Signed up as an observer at last night's clinic, liked the way you guy's worked thru the schematics (which is my weak point).
Hopefully you do more of these.

Just wanted to say THANK YOU again to all of you for helping me out with my Prospector. I wish I knew for sure what the fix was, but I "think" it was that dirty stepper unit wiper. It seemed to get stuck mid rotation. Cleaned it, then it worked.
Anyhow it was great meeting you all and I look forward to learning more at these.

Been workin like a champ since this clinic, however I'm not sure why I can't get my lock down bar back on. Maybe the humidity swings in my garage caused the cheap particle board cab to swell? Or wondering if there is crud in my side rails causing the glass to not slide all the way up? Is it supposed to be hanging out a half inch like it is?
I'll figure it out tonight. This I can handle lol. Score motors, switch stacks, stepper units and schematics I'm gonna keep tuning in to learn from you pros. Thanks again guys.

20200606_175545 (resized).jpg

Good to hear you got that working! Prospector's an awesome game!

If the glass is not all the way, up it will prevent the lockdown bar from going in. Be careful not to force the glass too much.

Gentleman thanks for the clinic Friday. It was really great.

This is exactly what I was looking for thank you sir.

You can see in Gryszzz 's photo the glass is up far enough to expose the receiver. Here is a Bally from the same era.

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Hey thanks Rick for posting that pic. I cleaned the channels and that's still as far up as the glass goes. Not too big of a deal, as the machine works now, and that was a bigger issue than the lock bar.
But thanks anyway bud!

You might double check than both playfield latches coming from the apron are seated all the way into the lock bar. The one in your photo looks like it is, the one in my photo is not. My lock bar will not go down all the way unless both of those are all the way down in the slots and I pull my locking mechanism open while fiddling with the lockdown bar.

Thanks Rick man I'd give my 3rd left nut to party in Austin again...my favourite city in the US.
I'll be back lol.

Thanks again for inviting me to your league that day my guy. I had such a great time man.

For anyone willing to help i am trying to fix a 1965 williams teachers pet. I wa sent this link by someone but am interested in anyone that fixed the same machine in the past that could lend some knowledge but also pics of schematic thanks.

Anxious for the next clinic. My Prospector is working, but now keeps adding players after a drain. So I have to play 4 players every game. Not the worst problem to have I reckon...

Just a note to say thank you to Mark for putting this together and also to all the coaches who so selflessly offer their talents of troubleshooting. I joined as an observer as at the moment all my EM's are behaving, and that is due to past support from Pinside.

Really informative to see the logical path of troubleshooting while following the posted schematics.

Had to hang up after 2 hours as I was a no-show for dinner and wifey wanted company, curious if Jim got his "Red Target" stepper working on his Pitch N Bat.

Ditto

A big thanks to Mark, and the coaches for an informative and fun debugging session. This was my first time, and I just observed. When I get farther along with a restoration on my Old Chicago, I may want to participate as an owner with questions. Thanks to all.

Hear hear..........very informative and a great lesson in how to read schematics. Thanks to all the experts for sharing their wealth of knowledge and thanks to Mark for organizing it.

Just wanted to say thanks to Mark for letting me participate the other day, and to all the coaches for diagnosing my Gottlieb 300. The coin stepper needed cleaning and now all the player selections are correct and no more 6th ball at the end of the game ! This forum is an awesome idea.

Sorry I missed this last one, was in Pigeon Forge for my girls dance Nationals. Hopefully I can make the next one cause playing 20 balls in a row is making me not wanna play too much.
But I concur with all you guys above; Mark, Steve?, Nic and the other coaches are fantastic! Great help.

Hi all, I was just directed here. Will be watching for the next class! Currently own 4 queens (working 100%) and Card whiz(almost there just not scoring proper and not counting through bonus score) just got it going so still have to clean all the switches (found a couple welded shut one on my bonus relay) so I’ll be working on that to get going! Love this hobby!!

Hi all,

A belated thank you to Mark and the coaches. Of course every time I was off camera, my game acted up, and wouldn't show it's symptoms when on camera!

But, after many frustrating hours, and with a better understanding of schematics, and a better eye for mechanical causes, I now have my Dimension working 100%.

It's driving me crazy these aren't being recorded and archived for people to watch and learn!

Dammit. I'll be on vacation. Next time for sure.
You guys are GRRREAT!

Hi Mark et al,

I just submitted an invitation request form for the upcoming session on 7/30/2020. In the remarks, I mentioned that the dime coin switch does not add credits......

