This will be an odd question but given my recent experience with a police force I am working on I wonder if this is a thing. All the coils seem to be insanely strong. I rebuilt the flippers ala Vid's style (Side return springs and full rebuild kit) and actually returned the coils to what the factory put in the game FL-1130's (They had much stronger in there although god knows why). However both flippers are insanely strong (They were this way even before I rebuilt them). The other odd things though is that all the coils from the ball kick out that kicks so hard it hits the metal side rail and bounces back into the trough to the pop bumpers and kickouts that shoot the ball around at light speed. Generally I would count my lucky stars that the game is playing so strong but it causes game play issues and from the person who I bought the game from you can tell it has been a long term issue as a bunch of the plastics are busted up. So... when researching this kind of sounds like games that have been put on high tap but as I understand it that was more of an EM thing right? IE does that exist for Williams System 11 games? Any thoughts or comments are greatly appreciated. (Also as a note when I hit the center ramp either with the left or right flipper both of them make the ball ramp off the ramp into the pops (IE way too fast). I'd "fixed" that for now by making the flipper EOS open super early to decrease the power and this has helped but isn't the true fix here. Also to decrease the power on the ball kick out I added a spring to the plastic center on the coil which has made it slightly weak enough to not kick the ball so hard it goes back into the trough. Also game has been leveled and is at 6.0 degrees pitch.

This is exactly what I was wondering. Normally I wouldn't think twice about it but it kind of makes the game super hard to play and stuff keeps getting broken. I'll check this out and report back. Dumb question, why would 115 be stronger than 120? I can also check the coil voltages as well as that seems like a good place as well. Thanks for all the info!

Ah got ya yeah I was confused I think the numbers were backwards it makes sense though now.

So I am looking at the manual but I'm not seeing where this is listed? IE I'm not seeing anything labeled for setting the transformer jumpers.

https://www.ipdb.org/files/1841/Williams_1989_Police_Force_Operations_Manual.pdf

Derp, hahaha ty! I don't see a configuration for 120v? Only 115 or 230? I can check to make sure the jumpers are correct for 115 and report back but I wonder how they would have set it for 120v? Just jumpering in an extra wire I guess?

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Looks like it's wired for 115 it matches the manual. Pin 1 is white pin 7 is black 2 goes to 3 and 7 to 8 both are black wires. If I'm reading the chart about right that should be 115?

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Other side of that plug

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I'm confused high tap means stronger right? So if the voltage is lower (103.5) how would that be stronger if I'm currently on 115? Or do you mean it might be worth trying the 103.5 in order to see if it helps make the coils a bit weaker? Just trying to confirm, thanks for the help!

Actually I think that was explained earlier and that if the input voltage is lower they crank up the voltages to compensate? Weird stuff.

Okay got ya, so if I do have a solid 115 coming in then it would actually be even worse if I switched to 103.5 as it would make the voltage 11% higher throughout the game? >.< I guess next is to start taking voltage readings at the coils. I'll do that today and report back. Thank you guys again!

Got it! Ty for the instructions I know going back and forth on this can be annoying when I ask weird bit size questions hahaha. I will do those exact tests and report back. Also just to be clear the issue is too much power at the coils, like everything seems to be over powered. (Flippers, kick outs, shoot lane eject or kick out). I'm sometimes verbose in my writing my apologies for any confusion on that

Okay I took some readings see below

Left flipper down 75 dc all lugs
Right flipper down 75 dc all lugs
Left flipper flipped 66.8 dc two lugs
Right flipper flipped 66.2 dc two lugs
Ball eject for shooter lane 37.5 dc
Right sling 75 dc
Left sling 75 dc

As a rule from now on when I buy a machine I'm pulling every fuse. Holy shit people had this over fused badly

On the aux power board
F3 5A installed should be 2.5
F4 5A installed should be 2
F5 5A installed should be 2
F6 5A installed should be 2
F7 7A installed should be 4

Also F3 on the interconnect board had a 7 amp installed should be 5

I haven't replaced any fuses yet as my guess is someone did this for a "reason" and I assume that just putting in the right fuses and firing up the game will just cause them to pop.

Does anyone see anything odd about the way the aux power board and power supply board are wired (Nothing jumps out at me but who knows).

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I replaced all the fuses with the correct values everything seems to be working just fine. Still insanely strong. Regarding C9 for some reason I just figured that was flux. Do you think it isn't? I have trouble telling the difference on some of this stuff. Also the slingshots on both sides seem to be way too high right? Are those 50v coils? If not I'm wondering why they haven't burned up.

Gotcha, is 75 too high though? I wonder if some how a 25v has gotten i the mix somehow?

Yeah I'm thinking that board is the issue >.< extra trace lifting. glad that wasn't me hahaha. Although in my time I have lifted a fair amount of traces but yeah in this case someone straight up used the wrong tool for the job. My guess would be a pencil iron from Radio shack.

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Voltage at the outlet is 124 i checked all the outlets in that room and they are the same one was around 123.6 but otherwise exactly the same. All the machines are plugged into those same outlets and they've all played normally. Question though is that too high? I checked other outlets around my house and they all seem to be around that.

Question if that ic that someone soldered(burned) into the power board could that cause this issue?

I pulled the aux power board and it is totally untouched like remarkably so. I'm pretty sure the issue isn't there unless something has just failed

Interesting I can give that a shot.

Interesting, dumb question is there anything I can do to get the voltage going to the machine a bit closer to the voltage it needs? Almost like a power cleaner if you will hahaha. Is this because the game is wired for 115 and yet im putting in 124? I guess input voltage is roughly 7% or so higher? Seems odd though so many other games in that same room have never had that issue.

Perhaps a UPS could do the job? I think those output at 120 wouldn't that still be too high?

