Chillicothe, OH
I have a 1974 Bally 4-player Wizard! EM I am in the final stages of bringing back to life. Do any of you know where I can get a good description of how the flip flags and the corresponding star rollovers really work? I think I have the rest of the play figured out pretty well.
The Bally manual says that you should get 100 points for every star rollover in the right lane but the first one does not score points, the other three do. I cannot find how that one triggers the 100 point relay on the schematic so I am assuming that the Bally description is a bit misleading. Just want to make sure I am not missing something.
When I work on EM machines I take them all apart and inspect, clean and adjust everything. I take the bottom board out and put on the workbench and go through it. I put the playfield on the bench and go through all of it. I stand behind the back box for hours and clean all the score reels and get them working 100%. I check switches both visually and with an ohm meter. So that is what has been done. The score reels step very well. The bonus, ball, player, etc. steppers all are nice and clean and work very well. Even that little midget match stepper works well and the match feature does work.
Everything is working correctly except for a scoring issue that I have been trying to track down. This problem occurs on every player, 1 thru 4, so I don’t believe it is any particular score reel. Here is my issue.
1. Everything plays and scores okay. The ball rolls down the right lane with no flags flipped and you get 100 points for each of the last 3 star rollovers in the right lane. All the stars rollovers in the playfield flip the correct flag. When the flags for 2, 3 and 4 are flipped and you go down the right lane you get the 100 points for the star rollovers and the corresponding feature is lit. Lights lower pop bumpers for 100 points, lights center target for 3,000 points, lights spinner for 100 points, etc.
2. The problem comes in when the first flag is flipped. When the ball goes down the right lane and rolls over the first star rollover the 1,000 points relay picks and stays locks. You can see and hear it. Then the score reels go crazy. The 10 point and 100 point relays start picking and dropping out rapidly for several seconds and the score reels just start spinning. After a few seconds they will stop, and then a few seconds later do the same thing, even with the ball not rolling around. At the same time, if you hit a target that that triggers the 1,000 point relay then it all goes back to normal until you go down the right lane again with the first flag flipped. While the 1,000 point relay is locked nothing will score for 100 points.
I have been trying to figure out how that first star rollover in the right lane is supposed to act from the schematics but there seems to be a lot going on with these. I have checked and adjusted and re-checked the switches and EOS on all the score reels. Checked and re-adjusted a number of switches on the playfield. It still feels to me like a stuck switch on the playfield but I may be wrong, it could be a relay somewhere in the bottom board.
Since the issue happens on all four players it sure seems like it is a playfield switch issue, or perhaps one of the relays that controls the flips and right lane. I will get it tracked down sooner or later. I may have to resort to actually troubleshooting by taking wires off and blocking switches. I never like to do that since I find that most problems with EMs you can find by looking, cleaning and adjusting, but sometimes you just have to work at it I guess.
