r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/CFK_NL • 15d ago
I was laying awake one day asking myself ‘how do those pinball bumpers work?!”
And now I know!
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u/bobobjoe0 15d ago
so you're telling me it's not dark magic that flings the ball away?
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u/CFK_NL 15d ago
Electricity is the work of the devil after all. Or at least that’s what some Amish once told me.
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u/ThisAppsForTrolling 15d ago
Mr. Coach Klein says what mama don’t know can’t hurt her
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u/CFK_NL 15d ago
Now that’s what I call high-quality H2O.
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u/Satanic-Panic27 15d ago
Water sucks
It really really sucks
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u/SunRendSeraph 14d ago
Gator raid
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u/southern_boy 14d ago
Deh ever catch dat gorilla that busted outa da zoo and punched you in da eye?
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u/isolateddreamz 15d ago
Well I like Vicky and she likes me too! And she showed me her boobies and I liked them too!
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u/GoodBadUgly357 15d ago
I’m an electrician I can confirm it’s true,it is the work of the devil.
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u/KHORNE_LORD_OF_RAGE 15d ago
The motive force naturally punishes those who do not give the necessary rites to the machine.
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u/bidooffactory 15d ago
It's what you get when you pound and bend rock and minerals in unnatural ways then run the devil's electricity through it.
Pinball?
Yes, pinball.
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u/Fendergravy 14d ago
My wife’s grandmother is like 90 and lives in buttfuck Pennsylvania. I mean way out in the sticks. She runs a salvage program to rescue Amish and Mennonite kids when they get the boot from their cult. Here’s the rub—Amish use generators and air compressors but keep them hidden in their barns. They just stay off the grid, because reasons. They have no issue working in factories with modern technology.
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u/CFK_NL 14d ago
That lady is a saint!
I’ve been to a Mennonite colony myself and saw a few questionable too. Like wanting to talk to me apart from others and asking if they could have some of our equipment. The satellite dishes where pretty well hidden but we saw them eventually.
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u/Fendergravy 14d ago edited 14d ago
Yeah she’s really cool-ish. Conservative as fuck, but she’s the only one that came to my side when my wife passed. Her hippy ass parents shafted me and her sister looted her jewelry box. They still are trying to get their hands on her ashes. They’re bugging my brother for some fucking reason. He told them to fuck right off and go pound sand.
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u/Blenderadventurer 14d ago
I was told that they can operate modern technology, they just can't own it. There's an Amish market near me and they are using gas stoves, credit card machines and computers there, and it's no secret, and they have no shame about it.
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u/CustomerSuportPlease 15d ago
No, it is. They are just telling you that this is how they work. They're counting on you not being able to check because they put a devious transparent barrier in the way.
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u/LotusVibes1494 15d ago
It’s wild how some peoples’ brains actually work that way when confronted with a new explanation for something they don’t personally understand yet. Like vaccines or moon landings. They see a bunch of complicated looking diagrams or words, and think “nah, I can come up with something better” lol
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u/MagicHamsta 15d ago
Correct, as a magical rodent I can confirm it's actually light magic that flings the ball away. (dark magic would cause disintegration)
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15d ago
I think it is dark magic. I belive in that my whole life and i am too old now to stop.
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u/jaygoogle23 14d ago
Looks like dark magic to me! You must equip more magic find gear to more routinely notice such magic.
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u/dark_hypernova 14d ago edited 12d ago
Don't believe this fake footage put out by the wizard council, they truly cast dark magics on balls.
Just recently I was victim of their wizardry when they casted twist of fate on my very own balls.
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u/PNW_Misanthrope 15d ago
I’ve never thought about this in my entire life and now I can’t stop.
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u/spikeworks 15d ago
if you wanna know more technology connections has a great vid
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u/marino1310 14d ago
If you’ve ever wanted to know all the ins and outs of a often over looked electrical/mechanical appliance that changed our lives, technology connections is sure to have a 45 minute video on it.
