Skip to content

Adjust coil strength (pulse times)

Modern pinball controller systems that MPF use have the ability to precisely control how long (in milliseconds) the full power is applied to a coil. (Longer time = more power.) This is called the "pulse time" of a coil, as it controls how long the coil is pulsed MPF sends the coil a pulse command.

You can adjust this setting for all the coils in your machine, including flippers, trough ejects, pop bumpers, etc.

This is much nicer than the old days (even the 1990s WPC era) where pulse times were fixed, and you adjusted the strength of a mechanism by literally swapping out the coil with a stronger or weaker one!

Note

If you have "dual wound" coils, which are common for flippers, diverters, and other mechs which are "held" in the on position, you can use the pulse settings defined in this guide to control the initial "pulse" portion of that coil's activation.

Adjusting the pulse time is a bit of an art. If the pulse time is too long, you'll risk breaking something and the ball will fly off the mechanism too fast. Times that are two low will make the machine seem sluggish.

We suggest that you start with a slow time and slowly increase it until it feels right.

Unfortunately there's no universal pulse time setting that will work on every machine since the "pulse time" to "actual strength" mapping varies depending on:

  • What type of coils you have (wire gauge and number of windings).
  • How much voltage your power supply provides.
  • How much current is available.
  • How clean or worn your mechanisms, return springs, and/or coil sleeves are.
  • How warm your coils are.

Pulse values can vary widely. One of our machines using new Williams flipper mechanisms with a 70vdc power supply has flipper pulse times of 14ms. Our 1974 Gottlieb Big Shot machine using the original flipper mechs has a pulse time over 100ms.

You adjust the pulse time for each coil by adding a default_pulse_ms: setting to the coil's entry in the coils: section of your machine config file. (Notice that you make this change in the coils: section of your config, not the section for the individual mech that coil is part of.)

If you don't specify a time for a particular coil, then MPF will a default pulse time of 10ms. (10ms is almost certainly too low, but it's a very safe default starting point.)

For example, for coils used in dual-wound flippers:

coils:
  c_flipper_left_main:
    number: 00
    default_pulse_ms: 20
  c_flipper_left_hold:
    number: 01
    allow_enable: true
  c_flipper_right_main:
    number: 02
    default_pulse_ms: 20
  c_flipper_right_hold:
    number: 03
    allow_enable: true

Or for single-wound flipper coils:

coils:
  c_flipper_left:
    number: 0
    allow_enable: true
    default_hold_power: 0.125
    default_pulse_ms: 20
  c_flipper_right:
    number: 1
    allow_enable: true
    default_hold_power: 0.125
    default_pulse_ms: 20

Again, you just need to play your game and see how it feels. Then keep on adjusting the default_pulse_ms: values up or down until your flippers feel right.

You might find that you have to adjust this default_pulse_ms: setting down the road too. If you have a blank playfield then you might think that your coils are fine where they are, but once you add some ramps you might realize it's too hard to make a ramp shot and you have to increase the power a bit. Later on when you have a real game, you can even expose these pulse settings to operators via the service menu.

Advanced settings vary based on hardware

In addition to being able to specify how long a coil is pulsed for, some pinball control systems allow you to control the power that's applied to the coil during the initial pulse. (So instead of 100% power for 50ms, you might be able to set a coil to 75% power for 60ms.)

See the hardware documentation for your platform for links to specific coil settings your hardware might allow.

Something missing or wrong? You can fix it!

This website is edited by people like you! Is something wrong or missing? Is something out of date, or can you explain it better?

Please help us! You can fix it yourself and be an official "open source" contributor!

It's easy! See our Beginner's guide to editing the docs.

Page navigation via the keyboard: < >

You can navigate this site via the keyboard. There are two modes:

General navigation, when search is not focused:

  • F , S , / : open search dialog
  • P , , : go to previous page
  • N , . : go to next page

While using the search function:

  • Down , Up : select next / previous result
  • Esc , Tab : close search
  • Enter : go to highlighted page in the results