Been working on bringing a Bally Old Chicago back to life and had it playing and scoring without issue for a couple days however it has just developed an issue where the ball wont eject from the outhole to the shooter lane.

When a new game is started the score reels reset and the drop targets are raised, 1 bonus is added and instead of ejecting the ball at this point the sequence repeats. I can manually remove the ball which stops the loop and the game plays normally until the ball drains. When the ball drains the bonus does count down to 0 then adds 1 as it should, drop targets reset but then no ball eject.

If I trip the outhole relay the drop targets reset but no action from the outhole kicker. Is this indicative of a bad coil? I had no issues before and it seemed to just randomly stop working. I have the schematic but still not great at reading them. Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Thanks a lot for the reply! So the bonus unit will count down all the way to 0 and then advance 1 step spotting the letter O for each ball which I believe is the correct operation. I have cleaned and lightly lubed all the stepper units and they seem to be working fine but I may have to check the bonus unit again just to rule that out. Thanks for the help!

Thank you for the reply and for the schematic clippings, very much appreciated. Just going over what you said starting from the top- The outhole relay does pull in and does not immediately release, it holds for a second or two then releases but the sequence of resetting the drop targets and bonus unit continues no matter if the relay is held in or not. Going to take a look at motor switch 7C now.

Can't see anything wrong with score motor 7, all switches make good contact and I cleaned them just in case they were dirty.

Thank you for your fast responses. All wires on the outhole relay seem to have a strong solder connection. I think I'll try the jumper to see if I get any life out of the outhole kicker. Looking at the mech board I only see one relay for the outhole3FC94B09-B8A3-4793-9CC0-117EFD9A5053 (resized).jpeg Still learning so much about these EMs and the knowledge from pinsiders is such a help. Thank you!

Thanks to MarkG and the awesome coaches from the online EM clinic that helped narrow down the issue. They were spot on with their suggestions. Turned out to be the outhole kicker coil had a poor winding connection to the lug so I flowed some fresh solder over it and it's working great again.

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