coil, you can certainly do that. And you can also inspect and tighten uh the coil bracketry if needed. So this assembly is very easy to maintain. It's all accessible as well. And that is something that I really appreciate from a maintenance perspective about the P3 and its modularity is that each maintenance task that may need to be performed is very accessible and easy to do. These white spacers, you may ask what those are for. And what they're for is uh guides for launch tubes. So, the launch tubes are the thing that the ball actually fires into and brings the ball up to the wooden playfield surface and into play. Those launch tubes have to align directly above these vertical upkickers. If they are not aligned to the coil, then well, the ball cannot actually launch up there. So these prevent lateral movement of the vertical upkicker uh launch tubes, the tubes that mate with the vertical upkicker assembly. Um but the launch tubes can also rotate this way and it'll exhibit the same symptom. A ball attempts to launch but it can't make it up and into play. Adjustment of that is performed through two 7/16 inch nuts which are located on the rear of each playfield module. Tightening those will pull the launch tubes closer to the rear of this vertical upkicker assembly. Loosening will push them away. Most often, a small adjustment, one full turn of a given nut will bring that launch tube into alignment. And as far as maintenance goes, that's pretty much it. Um, you have access to all the coils when you remove this lower trough. And changing the brackets is quick and easy. The other thing that uh you can do to give yourself a little more visibility and accessibility is to pull the Playfield chassis to the vertical service position. Right now we're in service position one and that is with a black cross brace on the lock bar receiver. There's a service position two where the end of the service rails rest upon the lock bar receiver and that gives you a lot of access to the rear of this assembly. And then there's the vertical service position where the entire chassis is resting against the backbox. And that gives you complete and total access to the underside of this vertical upkicker assembly. And uh through the combination of these different service positions, you can accomplish any service that may be necessary on your B3.