Williams Hyperball Problems

scuzee

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It's been a while since I've troubleshooted a pinball so bear with me. I'm helping out at the local arcade in my college town.

So far the hyperball has sound, G.I. lighting, ball loading motor running.

The problems which remain are the controlled playfield lighting does not turn on, and the ball shooter coil does not fire.

I read 120DC on one end of the coil. Shorting the other side to ground does not fire the coil. If I recall correctly this should work. Reading resistance on the coil both ways returns an open circuit. Forgive my ignorance but this means the coil is faulty. Correct? I'd hate to make the guy buy another one for no reason.

The logic boards have a good 5v. I'll try and tackle the light problem once I figure out the coil.
 
It's been a while since I've troubleshooted a pinball so bear with me. I'm helping out at the local arcade in my college town.

So far the hyperball has sound, G.I. lighting, ball loading motor running.

The problems which remain are the controlled playfield lighting does not turn on, and the ball shooter coil does not fire.

I read 120DC on one end of the coil. Shorting the other side to ground does not fire the coil. If I recall correctly this should work. Reading resistance on the coil both ways returns an open circuit. Forgive my ignorance but this means the coil is faulty. Correct? I'd hate to make the guy buy another one for no reason.

The logic boards have a good 5v. I'll try and tackle the light problem once I figure out the coil.

If you are not getting any resistance on then coil then it is likely bad. If you short the tab of the transistor that controls the coil to ground it should fire, not shorting the two coil lugs together.
 
If you have your meter set to ohms, place the leads on either lug of the shooter coil and have nothing whatsoever (infinite resistance), that would indeed seem to indicate it's open - look for obvious physical damage to the coil, and make sure the coil wires are secure at the lugs just in case they've gotten physically damaged. I've not really seen coils go open like that unless it's been physically damaged, and the coil wires were severed somewhere, or, the wire's broken right at the lug.

If you verify the coil is actually good:

If you haven't yet, see page 38 of the manual; there are several voltage checks you can do to further isolate the likely source of the issue.

Check your Power Switching board - make sure those connectors are good, no cold solder joints - reflow the pins as needed. If you're getting the 120vDC at the coil, it's probably ok, but it may simply not be seeing the switch closure for firing the coil.


It's been a while since I've troubleshooted a pinball so bear with me. I'm helping out at the local arcade in my college town.

So far the hyperball has sound, G.I. lighting, ball loading motor running.

The problems which remain are the controlled playfield lighting does not turn on, and the ball shooter coil does not fire.

I read 120DC on one end of the coil. Shorting the other side to ground does not fire the coil. If I recall correctly this should work. Reading resistance on the coil both ways returns an open circuit. Forgive my ignorance but this means the coil is faulty. Correct? I'd hate to make the guy buy another one for no reason.

The logic boards have a good 5v. I'll try and tackle the light problem once I figure out the coil.
 
If you are not getting any resistance on then coil then it is likely bad. If you short the tab of the transistor that controls the coil to ground it should fire, not shorting the two coil lugs together.

What I was doing was shorting the other lug of the coil (Opposite from the +120DC) to the ground in the cabinet. In effect letting the current flow through the coil should it want to, which it did not. Forgive my phrasing.
 
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