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Diagnosing World Cup Soccer Pinball Goalie Opto Issue

Cary Hardy·video·13m 7s·analyzed·Oct 10, 2018
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.012

TL;DR

Dirty opto sensors fixed World Cup Soccer 94 goal detection issue

Summary

Cary Hardy diagnoses and repairs a non-functional goal detection opto sensor on his World Cup Soccer 94 pinball machine. The opto sensor was simply dirty, preventing proper beam transmission between transmitter and receiver. After cleaning both sensors with rubbing alcohol and verifying alignment, the goalie trough switch functioned normally again.

Key Claims

  • The goalie opto sensor was the only non-functional switch on the machine

    high confidence · Cary confirmed all other playfield elements were functioning normally; only the goal detection optic wasn't registering

  • Cleaning optic sensors with rubbing alcohol resolved the issue

    high confidence · After cleaning transmitter and receiver with Q-tip and rubbing alcohol, the sensor tested normally in switch mode

  • Optic sensors require precise alignment to function; they have a small window of precision for beam transmission

    high confidence · Cary explicitly noted the narrow tolerance: 'optic sensors only have a small window of precision for the beams to transmit and receive each other'

  • Dirty optics are a common maintenance issue on all machines with optic sensors

    high confidence · Cary stated: 'Just dirty optics, which tends to be a common issue on every machine that has optics and that is something that has to be dealt with here and there whenever they start to get a little flaky'

  • The goalie opto sensor was extremely difficult to access on World Cup Soccer 94, located at the very bottom of the playfield

    high confidence · Cary noted multiple times: 'the sensor that I need to access is at the very bottom of the playfield so it gives me limited ability to get to it'

Notable Quotes

  • “My issue is that I am not receiving notifications of when I score a goal... The ball is going in, going down here, so therefore it only thinks that I've hit this shot to the right of the goal.”

    Cary Hardy@ 1:18 — Describes the primary symptom: goal detection failure causing missed scoring events

  • “it turns out the switch in question is going to be the most difficult to access. Of course, I would not have it any other way. Shut up.”

    Cary Hardy@ 2:41 — Humorously acknowledges the playfield layout challenges; characteristic of pinball repair frustration

  • “optic sensors only have a small window of precision for the beams to transmit and receive each other”

    Cary Hardy@ 10:19 — Technical explanation of opto sensor alignment requirements and tolerances

  • “Just dirty optics, which tends to be a common issue on every machine that has optics”

    Cary Hardy@ 12:13 — Key takeaway about opto maintenance being routine across all machines with optic sensors

Entities

Cary HardypersonWorld Cup Soccergame

Signals

  • ?

    technology_signal: Practical demonstration of opto sensor maintenance requirements and cleaning procedures as standard pinball ownership/operation knowledge

    high · Cary treats opto cleaning as routine maintenance: 'That's something that you gotta stay on top of'

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.039

0:00
Thank you. No, it's not supposed to do that. Alright, so here we have World Cup Soccer 94. My issue is that I am not receiving notifications of when I score a goal. Now, this is the only switch that I'm aware of that's currently not working because everything else seems to function just fine. Whenever the ball enters the goal back here, I should be notified that I scored a goal, the goalie should stop spinning, the ball should stop spinning, and then the ball should eject out.
1:18
The ball is going in, going down here, so therefore it only thinks that I've hit this shot to the right of the goal. I'm not actually getting scores for the goal down here. So the optic sensor is not working or not functioning or however you want to say it, but it's not calculating whenever I make that shot.
1:42
With it being the only switch that is not working, it leads me to believe that the optics are no longer working. Now if that is an electrical, whether it be a low solder joint or something like that, we're about to find out. So let's flip this plate filled up and see if we can figure out what the issue is. Now here's the fun part guys, is that the sensor that I need to access is at the very bottom of the playfield so it gives me limited ability to get to it.
2:35
Okay, here we are with the playfield lifted up and it turns out the switch in question is going to be the most difficult to access. Of course, I would not have it any other way.
2:50
Shut up. this is what I want to do I just doing observing right now just trying to see if I can visually see any kind of a like bad solder joints or anything like that As of right now I not seeing anything but what I will do is I going to go into switch mode and see if I have any switches activating abnormally All right, so we are now in switch mode, and I'm just going to do some WSS method here. That's wiggle some shit, and we're going to see if I have any switches that just activate with mere vibrations or moving of the wires. all right so my gold trough just activated
4:22
All right, my Goldtrop is activating with just some minor touches on, I'm not sure if it's my transmitter or my receiver. So I'm going to remove the bracket that holds the transmitter and receiver and see what my solder joints look like for that switch. Looks like it's going to be just four Phillips head screws. Alright, so now I have turned the power off to the machine because I'm about to slide a screwdriver into all types of connections and I do not want to short anything. So, let's remove this bracket and see what we can find.
5:07
I usually tend to use my subwoofer speaker magnet to hold all my screws that I'm currently working on a project. That way I don't lose any.
5:17
Okay, so as it turns out, that's not a bracket that just comes off. It's basically, it's a bracket that holds the screws for just the optic sensors by themselves. I have the one in question here.
5:44
I mean, the soldering looks fine on it. Let's remove both. Alright, here we go. Transmitter and receiver both right here. So now that I've got them removed, I can take a gander at both and this soldering job looks like a total whack and a soldering job on this one is substantial so although the soldering job is kind of crap I mean it should have a good connection but while I got them out I going to get a q with some rubbing alcohol and I going to clean both of these sensors and then we're going to go back into test mode and test the activity of these sensors. All right. Got my Q-tip doused in rubbing alcohol. I'm going to clean both of these optic sensors. They weren't that bad, but they're shiny now. Might as well clean everything around it just because they're here. Alright Let's power back on And let's see If we can test these optics out Alright guys We are back in switch mode Power is on So let's see if we can get these two To see each other
7:43
Sensor is testing just fine guys. Let me make sure there's nothing... They're seeing each other head to head. Let me see if wiggling the wires does anything. I didn't think about it, but I'm going to clean this connector head just out of curiosity to see if we have anything dirty in it as well, giving me a poor connection.
8:56
All right, everything seems to be testing just fine. All right, power's back off. So let's get these optics pounded back up, and we're going to do some testing on them.
9:26
I very glad that this thing isn difficult to reach or it be a pain in the ass to reinstall all right so sensors are mounted back up but now I want to make sure that my sensors are lined up in order for them to read correctly because on stuff like this the optic sensors only have a small window of precision for the beams to transmit and receive each other.
10:33
All right power's back on and now we're going to be doing some WSS method again to make sure that this goalie trough isn't activating by pure vibrations or anything.
11:00
All right, so wiggling stuff isn't triggering it. Now we just need to make sure that when we actually trigger it via a ball that it works so let's do that now all right so with the playfield lower down I should be able to reach the optic sensor area for this switch with my finger to see if it activates all right so the goalie itself is working. Goalie trough is working again. All right.
12:00
And there it is everyone, a quick repair on my World Cup Soccer 94 with a goalie optics sensor issue. Just dirty optics, which tends to be a common issue on every machine that has optics and that is something that has to be dealt with here and there whenever they start to get a little flaky and not working all the way. Little Q-tip with some rubbing alcohol, get those things nice and cleaned up so that way the receiver is able to receive the transmitter. So that's something that you gotta stay on top of. That's the first time I've had to do it for this machine. That's gonna wrap it up for this video. If you haven't already, hit that subscribe button. Give this video a thumbs up and leave me a comment down below. Until next time, peace out.
13:00
Thank you.