I bought a Fish Tales about a week ago. At first the reel functioned fine but after a few days I ran into issues where the reel would not advance. I ran diagnostics-solenoid test worked as did the reel test. A day or so later reel would not move at all and the tests failed.

I’m still a rookie with SS games but was able to check the EMI board shown in the picture while reel test was running. VM shows zero on the output (left) side but appears to show 15v on the input (right) side.

Is there any way to test the EMI board? Is the board toast?

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Belt is in great shape and is the correct kind.

Yes, I have a DMM and will check the transistor soon.

I’ll check the CPU chips but I’d think that would be less likely to be the issue since I am getting power to the EMI.

No, the motor isn’t doing anything. Voltage at the connection is zero. Unfortunately I do not have a 12v power source handy.

Thanks for the link. It does seem similar to my issue.

Going to try a 9v battery to see if it will drive the reel motor. In any event I need to get two of the balls out.

Question for vireland. Can I test the transistor with it on the board and the machine off?

General question. With the machine off should there be continuity between the two sets of pins? Haven’t tried but was wondering about that.

I’m inclined to buy a new board but I am not seeing it available except from Australia. Would probably do that and a transistor and see what happens if all else fails.

There’s one in every crowd.

The issue occurs when the machine has just been turned on and should be cold.

Sorry about inserting the responses in the quotes in post 12!

Update-transistor seems to check out fine. I verified that pins are making contact with the plug so power does get to the board. Next step is to test the diode.

Decided to order replacements for entire board and the components. Hopefully a new board does the trick and I can experiment on the old board in hopes of getting it going again.

Problem solved. Turned out the connector at the bottom was not soldered well and would move in the hole. A dab of solder took care of it.

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