Drop target microswitch gone bad? Really?

Frax

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Pinbot was giving some switch errors on the middle and bottom left drop targets. I went under and checked them out, they're not MECHANICALLY failing as far as I can tell...they're normally open and fire when the ball hits them, or when triggering the microswitch directly...

Any other suggestions what I should be looking at? The error disappeared, but I think it's because I did a factory reset. I expect it to show up again in a week or so, even though they appear to be working.

Is it possible it's the microswitches themselves? I think it's pretty unlikely they've worn out enough to be intermittent, but at least it would be an easy fix if I can rule out other things. Didn't see any loose wires or bad solder joints, but it's on the side of the machine that's really hard to get to currently.. :|
 
The switch contacts inside the microswitch get dirty/tarnish easily. Replace them with new ones.

Works for me...I was about to place a big parts order for the two machines anyways...won't kill me to have extras if that's what it is.

Just find it odd that it's triggered the error message due to it not registering in XYZ number of games but in gameplay seems fine lol. Maybe I'm just a doofus and thought it was going off correctly.

Now that I think about it, I probably just did not notice. I know there's some switches going off when they shouldn't be that I need to go adjust before I play it again. I was probably hearing the sound effects from them. =\
 
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It could be that the target in question hasn't been hit enough. I can't remember which pin it was, but in diagnostics it had a switch error or 2. I checked them in switch test and they registered just fine. I read that the board monitors switches and will give an error if they aren't registering during gameplay, could be bad switch, could just not have been hit in a while. I played the game more and it went away. - Barry
 
Might be that my 2 year old was playing with it a lot. He plunges the ball and lets it drain over and over again. But I know for sure my older kid was hitting those targets...wife said he advanced planets to Mars the other day before the errors came up...can't imagine that he went down the left inlane and hit the right side target 5-6 times in one game without losing. If so, I might be jealous, but I'll make sure that never happens again when I get the new rubbers on it. ;)
 
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