I have a Gottlieb Mystic Marvel that I am trying to get running. I had a good tech work on it and he had it running at his shop but it started acting up once I got it home. There was some trouble with the HOLD coil. A different (wrong) coil was installed in order to trouble shoot the game. I ordered a correct coil from PBR (still waiting for it). Then I read in Clay's EM Guide about removing a wire from the HOLD coil and adding and ON/OFF switch so that the game will light up without starting a game. Then I put a plastic shim behind the HOLD coil plate that put the switches in the activated position. So now when the game was plugged in and the switch turned ON the game lit up.

BUT, I can not start a game. The Start button does nothing (there are credits on the game).

So I attached some pictures. One shows the new power cord connected to the fuse and transformer (black wire from power cord went to ON/OFF switches, then black wire from ON/OFF to fuse, white wire of power cord to center of tranformer, green wire from power cord to case of transformer). Another shows the ON/OFF switch I added. The third shows the black wire I removed from the HOLD and put a wire cap on it. The fourth is a section of the schematic.

I am wondering if removing the black wire was incorrect and maybe affected other coils?

Does anyone have ideas why the game play will not start or what I did wrong?

MM2.pdf

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This occurred to me also as I was staring at the game and the schematic. I believe I should have removed the other wire from the hold coil. I think you are right that I probably disconnected two other coils by removing the wrong wire. I am going to start by switching these around and see if that works. Then I will move on to the other suggestions if it is still not starting.

Thanks for all the ideas.

I changed the wiring to the R coil. This reconnected the O and H coils. I have power and the game lights up. The start button still gets no response. I manually released the balls and was able to play a game. All of the scoring switches work and the scoring on the back glass seems to incrementing accurately. But then the game is not resetting. Also noticed the left flipper quit working, but unless that can keep a game from starting I will deal with that later. So it is time to look at the other suggestions.

Since this is the first EM I've tinkered with I need to ask what will seem like dumb questions.

I will start with:

How do I know the correct position of the score motor?

Then:

Are these the switch states with no power or once power is on? If they are not in the state you indicate what to do? Are we talking adjusting the switches or does a wrong state lead to looking for another problem?

I am not sure which switch you mean here. Can you guide me a bit?

I'll try these few questions and then go check things out.

Here is an update and a couple follow-up questions:

With the power off/unplugged, the or/gr switch on the ball release relay is CLOSED.

I think the or/gr switch above is the one referred to here and it is CLOSED. Is this correct?

I located the Motor 1C switch using the info from TimMe. The gr/br switch was CLOSED, however while I was cleaning this switch I noticed the brown wire came loose from the switch. I'll fix this. This may solve the problem, but I want to check the other items first.

I see a switch on the schematic on the bottom right of the snippet above that I think is the one mentioned here. But, I can not find it in the game. Where should I be looking for this switch?

I looked on the schematic. Is this the ZERO F.P. switch shown on the schematic snippet above (lower right side)? This looks like a Bl/Gr switch. Where is this switch in the game, I could not figure out where this thing was?

Referring to:

For the Or/gr switch at the Ball Release I just looked to make sure it was Closed in the power off condition and did a continuity check across the lugs for the Orange and the Green. From what I understood Closed was the state needed for the game to start. So I did not do any testing beyond that.

ONE STEP FORWARD -- I checked all of the things suggested. I found the brown wire had come off of the Motor 1C and soldered that up. I filed the left flipper contact because that flipper wasn't working. I plugged it in, flipped my new power switch, pressed the start button and "holy crap" the game started!! Not without some issues.
- The Ball Release coil is buzzing loudly. So it releases the balls but stays energized. I read another post in EM Tech forum that said to beware of the number of balls in EMs, that it could cause weird things to happen. I have five in this game. But with the coil staying energized and the fourth and fifth ball dividing the path of the ball release arm could it be possible that there should not be five balls in the game?

- I am able to manually eject a ball and start to play. Scoring seems to go okay. BUT, then the game go dead, lights out, no flippers etc.

So I flip the power switch and unplug. In order to clear the shutdown condition I have to remove the shim that I inserted behind the HOLD coil plate (remember I did Clay's suggested mod and removed power to the HOLD coil and he said the drawback was that if the a game was stopped in the middle it would not restart the game when powered on again), power up, the game resets and stops. I power down, then I reinsert the shim, power up and press the start button and the game starts. Loud Ball Release coil buzz, play the first ball, score a few points and off it goes again. I have only done this sequence three times so I don't know if the shutdown is related to a specific scoring feature, but it seemed random.

Could this be the Ball Release switches causing the shutdown? I may try less than five balls. How do you change the number of balls per game on an EM like this?

Any ideas what would cause the game to just shutdown? I am anxious to keep plugging away at this. I was pleased to see some lights and some action.

Thanks, I remember, but I don't want to send you off taking pictures until I am certain I need that help.

Since I removed power to the R coil and shimmed it so it is "always energized" I don't think R is the problem. It is essentially jumpered or am I mistaken?

The one that I thought was the S relay is in the reset bank. Mine are not labeled. Would that be where it is?

Can you identify the color of the wires that I need to jumper on the S relay (I see a couple S switches on the schematic)? I am a little cautious about jumping stuff unless I am sure. If I understand, by jumpering the S switch, I would be verifying that it is somehow opening when it should have stayed closed. Is that correct?

Are the coils in your reset bank labelled on your machine? Mine are not identified.

Thanks guys again for your time.

Is this with Power OFF? And if I ever get mine working I want to clean it up so it looks as good as yours.
When a game is started, these switches change states, one opens and the other closes. Mine is "forced" to the powered state by a shim behind the plate pushes on the switches. So it is opposite of the one in your picture. I did this based on the suggestions in Clay's EM repair guide so the game will light up when plugged in and turned on.

On to the next step.
While checking the S relay I found a BL/OR wire to that relay that had come loose. I repaired that. I was able to power up, start a game, and get through the five balls without it shutting down. The scoring looked accurate. At the end of the fifth ball the game just sits there with lights on and flippers active. START button does not get a response. I noticed that the credit number did not decrement (stays on 26). So what should have happened next to get it to GAME OVER? What to check?

I was planning on jumpering the S relay switch as suggested above. The wiring on my game has a blue wire to one lug and a purple wire to the other lug and is the switch that is CLOSED at reset. When I pushed on the relay plate this switch OPENs. So I wasn't sure what the effect would be if I jumpered it. Once I found the loose wire I thought maybe this switch was not the problem. I may revisit it.

Shapeshifter posted two photos just above. Looking at the first photo, with power on and GI lit, if I push the start button nothing happens. But if I gently push the switch in the third stack from the right (the one near the red-purple leads in the pic) my game resets and starts. Is this switch is the S switch at the bottom left of the schematic snippet (at the beginning of this post) that should be normally CLOSED? If so then I am guessing that this switch is the culprit and needs further cleaning and adjustment. How does that sound?

Okay guys, I fooled around with the switch on the S relay cleaning and adjusting it until it finally solved the problem with the game not starting. Thanks for the input and I could not have got it working without the help I got here.