Hi Pinsiders! I picked up my first two machines a couple months ago--Cyclone and Sorcerer.

Sorcerer is my favorite of the two. It has a simple playfield and ruleset, but I find it challenging, so I keep coming back to it. I keep trying for that extra ball from the drop targets, but I've only managed to get it once. I love the artwork. The backglass is in good shape aside from a small scratch, but the playfield is pretty rough. It has paint crazing everywhere and lots of mediocre touch-ups. I hope CPR comes through with a repro soon.

The person I bought Sorcerer from had a Cyclone available as well. I picked that one up as an afterthought based on its reputation and ipdb reviews. My wife has really taken a liking to it too--which is nice because I was never able to get her interested in video games. I love the audio callouts and the ramp shots. Ferris wheel ramp was cracked and welded back together by a previous owner. I got a replacement from ebay that I haven't put on yet. I equipped the comet ramp with Mantis Protectors just in time because there were several cracks at the exit. Playfield has full mylar (which is starting to show its age) and is in decent shape. It has a reset issue and an interesting problem showing up in the diagnostics (see below).

My two-year-old calls Sorcerer "Daddy Ball" and calls Cyclone "Mommy ball". He calls pinball in general "uh-oh ball" because that's what he says when it drains. He loves imitating the Sorcerer laugh.
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Cyclone sometimes resets when I shoot the spookhouse or the boomerang. Maybe one out of every ten times. The boomerang kickbig fires fine in the solenoid test and the mystery wheel works fine in its diagnostic. If the game doesn't reset, everything works well. I ordered an XPin powersupply, so maybe that will fix it. Here's the interesting problem. While I was diagnosing the resets, I noticed an issue in the solenoid diagnostic. Tests 02C (lights two flashers) and test 03C (lights two other flashers) both end up lighting all four lights. 02C is supposed to light right ferris wheel and teeth, and 03C is supposed to light top middle and left eye, but both tests dimmly light all four lights. They all light nice and bright during gameplay, but I can't tell if they light correctly because it happens so fast. I wonder if this might be related to my reset problem because those lights activate when you shoot the spookhouse and the boomerang. How do I go about diagnosing this?

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More than two years later, finally resolution!

It did.

I finally tracked this down! I traced the path from CPU board, to Aux Power board, to resistor board under the playfield, to the playfield. I started at the CPU board, where I connected two LEDs running on 5V from the TP on the CPU board through 180 ohm resistors, to the grounds for solenoids 2 and 3. In test mode, only one LED lit at a time, so no issue on the CPU board. Then I disconnected both sides of the cable between the CPU board and the Aux Power board and checked for shorts across the pins for solenoids 2 and 3 (no shorts). Then I disconnected the appropriate cables from the Aux power board and checked it for shorts between all the pins for solenoids 2 and 3 (no shorts). Then did the same stuff for the Aux Power board cables (no shorts). Then the same stuff for the resistor board (no shorts). Then I removed the bulbs from the flash sockets and checked for shorts between those cables (no shorts)--you have to remove the bulbs because all the bulbs get their power from the same cables and your meter will report connectivity through the bulbs' filaments. So...uh...no shorts. Then I remembered these flashers are also behind the translight! I removed the backbox-side connector from the backbox interconnect board to isolate the bulbs on the insert, removed the bulbs and checked for shorts (no shorts). Then I removed the cabinet-side connector from the interconnect board, replaced the backbox-side connector of the interconnect board, and checked for shorts. A short between flashers for solenoid 2 and 3!!! So the problem is on the backbox-interconnect board. I've never really looked at this board. Here's what I found...

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Looks like all of these headers have been reheated. That's a good thing. Kinda messy though.

Whew! Look at those GI traces. I guess that's why they're bypassed.

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But wait...what's this?! A solder bridge! Whoever did this job not only didn't clean up his flux, but he also didn't check continuity!

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All better! And I cleaned up some of that flux too. What a mess!

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Moral of the story... CHECK CONTINUITY BEFORE YOU CALL THE JOB DONE!! Not only check for continuity where you expect it, but also where you don't expect it!