Stern Tech School: King Kong Pinball Assembly Removal and Installation

Stern Pinball·video·8m 39s·analyzed·May 27, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.013

TL;DR

Stern Tech School guide: King Kong animatronic removal, installation, and calibration procedures.

Summary

Kyle from Stern Pinball provides a comprehensive technical guide on removing, disassembling, reinstalling, and calibrating the King Kong animatronic assembly in King Kong Pinball. The video covers tool requirements, step-by-step procedures for disconnecting power and data lines, accessing internal servo motors, understanding the 25-tooth spline calibration system, and using the in-game diagnostic menu to adjust arm positions. This is educational content demonstrating Stern's commitment to operator and owner support.

Key Claims

The King Kong assembly uses three servo motors (left arm, right arm, and body rotation) controlled by a servo motor control board
high confidence · Direct technical demonstration of internal assembly components
The servo motors use a 25-tooth spline system requiring exact positional reinstallation or the assembly will be out of calibration
high confidence · Kyle explicitly explains the 25-tooth spline mechanism and its calibration implications
Removing and reinstalling arms requires recalibration of the assembly
high confidence · Kyle states: 'If you were to remove your King Kong assembly from your game and take the arms off, it would require recalibration of the assembly'
The King Kong assembly can be calibrated through an in-game diagnostic menu with adjustable min/max position values
high confidence · Kyle demonstrates accessing Device Tests > Kong mech calibration menu with individual position adjustment entries
The assembly connects to the playfield via 48V power and two data bus lines to a node board
high confidence · Technical specification shown during back panel disconnection procedure

Notable Quotes

“Unless you put this arm on in the absolutely exact same position you removed it from, it is going to be out of calibration.”
Kyle, Stern Pinball @ ~4:30 — Core technical requirement for King Kong animatronic maintenance; explains the 25-tooth spline calibration dependency
“The purpose of disassembling the Kong assembly is to quell curiosities and show the insides of it. If you were to remove your King Kong assembly from your game and take the arms off, it would require recalibration of the assembly.”
Kyle, Stern Pinball @ ~3:45 — Sets expectations that disassembly should be avoided unless necessary due to calibration complexity
“These are marks that you will use when re-calibrating the assembly as a visual guide when you're setting the calibration in software.”
Kyle, Stern Pinball @ ~5:30 — Explains the physical calibration marks etched on the servo arms as reference points for software-based calibration

Entities

KylepersonStern PinballcompanyKing Kong PinballgameStern Tech Schoolorganization

Signals

?
community_signal: Stern Pinball producing detailed technical education content (Tech School series) for operators and owners, demonstrating ongoing commitment to user support and machine maintainability
high · Structured video with comprehensive step-by-step procedures, tool requirements, and diagnostic menu guidance for King Kong assembly service
?
product_concern: The complexity of King Kong's animatronic assembly (requiring precise 25-tooth spline calibration, multiple servo coordination, and software adjustment) suggests potential service/maintenance burden for operators
medium · Kyle emphasizes that arm removal requires recalibration and recommends avoiding disassembly unless absolutely necessary; calibration requires access to diagnostic menu with multiple position parameters
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technology_signal: King Kong features servo motor-based animatronic control with sophisticated spline calibration and in-game diagnostic adjustment capabilities, representing advanced electromechanical integration
high · Video demonstrates three servo motors controlled by dedicated servo control board with 25-tooth spline mechanics and software-based calibration menu

