The Test Report, Explained

Jersey Jack Pinball·video·11m 56s·analyzed·Mar 13, 2020

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.017

TL;DR

Jersey Jack explains test report alerts and how to clear them.

Summary

Butch Peel of Jersey Jack Pinball explains the purpose and function of the test report that appears when powering up Jersey Jack games. The video covers what switches and devices the test report monitors, why items appear in the report (typically due to infrequent activation rather than actual failure), how to clear alerts by manually activating switches or addressing device issues, and how to use game manuals to locate and identify switches and components.

Key Claims

Switches are critical to pinball gameplay because they tell the game what to do, keep score, trigger lights, activate bumpers and flippers, and register ramp shots
high confidence · Butch Peel explaining the role of switches in the video
Most switches end up in the test report simply because they are difficult switches to hit on the playfield and haven't been triggered in several balls played, not because they are actually broken
high confidence · Butch Peel discussing accessibility of different switches and why they appear in test reports
The game monitors switches continuously and only knows a switch is working if it sees it activated during gameplay or test mode
high confidence · Butch Peel explaining how the game detects switch functionality
Switches can be either stuck open (red box in test report) or stuck closed (green box), and stuck closed switches require manual adjustment to fix
high confidence · Butch Peel describing the two states of switch failures in the test report
Device errors like trough errors are critical and appear at the top of the test report list because the game cannot function without all trough switches working properly
high confidence · Butch Peel demonstrating a trough error by disconnecting an opto board power connector
Jersey Jack game manuals use color conventions for switches: blue for micro switches and rollovers, red for targets, violet for leaf switches on slingshots and bumpers, and green for optos
high confidence · Butch Peel explaining manual illustrations using Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory manual as example

Notable Quotes

“switches are our connection to the game switches tell everything in the game what to do switches are what keep our score switches are what tell what lights to go on”
Butch Peel@ 1:18 — Core explanation of why switches matter in pinball
“there's nothing worse in this world than making a shot and not getting credit for it because the switch didn't register”
Butch Peel@ 1:42 — Explains the player impact of switch failures
“the game is basically asking you take a look at this switch right here I haven't seen it work in a while tell me for sure that it is working”
Butch Peel@ 2:28 — Reframes test report as a diagnostic request rather than an alarm
“the vast majority of the time a switch will end up in your test report simply because it's a difficult switch to hit on the play field and it hasn't been triggered in quite a few balls played”
Butch Peel@ 3:23 — Key insight that most test report alerts are not actual failures
“think of your test report as a learning opportunity a way to get into your game figure out how things work a little better and keep the game working like it was intended to”
Butch Peel@ 11:25 — Reframes the purpose of the test report for customers

Entities

Butch Peelperson Jersey Jack PinballcompanyThe Wizard of OzgameWilly Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (Standard Edition)game

Signals

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product_concern: Jersey Jack receives frequent calls and emails from customers concerned about test report messages, indicating confusion about what these alerts mean and whether they indicate serious problems
high · Butch Peel: 'we get a lot of calls and emails from customers concerned about the information displayed on their games test report at powerup'
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design_philosophy: Jersey Jack's test report system is designed to proactively monitor all switches and devices continuously and alert users to potential issues before they impact gameplay
high · Butch Peel explains that the game monitors switches continuously and brings issues to customer attention via the test report
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operational_signal: Jersey Jack provides detailed guidance to customers on how to diagnose and clear switch issues themselves, reducing support burden
high · The entire video is structured as a customer education tool showing how to navigate test report, identify problem switches, and activate them to clear alerts
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technology_signal: Jersey Jack's modern pinball machines feature automated continuous monitoring of switches and devices with categorized error reporting (stuck open vs stuck closed, device-level errors prioritized)
high · Butch Peel demonstrates different error states, error prioritization (trough errors at top), and the ability to distinguish stuck open vs stuck closed switches
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content_signal: Jersey Jack produces customer education videos to address common support inquiries and build customer confidence in their products

Topics

Test Report System and FunctionalityprimarySwitch Diagnostics and MonitoringprimaryDevice Error DetectionprimaryCustomer Support and EducationsecondaryManual Navigation and Switch LocationsecondarySwitch Types and Classificationssecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.85)— Butch Peel takes an educational, reassuring tone throughout, framing the test report as a helpful diagnostic tool rather than something to fear. He presents Jersey Jack's approach as customer-friendly and emphasizes learning opportunities. No criticism or negative sentiment present.

