Air Aces
Bally, 1975Fixing for a friend, I have the schematic. On startup, game resets completely, ball is served, and the 100 pt relay locks on immediately. Everything else works/scores/chimes as it should. The 100 pt relay coil appears to be fine, the coil wrapper isn't darkened at all, but I did not have my DMM with me to make sure it's not a dead short. I checked for closed switches and tabs or stray wires that might be shorting a switch, but found nothing obvious.
Any thoughts appreciated!!
Bob
Quoted from bobnatlanta:... the 100 pt relay locks on immediately ...
If changing the state of the Alternator relay doesn't temporarily release the 100 Point relay, the problem is likely a stuck playfield switch. In either case, here are all the circuits that can activate the 100 Point relay.
Alternator was fine. Continued fruitlessly looking for closed switches. Finally did what I would have done last week if I’d had my DMM with me - checked coil resistance. .9 ohms. So, there’s the lesson again - you can’t judge a coil by looking.
This is going to drive me nuts...Replaced the coil, but whatever is causing it to lock on is still there. Such a simple circuit...but I swear I've looked at all the targets and cannot find anything out of place/shorted/stuck closed. Need to spend more time with switch 2C on the score motor. After that, I'm tracing wires...
Quoted from bobnatlanta:Alternator was fine.
What does that mean?
Quoted from bobnatlanta:After that, I'm tracing wires...
You can narrow down the problem area by testing with the playfield unplugged.
A dead short coil will not cause a relay to lock on. It will blow a fuse.
Quite often checking the resistance of a coil that is in circuit will give you a false reading. You have to unsolder a lead in order to be sure you're getting a good reading. I learned that the hard way.
There's a lot of potential causes, the circuit isn't quite as simple as it seems.
Quoted from EMsInKC:A dead short coil will not cause a relay to lock on. It will blow a fuse.
Quite often checking the resistance of a coil that is in circuit will give you a false reading. You have to unsolder a lead in order to be sure you're getting a good reading. I learned that the hard way.
There's a lot of potential causes, the circuit isn't quite as simple as it seems.
I could only upvote this post once, unfortunately.
Alternator was fine meant that it functioned properly - it changed states when triggered.
I’m interested in learning more about the other thoughts in this thread.
Testing with the playfield unplugged...?
What else is in the circuit that is potentially causing problems?
Oh bloody hell. The game will no longer start. Credit unit has been adjusted for free play, but I put some credits on it anyway. Game over relay adjusted properly, switch contacts are clean and make good contact when activated either way. Lock relay energizes when I power up. Credit relay energizes when I hit the credit button, but coin relay does not energize. I cleaned all the seitch contacts on the credit and coin relays, still no joy. Manually activating the coin relay causes the game to reset and the 100 pt relay to lock on.
Help!!
And a little more info: with the playfield unplugged, I can force reset by activating the coin relay, then manually activate the 10 and 1000 relay. These advance the score reel and chime. The 100 pt relay will sometimes score, but does not chime. Once again, the switches are clean and properly adjusted.
I’m baffled.
Take a breath. Most likely something broke or has lost contact from unplugging your playfield. Check your plugs and clean them. Also take a moment and read the coin and start-up sequences that xsvtoys wrote up for one of his Bally machines. The air aces is the same (coin and start-up). The wire colors should be the same too.
With the pf unplugged, I can start a game, and the relay does NOT lock on. 10 and 1000 score and chime, but if I manually activate 100, it locks on.
Here's my $0.02. You gotta take this methodically, you can find this. Based on your last post that you just wrote, consider the symptom and consider the schematic.
If you have the playfield unplugged and then you manually activate the 100 point relay and it locks on, then logically it wouldn't be any of the switches on the playfield. What does that leave? What could cause it to stay on? It must be getting a constant voltage that shouldn't be there.
There are two possibilities I see, something with the EOS switch like Skidave said, or also it could be something associated with the player-up unit disc.
Given your test that you just did above, can you confirm for sure that the same thing happens no matter what player is selected, whether it is player 1, 2, 3, or 4?
In desperation, I tested coninuity on the rebound switches. These are the only 100 pt targets in the game. They are showing closed, even though they are wide open. I don’t see solder splashes or any inappropriate contact.
