Just picked up Centaur, so I’m working my way toward a Bally reunion of the class of ‘81 next to Fathom and Medusa.

Anyway, I have to take the head off my games to get them down to the basement. Once Centaur was all plugged in, no attract mode and flashing zeroes. Missing balls right? Nope!

I checked and double checked all of the trough switches. In the end, the ROM chip needed to be pulled and reset. I guess the data got corrupted when I removed the head. Someone posted about the ROM fix years ago, so thanks random guy! You saved me a lot of headaches.

I have an original. The remake appears to be shipping now, though slowly. All the spots are spoken for, I believe. Looks pretty sweet.

Can you guys confirm the slingshot coils? Mine are mismatched, and the better (more powerful) coil is AN 26-1200.

Thanks, that’s the one that feels a little weak. I may grab another AN to even them out. There’s definitely more ‘oomph’ with the stronger coil. Both slings have fresh coil sleeves and are lined up well, so I don’t think there’s any binding or other mechanical issue.
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Weird. I wonder why the difference, then? Same tensile strength on the rubber, new coil sleeves, no binding.

Thanks everyone! I’ll take a closer look at everything this week.

Having a bizzaro issue. The balls in the trough are not falling when a ball is released for multiball. So, the game thinks it’s the end of the ball when the first ball drains because the trap doesn’t engage. I have to nudge to get the balls in the trough to fall.

I’ve removed and polished the upper metal pieces. I’ve also replaced the balls in case they were magnetized. I also checked the switches… the balls will remain in place even when I manually engage the switch, so it’s not tension from the switch. Pitch is around 5 or 6 degrees.

My plan is to disassemble the lower mech and see what’s going on. Has anyone else had this issue?

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I may be misunderstanding, but the switches read normally in the switch test. The tension of the switch wire is not holding the ball.

The ball (circled in the photo) just sits there after the ball before it is launched for multiball. Because the ball doesn’t move, the gate doesn’t engage. If I physically nudge the cabinet, the ball falls normally. So, something is holding the ball there… I’m just not sure what that ‘something’ is.

And to be clear, the game was working fine until this issue popped up. All switches reading normal, no other faults. I’m hopeful there’s a notch or some gunk holding the ball. I’ll dig into it tomorrow.

Yep, it was a super tiny divot. 40 years of balls sitting there created a cavity small enough to trap the ball.

A quick run with 320 grit sandpaper fixed it. Thanks all!

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