I jumped headlong in to learning how to read and use pinball schematics last night. I don’t have any schematics for Big Guns yet so i figured i’d take this opportunity to figure out my Surf Champ problems once and for all.
Thanks again to the awesome community at Pinside, I got some good advice from Nicholas Baldridge aka @bingopodcast (twitter). Nick does a podcast on EM and bingo machines and he pointed me to a number of episodes on his show that are focused on electrical basics of EMs (and really all pinball machines).
I listened to Episodes 17 and 18 and started to absorb some of it, but i’m still having difficulty understanding how to trace the flow of logic (and electricity) through the document (circuits). I’m so used to troubleshooting software code that i think part of my problem is the expectations i bring with me to the troubleshooting process.
Nick and i had a nice exchange and he offered some more advice. I’m hoping to go out and put it to good use tonight and maybe i’ll finally narrow down the nagging issues i’ve had on Surf Champ! More than anything, i’d like to understand these systems and diagrams thoroughly enough to USE them. Right now i can understand what’s happening in one place, but not how to follow it to it’s reaction.
Learning is fun.
Here are the links and full descriptions of the bingopodcast episodes i reference above:
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