Fish Tales goofiness

twdorris

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Donor 2012
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I'm having a small problem with a Fish Tales that I'm hoping someone with a little more experience can shed some light on.

First, all the switch tests and reel tests and whatever else in the system config area seem to work fine. I've checked all the trough switches (16, 17, 18) , the out hole switch (15), the ball shooter switch (56), etc. Everything that seems related to this problem seems to test fine to me. Although, I did see the ball popper switch (47) show "ON" one time in my test when there clearly wasn't a ball in there. But that only happened once and doesn't seem directly related anyway.

So the problem is this. At the start of a "round", the game will spit out two balls and auto-shoot them almost immediately. For example, if I hit the "start" button to begin a new game, the system will sometimes (fairly often, but not always) kick out one ball, wait for like 500ms and then kick out a second ball and then auto-shoot them (doesn't wait for me to hit the button). It can do this at any time during the game. I mean if I lose my first ball and the second ball is supposed to kick out to start the next round, it might do this double ball/auto-shoot thing again. Or it might not. If I had to assign a percentage, I'd say it's about 50/50 on when it'll work normally (one ball and waiting for me to hit the launch button) vs. when it doesn't work normally (two balls and auto-shoot).

The kicking out multiple balls thing makes me think maybe the ball shooter switch (56) isn't working. It might kick out one ball but then doesn't see the switch go active so it spits out a second ball. But that switch has never failed a test and even if that was the problem, I don't understand the auto-shoot thing.

What might be prompting the game to seemingly decide on its own that it should send out two balls and then auto-shoot them? What might be wrong that would put it into that mode?

I think the game actually knows it shot two balls, too, because if I let one of those balls just drain immediately, it says it's going to autocast that ball back out (like it normally would with a single ball), but then it doesn't actually do it. It just lets the ball that's still out on the play field keep playing through. It's like the game knew it sent out two balls initially. Which makes me think it chose to do that based on something. The big question is what?

Maybe a video would help explain. I don't think my description above is making sense now that I read back over it. :)
 
Check your ball trough switches again. Make sure the switch wireform on the switch closest to the shooter lane is not getting hung up on the trough itself. I have seen where the coil that kicks the ball into the shooter lane, pushes the switch wireform to the side, causing it to hang up on the ball trough. This causes the switch to stay closed, then the game ejects another ball.

Edit: Also, always check the switches with a ball.
 
Check your ball trough switches again.
Bingo. Thanks for the prompt to go back and check more thoroughly. When all else fails, focus on the most likely.

Trough 3 (18) was technically working from an electrical standpoint. But it was getting physically stuck in the "on" position intermittently. I adjusted the wireform to center it in the trough slot better and I haven't had a problem since.

Thanks again!
 
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