W. T. F?
And it quit starting, again. Calling it a day.
Thanks for the help, guys. I’ll revisit this later this weekend. In the mean time, any more thoughts greatly appreciated!!
Quoted from bobnatlanta:And it quit starting, again. Calling it a day.
Thanks for the help, guys. I’ll revisit this later this weekend. In the mean time, any more thoughts greatly appreciated!!
If the Credit relay doesn't activate when you press the Credit button, this is the circuit to diagnose, preferably with an Alligator clip jumper wire.
If either or both of the rebounds is closed it would cause this symptom, although in theory that would have been eliminated if you disconnected the playfield from the backbox. But that would be the most likely culprit for that symptom. The pop bumpers also score 100, it looks like on this machine the left and right pop bumpers switch between 10 or 100 points due to the action of the alternator relay.
Not sure of the not starting thing, it could be related or maybe not.
Update - game startup problems resolved. Cleaning a couple of score motor switches again did the trick. The game has started dozens of times, so I’m confident I got that one.
Back to the 100 pt problem.
The relay no longer locks on immediately. However, activating a 100 or 500 point switch, rusults in the relay locking on. Score reel does not advance, and there is no chime. If I press hard on the 100 pt relay actuator, I can get the score reel to advance, but there is still no chime, and the relay remains locked on. I manually advanced the player unit, and the relay remains locked on on all four players.
Resetting with the Playfield unplugged, manually activating the 100 relay causes it to lock on. Manually activating 10 or 1000 gets a score and chime. Same for all four players.
As for the player unit, the motion is nice and snappy, contact points are clean and properly aligned, and all the tabs around the perimeter are in good shape, nothing appears to be touching.
This is one of those things that ‘just started happening.’ The owner does not mess with it. He was playing the game one day, noticed 100s weren’t scoring. I told him to take the back off and send me a picture. He went even netter, sending me a video of the reset and the coil locking on immediately. And here we are.
Any additional thoughts greatly appreciated!!!
Bob
Yes, activating it manually causes the relay to lock on. Advancing the 10s unit 10 times also causes it to lock on. I manually advanced through all four players, same behavior.
Can you be more specific about the alligator jumper diagnosis technique? I’ve done it before with coils in the pan, and in solid state games testing connectivity or isolating problems to boards using the pinout, but don’t understand it well enough to translate it to this circuit.
Thanks!
Is that yellow-brown / yellow switch on the 100 point relay closing as it should when the 100 point relay is energized? If it doesn’t close then the score reel won’t be activated. If the score reel is not activated the EOS switch will never open and thus the 100 point relay will stay locked in. If that switch is good, then it seems there is an issue somewhere in between, through the player up unit disc. You can use the long jumper cable to bypass parts of the circuit and see if you can narrow it down. There might be a misalignment in that player up unit disc.
The contact nearest to the relay, is it not shorted or is the not to narrow?
If so, it will lock on immediately, I now it is a long shot, because it seems to be related to the playfield.
But could work vice/versa, if you tilt the game it will fall off also...I think.
Added over 6 years ago: I mean "or is the gap not to narrow"
OK, thanks guys - lots of help here. It will be next weekend before I can work on it again.
Cheers!!
Bob
I had a feeling this was going to turn out to be something relatively simple...
I jumpered the 100 point yellow-brown/yellow switch and advanced the score reel. Again, pushing on or wiggling the relay actuator would sometimes advance the score reel AND chime. I know I’m close.
Work in the dark - sure enough the score and chime switches are arcing. I st leaset have an adjustment problem.
I’d checked the tabs and rotated the plastic sleeves tomake sure I didn’t have some kinda funky short, and then I thought...maybe cold solder joint. Slid the plastic sleeve down, and lo and behold NO solder joint. The wire appears to have been stuck thru the switch tab hole and just squeezed in place. Surprised it ever worked. So I soldered the wire in place, and adjusted gaps as evenly as I could get them.
Game working 100%.
Thanks for all the help guys!! I learned an awful lot while making this repair much more complicated than it should have been.
Cheers!
Bob
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