American Pinball Trough Kicker Adjustment

American Pinball·video·3m 37s·analyzed·May 2, 2023

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.011

TL;DR

American Pinball tech service guide for diagnosing and fixing trough kicker ball feed problems.

Summary

Dave Brennan from American Pinball Tech Service provides a troubleshooting guide for trough kicker issues on Oktoberfest and other games (specifically mentioning AC/DC Premium Vault Edition). The video covers both mechanical adjustment of the angled metal bracket in the trough and software coil power settings accessible through the game's menu system.

Key Claims

An angled metal bracket piece in the trough can become bent too far to the left, causing balls to fall back into the trough instead of feeding to the shooter lane
high confidence · Dave Brennan, American Pinball Tech Service, describing mechanical diagnosis
Trough kicker coil power settings can be adjusted in the game menu system (Settings > Coils > Trough Kicker) with factory settings displayed in bright green
high confidence · Dave Brennan demonstrating software adjustment procedure
The optimal trough kicker power setting should be 'as low as possible to give you a clean feed but not so hard that it's going to create shooter lane wear'
high confidence · Dave Brennan stating personal preference and best practice
The interlock switch inside the coin door must be pulled out to engage 48 volts to coils during testing
high confidence · Dave Brennan describing test mode procedure

Notable Quotes

“if you're in 'AC/DC (Premium Vault Edition)' had a situation where the ball is trying to kick into the shooter lane but it falls back down into the trough there is a quick adjustment that you can make to help improve this”
Dave Brennan@ 0:17 — Establishes the problem being solved and indicates this is a known issue on at least AC/DC Premium Vault Edition
“If this piece is bent too far to the left it's going to hit this piece and the ball is going to fall back into the trough. What you could do is take some needle nose pliers, grab a hold of this piece and bend it to the right”
Dave Brennan@ 0:56 — Core mechanical fix; provides specific tool and technique for DIY troubleshooting
“My personal preference is to have the power setting as low as possible to give you a clean feed but not so hard that it's going to create shooter lane wear”
Dave Brennan@ 1:41 — Best practice guidance balancing functionality with hardware longevity

Entities

Dave BrennanpersonAmerican Pinballcompany OktoberfestgameAC/DC (Premium Vault Edition)gameAustin Powersgame

Signals

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community_signal: American Pinball producing educational tech service content demonstrating commitment to operator and owner support and troubleshooting guidance
high · Official tech tip video from American Pinball Tech Service with detailed troubleshooting procedures for common mechanical and software issues
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product_concern: Trough kicker ball feed issues are occurring on American Pinball games (Oktoberfest, AC/DC Premium Vault Edition) requiring mechanical bracket adjustment and/or coil calibration
high · Dave Brennan specifically addresses situations where 'the ball is trying to kick into the shooter lane but it falls back down into the trough' and provides adjustment procedures

Topics

Trough kicker mechanical adjustmentprimaryCoil power settings and software configurationprimaryBall feed quality and troubleshootingprimaryAmerican Pinball technical support and educationsecondaryHardware wear preventionsecondary

Sentiment

neutral(0)— This is instructional technical content delivered in a straightforward, professional manner. No emotional valence or opinions beyond best practices.

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.011

Hey there, Dave Jeff Brenner with American Pinball Tech Service. Today I'm troubleshooting the trough kicker for Oktoberfest. Really this can be used on a lot of different games, but if you've had a situation where the ball is trying to kick into the shooter lane but it falls back down into the trough there is a quick adjustment that you can make to help improve this. So let me lift up this playfield and we'll take a closer look. The first step is to remove your pinball glass and then lift up on the playfield and set it on the yellow supporting rails. Take a look inside the trough shooter you'll see a angled metal bracket piece on the right hand side. If this piece is bent too far to the left it's going to hit this piece and the ball is going to fall back into the trough. What you could do is take some needle nose pliers, grab a hold of this piece and bend it to the right and this should make it so your ball feeds cleanly to the shooter lane. Now let's Let's take a look at the coil settings themselves. Open your coin door, hit the black button to enter into the menu system, go into settings and coils and then scroll down to trough kicker. Any of the factory settings in AP games will be lit up bright green indicating those are factory. Anytime you make a change it going to turn to white So as you can see on the screen mine is set to 16 My personal preference is to have the power setting as low as possible to give you a clean feed but not so hard that it's going to create shooter lane wear. So from here, you can set it to whatever gives you the the best clean feed but you'll need to back out of this once it's set and you want to go into tests and then go to coils and then from here you need to have the interlock switch just inside the coin door to the left pulled out in order to engage 48 volts to your coils. From here you can scroll down to trough kicker. Hit the start button to review the power setting that you had changed. Hit the start button, it'll kick it out into the shooter lane. Make sure that that's a clean feed. Do it several times and shoot the ball in the play. Review that all of them are working, giving you a clean feed. If the feed is not clean you can back out of this, go back into settings, go back into coils, and then adjust your trough kicker to a higher or lower setting based on how you reviewed that test. Thanks for watching this Tech Tip video. If you have any questions along the way on anything that I haven't covered in the video, please reach out to me at the email or phone number listed at the bottom of the screen. Thanks for watching!