I’ve got a Barracora with a Rottendog MPU that was installed before I bought it. It’s had a strange recurring issue since I bought it, but it’s recently developed a few new issues that I feel certain are related. None of these issues affect gameplay in any meaningful way, so that’s good at least.
Since I bought the machine back in January, it will occasionally omit certain sounds and animations. There are a handful of shots that are supposed to trigger the inset lights to go through a flashing animation: Locking a ball in either of the two ball locks, activating the outlane special and hitting the extra ball target when it’s lit. Sometimes, when you make a shot that’s supposed to trigger the animation, it doesn’t do the animation and it doesn’t make the corresponding sound effect. Like I said, gameplay isn’t affected; you’ll still collect the extra ball, for example, it just won’t play the animation. Whenever the machine starts doing this, it will also have a malfunction with the multiplier inset lights. There are four orange multiplier insets: 2X, 3X, 4X and 5X. Sometimes when you light up the 2X light, the 5X light will also light up and both of them will start flickering. Generally speaking, these issues only manifest after the machine has been on for awhile.
The new issue that has developed just this week is that certain inset lights have started flickering or lighting up very dimly. For example, the inset lights at the bottom of the playfield that indicate the total bonus. I might have, say, 3,000 points bonus, so the 1, 2 and 3 bonus lights will be lit, but the 7 light will also be dimly flickering. There are a few different lights that seem to be affected; the 4 rollover at the top of the playfield also flickers dimly sometimes.
The one other issue I've noticed that pops up at the same time as all of these other issues is that between balls, when the drop targets drop down and then pop back up, they will pop back up noticeably more slowly -- but again, it only happens when the lighting glitches are also happening.
Any ideas on where the problem might lie? Any advice is appreciated!