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What causes a flipper to stick?

coil getting hot and sleeve on inside distorting
or dust getting on plunger or end of plunger going out of shape
and sticking in sleeve have you tried cleaning plunger
or even a weak return spring.
whats it on?
 
those are all mechanical reasons - with power off, the flipper will stay stuck.
a fried transistor will do that too, but power off and it will drop .... unless you were too slow, and the coil got cooked and maybe grabbed onto the plunger like a startled fox mid coitus
 
...or flipper not gapped correctly, i.e. If you grab the flipper you should be able to lift it slightly ( 0.7mm or a credit card thickness ), in other words it shouldn't be tight on the through playfield nylon bush.
 
The cab flipper button itself could be sticking in. That ones pretty obvious to diagnose though :).
 
Mushrooming of the flipper plunger and/or end stop.

Something that is often overlooked when refurbishing flippers is changing the screw that connects the flipper plunger to the pawl. It wears and can lead to weak flippers. I have just done the flippers on my Spider-Man and here is an extreme example of what can happen.

image.jpeg
 
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@Andrew Stockdale , i had exactly the same thing on my wpt. Luckily on sterns you can swap these over with the other bolts on the flipper mechs to cure it
 
@Andrew Stockdale , i had exactly the same thing on my wpt. Luckily on sterns you can swap these over with the other bolts on the flipper mechs to cure it
It's a common problem. Fortunately I have a few of these screws in my 'big box of interesting things' so I swap them over when I do flipper refurbs.
 
Changing that bolt had a massive impact on my wpt. It opened up backhand shots that were previously impossible
 
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