.....I'm an idiot! It does not add a credit to the credit wheel, however It does start a game. So it's working.

The Nickel switch also starts a game when closed, but it should take 2 nickels to do that.

Here's the schematic. Does that mean the coin mech needs an alteration? If so, does anyone in the group know how?

Thanks

IMG_1233 (resized).JPG

On some machines there’s a mechanical coin flipper under the coin Mech,so every other coin will trip the coin switch.

I was thinking that it's something along those lines. Without turning this into a "how do you fix XXX problem thread" Do you have an example?

Edit: I found 3 national coin acceptors that someone gave me about 15 years ago. I've got 2 of them working. The 3rd, which is the one with the frame made for the coin flip mech (which is missing) does not accept nickels.

I'll start a new thread for this.

Thanks for the help on this..

I probably won't be joining on Thursday, if you want to open the space for someone else.

-TY

One of these sessions I will participate, but will be out of town for this one. Thanks for doing these however!

One more coin mech post (sorry to hijack, last one).

Does anyone know where the outlined part belongs? It's obviously useless where it is.

Also, I found the "coin flipper" it was stuck to the nickels magnet. It's more of a diverter, 1st nickel drops through a slot that misses the coin switch, 2nd nickel drops through a different slot that hits the switch.
coin mech (resized).jpg

Hi Mark et al.

Thanks for tonight's session.

I learned something tonight.....

Know the rule set!

As it turns out, after getting the Special light to come on my Funland, I was playing the game and realized that the light should not always come on. It's tied to the 0-9 unit position. The light comes on when the spinner is hit if the 0-9 stepper is on only half of the numbers. I was probably troubleshooting the "problem" with the 0-9's unit in an "off" position. That's why I don't go to casinos anymore!

The circuit works. except that an extra game is awarded not only when the spinner arrow lands on the lit number, but also on the previous unlit number. I'm going to bed, so haven't looked closely. I'm guessing that the AS relay or 0-9 disc is misaligned. .

Also, the score motor was stopping just short of home position. I removed the 1C switch stack and cleaned the contacts (again). the problem continued. I then closed the gap a tiny bit, and that worked. Thank you for the assistance.

Any possible dates of the next one coming up?

I finally moved my Prospector out of the moist, humid garage to inside. I let it get acclimated for over a week before turning on.
Last night I played it and voila, no more playing all 4 players after starting a 1 player game. Worked like a champ all night.
Then tonight...dammit...back to the above.
Scratching my head on this on.

I don't have the schematic, but I believe Sonic used Williams logic and parts. Williams' games have a tendency to do that. Check the coin unit stepper. Be sure that all of the wipers are clean and sitting squarely on the contacts.

Hey Mark - thanks for letting me observe the repair clinic last night. Learned a few things, as always, especially regarding the problem of the dropping drive gear (or rotor?) in my Gottlieb score motor. Instead of thinking about how to get to that pesky rotor, I could have tied the whole night together by promising to hard-wire in a push-button switch in parallel to the motor 1C switch that's opening to "fix" the problem!

Sorry I missed it. Tried to get online at my warehouse, but bad connection. Next time!

Looking forward to it. Thanks for setting these up Mark.

Once again, I'd like to thanks everyone for their time and commitment to these sessions. The community is a great one, and in no small party to people like you.

An update on my Spanish Eyes, the issue of the outhole relay not working anymore had to do with a jones plug that wasn't seated correctly. The relay now works BUT.......when the outhole switch is made after the last ball, the game now adds a ball in staled of going to "game over"

If only I had more hair to pull out.

-W

Update to the update: I must be learning in my old age. I walked away from the game. Well........I tried walking away from it, but you know how it is when a pinball issue is on your mind, so I went back to it. Without touching anything other than the start button, it just played a perfect game, no problems with the ball not ejecting or kicking out after the game ended. No issue with stepping up the ball counter instead of going to game over. And it was my highest score to date.

Gremlins are alive and well in 2020.

I enjoyed watching and learning and let's hope your machine has decided to quit its antics. Frustrating things, arent they

They can be. These things have lived through many life times, and who knows how they were treated/mistreated in the past.

I learn something new each clinic. Thanks and keep them coming.

Any word on the next repair clinic?

Great session last night, Mark - thanks to you and all the "teachers"....I learned a lot! And you can't beat the price!

I was hoping to make more of the clinic, but life got in the way yesterday. Great stuff for the 45-minutes that I caught. I really look forward to these each time. Thanks to Mark and the other coaches!