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

[Music] hey there pinball fans butch peel the jersey jack pinball we get a lot of calls and emails from customers concerned about the information displayed on their games test report at powerup I thought I'd make a quick video to explain the test report a little bit its purpose how to address some of the items that are brought up in the test report and most importantly how to clear it so that you don't reminded of these things every time you power up your game so if you're ready let's get going so here's the slightly unnerving message that you get put on your screen when the game boots up and there's a self-test report that the game wants you to check out so you do as it says you open the coin door press the black enter button press it again and there's your test report it's a very simple test report showing up on this game a single switch the monkey magnet sense is showing us stuck open and it's a dedicated switch so what does this mean and why is the game telling me this I just turned it on because I want to play some pinball well think about it switches are our connection to the game switches tell everything in the game what to do switches are what keep our score switches are what tell what lights to go on whether a pop bumper should kick a flipper should kick a slingshot good kick whether we made a ramp shot or not all those sorts of things if the switches in the game are not working properly then the game itself is no fun because there's nothing worse in this world than making a shot and not getting credit for it because the switch didn't register so since switches are so critical to gameplay the game monitors it switches all of the time and how does it know when the switch is working properly it sees it activated from time to time during gameplay or in a test mode or something like that how does it know if it's not working well it doesn't right I mean it only is gonna know if it's working if it sees it active like this roll over switch right here if the game says I have not seen the Scarecrow roll over activated in quite a few games now it might start to wonder whether that's which is actually working or not so it brings it to your attention that there might be a problem with it by putting it in the test report so the game is basically asking you take a look at this switch right here I haven't seen it work in a while tell me for sure that it is working show me that it's working activated a couple of times for me so that I know and I'll stop bothering you about it now some switches are going to be more accessible than others that is they're more likely to be hit by a ball during gameplay than others this one that I chose for my first example here this rollover is gonna be one that's going to get hit a lot because the ball rolls around the play field and accidentally hits that one quite often however you go up behind the doors here where the vertical up kicker is back there that switch is gonna be harder to hit you have to break the doors down before you can get the ball in there and trigger that switch same thing with this spinning house the made the loop for the spinning house switch here is going to be hit much less frequently than one of the rollovers on the main play field so the vast majority of the time a switch will end up in your test report simply because it's a difficult switch to hit on the play field and it hasn't been triggered in quite a few balls played so if that is indeed the case then all you'll need to do is go from the test report screen into one of your switch testimonies either dedicated or matrix switches and activate that switch a couple of times by hand or more importantly make sure the ball will trigger that switch so the quickest way to get to those switch test modes either matrix switches or dedicated switches is to just hit the enter button from the test report page whatever is listed first in the test report will automatically go to that screen to test and clear that message by just hitting the enter button in this case you see the monkey Magnuson switch it's box is red so that's why it was in the test report the monkey magnet sense in The Wizard of Oz is just one of a few different dedicated switches that can end up in your test report flipper end of stroke switches can end up there that's the switch that activates whenever the flippers reach their end of their stroke another possibility is the plumb bob tilt in the bottom of the cabinet that rocks back and forth when you're shaking the game other dedicated switches like your flipper cabinet switches and the start button for the game are not likely to ever end up in a test report because you're gonna recognize those aren't working immediately when they quit and you're gonna get them fixed right away you won't need a test report to tell you that so if you see dedicated switches in your test report you're going to need to go to this screen here find the switch itself and activated a few times by hand to clear the message from the test report so what about matrix switches if the test report we're telling me that the two Munchkinland playfield switches these loops which is the Munchkinland loop upper and lower were questionable then they would have red boxes here and here and these two switches would be the ones that I would be looking for to try and clear I can easily hit the lower switch with my finger here make sure that it works and you see a go green up there however the upper switch is a little bit more difficult to get to it's under a plastic there and like I said earlier it's more important that the ball be able to activate these so I'm going to trigger this a couple of times just by rolling the ball around here one time you see the switches activate when the ball