Lock relay bypass--Pros and Cons?? 70s Williams

on the machine in your avatar that i am (very slowly) restoring, i bypassed the lock relay*... it can do nothing but cause problems on a machine that is used at home...

my theory on these things is that anything that makes the machine easier to maintain/more reliable is fair game... mine aren't going to be routed ever again...

i also remove all the coin lockout stuff as well...

note: i do save all the parts just in case someone else wants to put them back in...

* this makes it not a "true restore", as everything that was originally there is no longer there... so be it...

On some machines the lock relay is in charge of PF lights, but the main reason it is there is to put the machine in to “GameOver” when power is restored after power is removed from the machine.
So if you want to stop a game part way and play later, then not having a lock RE is for you.

I disable the lock relay. I simply cut 1 wire to the coil and adjust the switches to make/break as they would when the relay is energized. As Chrisbee mentions, I like to resume play on a game if I happen to have been interrupted previously. I also turn them on and off at a wall switch, which in this condition, turns all 6v lites on immediately rather than only when the credit button is pushed, another aspect I happen to like.

You may want to disconnect the lockout coil, (as ccotenj mentions), as these get a little noisy also. I don't remove the stuff though, just cut 1 wire to the coil and I'm done, (just push in all the way on the over-stroke tab behind the armature and the game will continue to accept coins).