Info wanted on how stern handles stacked balls in the trough

[myPinballs]

Would like some detailed info (from any pin players) on what stern do control wise when the trough stacks 2 balls on top of themselves near the eject and what the normal likely causes of this event are.

How does the game return the trough to them all inline again?
Does it kick out 2 balls in many occasions, or manage to still just eject 1.

Any info would be great.

 

[windoesnot]

From my experience, it most often happens when a ball goes into the shooter lane and bounces back through the hole into the trough. I think there is an upper opto in the trough that can detect double stacked balls at the far end of it, normally fires the ball eject coil to clear, more often than not results in just 1 coming back out.

 

[stoptap]

I've had a Stern game have a wobbler with this before. Not sure what game it was (definitely a SAM game though).

It managed to double stack the balls in the trough and then either couldn't see the stacked ball (checked the opto after) or just didn't know what to do. I had to open the coin door and manually plunge the ball into the shooter lane.

 

[JWG9999]

I've had that once (in nearly a year and 2000++ games) on my TWD - 2 balls stacked in the trough and the pin couldn't see it.

There is a "Trough Jam" switch is supposed to spot it but it didn't work that time.

I suspect it does happen sometimes but the Trough Jam switch detects it and the pin sorts itself out without me even knowing.

 

[Poibug]

yup I have had that on MOP and FG.Whilst going thru lost ball routine it never fired trough eject solenoid.A fault is Stern code,surely not , Don't even get me started on code,team scoring does not work,at all in ANY sam game.I even told Gary Stern and George Gómez this,face to face!

 

[ronnie63]

I wondered about this too but in my case a sega x files, sometimes it fires the ball out the trough but falls back in again! and the machine does not sense this? and never fires it again so the game just hangs! but most times it will let me constantly fire the shooter even though there is no ball in the lane! this trough does not have the stacker opto though only the single pair. And all the switches are ok inc the shootler lane one.

 

[myPinballs]

Thanks guys. This info is in relation to my stern indy port over and making improvements to the trough code i have already in place. I'm aware of the ball bouncing back into the trough situation and have code for this, but i had a few situations during the weekend where the trough would get into a stacked ball state, but didn't seem to be from a ball launch bounce back in.

Anyone seen this on a stern game (with the double opto board)?

 

[ronnie63]

Jim not wanting to spoil your thread but I would be interested in a fix for my situation where the ball falls back in the trough from shooter lane?

Thanks Ronnie

 

[stoptap]

Thanks guys. This info is in relation to my stern indy port over and making improvements to the trough code i have already in place. I'm aware of the ball bouncing back into the trough situation and have code for this, but i had a few situations during the weekend where the trough would get into a stacked ball state, but didn't seem to be from a ball launch bounce back in.

Anyone seen this on a stern game (with the double opto board)?

I think I have seen this happen but I don't know how it happens. I was playing a game and waiting for the ball to be fed in to the shooter lane after a bonus count up and it never appeared. There was no failed attempt by the game to load the ball it just stacked. Now whether there is a ghost in the machine in the code and there is occasionally a soft pulse of the coil that loads the balls I don't know.

 

[myPinballs]

I think I have seen this happen but I don't know how it happens. I was playing a game and waiting for the ball to be fed in to the shooter lane after a bonus count up and it never appeared. There was no failed attempt by the game to load the ball it just stacked. Now whether there is a ghost in the machine in the code and there is occasionally a soft pulse of the coil that loads the balls I don't know.

Exactly, well i'm going to need more info on this and how it occurs to try and write code to handle it somehow. Anyone else seen this?

 

[Sven Normansson]

How does Stern handle a trough jam? Poorly.

From what I've seen all it will do is pulse the coil in an attempt to clear the ball, this often results in 2 balls served or the balls just sitting there (as there appears to be no retries).
As you are rewriting the code, it needs to recognize that a ball has not been served in the required time and then take a number of retries varying the pulse time on each try.
if at the end of the retries no ball served or jam not cleared, post an operator error. If a ball is available elsewhere, serve that.

This is pretty much what MPF does and it works well on Forbidden Planet.