Figured out and got past my first Alien issue with the new game....ah, Alien issues...
Playing a game and thought I smelt smoke, simultaneously noticed the right upper flipper wasn't working, so I powered down and lifed the playfield.
Right upper flipper coil was hot as hell, so hot it bubbled the coil sleeve and the plunger couldn't even move. Noticed the right upper flipper coil was a newer American-style coil (but had been playing fine for last guy and me for at least 30 games) so I didn't think that would be the issue. Also noticed the 3rd 6.3V fuse on the board at the base of the cab had blown. Replaced the fuse and powered on and smoke and hot again. Thought maybe the crimped connectors on the wires to the coil were bad, as they were dark inside, so I snipped them off and did the traditional hard solder to a brand new coil (which the game came with two replacements of the coil that was installed)...same thing, immediate smoke and hot as hell coil and another blown fuse.
So I disconnected the wires to the coil altogether and powered on. Nothing funny, no smoke. Touched the wires to the coil and noticed that when touching/connected, the right upper flipper would immediately fire. Damn, there's unbridled power coursing through these wires! Grabbed the volt meter...there was straight 65v of steady power running through those wires! Checked the resistors and diodes on the boards at the floor of the cabinet, first at the area of the blown fuse and all the others....everything checked out fine. Checked the physical nature of wires themselves, they were fine...checked the molex connector that the wires went to and all looked ok. Started examining the I/O board and I could tell it had been messed with in the past as I could see some evidence of prior work, and also noticed that one of the chips was lifting and looked a bit burnt underneath. So then I started thinking that maybe there was no I/O communication with the aspect relating to the right upper flipper power. Fortunately for me, the gentleman I got the game from had a spare I/O board that the game came with, so I swapped out the current board for the new board. Re-tested the wires and on game turn on there was no immediate steady current at the wires anymore. Ok, good start. So I re-soldered the wires back onto the new coil and powered on...waited, waited, ok, no smoke, pressed start game...no smoke, hit the flipper buttons...and, I'm back in action
Let me ask the group a question.
First, does anything ne have any extra extra I/O boards that they would sell (obviously don't need one now, but to have as a spare)?
Also,
I see that Pinball Life has the high- and low-powered coils for sale. I went ahead and picked a couple extra of each. Does anyone see any reason that I should immediately change the current coil for the Heighway specific coil (again, the current American-style coil had worked well for the last fella and for me for at least 30 games, and now seems to again be working perfectly fine), or just leave the current coil in place? If I were to change out, I assume, at least by the current size of coil and in looking at available under-the-pf pics of other Alien pins, that it would be the high-powered coil. Any confirmation on that??