I have an issue that I haven't been able to verify, but my wife has had it come up twice. She told me that she played a game and the left flipper stuck up and wouldn't go down. I came down to check and everything worked perfect for me. Flipper strength was perfect, just like the other side. I checked the flipper mech and the plunger goes through the sleeve/coil like butter. No restriction at all. I told her to play a game this morning and low and behold, the flipper stuck up again. She says it was when she hit the flipper button, not when the game was turned on or the start button was hit. I'll be looking when I get home from work. I'd guess a stuck end of stroke switch? If it was electrical, I'd guess that it would stick up as soon as turned on and I wouldn't have had been able to play all those games without issue. Any input is appreciated. I'll be home around 1 today.

I'll have a better idea once I get home. The mech, when tested by hand, was smooth as silk. No binding there. I'll check the flipper button and surrounding area,including opto, when I get home. Hopefully an easy fix.

The coil is getting very hot. When I got home the flipper quit holding at all. It would flip and release.

Changed the coil cause the sleeve was stuck inside. Resoldered everything. Still no hold power. Feels like it hits twice and then drops. Any ideas?

Flipper opto boards ruled out. Switched boards and the right flipper continued to work with the board from the left. Left continued to stutter twice and not have any hold power.

Now it's not stuck up. It won't hold at all.

Q9 is toast. Per the manual, this is holding transistor for RIGHT flipper. Q7 is for left. What would cause this? Should I replace other components like the diode for this transistor?

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Changing the TIP102 fixed the problem but I'm still concerned as to why this happened. Must have got real hot cause it burned the board. See pic attached. Pic is with new transistor installed. I did not change the resistor cause I don't think I have a suitable replacement. The R17 resistor is 56 ohm 1/4 watt, 5%. Looks like the only resistors I have are 39k 2 watt and 39,000 1 watt.

My big questions are what caused this? Will it happen again if nothing else is changed? Is there anything I can do to prevent this? I won't play until I get more definitive answers as I'm not qualified in this subject.

One thing to note, the coil was really hot when I pulled it. The solder on the lugs wasn't great. Once I changed the coil, the new one didn't heat up.

Any suggestions or comments?

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Anybody have any input for me?

I played a few games and monitored for heat from the coil and the transistor. Flippers worked perfectly. No heat at all from transistor or coil. I'll keep my eye on this but hopefully I'm good to go.

Thanks Evan. I'll see if I have those in my stash. You heading to kickback tomorrow? Movie night at home, which means I'll be looking into this at some point lol.

Manual says 2n4403 pnp. I don't have any of these. Only transistors I have are 2n4401 npn, 36c,102,and 42. I don't think any are compatible. I'll have to place an order it looks like.