Hi, I have a 1977 big deal where neither the ball count nor player are advancing correctly. The game is set to 5 balls and the balls advance from 1, 3, 5, 2, 4, game over. The ball count unit only advances every other drain. I have tested for continuity from the outhole relay switch to the ball count unit step up coil as shown in the image and that seems fine. I'm pretty new to EMs and out of ideas. Does anybody have something I can try? Thanks.

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The back glass is off. That's embarrassing. I'm not sure if it's stuck on a two player game because it almost always takes two balls to drain. It's like it's serving up double the amount it should.

Yes. In 1 player mode. In any multiplayer mode it may take up to 5 before it switches the player.

So far most of my focus has been on the ball count step up unit because I heard that the player unit won't work correctly without it.

I think the culprit is the ball index relay. It locks in through the 100 or 1000 Point relay per normal behavior. However on the first drain the lock is immediately released. When I trigger the 100-point relay it locks in again and the second time it drains it holds until the motor has stopped spinning. I'm not sure what's causing this yet.

It seems to be. Player stepper is the same.

It's not stuck in two player mode. It stays on light number one. When I activate some points the ball index locks in every time. When I trigger the drain switch the first time the ball index relay immediately releases its lock and the ball count unit does not Step Up. The second time I trigger points it locks the ball index and when i trigger the drain switch the ball index stays locked in and the ball count fires and goes to the next ball. Then the cycle repeats. First drain, nothing happens. Second drain, the machine acts as it should and the ball count goes up.

Here is a video. It may be somewhat difficult to look at because you have to look at two things at the same time. The ball count stepper only seems to fire when the ball index stays locked. I'm assuming that's normal?

I will investigate the coin unit further. I have tried putting the game in three and four players and then it becomes random how many times it takes for the ball to advance. It can be anywhere from 1-5 drains for the ball to advance.

All the contacts are centered. I get continuity from first through fourth player positions from the coin unit to the ball count step up. I added four players as a test and it took about 5 drains to get past the first player's first ball. Then after that it took two drains to move from player to player.

Those all check out fine except for the make brake switch. When I put a probe on the yellow side and another on the red green it doesn't matter if the outhole relay is energized or not. I get continuity either way. It looks like some wires have been replaced because not all the wires are cloth. I'm not sure if I tested incorrectly or if there's something wrong with that relay.

I forgot to mention that the result above was the same whether the ball index relay was energized or not. I have cleaned some of the switches using sandpaper but I think I need a better tool. I'll clean the rest of the switches in the circuit and adjust.

No. The coin and ball count look clean and have what appears to be Teflon gel on the circuit board. I wasn't sure if that would that be a problem. The player unit is the snowshoe style so I'm not sure it's clean all the way through. What I can see looks clean.

I have it set to ohms but it has a setting to beep if it makes a circuit. I'll try looking at the values instead of listening for the beep. Thanks.

Thanks Rolf, I'll get back to you.

I can reproduce the fault pretty consistently. It usually takes two drains. I would say 95% of the time. The other 5% of the time it can take 1-5 drains for it to move to the next player / ball.

As for stopping on the home position it always stops in one of the two notches on the index. When the motor rotates it rotates from one notch to the next so it's only spinning halfway around the index. On one of the notches the ball count always steps up. On the other notch it never steps up. I tested this theory by making the game start on the good notch and when it did the ball count worked. But on the next drain it did not because it was on the bad notch. When I started the game on the bad notch it did not advance the ball but on the second drain it did. Is the motor supposed to spin the index all the way around 360°? Or 180?

Jumping the switch on the ball index made it work 99% of the time. I ran through two games with four players and it only failed once to advance the ball count.

As for the wild guess if I jump the switch on the motor the ball count works every time. It also works if I press down on it. I tried cleaning and adjusting the switch and neither have worked. It either has to be pressed down during operation or jumped. Do I need to replace the Leaf switch altogether? Or perhaps the contacts? I get .5 to .9 ohms on it.

Adjusting switch 4e worked! Thank you. It's nice to play an actual normal game for once.

For the most part it's changing the player but sometimes the stepper coil doesn't seem to fully fire on the player unit. It seems to move freely when I activate it manually. However it seems to have more tension for the later players. I'm not sure if that's normal or not. I will try to work on that later but if anyone has any suggestions I'll take them.

It's the Step Up coil. It's working some of the time. I'd say 75%. Most of the time it has trouble switching from Player 1 to player 2. What I can see is that the step up coil plunger doesn't get pulled all the way in when it's not working. Sometimes it seems as though it barely moves at all. It works fine when I actuate it manually. I decided to clean motor switch 2b, adjusted how you instructed me to adjust the faulty switch 4e and I tightened the switch Stack Down. None of these seem to have any effect. It only wants to work when I jump Switch 2b. The make break switch on the player reset relay that is normally closed in the path to the player unit Step Up seems okay. I've tested jumping only that switch and the problem still occurs. When I jump the motor switch 2b it works. Right now that switch is adjusted so that it's about one sixteenth of an inch or possibly less when it's not being actuated.

Thanks Rolf. No worries. I played with it more but didn't make any progress.

AAA - the reset step always works no matter how many players there are.

BBB - the Step Up only has trouble of working when switching from player one to player 2. I ended up loosening the spring in the attached photo that my finger is pointing to and now it's working. The spring is located on the player unit. I'm not sure if that is going to be a temporary fix or not but it's working flawlessly.
I also I checked the lugs and they seemed solidly soldered.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in for helping out.

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