Could this do the trick ? It has a switch that sets it to 110, 120, or 127. IE if I set it to 110 would that be too low hahaha. Looks like it's rated for 10 amps so ahould be fine there. Most of my games never seem to go much over three amps (I like leds )

https://www.amazon.com/APC-LE1200-Automatic-Voltage-Regulator/dp/B00009RA60/ref=mp_s_a_1_3

blockquote cite="#4746488">This is a cheaper solution.
https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&amp;ai=DChcSEwi-oteSj7DfAhULPGkKHY9SDPAYABAYGgJpcQ&amp;ohost=www.google.com&amp;cid=CAESEeD2ugIozqghqC-My8mzJuNu&amp;sig=AOD64_0TipCdeFrMX9RgNbZ2ZVGuZfnn4w&amp;ctype=5&amp;q=&amp;ved=0ahUKEwj9s9KSj7DfAhUo2IMKHeFrBuMQ9aACCEM&amp;adurl=

I also wonder about ohms law. Voltage = Amps times Ohms. I can't remember if that is a DC only thing but if it isn't and my voltage is increased then my current (Amps) must be increased as the resistance will have remained the same right? Ie I didn't add any new coils or anything else to use (Resist the power). So if amperage is truly increase in each of the circuits then why wouldn't my fuses be popping all the time? I ordered a Variac off of Amazon (Basically looks exactly like what grumpy suggested) but I'm wondering if that is going to actually fix the issue. I'm also surprised more people don't have that issue (Or perhaps they do but just don't know about it?).

eh looks like impedances factor into AC making this shit extra complicated. I'm gonna go with grumpy's idea and see if that fixes it. IF so I guess all my games are going on these hahaha. Ty I will report back once I give it a shot!

Wait am I figuring this wrong? Wouldn't amps go up?

V = A X O

So V = Voltage A = Amps and O = Ohms (Resistance)

So lets say for 120 and lets say the game has 20 ohms? It would draw 6 amps right 120 = 6 * 20

Lets also say if the voltage goes up to 125 and is resistance is still the same at 20 ohms this would make the machine draw 6.25 amps right? 125 = 6.25 * 20

So it sounds like if voltage increases and resistance stays the same the amperage would increase right?

This is what puzzles me as well. All the other games don't act that way and they are using the same source as is everything else in the house (Everything runs nicely my house is less than 40 years old (built in 1980 something hahaha) my point being most electrical standards would have been the same for the time these games came out (My system is all system 11) so unless someone screwed it up and only one pinball machine is having the issue then it seems odd to me as well. I'm still thinking about the Variac as I'm sure if it doesn't help it would for other projects. However I do agree that it would be surprising if that just resolved the issue.

However to grumpy's point I took readings off my ES and BK2K and both of those report back around 75 DC on the coils (For 50V coils) so it seems to be somewhat high on all my games but only police force shows that in the performance of the game.

I'm going to turn and turn on all the games and see if I can get the line voltage to drop a bit. If that helps then we'll know on way or the other (Well assuming it drops enough hahaha).

I wonder if instead of testing the transistors or diodes on that aux power supply if I should test the output at the pins of that board and see if they are too high. Or would that just be a waste of time as we know what is getting to the coils is already too high >.<

Also, how did the game act this way when it was at the guy's house you bought it from? He said it had the same problems when he owned it. - That is a good question as well. I bought it via pinside not in person. In fact that was the first time I ever had a game shipped. The pinsider has been here a long time and has lots of good feedback. I messaged them to ask that question as it may have been that way when they had it as well and just never noticed (Or they got it as a project and never really played it much).

I did not. For Christmas I'm getting a power supply board (already wrapped and the wife won't let me open early). So I figure perhaps I can change it and see if that resolves the issue?

Math iz hard

I think I'm starting to get your point in this case the V= A *O matters less than what wattage is being used?

I have not and that is a good point. I'll put that on the to do list as well.

Thanks again for all the posts and ideas. No objection to switching the earth shaker aux power board to the police force and retesting its worth a shot. Grumpy is correct on the ES. I haven't rebuilt the flippers on it yet. It is my long winter project (new pf plastics the works). So it is possible they could be slightly weaker but I'd be surprised as everything else seems to have very normal power on the es and bk2k.

I took readings at the transformer as follows

At the wall I have 124v
From pins 1 to 2 I have 95.9
From pins 3 to 5 I have 10.4
From pins 4 to 5 I have 10.4
From pins 9 to 10 I have 14.5
From pins 6 to 7 I have 31.0
From pins 11 to 12 I have 57.1

So the input voltage is about 7.25 % higher than what it is expecting at 115v

All of those pins coming off the transformer meet that difference pretty close except the 26 vac and 48 vac both of those are about 16% higher. See the picture below for my scribblings

Also the four yellow are 6.4v when they should be 5.9v so not too far off there.

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Also I took readings at the aux power supply

On the input side of the board I have

For J8 (AC)

Pin 1 31.8
Pin 2 31.8
Pin 3 31.1
Pin 4 31.1
Pin 5 KEY
Pin 6 57.2
Pin 7 57.2
Pin 8 58.5
Pin 9 58.5

On the output side (DC)

For J11
Pin 11 38.2
Pin 12 38.2
Pin 7 and 6 Ground
Pin 4 47.1
Pin 1 38.3

For J12
Pin 6 76.3
Pin 11 76.5
Pin 4 76.3
Pin 2 76.4

More scribblings below

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Agreed but yeah no one was wanting to do that here but rather fix it if someone had done it previously

Swapping the aux power board seems to have solved the issue. However when I put it back into the earth shaker it seems to play at normal power. I have no idea at this point. I guess alls well that ends well? Merry Christmas!