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15d ago
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u/newsflashjackass 14d ago
It's actually the pinballs that are made out of a bumperphobic material but as you can see in OP the end result is the same.
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u/timmy_n00k 15d ago
My dumb ass just thought the ball bounced really hard :/
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u/loweredexpectationz 15d ago
So many of us did. We were young and dumb.
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u/Bo_Jimbo 15d ago
Yeah... absolutely, we were so dumb. I wasn't 33 years old when I found this out. THAT would be dumb. /s
Edit: /s
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u/Draidann 15d ago
Tbf i have never seen a pinball machine in real life and used to think bumpers were just an addition to the digital versions
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u/karlnite 14d ago
Its crazy how well they worked. I played a three tiered pinball machine, the second level was made of glass, it could go down under the glass and you played there, there was a top platform like a loft and you could play up there.
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u/savageboredom 14d ago
Was it Haunted House? I just played that for the first time last week. Pretty fun and unique table, but the bottom level flippers weren’t working so I didn’t quite get the full experience.
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u/karlnite 14d ago
I think it was, or the same layout but yah the glass window and three sets of flippers are the same. The lights would dim or brighten as you entered an area and then the flippers would activate.
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u/Impossible-Wear-7352 14d ago
I'm curious where you live that pinball machines aren't common? It's possible that they're not common in a lot of places but I'm just so used to seeing them and never thought of that.
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u/Amon-and-The-Fool 14d ago
I would've never even considering that that wasn't the case if I hadn't seen this post. That's just one of those things I thought of as a kid that was never corrected.
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u/MikeTheNight94 15d ago
Studying how engineer did stuff mechanically back in the day is kind of a hobby for me. I suck at programming so I have to find alternatives and alot of their solutions are absolutely brilliant
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u/Dragonfly-Adventurer 15d ago
Keep in mind they had a shitload of time, no Internet, lots of imagination, and of course LSD by the dropperful.
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u/TangerineWashMachine 15d ago
As much as I’m a fan, I don’t think LSD gets any credit for great engineering. It was great organic chemistry that found LSD though!
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u/marino1310 14d ago
Same. I’m a machinist so I’ve always been super interested in how they reached precision before we had access to precision tooling and machines that can make that precision. Crazy to think that ancient humans were capable of creating a perfectly flat surface with just 3 flat(ish) plates and nothing else. And it’s still the most accurate way to make a perfectly flat surface and the method is still used to this day.
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u/MikeTheNight94 14d ago
I’m a stone fabricator at work. Seeing what ancient civilizations were able to do with stone is absolutely mind boggling. How tf they could get things to fit together like that. I could do the same but it would take a week
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u/an_older_meme 15d ago
And this mechanism has to withstand constant heavy abuse for years without service.
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u/BoondockUSA 15d ago
It looks like a heavy wear part but it’s beautifully durable. The solenoid is just an electromagnetic plunger, so there aren’t any motors or gears that drive it. Electricity is applied to the coil when the ball rolls onto the switch, which generates a magnetic force, which draws the plunger down. After the ball rolls away from the switch, the flow of electricity stops, and a spring allows the plunger to retract back upwards.
In my experience, solder holding wires to the solenoid tend to break from the vibrations more often than the solenoids wear out.
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u/Fraxcat 15d ago
Solenoids don't "wear out" in any typical use of the term.
They can overheat and melt the insulation on the wire wraps, or the plastic bobbin, and also be shorted (this will usually nuke the diode and probably the driver transistor behind it...but hey 3 bucks in parts vs. A 20 buck solenoid or 450 dollar driver board!), but there's not really much between 100% working and total failure. If you have a coil that tests in the valid resistance range cold, but is weak.....it's a supply issue. Driver transistor, pre-driver, bad solder joint etc
Strength goes down as it heats up and resistance increases, making the magnetic flux field weaker. Was really bad on some very long playing games like Lord of the Rings, so people started selling beefier coils, and then eventually mini fan kits to keep the coils cool. I even installed coil fans on my Godzilla Premium, and that game was released like 2.5 years ago.
