Stern Avengers pinball repair (#006)

A Las Vegas gentlemen bought a brand new Stern Avengers Infinity Quest Premium pinball and within two days had and issue with one of the flippers… a very strange squealing noise! He sent us a video and it was disturbingly loud, so can completely understand his concern (especially since the game was only two days old, and manufactured only 6 weeks again in April 2022!)

Took the flipper mechanism apart and found that the Stern pinball factory had assembled one of the flipper mechanisms incorrectly. The wavy washer which should go on the flipper coil stop, was mounted on the inside the flipper coil sleeve. The wavy washer is a mini shock absorber, which helps prevent wire breakage on the flipper coil. But with the wavy washer in the incorrect location, it essentially made the coil sleeve too short. And this allowed the metal flipper plunger to rub on the upper metal coil bracket, causing the loud squealing noise.

The fix was simple, just move the wavy washer to the correct location on the coil stop. We also checked the other flipper for this assembly mistake, but found it was assembled correctly.

Incorrect wavy washer placement:

Correct wavy washer placement: