Check the bonus unit stepper mounted on the underside of the playfield. It needs to step down to the zero position in order for the ball to be kicked out to the shooter runway.

- TimMe

Check this: (the full manual is available at https://www.ipdb.org/files/438/Bally_1976_Capt_Fantastic_and_The_Brown_Dirt_Cowboy_English_Manual_no_schematics.pdf)

Capture (resized).PNG

If the flippers don't energize at the end of reset, either the game over relay is tripping as soon as reset is completed, or the switch on the game over relay that supplies power to the playfield is not making good contact. Either of these issues will keep the ball from being delivered to the shooter lane.

If the game over relay is tripping immediately, check for a mis-adjusted switch on the lock relay. There is a switch on the lock relay that should be open when the lock relay is energized. If that switch is always making contact, the game will immediately go into game over mode.

- TimMe

Oh, and there is also a switch on the reset relay that needs to close when the reset relay is not energized. This switch also supplies power to the playfield. If this switch isn't making good contact, it would cause the symptoms you are seeing.

- TimMe

Your game has a lock relay. This relay is essentially wired directly to the coil power output of the transformer. Whenever the power to the transformer is on, this relay will be pulled in and will stay energized all the time. The only exception to this is when the delay relay is activated, but that should never happen under normal home usage since the delay relay is an anti-cheat device.

On the lock relay, there is a switch that is normally closed when the relay is off, and this switch opens when the relay is energized. This switch is wired directly to the trip coil of the game over relay. When you first turn on the game, the lock relay will immediately pull in. However, before the lock relay fully energizes, the closed switch on the lock relay should also cause the game over trip coil to fire before the switch points open. The timing of this is somewhat critical - the NC switch on the lock relay needs to reliably open when the lock relay is fully energized, but it needs to stay closed long enough on game power-up to allow the game over trip coil to fire.

When a machine won't go into game over mode on power up, it's almost always because either the NC switch on the lock relay is opening too early, or the game over relay is mechanically sticking in a way that is preventing the very short pulse on the game over trip coil from actually tripping the relay. So you'll want to clean and adjust the NC switch on the lock relay, and also confirm that the mechanical latch/trip action of the game over relay is working smoothly.

- TimMe

Hi CaptFantastic +
what about the switches I have encircled orange in my JPG ? You start a game - as the fault shows up - when You (wear rubber gloves - electricity can kill people !) now manually activate the "Ball-Index-Relay" - does it stays pulling ? Greetings Rolf

0Captn-Fantastic-Work-31 (resized).jpg

Yep, those are the two switches I mentioned in posts 5 and 6 that need to be checked. Rolf, thanks very much for providing an image of that part of the schematic diagram, as it helps to make it clear where the problem could be.

Since the game over trip coil isn't firing, the outhole relay isn't firing, and the ball index relay isn't energizing, I strongly suspect one or both of these switches is not making good contact.

- TimMe

Push it in the river. It's a bastard anyway!

Yes, this is what happens when a playfield score switch gets stuck. It's because the constant scoring is causing the ball index relay to energize right away, so if the ball is sitting in the outhole, the game will often run through all the ball-in-play steps and go to game over.

If you take the ball out of the outhole, that should stop this from happening while you track down your stuck playfield switch.

- TimMe