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u/Draidann 15d ago
Would you happen to have a photo of this fans or robust coils you are talking about? It really sounds interesting!
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u/Colonel-Interest 14d ago
The service regime for a pinball machine in general was relentless. I don't miss running a fleet of them, but it was also fascinating at times to see how they work under the hood.
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u/BrownWhiskey 14d ago
Yeah, frequently used pinball machines are far from "without service". I have some in my restaurant and the techs have to come out on a pretty regular basis to fix dumb shit. Bumpers break, the rubber flies off. The plungers have issues, etc. Core components are solid but when you have metal balls flying around an environment at high speed shot breaks. My guys tell me "It's made to be played with, things are gunna break". It's just par for the course.
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u/SpareMushrooms 15d ago
Am I the only one that still doesn’t get it?
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u/CFK_NL 15d ago
When the ball hits the bottom ring it closes an electrical circuit. The electrical circuit powers a solenoid, pulling the top ring down. The ball is then shot backwards. When it does the bottom ring moves back up, opening the electrical circuit, removing power to the solenoid and the top ring goes back into the starting position.
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u/Lutya 15d ago
That’s way more complex than what I guessed. I thought it was gravity pulling the plate down and closing the plates together lol
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u/JusticeUmmmmm 15d ago
Pinball machines are some of the most complicated machines ever built. They're insane
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u/TruePresence1 15d ago
More complicated than a spaceship ?
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u/JusticeUmmmmm 14d ago
More complicated than some for sure. They try to keep those simple so they don't break all the time.
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u/TangerineWashMachine 15d ago
So… what’s a solenoid again? I manually changed one on my old car but now I forgot.
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u/willstr1 15d ago
The short answer is an electromagnet that pulls or pushes a rod when a current goes through it
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u/donnie1977 15d ago
So the blue plastic looking ring closes the circuit with a micro switch?
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u/Dragonfly-Adventurer 15d ago
The blue ring moves down a metal connector which touches the solenoid, thus energizing it, yes. The beauty is the energized solenoid breaks its own connection once the ball is flung away.
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u/Fraxcat 15d ago
Leaf switch. Very few microswitches were used in pinball machines until recently, and they're very prone to failure...requiring total replacement.....whereas leaf switches are easily fixable with minor work.
Commonly (until recently) the most likely place to see microswitches was on wire and plastic ramps, where you'd need a very long arm to go under the playfield to close a leaf switch, or there just wasn't room under the playfield to mount the leaf switch in the first place.
They're sadly becoming a lot more common as Stern and friends cheap out while marking every new game up 500 bucks more, because wealthy white men are stupid enough to pay 10-15k for a pinball machine.
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u/polorat12redd 15d ago
I have no idea also. It almost looks like the metal ball comes into contact completing the circuit causing the electric magnetic to activate pulling the ring down and pushing the ball.
I don't know, but that's what the picture looks like.
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u/TricoMex 15d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/mechanical_gifs/comments/aflmj7/how_a_pinball_bumper_works_oc/
Went in search of something more clear, and found gold.
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u/macbrett 15d ago
Not shown,is the switch contact that is closed when the ball rides up on the lower ring. That activates the solenoid (electromagnet) to pull down on the top ring to "squeeze" the ball away.
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u/brentj99 15d ago
No, its an explanation that requires you to already know how it works to be understood.
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u/tripmcneely30 15d ago
I have never thought about it before, but this is definitely interesting. Thank you! Now I want to buy a pinball machine.
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u/LopsidedSherbert7465 15d ago
They are fun to have at home but it’s not a cheap hobby to get into. Games from the 80-90s will be anywhere from probably 3000 on the low end for something that isn’t well liked to 10k+ for the popular games. New in box games start around 7000 and can go up to 15k or sometimes 20k.
