Recently completed a playfield swap on this game. The game is operational and playable.

My question involves the captive ball feature in the middle of the playfield. Mine does not sling the ball back and forth as I have seen and been told it is supposed to do.

It moves the ball, but the movement of the captive ball seems "weak". When activated during game play, the ball moves upwards but likes to hang out over the button, never really moving up towards the top to be bounced back down over the button.

Is this just a weakness in an old coil? I am looking for some place to start in order to get this functioning the way I believe it should work. I hope that this is the correct forum to start this topic.

I am through the playfield swap and am now on to tuning the game up. New diodes on all switches, except captive ball. The original playfield and the junk playfield I bought for a template and spare parts did not have a diode on this particular switch. Coils are what came off of the original playfield and are functioning. All connectors have been redone in the backbox, with a few to go in the cabinet.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I am running a Callahan MPU, an Alltek Lamp Driver and SDB, and the original Squawk & Talk (with a pot and cap rebuild done).

Thank you very very much.

eta

That worked.

Does anybody know of, or if it exists, a suitable magnet coil replacement for the Fireball Unit, part number E-184-283?

Is there any effective way to test these things? Other than building a new switch, which I'm going to do eventually, I think I have the switch as good as I can get it. I don't want to keep tweaking. I'm pretty sure a new magnet coil is the answer.

Relay board?

The little Fireball Unit coil checks out fine voltage wise, and fires when I ground one lug. I'm not sure what you are referring to.

edit to add:

Coil I've got installed: G-36-6900.

To paraphrase Obi-wan: This is not the coil I was looking for.

FO-36-7000 was the coil on the relay. Trying to remember back to the playfield swap and why I didn't put the original coil on. Dug through my spare parts and found the original coil, GO-36-6900. Put it on and the ball moves as it should.

Thanks BigAl56

Ran into an issue last night, where the ball doesn't move as the bonus counts down. I ran the game through test mode, the coil didn't fire. I manually worked the actuator, and it moved freely. Put the playfield down and it "corrected". Prior to this happening, I had played several games in a row to test the machine with the new rubber rings I had just put on. I needed to make a few minor switch adjustments, but nothing major. At any rate, it seemed to correct itself, and functioned properly after I tested and looked at it. I played a couple of games about an hour ago and it worked fine. Does anybody know the resistance on that coil? It's the original, GO-36-6900. I have a G-36-6900 sitting in storage that I just got from PBR. I cleaned up the old coil and put a new diode on before installing. The switch on the doodlebug is as tight as I can get it, although I did notice the fish paper lays on top of the top contact leaf, instead of "floating" in the middle.

Any thoughts?

edit to add

I'm running all Alltek boards. Only stock board left in the game is the S&T, and the two little boards mounted underneath the playfield.

Thanks. Checked the wiring, it's all fine. Isolated the problem to the switch. It's intermittent, and if I understand coils properly, they either work or they don't work. The coil itself looks fine. I don't think it has ever been heated to excess, there are no indications that it has been at any rate.

I ran the game through the solenoid test. Every time I put my finger on the bottom of the switch, barely applying pressure, the coil fired. If I left it untouched, the coil wouldn't fire. The contacts are touching, by visual inspection. The switch looks perfect, but apparently it's not. Vibration.... or whatever, is causing the game to see the switch as open, intermittently. It might be the contacts on the switch. I bent the bottom leaf ever so slightly and the game has functioned fine since not long after I posted the problem.

I have all of the parts needed to rebuild the switch. I have done contacts, but never the lifters.