The answer is yes. A shorted transistor will cause a coil to lock on until the fuse blows. But there's not enough data here to tell you if that will fix your problem. Transistor shorts are checked with impedance not voltage. If you replace the fuse, does the coil lock on as soon as you power on the machine?

That's probably right. The meter beeps on continuity not volts. So it sounds like you tested it right. And coils locking up. You hear them instantly. It's not something you have to check each one. Think of how loud a flipper is when it fires. It would sound like that. Now the Q3, what does that control? It will be only one coil. You can look in the manual to find out. You can download the manual at ipdb if you don't have it.

It's important you find the coil driven by q3 and test that one. A shorted coil or a bad coil diode will cause the transistor to short. Would suck to replace q3 and have it immediately fry again.

It's important you find the coil driven by q3 and test that one. A shorted coil or a bad coil diode will cause the transistor to short. Would suck to replace q3 and have it immediately fry again.

Looks like your coil will have vio-green and yellow-violet wires according to the manual. That can help you track it down.

If the coil has already shorted it will not "fire" and you will not hear anything. The RIGHT VUK is the one that puts into the right habitrail (over by the birds).

The coil fires so it's not burnt up. 2.3 ohm is a bit low but not a direct short. Do you have other 23-800 coils (or whatever it is) in the game that you can compare with? The low reading could just be your meter.

If you're good with board work swap the transistor out and see. Worst case it blows again and you have to replace it and the coil together. If you're not good with board work, you could just replace them both. I might be concerned with the diode on the coil being shorted. But there's not a good way to test that without just replacing the diode. If you do that make sure you don't get the band backwards. Doing that guarantees a shorted transistor. This assumes the coil has a diode....

At this point the transistor is bad. Only question is whether or not something else in the circuit is causing it to have gone bad of not.

Replace the transistor. That should probably take care of it. If the coil diode caused the issue then you'll be replacing both - the coil and the new transistor because the coil diode would have fried the new transistor. If you're comfortable replacing a tip36, I'd just swap it and see. Probably is enough.

And based in your relative measurements of the other coils that are working, the 2.3 ohms does not sound alarming. A 22-600 should have lower resistance than a 23-800.

One last thing... Coil transistors usually have pre drivers. You may need to replace these as well or at least test them. I think on data east those are tip122's on your CPU board. I know it's recommended to always replace both but I'll admit I usually don't. Did you at least unplug and isolate the ppb board while testing the tip 36? If not do that before desoldering it...

Basically, what i do, is cut off the shorted TIP36C, replace the fuse and power on the machine. If no more fuse blows out, then install a new TIP36C. Also then check the coil that the transistor goes to and make sure it is not burnt out before turning the game back on.

My LAH was working great until I went to play and the ball would not launch. (And a few other coils. F5 on the PPB was blowing instantly. Ended up that the bridge rectifier BR1 was shorted. Had it replaced and works great again.