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

0:07

[Music] Hi, I'm Kyle with Stern Pinball and in this video we are going to go over the removal, installation, and calibration procedure for your animatronic King Kong assembly. To remove the assembly from your playfield, we're going to need to have the glass off of the game. So, if you don't know how to do that, we do have a video on our tech school playlist. Go ahead and refer to that. The tools we'll need to remove the assembly from the back panel are a/4 in and a 5/16inch nut driver. Uh once we have the glass off the game, pull the playfield up forward and rest it in the forward service position on the rubber feet in the front of the cabinet. With the playfield now in the forward service position, we can go ahead and power the game off to remove the assembly from the back panel. For demonstration purposes, I have the playfield propped up on the cabinet, but everything we need to address to remove the assembly is on the back panel. So, we have our 48vt power to the node board here. We've got our two data lines for the data bus here. And then we will need to remove the two/4in head screws here and the two 5/16in nuts that hold the assembly into the back panel here. These connections on the board do not need to be moved, so do not touch those guys there. Just the two data and 48volt power connections. With those removed and out of the way, I'm going to start by removing the two uh screws on the bottom using my 1/4in nut driver here. Remove the 1/4in head screws down at the bottom. With those out of the way, uh we'll get the 5/16inch nut driver and remove the two nuts from the studs on the top side. I'm going to loosen them till they're just about at the end of the stud and then uh remove them with my fingers just to not drop washers or the nut or anything like that. And with those removed, we can guide the assembly forwards off the back panel and then up and out of the game. Now that we have the assembly out of the game, let's take it over to the bench and take a closer look at the inside of the assembly. To get inside the assembly, we need a number one Phillips screwdriver. On the back of the molded assembly, we have a cover plate. So, we can remove these two screws, and this will reveal the three servo motors that work the assembly.

2:47

With the back plate off, uh, we can now see the three servos. So, we've got the left and right servo motor, the right arm servo motor, and the left arm servo motor. Each of these servo motors plugs into this uh, servo motor control board. This tells the servo motors what they're supposed to do. So, the purpose of disassembling the Kong assembly is to quell curiosities and show the insides of it. If you were to remove your King Kong assembly from your game and take the arms off, it would require recalibration of the assembly. So, I don't recommend doing that unless you absolutely need to. Let's remove one of the arms and we can see what we have underneath here. The arms are held in with again a small Phillips head screw. We're going to hold the arm in place while we loosen it so we don't turn the servo motor. We get that loose and pull the arm off of the servo motor. You'll see that the servos have a 25 to spline. What that means is this arm has a matching spline with 25 indentations. Unless you put this arm on in the absolutely exact same position you removed it from, it is going to be out of calibration. While we're looking at the arm, uh we can also see some calibration marks. These are marks that you will use when re-calibrating the assembly as a visual guide when you're setting the calibration in software. How would you use these calibration marks? So, in software, when you're setting the uh maximum up and maximum down levels, you'll want to adjust it so those calibration marks here are just visible and lined up with the flat portion of Kong's back. So, that would be up. And we would move it down, down, down, down. And when it's lined up like that, that is our down position. Retighten the arm here. So now um we're going to reinstall uh the back plate or King Kong's backpack. Notice on one edge we do have a cutout. This cutout is for the uh servo motor's wiring loom here. So we want to make sure that we put the wiring loom through that cutout. Get Kong kind of squared up with the plate here, the backing plate. We can slide the plate back in. So, position the wiring loom like this in the plate. And then we can try to get these little cleats into the slit in the base of King Kong here. So, it sits just like that. So, now the little cleats are installed in the plate here. And now we can take our screws and attach the plate here to the back of the assembly. Now that we have the assembly back together, we can take it back over to the game and reattach it to the back panel. Installation is the opposite of removal. We are going to take the King Kong assembly here and we are going to guide it into the back panel using the studs at the top of the assembly. And once we get it in, we can use the washers and nuts to tack it in place. So, I'm starting from the top. I'm using the nuts to hold the King Kong assembly from being able to fall off and out of the back panel. Once I have the washers and nuts installed and handtightened, I'm going to drive them home and get them snug, but not totally tight. Once those are in, I'm going to take our other screws and I'm going to install those through the bottom. And once those are tight, I'll move back up to the nuts and I will tighten those down. All right. And with that, we can reattach our 48vt power to the node board. And then get our node bus data cables and reattach those to the ports that they plug into. And we have an installed Kong animatronic. In the game settings, there is a calibration menu to adjust each start and stop position of the King Kong animatronic. We can access that through the diagnostic menu.