My new Power Flash

[CoventryCat86]

Many thanks to Rusty (wrkey) for making this happen. Here's where it all began

The machine and the transformer arrived on Thursday, February 18, 2010. I only had time to unpack it and take a quick look. I cleaned the hopper and reattached it with screws as Rusty was good enough to remove it for shipping since as most of us know, this is the most likely part to be damaged in shipping. I also installed the spring for the shooter (thanks to Moparformances). This machine is loaded up with quite a bit of mouse droppings and the frame is coming apart down at the bottom. Unfortunately, the chrome is pitted, not bad but it won't polish out. Can someone please take a look at the photo of the back side of the wiring block and tell me where I'm supposed to wire in the transformer? It also looks like a nut is missing for where the white wires should attach to the back of the white post.

I figured I'd post some photos of what the machine looked like before I started so here they are:

[CoventryCat86]

Here are some more pictures:

[Moparformances]

hear is two pic's

power to the solonoids is the grey wires.. one wire to the little circuit board.. one to the back side of the box...

Power flash power box.jpg...Power flash power box (1).jpg

[CoventryCat86]

Mopar and I have been trading messages and he suggested I post a few more pictures of the power block area. After studying his pictures and looking at my machine, it looks like someone yanked the gray wires so hard, it literally ripped them out of the back of the power block. You can see where there's a piece broken off of the small circuit board. There was also quite a bit of mouse dung back there which made quite a mess.

[luckydog]

we had mice in our house out in the country near Waukegan il.

they once filled the complete inside of my mothers sewing machine with small pebbles and also filled the bottom of a hollow door with pebbles.

[CoventryCat86]

we had mice in our house out in the country near Waukegan il.

they once filled the complete inside of my mothers sewing machine with small pebbles and also filled the bottom of a hollow door with pebbles.

Ah, so you're a Lake County guy! A very good friend of mine is a retired Lincolnshire police officer who lives in Grayslake. He still works in Lincolnshire for Hewitt. I went out to visit him in December of 2008. We stayed in Glenview, had a nice dinner at the original Morton's on N. State St. and took in a show at a club called the Double Door in Chicago. Our friend's band (The Tossers) were having a show to celebrate the release of their new CD at that time.

Getting back to the mice, they're kinda cute little buggers but they sure do make one heck of a mess.

[luckydog]

I lived in Venetian Village with 2 nice lakes nearby, sand lake and miltmore lake, near Lake Villa.
my grandfather build the orginal house in the 30's, my folks bought it when he passed in the 50's for a summer cottage,
in the 60's we put a 3 room addition and remodeled it for year round living. I bought it from my mom the year before she passed.
thread hijack over

[CoventryCat86]

Today's project was to clean the ball shooter/tray area. It was packed almost solid with mouse droppings and I had to take everything off to clean the surfaces. The ball tray was incredibly dirty. The chrome is slightly pitted, I cleaned it up as best as I could.

[CoventryCat86]

Transformer is hooked up and the solenoids work. As Rusty had mentioned in the earlier thread, there are little, stiff wires fastened to the tulips that latch into the sliding mechanisms for the solenoids. One is missing and another is broken off.

Does anyone have any idea how to fix these? It looks like I'm going to have to remove the tulips to do this. Any suggestions on how to remove those without ruining them?

[Moparformances]

never tryed to take one off..

Mudfud used a large paperclip to make a new one

[CoventryCat86]

never tryed to take one off..

Mudfud used a large paperclip to make a new one

How to you fasten the paper clip, with solder?

[mudfud]

check out my video at youtube (mudfud1818)

the wires that were on the back of my tulips actually were intact, it was the wires on the black linkages, which I screwed back on with the holding screw.

I think you're right that it will take solder or epoxy (probably what I would try since it's a chrome kinda metal)

post pix of the broken arms, I'm sure the ideas will fly

[CoventryCat86]

Well, I haven't done much with this machine for the past few weeks, work's been busy, my camera for some reason isn't working very well and I've had some other projects come up.

I glued and refastened the frame which as you can see in the pictures had started to come apart. It's solid now, the machine opens and closes perfectly now because it didn't when I first got it because the frame was coming apart.

I just wanted to post an update so you all don't think I just up an disappeared on ya!

Whenever I get my camera figured out, I'll post some pictures of the broken wires on the back of the tulips as that is my main obstacle at this point.

[mbodi]

Hey CC
I just finished wiring my California Powerflash and I didn't use the J-box.
The previous owner had the 24 AC from the transformer going to a part that I think is a rectifier, then direct to the solenoids. I replaced the transformer with a radio shack one with the splitter wire, but stayed with his rectifier. Seems to work fine. I think he did something with the wiring in the J-box, and seems that he was using it for his lights. Maybe between this box and yours, you can make a good one.
Let me know if you want it. Even if you don't need the J-box, PM me your address and I'll send you a set of decals for your tulips and card strip. I still have a few sets left.

Mike.

[Moparformances]

Hey CC
I just finished wiring my California Powerflash and I didn't use the J-box.
The previous owner had the 24 AC from the transformer going to a part that I think is a rectifier, then direct to the solenoids. I replaced the transformer with a radio shack one with the splitter wire, but stayed with his rectifier. Seems to work fine. I think he did something with the wiring in the J-box, and seems that he was using it for his lights. Maybe between this box and yours, you can make a good one.
Let me know if you want it. Even if you don't need the J-box, PM me your address and I'll send you a set of decals for your tulips and card strip. I still have a few sets left.

Mike.

great post Mbodi.. that little rectifer could help others out

[mbodi]

Mopar
I'm wondering about the wiring to my L-man solenoids.
I thought this machine would be similar to the T-bird. On the L-man, the upper center pocket opens all the tulips. The upper right and left pockets only pay a jackpot. Either joker tulip, closes everything.
Going to put the 2 machines side by side and compare them.
I had a broken wire that I re-soldered to one of the solenoids. Other than that, I didn't change anything.

[Lt Teddy]

Sometimes it is not what you did but what somebody else did thinking they knew what they were doing. It is surprising to me the amount of people that have had a powerflash and not even applied the power to it and also the amount of people and probably parlors that went in and tryed to modify the machine because... who know why.

[emmadog]

Hey Mbodi,
You may already know this by now but the upper left and right tulips on both machines pay out and open all tulips below them by gravity. No solenoids are used.
-On both machines the top center opens all pockets
-T-bird lower center jackpot will open either left or right side tulips depending on which side ball entered, L man does not have this feature
-Tbird jokers only close tulips on that side, Lman either joker closes all tulips
-Lman center jackpot pays out and opens two pockets below it by gravity
On many Pflashes I have seen one or more of the wires on either the tulips or the slider bars have been clipped. As LT and others have suggested it was prolly an easy way for parlor owners to limit payouts.

[mbodi]

Thanks John
Guess its wired correctly.
Surprised they didn't design them the same as the T-bird. A lot more variety. Probably could be set up like a T-bird with the addition of a couple leaf switches. That is, if the ball tracks are the same.

Going to start a new thread on this machine. Have it all done, except for some fine tuning.

[emmadog]

You can clip one wire in the back of an Lman and have the jokers only close tulips on that side. More fun in my opinion. I'll check in a minute and look at mine to see which wire.