I have located a small stash of optos that are perfect for WMS pinball work. They are compatible with 3 common problem areas where normally you would be forced to spend at least $4 (sometimes quite a bit more) for the original part. Who knows how long those original parts will even be available now that WMS is out of the pinball business? These long-legged optos work for both the long-legged and short-legged TZ clock optos. The TZ clock opto shroud casings are very easy to open so you just lift the tab, separate the casing into 2 pieces, remove the failed opto/s, insert the replacement/s and put it all back together. These same optos are perfectly compatible with the WMS flipper PCB optos except that those OEM shrouds don't come apart very easily, unlike the clock optos. No problem; you don't need a shroud for this dark/hidden application. Just remove the old opto and insert these at the proper height with no shroud and they work fine. In fact, it may even be a very good thing that they can be used outside the shroud as this gives you total flexibility in height allowing you to compensate for that oh-so-common "platic fatigue" that mis-shapes the interruptor causing it to no longer function properly. The only exception to the flipper opto use is if your flipper board uses 3-legged optos (i.e. it has 6 soldered pins coming out of the shroud), these may not work because I don't know what the deal is for those optos (but presumably the extra pin is either unused or a double of one of the other two and is only there for added anchoring so it will probably work for them, too). These optos are also compatible with the drop target optos even though, in this case, they are a slightly different physical package. The OEM optos are about twice as "fat" so that the replacements do not fit snuggly into the OEM shroud unless you wedge or glue them. As with the flipper optos, there is no need for the shroud anyway since this area has no ambient light to block out. I have tested these optos on dozens of pinballs with 100% success as you will see.
The price is $1.50 per opto (regardless of whether it is emitter or detector but you do need to specify; 1 paired set would be $3). If you order 50 pieces, the price drops to $1.25 per. PayPal is OK sending to woodcock@ClassicCoinOps.com. For those of you who have bought; the red ones are the transmitters and the clear ones are the detectors. The bump on each opto is the active side (i.e. point the bumps at each other). If these are going into a Twilight Zone clock, the red opto (transmitter) goes into the spots marked "A" and "K" and the clear opto (receiver) goes into the spots marked "C" and "E" (to remember this I think "AK-47 shoots").
Please also note that I also sell a standard-package yellow Infra-Red LED of the type that is used in the WPC trough and other playfield optos (the ones which are housed in the white shroud on the green PCB). As Marvin's guide mentions, Radio Shack sells a "compatible" blue one but it is very "noisy" in that it has a hugely wide and very bright beam which may cause problems in certain applications or overly stress the PCB/circuit in which it is used (to be fair, I have never known this to be the case). The yellow ones I sell are most likely identical to the originals at least so far as the beam focus and brightness (and color) go. But the real reason you should buy mine is that mine are almost half the cost; only $1 each. For now, I have not tried to source the detectors as I have NEVER known one of these to fail. If anybody thinks there is a real need for them, I will try to locate a cheap supply of those, too; just let me know.
Lastly, I have a "mini" package blue Infra-Red LED. I got these thinking they might work in Off-Road steering wheel controller PCBs but the won't. You'll not find a tinier transmitter around; $2 each.
Go back to the Classic Coin-Ops Main Page.
