Just go over all your wiring. I've read this a few times and basically every time it's been resolved, it's been a wire that had come loose somewhere. Apparently it could be just about anything.

to the upper left inside the coin door, there is a bank with 3 switches on it. One is a up and down slide switch. Slide it up and your in tournament. your game might be missing that board.

Seen this before. Check the wires going to the kicker targets.

Exactly .

In the switch matrix, the tournament switch is in the same column as the center kicking target, left shooter, rollover drop target and left side rollover smart switch. You might see problems with these other switches which would further point to an issue at the kicking target.

If you were missing the A26 games control board you also wouldn't be able to adjust your volume. To refresh Neo's memory the board has the volume pot, tournament slider switch and momentary contact test switch.

viperrwk

Me too. I found that someone had reversed the wires going to the target. Once I fixed that, the tourney switch worked and I could then set the game to free play.

Cool, that would do it too! Glad you figured it out.

I had seen wires broken off the kickers cause this on two SGs, from the hard vibration of those kickers...

THANKS A MILLION FOR THIS POST!! I've been hunting for the cause of this exact problem for weeks and created a few topics about it on RGP. Today I got some great help from some pinheads on Facebook but we still couldn't find out the problem. Found this post, looked at the center kicking target and the wiring looked fine at a glance but was broken off upon further inspection! Again, thanks for this post and everyone's replies!! I can sleep well knowing my free play problem is fixed!!

My pleasure! Sorry I haven't been on RGP lately or I would have been able to help sooner!

Love this forum. Just confirming that the center kicker target was indeed the issue for me as well. one of the wires had broken loose. Re-soldered it and then my tournament switch started working again.

Absolutely!! This forum is the best. Saved me hours of tracking down wires. My problem was the center kicker as well.

Bumping this thread to say that this was exactly the same problem I had with my game - wire was loose on the centre kicker target.

And again , same issue . fixed . Thanks for the info

This post helped me diagnose and fix my stargate center kicker / tournament mode issue. The game would not go into tournement mode so I could select free play OR coin up manually using the coin mechs. I got under the PF and found some hogged out screw holes and 2 broken wires on the kicker. The kicker was very loose. It must get hammered during play.

All fixed now!

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Hey all! Having the same issue on my Freddy nightmare on Elm St pin (can’t enter tournament mode for Freeplay) I noticed that there is a wire loose and capped off that is brown and blue striped... it looks like it may have come off the Freddy TV drop target, but I’m not sure. Could anyone be so kind as to check their Freddy for the correct wiring position? Or send pics? Thanks!

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I had the same problem- I also figured out that it wouldn't do the cycle how to play when you hit flippers. Found two broken wires in line and woot woot! It's fixed now. Thanks!

I’m having the same problem on my rescue 911. I’ve gone over everything I can think of. Can’t find any broken wires. Unplugged coin door just to make sure it wasn’t that. Manually tested every switch. Only issues I found are lower Jet won’t fire but that is the solenoid, the scoring switch is registering, and the opto for entering play isn’t working, I took that apart and there aren’t any broken wires so I’m pretty stumped as to why the tournament switch isn’t working.

Check again on the wires that go to the kicking targets, that's where they always break off on Stargate and cause that same problem.

Make me the next in line for a btoken wire on the center kicker target.

Tournament mode fixed!

Sadly the "experienced" tech that worked on the game before i bought it recommended drilling a hole in the door and adding a credit switch.

"This is the way to fix it..."

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So now i have to deal with fixing the small hole...

It will be fine!

The game is amazing!

Same issue...couldn't get into tournie mode or free play. Scratched my head for an hour, looked through the manuals, ran a few tests, then came here for help and read this thread. Ran switch edge test and center kicker wasn't registering. Guess what? Wire underneath had broken off. At first glance it looked connected so I looked closer and sure enough, it had come loose from the terminal. Quick resolder and back in business. I really appreciate the people who posted on this thread. Thank you for your help.