Repair Log: The Addams Family and its Upper Left Flipper
My neighbor has an Addams Family pinball machine where the upper left flipper didn't work. Apparently one of the coil wires disconnected and once he reconnected it the flipper didn't work. I went over and found that F901 on the extra flipper supply board was blown. I swapped the neighboring fuse, F902, and the flipper came to life… but stuck on once we started a game.
So I knew something was blown on the Fliptronics board. I pulled that out and brought it home. Q4, a TIP36C and Q11/Q12, both TIP102s, control this flipper. After some quick testing with my meter on the diode setting I noticed that the emitter of Q4 was shorted to ground. So I replaced Q4 and for good measure I replaced Q11 and Q12. I brought the board back over, installed it and turned it the game on. No stuck flipper! I went to play a game and the left flipper stuck on after pressing the button but the weird thing is if I pressed the right flipper button it would drop.
I popped the playfield up and noticed that the previous tech installed 1N4004 diodes on the flipper coil for the upper left flipper but they were not soldered in! They were just wound around the flipper coil lugs. An even closer inspection revealed that both diodes were completely broken off from the coil. I installed two new diodes and now the game works 100%!
My neighbor has an Addams Family pinball machine where the upper left flipper didn't work. Apparently one of the coil wires disconnected and once he reconnected it the flipper didn't work. I went over and found that F901 on the extra flipper supply board was blown. I swapped the neighboring fuse, F902, and the flipper came to life… but stuck on once we started a game.
So I knew something was blown on the Fliptronics board. I pulled that out and brought it home. Q4, a TIP36C and Q11/Q12, both TIP102s, control this flipper. After some quick testing with my meter on the diode setting I noticed that the emitter of Q4 was shorted to ground. So I replaced Q4 and for good measure I replaced Q11 and Q12. I brought the board back over, installed it and turned it the game on. No stuck flipper! I went to play a game and the left flipper stuck on after pressing the button but the weird thing is if I pressed the right flipper button it would drop.
I popped the playfield up and noticed that the previous tech installed 1N4004 diodes on the flipper coil for the upper left flipper but they were not soldered in! They were just wound around the flipper coil lugs. An even closer inspection revealed that both diodes were completely broken off from the coil. I installed two new diodes and now the game works 100%!