Hey guys, new to the forum and pinball for that matter. A good DIYer but pinball machines are new to me. My new Austin Powers machine I just picked up started to occasionally not register an end of ball/turn... it would just go down to the ball trough and continue playing music as if I still had a ball in play. Now the problem has developed into multiple balls coming into play eventhough no bonus. Once it starts, it just keeps shooting ball after ball until there are no more balls in the ball trough.

Looking at switches, it appears all ball trough switches work properly. However, I did notice that the OPTIC board has a little issue. When a pinball is added to the ball trough it rolls down toward the plunger and blocks the bottom optic LED1 switch #14 which for some reason is also activating the LED2 switch #15 stacking opto. If you turn machine off and back on the problem is fixed but in the middle of the first or second game it goes back to triggering LED2 switch #15 and consistently puts out bonus balls since it thinks a ball is stuck. I pulled the Opto boards and resoldered which did not solve the problem.

Is this an opto boards issue or could this be something else? I can order some new ones but wont be able to play the machine for awhilllle.

Hmm very interesting. I have never heard of phantom switches but I am new to switch matrixes. I will grab some windex and look around a bit. Is there a guide around here to switch matrixes and troubleshooting "phantoms"?