The majority of coil part numbers indicate the construction method of the coil. The first letter or two indicates the type of sleeve or the position of the wire terminal lugs.

Bally/Williams pinball solenoid coils have places for three terminal lugs; left edge, middle, and right edge of the coil's plastic base. The positions are as viewed with the lug end of the coil facing you and the lugs on top of the plastic coil base.

Example of a coil part number AE-23-800   In our example; 23=wire gauge; 800=number of turns of wire.

The 'AL' and 'AR' coils are used when the lugs on an 'AE' coil would be in the way of a metal coil mounting bracket or any other close mechanical device.  Numbers following a coil part number indicate the coil sleeve type used (metal sleeve, length), diode polarity, wire lug placement or length of the wire lug mounting insulator (coil base) (EX. AE-23-800-01).

AL has lugs on the left and middle.
AE has lugs on left and right (both corners)
AR has lugs on the right and middle of the base.

The next section of the coil part number is the wire gauge (the higher the wire gauge number, the smaller the diameter of wire), and the last digits indicate the number of turns of wire on the coil. Lower number of turns equates to stronger pull in strength of the solenoid coil.

Flipper coils usually have two sets of part numbers (Ex. 21-550/26-1200) because they have two coil windings on the same coil body. The first set of part numbers indicate the strength of the flipper. The last set of numbers indicate the coil strength used to hold the flipper fully upright. The number of wire turns on the second set of the flipper coil part number is always larger then the first number of wire turns because the coil does not need to be strong when holding the flipper upright. The second coil also has to be able to be held in (activated) permanently without burning up the coil.

Gottlieb is always the exception to any industrial coin op coil or part number scheme.  Their coil part numbers do not provide any useful information.
A substitute for Gottlieb coils can be found by matching a known good Gottlieb coil's ohmage with the ohmage of a Bally coil or by matching a typical coil's function.

Coil Body Differences - Bally and Gottlieb use the same coil body. A typical Williams or Data East coil uses a 1/16" shorter coil body.
Vast differences exist for coil stops between pinball manufacturers. These differences include stop height, width and mounting hole spacing.

Solenoid coil sleeve, coil magnet and flipper bushing  information.

Other pinball game and coin-op arcade technical info can be found on Pinball Medic's Tech Tips pages.

Pinball Type Abbreviations:
EM = Electromechanical (score reels, relays)   SS = Solid State (digital score displays, chips (integrated circuits))
VUK=Vertical Up Kicker   G. P.=General Purpose Application

The charts below show solenoid coil numbers and typical application. They do not indicate Pinball Medic's current solenoid coil inventory.
Pinball Medic Amusements does not have any Atari or Zaccaria pinball coils and will not repair these brands of pinball.

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