Tibetan Breeze SPIKE 2-Flipper Coil Cooling Kit

Tibetan Breeze SPIKE 2-Flipper Coil Cooling Kit

While I cannot say that it gets extremely hot at the monastery, ahead of monsoon season it does get quite warm. When those days come, I welcome the wandering Tibetan breezes that whisper through the halls of my chosen home and personal quarters, cooling them while also bringing the fragrant gift of Tibetan Summer Bells, reminding me of the proverb that says Goodness speaks in a whisper.

Life experiences have a way of influencing disparate events in unexpected ways, and that karmic jackpot paid out for  me when I was playing Stranger Things on a warm afternoon and having trouble hitting the TeleKenesis lock consistently late in a game. At the beginning of the game, I could sometimes hit it, but as the game continued, it became seemingly impossible until it actually WAS impossible. That is when the realization came to me that the problem may be flippers fading as the coils that drive them became overheated, an evil that handily completes of the other half of the proverb the breeze reminded me of – “Goodness speaks in a whisper, evil shouts.” And, my flippers were making my ears hurt from the incessant shouting.

Pleased that the concept of cooling overheating coils finally returned to me a full 20 years after Lord of the Rings pinball, and unwilling to let grace pass me by, I hurriedly went to my work area and retrieved a temperature gauge, installed a probe on each coil, then continued playing. After another thirty minutes of play, the left coil was over 65c (150F) and was clearly faded, and the right wasn’t far behind.

It was at this moment the room seemed to come to life as a Tibetan breeze swelled through the teak frames of my quarter’s open windows, filling the room with the scent of Summer Bells and cooling it. Then it hit me. Why not create an artificial Tibetan breeze to blow “good whispers” across the coil constantly, keeping the temperature below the threshold at which fade begins, preventing the evil from showing its uncooperative self? Of course! It was such a simple concept, but once more I had to be humbled by nature to see it.

Over the next few weeks, I perhaps unwisely cut corners on my meditation to scratch out some extra time to work on a design that would make my idea a reality. And, before long, I had it! A harness that used the ticket interface connector on every Spike2 machine to power two fans mounted on custom brackets so that they could keep the flipper coils well below the fade threshold for as long as you wanted to play – ensuring essentially first-flip performance of the flipper coils while the machine was on, no matter how long you played. I was overcome with pride as I realized that it was a breakthrough idea that actually worked in the real world exactly as my brilliant mind had imagined it! I was truly the genius this monastery deserved!

(As soon as I had that thought, I realized that perhaps my abbreviated meditation time had allowed a boastful and ugly spirit to take hold of my heart. Shamed, I firmly resolved to return to full meditation times once again. Cutting spiritual corners was perhaps not the best way to arrive at my goal, after all.)

The final Tibetan Breeze Pro Coil Cooling Kit for a two-flipper Spike2 game consists of two fans secured to two custom brackets with 4 button top screws and 4 square nuts, 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 instructions that make installation a...breeze.

Now that this kit exists, the benefit is yours to claim. All you need to do is purchase a kit and spend 10-15 minutes installing it in your Pro, Premium, LE or Super LE Spike2 pinball machine. I have tested it on Stranger Things, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Iron Maiden and all benefit from the breezes it creates. As time progresses, I will  test them all with my temperature probes and report my findings. The chart in the pictures shows the results of the machines as I test them. I have no doubt that I will eventually find that this kit will provide benefit on all Spike2 machines, but some more than others based on how their uncooled flipper coils perform.

Each 2 Flipper Kit contains:
2 Fans
2 Angled fan brackets
1 Fused power adapter with rectifier diode
1 7.5 foot cable to connect fans to power adapter
8 Zipties for a clean installation
1 Complete illustrated instructions for installation