Trying to bring a project dipsy doodle back to life. I've found the generic startup sequence of some Williams EMs in various places online but this pin doesnt have a bonus unit or a 2nd coin relay latch. I can post a video of what its doing after coining up if that's easier but once I press the start button the machine just cycles forever (wont start a game). This is my first EM.

It does make it past the initial stage of zeroing out the score reals, the game over light turns off and player one light comes on. But the score motor continues to run, the credit wheel doesnt decrement and the coin door latch keeps cycling open/close.

Thanks for the help so far, appreciate it. As for your suggestion pinballdaveh, couple of questions (mostly because I want to learn this stuff):

1) that leaf is already set open in the low dwell position (I used the schematic to check the gaps)
2) I highly suspect a previous owner messed with using a freeplay hack, I've found and reversed some wiring that was incorrect but I think there's more to do
3) wondering if the schematic is incorrect or if I just dont understand how its suppose to work but it looks like that position is related to matching and "5 plays for 25c"?

Photo Apr 12, 9 03 22 AM (resized).jpg

I reconnected the playfield and did a bit more cleaning/adjusting of switches. The game over light goes off and it acts like it's starting a game, the ball ejects and the flippers work but the score motor continues to run constantly and the eject/outhole coil keeps pulsing like the ball is still in there. The outhole and trough switches are clean and work. The flipper post (that pops up in between them) also keeps pulsing down over and over.

I can score points too if I touch the switches on the playfield although any switch that activates a coil (like the post down/doodlebug switch/saucer) make the score reel freak out for a second and then completely resets itself back to all zeros).

I can't help but feel like all this is related somehow but I'm trying to take it one step at a time.

Another update: more switch adjustments and cleaning has gotten me to this point. No matter what I add for credits (1 or 20) and push the start button once it keeps trying to add multiple players. You can see the coin stepper unit keeps trying to go past four even with all the credits exhausted. I'm only pressing the start button once not multiple times.

If I manually open the coin relay first, it snaps back to closed. If I then pull open the replay (it stays open) then I can open the coin and it stays open.

I added the coin relay as well here

Photo Apr 13, 5 51 43 PM (resized).jpg

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Photo Apr 13, 6 01 51 PM (resized).jpg

I adjusted that leaf a bit more, no noticeable change but I did see on the schematic a section related to the "alternator unit" which seems to be connected to the 5cent slot somehow. I clicked the coil once (see the white plastic piece in the pic) which moved the mech one notch. It's hard to see back there. But now it actually will start a game.

However the next battle is the scoring is very funky (100 point buttons are scoring 1000 on the reels for example) and it can take quite a few drains to make it advance to the next ball. The outhole switch is fine but something else down the line clearly isnt registering a ball drain easily.

Photo Apr 13, 7 17 14 PM (resized).jpg

For whatever reason (to be determined) that was what was keeping the startup procedure from finishing. I can start a game now and fixed the weird scoring issue (that was my fault, had the small jones plug from playfield -> backbox one peg off).

Now I just need to figure out why it doesnt reliably acknowledge a ball drain.