Ice Cold Beer solenoid kicker

tstone

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My Ice Cold Beer solenoid kicker, which I am pretty sure is good, does not activate at all.

If there is an errant ball, the ball goes to the bottom hole, and the solenoid kicker does not even try to activate. The game then searches for the ball forever.

The game works 100% in every other way.

Anyone have an idea what would cause this?

Does anyone know what test points I could use just to test the kicker?

(I'm 99% sure it works...it doesn't make any sounds or anything when the game is in its search mode, I am pretty sure the game isn't trying to activate it)?

thanks!
 
Bad bridge and blown fuse on power brick

-AND-

Bad transistor on main board (Q2 if I remember)

JD
 
If the machine doesn't see the ball on the kicker then it will not activate the kicker. I believe there is a switch that the ball activates. Is this switch working?
 
If the machine doesn't see the ball on the kicker then it will not activate the kicker. I believe there is a switch that the ball activates. Is this switch working?

If it's in ball search mode the kicker will keep popping every 10 seconds or so.

JD
 
There are no blown fuses. All the switches work.

I think one of my BRs are bad, because TP7/TP8 gives 1V instead of 32V.
(Is that the one that would affect the kicker? It is 24V, right?)

I'm going to pull the PS board and test and replace any bad BR.

I will also investigate the Q2 transistor.

Is there a chance that the BR is bad but the transistor is good or vice versa, or will they both have to be bad?

thanks guys!
 
Tp 7 8

While kinda on the subject. I have two power bricks. One has a cap across Tp7 and TP 8 soldered in under the board and strapped to the topside. THe other brick does not have it ANyone know why? I can't tell if it is factory or not. The holes are clean and aligned for the axial leads, the manual does not show it. I thought maybe it was a service update?
 
While kinda on the subject. I have two power bricks. One has a cap across Tp7 and TP 8 soldered in under the board and strapped to the topside. THe other brick does not have it ANyone know why? I can't tell if it is factory or not. The holes are clean and aligned for the axial leads, the manual does not show it. I thought maybe it was a service update?

All 3 of mine have a cap like that. Soldered under the board, strapped on top.
 
There are no blown fuses. All the switches work.

I think one of my BRs are bad, because TP7/TP8 gives 1V instead of 32V.
(Is that the one that would affect the kicker? It is 24V, right?)

I'm going to pull the PS board and test and replace any bad BR.

I will also investigate the Q2 transistor.

Is there a chance that the BR is bad but the transistor is good or vice versa, or will they both have to be bad?

thanks guys!

Was this resolved? If so, how? My Zeke's Peak just started having this issue too. The solenoid no longer fires when the ball goes down the errant ball hole. The errant ball switch works and activates ball search mode but the solenoid doesn't fire at all.

I've poked around a bit and pulled the pcb. The solenoid has a little over 11 ohms resistance which is correct for a N-26-1200 solenoid. The Q2 transistor seems test fine and no obvious visual indications of trouble. There appears to be proper voltage at the solenoid so I'm not sure how else to diagnose the issue. There's always a chance I may not have inspected things properly with my DMM but I did watch some YouTube vids so clearly I'm a pro now. :)

Any suggestions on what to try and/or how to confirm the faulty part?
 
Was this resolved? If so, how? My Zeke's Peak just started having this issue too. The solenoid no longer fires when the ball goes down the errant ball hole. The errant ball switch works and activates ball search mode but the solenoid doesn't fire at all.

I've poked around a bit and pulled the pcb. The solenoid has a little over 11 ohms resistance which is correct for a N-26-1200 solenoid. The Q2 transistor seems test fine and no obvious visual indications of trouble. There appears to be proper voltage at the solenoid so I'm not sure how else to diagnose the issue. There's always a chance I may not have inspected things properly with my DMM but I did watch some YouTube vids so clearly I'm a pro now. :)

Any suggestions on what to try and/or how to confirm the faulty part?