hit him that would clear them they would not be red any longer or alternatively during a game if I were to shoot the ball up here and it ended up on this play field and I made that shot a couple of times and it activated both of those switches during gameplay it would clear those two red boxes and clear those switches from the test report also it's important to note that a switch can be either stuck open or stuck closed in the test report so it'll tell you which one it is in the test report if the switch is stuck closed it'll come up on the screen here as a green box meaning it's always activated if it's stuck open and hasn't been able to close or activate then it will be a red box and if the switch is stuck closed you'll need to take a closer look at it wherever it happens to be above or below the play field find out what's keeping it from working properly and probably make a couple of adjustments to it and make it where the switch works like it was intended to I'll cover switch troubleshooting adjustment and those sorts of things in more detail in another video the game also continuously monitors its complex devices inside the game so the test report can also bring to your attention any potential issues that the software sees with some of those devices and that makes sense because devices use which is as an integral part of how they operate the list of devices available in any game can be brought up through the test menu go into device test and then you'll see all the list of the devices within that game to kind of illustrate what a device error looks like in your test report I've deliberately removed the power connector from one of the trough opto boards this creates an immediate trough error and that error as you can tell goes to the top of the list immediately because a trough error is a very big deal the game cannot function without all of the switches in the trough working properly so that basically trumps all of the other things in the test report list and as before the game will take me directly to the trough device test by hitting the enter button and once I get here I can see that all the switches are active at one time which led to the error which is basically caused by me pulling the power off of one of those opto boards when I find the problem and replace that connector on the opto board on the trough all of the switches return to their normal correct states that is there are no balls in the trough so none of them should be active and of course the ball trough error is removed from the test report the last thing I want to mention is how useful the game manuals can be in visualizing identifying and locating the switches and devices inside your game I'll use the latest manual the willy wonka manual to show you what I mean matrix switches are shown in the wiring table at the end of Section C in the manual the switches are all hyperlinked to above and below play field switch illustrations also in Section C the switch numbers shown in blue in each of these squares will match the numbers shown in your test report for the switches so if you're looking for switch 17 the right ramp enter switch here all you have to do is click it and the hyperlink will automatically take you to the above play field view of the wonka play field and show you where that switch is located accompanying each play field illustration is a table showing the switches function it's type it's part number and if it's part of an assembly the assemblies part number the last column has hyperlinks to the assembly drawings themselves for switches or part of an assembly switch 17 is indeed part of an assembly the 50 to 81 so I can click on the page hyperlink here see 42 takes me directly to the assembly drawing I can see what the switch looks like and how it fits into the overall assembly then there is a color convention for all the switches in these illustrations blue for micro switches and ramps and things like that rollovers red for targets which are all over the play stuff to shoot that violet for leaf switches like our slingshots pop bumpers things like that and green for optos along with a little yellow green beam going between the transmit and receive so you can kind of see what trips them likewise under the playfields blue with micro switches rollovers all over here red for targets again sprinkled all over the play dial it for our leaf switches the swings again and green for the optos several of which under this play field and dedicated switches are handled pretty much in the same manner they have their own wiring table filled with hyperlinks so if you're looking for one of those end of stroke switches say switch number four here the upper right flipper end of stroke just click on the hyperlink takes you directly to above and below play field illustration showing locations of all the dedicated switches so you can see above and below the play field where that dedicated switch is the accompanying table lists the dedicated switches by switch number so they're switch four see it's an end of stroke its part number is part of assembly 5101 14 and there's a hyperlink to page c10 with an assembly drawing so click that hyperlink and you go right to the assembly drawing you can see where the switch is and how it fits into the overall assembly well hopefully this videos helped take a little bit of the apprehension a little bit the mystery out of the jjp test report for you all it's kind of like the government it really is here to help you think of your test report as a learning opportunity a way to get into your game figure out how things work a little better and keep the game working like it was intended to and like it was designed fun I think I'm gonna go play game myself right now I'll catch up with you guys next time take care [Music]