Addams Family, The
Bally, 1992My Adams Family has developed a problem, machine has not been played for about 6 months and when starting it up it will not load the ballsinto the shooting lane, I have checked the usual things like wires, fuses, coil etc, but for some reason it wont operate, can someone help?
Yes there are balls, they are all sitting at the bottom waiting to be popped into the shooting lane, it is set for free play, the game starts as normal and if I manually push the balls into the shooting lane it plays as normal.
without knowing anything about your machine or situation, my common sense tells me that something mechanical is stuck after sitting unused.
maybe visually check the moving parts under the apron. that can't hurt
There are switches in the trough that keep track of the balls. I would take all the balls out of the trough, put the game into test mode, and test the ball trough switches.
I agree, first confirm the switches all register in test. Then, confirm the coil that kicks the ball into the shooter lane works in coil test. If it does not fire in test, confirm it has power at the lugs, then you will have to troubleshoot back to the PCB.
Do any coils work? Very common for have a solenoid fuse blow, which almost always leads to this issue. I just repaired a machine for someone today with this issue.
I don't know your level of expertise. Did you take out one side of each fuse and test them?
There is no loose wires or obstructions under the apron. I have checked all the switches and solenoids for continuity with a multimeter and they all test as working properly.
This is the only solenoid that does not seem to kick, the game works perfectly if I manually place a ball in the shooter lane.
I have checked all the fuses with a fuse checker but with the fuse in place, I did not take out one side of the fuse, will try that and also run a solenoid test.
Take the fuse all the way out to test. I just went over all this in another thread as to why 
It could be a blown fuse, broken wire to the kicker coil, rusted pivot at the kicker itself (common) or a blown transistor for that coil.
Solenoid tests are the first thing to do. If no joy then check fuses. To check the transistor find the correct transistor Q number in your manual and then on the driver board. Use an alligator clip test lead and clip one end to the top metal tab on that transistor. Power up and now touch the other end of the lead to a ground plane or braid. Does the coil fire this way? If so then you have a bad transistor.
Thanks for responding to my query and for your guidance in tracking down the problem with my Addams Family.
As per your advice, I:
1. Checked all the fuses by taking them out the holders – none were found to be fused
2. I ran a solenoid test and found 3 not working ( No.4 ball release J130-5 / Q76, No. 12 centre right jet J127-5 / Q52, No. 28 swamp release J122-4 / Q20)
3. I tested the transistors Q76, Q52, Q20, the latter two fired when the transistor was grounded but nothing happened when the ball release transistor Q76 was grounded. This lead me to believe that the solenoid was not getting any power
4. I used alligator clips to link the common violet/yellow power from the outhole solenoid which I knew was operating to the ball release solenoid
5. I ran the solenoid test again and all solenoids appeared to operate normally (including the 3 that did not work during the previous test)
6. I removed the alligator clips and traced the violet/yellow wires to all the linked solenoids and finally to the board J107 & J108. I could not find any obvious problems or loose wires, therefore decided to test continuity of the wires from the removed board connectors to the solenoids
7. There was continuity to the solenoids from the violet/yellow wire in the J107 connector but not the J108. I figured this might be the problem but was not convinced
8. I reconnected the board connectors and retested the solenoids and surprisingly they all worked perfectly
9. I am not exactly sure what the fault was but I assume there was a loose connection somewhere
10. I have been playing and testing the game over the past few days and it seems to be working perfectly again
Thanks again for helping me resolve the fault.
Connectors would have been one of the first things I checked. Very important. Glad you solved the problem!
I have a question, my swamp solenoid has stopped working, and is the only one, I did notice the 'thing' solenoid that fires the ball to the swamp, had 1 wire off and i have fixed that back on however as said the solenoid in the swamp that thing shots to and then, pushes the ball to be fire out of the swamp, is the only thing that isn't working, would their be a fuse JUST for this or is it likely to be something else? (its the purple one with 2000 on)
My knowledge of these this isn't great unfortunately.
and i only had this machine 4 days
photo.JPGThat 'knockoff' plunger is on the low power flasher circuit - weird I know.
It goes through F103 - check that.
FYI - I'm also UK based and have a thread running on my issues in this area of my TAF on Pinball Info.com - a UK pinball forum.
Not an identical problem, but related to the swamp trough.
Cheers.
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