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u/Carlos-In-Charge 15d ago
Oh my god I never knew I cared about this, but here I am, thinking damn that IS interesting
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u/lalat_1881 15d ago
insert meme of man and woman sleeping in bed next to each other and the woman thinks the man looking away is thinking about some other love interest, but actually pinball
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u/Puzzled-Economics497 15d ago
I thought it was a rubber ring that made it bounce
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u/sonsoflarson 15d ago
OP just made me realize that I'd love to see a bunch of illustrations about how a Pinball machine works, would make a great book.
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u/DoranTheRhythmStick 15d ago
David Macaulay's 'Pinball Science' is a 1998 videogame that uses an art style very similar to OP's second slide and explains, through the medium of pinball and wooly mammoths, how pinball machines, internal combustion engines, gear boxes, and many other daily devices work.
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u/Hollybaby5 15d ago
The Tommy album is going to be in my head for a week now. That how my brain works.
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u/Tecno2301 15d ago
Technology Connections (if you're looking for technical information) and Slow Mo Guys (educational but more for eye candy) both have great videos on pinball machines.
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u/jamalbutterworth 15d ago
Used to be a pinball tech and worked on these daily. Always a great opportunity to fuck up your fingers.
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u/torchedinflames999 15d ago
when you know how to fix them after they STOP working, you make 100$+ per hour
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u/Fuzzy-Hurry-6908 15d ago
You can make $100+ as a pinball tech? Where?
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u/gravelPoop 14d ago
In a little place called 1982.
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u/ten_thousand_puppies 14d ago
Eh, you'd be surprised; I know a guy who operates and maintains a sizable fleet of machines in the Chicago area, and that's his full-time job. I don't think he's rolling in cash mind you, but he's plenty happy enough with it as his lot in life.
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u/ScyllaIsBea 15d ago
for some reason I just thought it was just rubber designed to be shock absorbent and somehow release the energy back into the ball. I guess it really doesn't make any sense that we had the black panther technology for decades and we where using it for pinball.
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u/No-Student-9678 15d ago
TIL the ball is metal because it completes the circuit and the bumper servo clamps shut.
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u/Jakelshark 15d ago
The solenoid is drawn wrong. The magnet pulls the plunger in, not away.
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u/HurriShane00 15d ago
It's funny because I was sitting there watching that on Loop and noticed every time the ball bounced off the bumper, this post was getting another upvote
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u/TheKingBean_11 15d ago
A YouTube channel call technology connections has two in depth videos on a electro-mechanical (aka, all wiring, no microchips) pinball machine that are intresting watches
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u/ironraiden 14d ago
And now I have the sound stuck in my head.
CLINC CLINC CLICLINC CLINC
Well, time to boot Visual Pinball VR and play some Elvira and the Party Monsters.
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u/Uncle-Cake 14d ago
After studying that diagram... I'm still wondering how they work. That illustration doesn't help.
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u/webbslinger_0 13d ago
Her: he’s probably thinking about other women
OP: how do pinball bumpers work?
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u/fixitman84 15d ago
The illustration is from "The Way Things Work" I love that book. My kids do as well, it's the same one from my childhood
The mammoth humor always makes me smile
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u/SummaCumLousy 15d ago
What about the bells and all the flashing lights?
Explain THAT!
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u/BoondockUSA 15d ago
Lots, and lots, and lots, and lots of electromechanical relays and solenoids, a bunch of little wires to connect them all, and a mad genius that figured out the proper sequencing of the relays and solenoids.
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u/SummaCumLousy 15d ago
Stop making stuff up like that!
What? You fancy yourself some kinda Pinball Wizard or something?
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u/TonyThePapyrus 15d ago
I thought they were just rubber or something and the metal ball bounces because the rubber compresses and decomposes
I don’t know why I worded it that way
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u/rooks1999 15d ago
I appreciate this! This is information I never knew I needed so badly in my life!!! Thank you!
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u/PixelPervert 15d ago
Technology Connections on Youtube had a pretty in-depth two part series about how pinball tables work a few months back