General Pinball health and precautions
For the general health of your machine you should consider these things...
1. IS YOUR PINBALL MACHINE FLIPPER ASSEMBLY &/OR EOS CORRECTLY ADJUSTED?
A incorrectly adjusted flipper assembly or to be more exacting, incorrectly adjusted EOS switches can cause a flipper solenoid to overheat and loose power until it cools or even in some cases, burnout.
That being said, if it is incorrectly adjusted, then it is going to happen sometime soon without using a PinnyPause!
What you should be checking on your pinball from time to time is the gap that is set on the EOS (End Of Stroke) switch, which is a part of the flipper assembly.
The EOS switch opens when a flipper coil in energised (flipper on), and changes the energised coil from the high power coil, to the low power coil, thus stopping the coil from overheating and possibly failing.
Remember, these machines are designed as a commercially viable piece of equipment. They are built to be abused by the dumbest of the general public and continue to make money with minimum service call-outs.
That is why, it is safe to use a PinnyPause without hurting your pinball machine if your machine is correctly setup and adjusted.
Further evidence...Have you heard of the term "Cradling"?
This is the technique of holding a ball with a flipper by keeping the flipper activated. This happens on pinballs all over the world
EVERY DAY, ALL OF THE TIME.
If holding activating a flipper and holding it on for a while was bad for the longevity of a machine, it would be deemed illegal and pinball machines would probably have a timer set on the flipper where it would drop the flipper after a designated period of time.
There are countless stories of people holding their flippers on for periods of 20 minutes.
PinnyPause does believe it is a good idea, and for safety's sake suggest that you keep your machine PinnyPaused for the least amount of time that you can, in the case that your pinball machine is indeed incorrectly adjusted.
Because PinnyPause has no control over the state of adjustment, make or age of any pinball machine, we cannot and will not in any way take any responsibly for any issue that someone may think or indeed has been caused by or arisen due to the use of PinnyPause.
Here are some links that you can read about EOS setup...
https://homepinballrepair.com/how-pinball-flippers-work/
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-upgradingrebuilding-flippers#post-284658
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts-blog/eos-switches/
OR
2. IS YOUR PINBALL MACHINE STERN S.A.M. board system...
The problem with these machine is the transistor used on the board is not up to its designed task... the transistor gets blown before the fuse which is there to protect it.
The design should handle long term holds without blowing the fuse. The reason for the fuse being in the design is to protect the transistor, but the transistor can fail before the fuse threshold is reached. Hence the tales of flippers dying due to cradling and causing a board level repair.
It is a design/component issue and why many people have advocated replacing the part with a larger transistor to avoid the failure.
Because PinnyPause has no control over the state of adjustment, make or age of any pinball machine, we cannot and will not in any way take any responsibly for any issue that someone may think or indeed has been caused by or arisen due to the use of PinnyPause.
Link to S.A.M. machines...
https://www.giantbomb.com/stern-sam-board-system/3015-8231/games/
Here is a link about the replacement part...
https://www.aussiearcade.com/topic/51385-stern-flipper-problem/
3. There may be other issues that we are not aware of.
Because PinnyPause has no control over the state of adjustment, make or age of any pinball machine, we cannot and will not in any way take any responsibly for any issue that someone may think or indeed has been caused by or arisen due to the use of PinnyPause.