Tech folks and Baywatch owners, I could use some help. Here's the journey so far:

I've noticed that my Baywatch gets a little sluggish after about 30 minutes of play. By the end of a game, pops have less pop, the side kicker sometimes doesn't launch the ball all the way around the orbit and the flippers have a hard time getting the ball up the ramps. I opened the backbox to investigate and noticed the two fans mounted at the vent holes the backbox. If they're not working, the issue might be overheating components!

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I did a test game with the backbox door open and during play and they only spun when the pops were active. The smaller fan would give a few spins but the larger one would only just nudge a little bit with each pop. Next, I did a coil test and discovered that the fans are attached to Coil 15 - a port that's listed as "Unused" but also activates the after-market shaker motor, which is attached to the pop switches. There's no mention of fans or their wiring anywhere in the manual or schematics.

So my questions are:

1. Did Baywatch initially come with two fans or were they added in later? Maybe they were part of the shaker motor kit for some reason?

2. If you have a Baywatch with a fan (or two) when are they supposed to spin?

3. If the fans are, in fact, factory standard, how should they be wired to the CPU or the PPB?

Thanks in advance!

Interesting. Do you think taking them out would improve my overheating issues? Or is there a way to get them to spin more frequently?

I know, right?

All I know is that the game (specifically the coils) gets sluggish after about 30 minutes of play. If I leave it off for a day or more, it plays great when I turn it back on.

I thought that if the fans weren’t working right, the PPB might be getting overheated, but they’re not supposed to be there. Could they be draining power? Or blocking the vents?

I went ahead and disconnected both fans. I removed the smaller one but the wiring on the big one is a bit more complicated. I’ll give it a day to rest and try it out to see if there’s any change.

Y’know what? Now that I’ve taken it out and had a close look, that’s exactly what it is.

Here's all the stuff I removed from the backbox:

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I presume that that the relay board is also pulled from a Tommy. After taking this out, I unplugged the shaker motor and played a test game. It did seem like the coils had a little bit more energy and kept it for a longer duration, but the game is still feeling a little bit sluggish after the first Earthquake. I'll give it a longer break and try again on Wednesday.

I'm not sure of this machine's full history, but it does have this label on the backbox light panel. I don't know if this is standard or if it's evidence of a re-import.

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That's very interesting and I'm glad to hear that the fans might not be some crazy hack after all. I ended up clipping the wires on the big fan because it was tethered to an elaborate series of diodes that connect back to the more vital parts of the game. Maybe a bit more evidence that it was engineered by Sega, rather than added later by an owner?

I do have a shaker motor! And it appears to be factory installed, with correct color wiring, like you say. The mystery has taken me deeper than I thought.

I’ll check this today, but I’m not sure what to look for. Is there a dipswitch or alternate plug in the cabinet?

A little bit of online research shows that the motor on the big fan was also used on Tommy and later on Tales From the Crypt and Austin Powers.

Here's what I'm looking at in the lower cabinet. Does the transformer look correct? It reads:

"115/230 50/60 Hz"

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Where do you recommend I attach the multimeter nodes?

What you've described is exactly how my wiring looks. Is that the set up for 110v?

Well that's... ominous.

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But seriously, I’m 50v too low. I’ve checked it several times in two different outlets. Any ideas for the next thing to check?

From the outlet, the power cord goes into the cabinet and straight to the power box at the front of the game, under the launch button. Here's what it looks like when I open it up:

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Power goes to a fuse, the service outlet and a line filter(?), which leads to the cabinet switch. Here's a closer shot of the filter.

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The power switch has wires that go back out into the cabinet and are spliced directly to the transformer leads (gray and yellow). Here's what that looks like:

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Unfortunately, I'm not able to get a multimeter reading on anything before the transformer lead wires - my device goes all screwey and gives weird non-numerical readouts.

Does any of this help answer questions?

Here's what I'm looking at when I test the wall outlet and the service plug inside the machine.
The red plug is in the "V(Omega)" port and goes to the short slot. The black plug is in the "COM" port and goes to the long slot. The multimeter is set to 200V AC and this is the readout I get:

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Clearly, I'm doing something wrong.

I got a new multimeter tonight. The wall outlet, service outlet and jumper input all read between 150 and 151 on the new device.

I’ll be contacting my power company first thing on Monday to get a technician out. And about how they’ve apparently been cheating me for years.

Yes, throughout the house. I think the power company has been gouging me.

Yeah, I’m a big dum dum and this new multimeter is a little different from my old one. I had it set to amps, rather than volts. It’s measuring 120 volts from the wall outlet, service outlet and transformer leads.

Anyhoo, what’s the next place to check? Probably a capacitor on the Power board or the PPB?