- Joined
- Apr 16, 2012
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I spent 5.5 hours working on a customer's EM games this afternoon.
A Gottlieb Surfer was stuck in tilt. It turned out to be the BX relay had a glitch - several invididual switch sheaves had "jumped ship" and shifted. I had to re-do it, and get it working.
Symptoms: would go to Game over after 1 ball. Also, was showing Player 1 and 4 in play.
I worked on a Mad World that had an interesting glitch - it wouldn't start. I found one fuse holder with a broken clip, and temporarily bridged that with an aligator clip to hold the fuse to the second clip. From there, it was trying to figure out why the game wouldn't start (needed credits -duh!) and then why the left flipper was buzzing - turns out the two stage coil was dying, so the person who "shopped" the game for the customer pushed the EOS switch out so the Hi coil stays on when energized. I tried to adjust the EOS into the circuit, but then the flipper would flop around, so I moved it back out, and advised the customer that he needs a new coil.
This game had 4 clips that held the playfield down.
Then I worked on an EM Soccer that wouldn't start. When you hit the start button, you could hear it trying to reset, but the Player 1 Tens wouldn't move off 1. I checked, and a spring was missing from the solenoid return, so I replaced that with a rubber band (didn't have the spring in stock) and told the customer where he could get the spring.
This one had two "twist-locks" on the playfield - they would have to be turned to unlock the playfield to allow the underside to be serviced.
The last one was a Chicago Coin Baseball - I played this game as a kid, and I sucked at it.
When you hit the "home run" target in the middle of the playfield, the game would just sit there and run up runs, and would hang. After a lot of fiddling around (and cleaning out the mouse dirt under the playfield, which was held down by 4 screws), I found two wires broken off a switch on the Home Run Relay. I re-soldered those down, and then played a few games. One of the 10's score switches hung, and the game stuck in reset mode until I found it, and tweaked it into shape.
I also found the relay sub-board on the inside right side of the head (looking in) which should have been mounted on stand off springs, held up by the two bottom springs and a tie wrap (that was pulling the wires down from the loom it was tied to! Ack!). The customer provided nuts for the screws, and I re-tied the relay sub-board to the backplane, so it wasn't hanging on the wire loom.
4 wounded EMs - all returned to service. 5.5 hours if you include the work on the Xenon I did. Not a bad day's work!
A Gottlieb Surfer was stuck in tilt. It turned out to be the BX relay had a glitch - several invididual switch sheaves had "jumped ship" and shifted. I had to re-do it, and get it working.
Symptoms: would go to Game over after 1 ball. Also, was showing Player 1 and 4 in play.
I worked on a Mad World that had an interesting glitch - it wouldn't start. I found one fuse holder with a broken clip, and temporarily bridged that with an aligator clip to hold the fuse to the second clip. From there, it was trying to figure out why the game wouldn't start (needed credits -duh!) and then why the left flipper was buzzing - turns out the two stage coil was dying, so the person who "shopped" the game for the customer pushed the EOS switch out so the Hi coil stays on when energized. I tried to adjust the EOS into the circuit, but then the flipper would flop around, so I moved it back out, and advised the customer that he needs a new coil.
This game had 4 clips that held the playfield down.
Then I worked on an EM Soccer that wouldn't start. When you hit the start button, you could hear it trying to reset, but the Player 1 Tens wouldn't move off 1. I checked, and a spring was missing from the solenoid return, so I replaced that with a rubber band (didn't have the spring in stock) and told the customer where he could get the spring.
This one had two "twist-locks" on the playfield - they would have to be turned to unlock the playfield to allow the underside to be serviced.
The last one was a Chicago Coin Baseball - I played this game as a kid, and I sucked at it.
When you hit the "home run" target in the middle of the playfield, the game would just sit there and run up runs, and would hang. After a lot of fiddling around (and cleaning out the mouse dirt under the playfield, which was held down by 4 screws), I found two wires broken off a switch on the Home Run Relay. I re-soldered those down, and then played a few games. One of the 10's score switches hung, and the game stuck in reset mode until I found it, and tweaked it into shape.
I also found the relay sub-board on the inside right side of the head (looking in) which should have been mounted on stand off springs, held up by the two bottom springs and a tie wrap (that was pulling the wires down from the loom it was tied to! Ack!). The customer provided nuts for the screws, and I re-tied the relay sub-board to the backplane, so it wasn't hanging on the wire loom.
4 wounded EMs - all returned to service. 5.5 hours if you include the work on the Xenon I did. Not a bad day's work!
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