This was resolved. I sent the main board to Riptor and he fixed it. I don't know how. You may want to PM him.

The power brick was OK.
 
Was this resolved? If so, how? My Zeke's Peak just started having this issue too. The solenoid no longer fires when the ball goes down the errant ball hole. The errant ball switch works and activates ball search mode but the solenoid doesn't fire at all.

I've poked around a bit and pulled the pcb. The solenoid has a little over 11 ohms resistance which is correct for a N-26-1200 solenoid. The Q2 transistor seems test fine and no obvious visual indications of trouble. There appears to be proper voltage at the solenoid so I'm not sure how else to diagnose the issue. There's always a chance I may not have inspected things properly with my DMM but I did watch some YouTube vids so clearly I'm a pro now. :)

Any suggestions on what to try and/or how to confirm the faulty part?

Sometimes the bracket that the solenoid plunger rests on gets magnetized which stops it from firing
 
Test it like a pinball coil - put an alligator clip to ground and tap the other
end against the metal tab on Q2. If the solenoid is good it will fire (just tap
it, don't hold it against the tab).

If the solenoid does not fire then you are missing your 24 volts or the solenoid
is bad.

If the solenoid does fire then replace Q2 (you can use a TIP 120 or TIP 122.)
Test resistor R44 (100 Ohms). Still nothing, replace IC U8 (74LS244).

John

Was this resolved? If so, how? My Zeke's Peak just started having this issue too. The solenoid no longer fires when the ball goes down the errant ball hole. The errant ball switch works and activates ball search mode but the solenoid doesn't fire at all.

I've poked around a bit and pulled the pcb. The solenoid has a little over 11 ohms resistance which is correct for a N-26-1200 solenoid. The Q2 transistor seems test fine and no obvious visual indications of trouble. There appears to be proper voltage at the solenoid so I'm not sure how else to diagnose the issue. There's always a chance I may not have inspected things properly with my DMM but I did watch some YouTube vids so clearly I'm a pro now. :)

Any suggestions on what to try and/or how to confirm the faulty part?
 
THANKS FOR ALL THE REPLIES!

The errant ball solenoid is working now, although I can't say I did anything in particular to fix it.

To recap- I pulled the board. Gave it a stern looking over. Put it back it back in. Checked the resistance and voltage seen at the solenoid when the game was powered on but idle (attract mode, not in errant ball search mode).

While doing such, noticed that when the ball drained during attract mode the solenoid was firing when the ball triggered the ball gate switch upon settling in the normal ball starting/return hole. I don't recall if the game always did this or if it's a new behavior. Maybe I didn't notice it because of the sound of the ball rattling down the chute at the same time.

Either way, I now see the solenoid firing, albeit at a time I don't recall it doing so before. I take pcjohn's advice and jump Q2's metal heat sink tab to a ground post and away the solenoid fired, again confirming things were working. (It took me a little research to learn that on the TIP 120 transistor is electrically connected to its collector pin. When pcjohn said how to test fire the solenoid, I was a little confused at first how the metal tab was relevant. Thanks for the tip, John!)

So at this point, I know the solenoid isn't bad and nothing else seems broken so I coin up a game and drop the ball into the errant ball hole. BINGO, it works. The solenoid fires away and gets the ball back into the starting hole after a couple tries as it had been doing up until a couple days ago. I don't know if unplugging the machine from the wall, and/or removing and reseating the board "reset" anything but I won't complain with "just works again", I guess.

I am still a little curious if anyone can confirm that the solenoid is supposed to fire upon the when the ball triggering the ball gate switch when it drains into the loser hole during attract mode. I confirmed that it doesn't fire when I do the same thing during actual gameplay. Again, maybe it always did and I'm just noticing it now and mistaking it as something new.

As always, thanks be to KLOV!

P.S. Came across this resource while researching. Beside all the forums and YouTube vides, it was informative and likely will be helpful in the future.
https://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=General
 
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