This is the Special Launch Edition 3-Flipper Tibetan Breeze kit for Stern's Rush pinball machines (all models). It will only be made for a limited time.
Installation takes about 15 minutes and the results are spectacular. This cooling system reduces the coils' heat by over 50 degrees!
The SLE Tibetan Breeze Coil Cooling Kit for Spike2 features three industry-leading quiet fans secured to three custom brackets with 4 karma glide mounts on each bracket, as well as a two part, modular wiring harness with a fuse and bleed-back protection by means of a rectifier diode. It also includes mounting hardware, an installation tool, and instructions that make installation a...breeze
Each 3 Flipper SPIKE 2 Tibetan Breeze Special Launch Edition contains:
3x Higher CFM fans
3x Angled Translucent Red fan brackets
1x Fused power adapter with rectifier diode
1x Quik-loc splitter
2x 7.5 foot cable to connect fans to power adapter
12x Red zipties for a clean installation
1x Pinmonk precision cutter
1x Installation instructions
WHAT CAUSES FLIPPER COIL FADE?
In general, with coils you're fighting the laws of thermodynamics. Energy (power) sent to the coil is converted to action and heat, and if there's not enough time between pulses to let the heat dissipate, the heat continues building, which increases electrical resistance of the coil windings, requiring more power for the same work which increases heat, in a loop. Unlike the other coils in the game, the flippers are firing all the time with few pauses of more than a few seconds, so they just build up heat, which affects their performance over time. Some games are better at building pauses into the action that gives the coils time to cool for short bursts. These fans help continuously dissipate the heat to prevent heat buildup and in turn, keep electrical resistance to a minimum while maximizing performance to approximately a "first flip" level.
SHOULD I WORRY ABOUT FLIPPER COIL FADE?
If your playing time is sessions of 30 minutes or less, you don't have to worry about fade, and these fans are completely unnecessary. It only happens over time and usually isn’t noticeable for 40 minutes or more if you start with a “cold” game. However, once the fade starts, it only gets worse unless you let the machine rest (allowing time for the heat of the coils dissipate). This fan kit prevents the coils from heating up past about 100-110F, staying well below the threshold where fade begins no matter how long you play.
WHAT TEMPERATURE DOES FADE BEGIN?
There really isn't a hard answer for this because the player perceiving weakness is well after fade has actually started. It initially manifests as missed or bricked shots that you can easily make earlier in the game. It also depends on the size of the coil and whether or not it's dual wound. Larger coils can get hotter before they feel weak to the player because they're powering through the electrical resistance. However, larger coils are more destructive to the playfield because cold, they have much more power to launch the ball at targets, ramps, and plastics and that can damage them faster. But, generally speaking for all but the largest coils (most Sterns) fade starts around 130F, and the flippers begin feeling weak to the player around the high 140s to low 150s. Spooky and JJP can go higher before showing signs if they're using larger coils, but fade for long play sessions is a problem for all of them.
DO ALL STERN SPIKE & SPIKE 2 MACHINES HAVE FLIPPER COIL FADE?
All Spike & Spike 2 machines are being tested and so far there is a range of fade, from none (Star Wars) to severe (Stranger Things) with most pins in-between.
WHY IS FLIPPER FADE SO BAD ON NEW MACHINES? WHY DON'T THEY FIX IT?
Flipper fade is not new. Games as far back as 1989 have been noted to have flipper fade by tournament players playing them in tournaments. In general, though, the older pins are less deep, and were rarely in homes where they were played sometimes for hours at a time, so people didn't experience fade unless they were tournament players, and the smart ones got on the machines early because they knew the machine would be "tired" later in the tournament. The first well-known pin with severe fade that people had at home was Lord of the Rings, in the early 2000s, which notoriously had fade so severe you often couldn't make the important ring shot after 45 minutes or so, which was a problem given that it was a KEY shot in the game. Flipper fade isn't a defect, per se. It's physics at work. Programmers can minimize or delay the buildup of heat, but because of physics, heat will always be an issue, it's just a question of how much and how fast. These fans constantly dissipate the heat from the flipper coils, solving the problem.
ARE THESE MAGIC FLIPPER-FIXING DEVICES?
No. These kits are ONLY designed to keep the flipper performance consistent for as long as you play by keeping the temperature of the coils around 100-110F, well below the beginning-of-fade threshold of about 130F. They will not give you magical pinball skills or let you fire off laser-focused shots suddenly. They will only let you play as well as you do on a "fresh" machine, even if your machine has been played for hours with these installed.