I had a similar problem with a CPR PF. The original PF had grooves in the opening of the switch slot, the CPR is more flat and with the added clear coat, the ball was hanging up. I ended up sanding a groove in the clear to help the ball roll down freely.

I just played a game and it worked fine. I blasted off on ball #2. I got a ball locked in stage 1 during the multi ball. Then when the other 2 balls drained, it moved on to ball #3 just fine.

This afternoon I reflowed the solder connections on the roll over switch at the entrance to the ball walker. I also cleaned and adjusted the switch. I’ll play it some more and report back.

While the playfield was up I also replaced a flakey light socket on the 10,000 bonus value. My first time replacing a light socket and things went fine. I probably have another 10 light sockets to replace that I’ll work on next.

Good job! I've replaced around 60 sockets in my F2K. I don't know if Stern did anything special, but their 80s light sockets seem to get pretty unreliable after all these years. You can look forward to some awkward locations for replacement sooner or later.

Bally 70's and 80's lamp sockets are no better, I think with age, the insulating material at the base of the socket dry-rots and shrinks causing the socket to become loose.

Played a couple of games of Flight 2000 last night and got a new high score. The multi-ball and ball locker seemed to work properly for now. I was able to blast off on ball #2 and lock a couple of balls into the ball walker. I earned two extra balls by hitting that special target a few times between the drops.

Maybe this summer I'll attempt some playfield touch ups.

IMG_9892[1] (resized).JPG

That’s a great score! Glad you’re game is behaving, so fun especially when it is working properly.

I’m in need of the large drop assembly. I’m missing it completely.

OK So I lost all my playfield solenoids again. I have good voltage out of the rectifier and I know that the flipper branch works and the coin diverter branch works, but all the playfield solenoids are not activating. Running the self test verifies this. Nothing fires up when I get to the solenoid test. So my question is where are the main areas to check?

under playfield fuse is likely blown

When you say "under playfield fuse" are you talking about the one on the rectifier board or is there another one that I'm just not aware of? Because the one on the rectifier board looks fine ( and the flippers work ).

Flippers will continue to work if the 1.25a slow blow is blown. The one you’re looking for is physically attached to the underside of the playfield, roughly between the flippers. It does not effect the flipper solenoids but all others on the playfield.

OK. I'm pretty sure I checked that one for continuity. Is it as simple as that or does a slow blow work differently?

You can check it the same as a fast blow fuses. Set meter to contuity test.

OK I did check it and yes it is blown!. I have some replacement fuses now and I will try to revive the system tonight.
In the event it blows the fuse again, what do I check for? I assume shorted out or frozen solenoids would blow the fuse, right?
I guess I can put a meter on all the solenoids individually before I turn on the power. Or just physically push the piston in and out to check for a locked up solenoid.

Had blown solenoid fuse on a friends F2K. A pop bumper solenoid was toasty. Replaced it and after the board startup sequence the pop bumper immediately locked on. Shut it off quickly. It was a failed driver transistor on the driver board. Quick fix I swapped the coin door lockout driver transistor with the bad one and has worked for years now.

OK So replaced the 1.25A SB and it booted up. Played for about 5 minutes but didn't send a ball up the stage area yet. Started another game and got a couple balls circulated through the walker and kick out. Then all of a sudden I lost the flippers. Checked all solenoids and nothing was active now. Checked new 1.25A SB and it was still good. Checked fuse at rectifier board and it is good. Probed test point and I get 43 V. Opened back box and plugged and unplugged J4. Rebooted and the walker cycled for about 2 seconds and then solenoid system went dead again. Retried unplugging and plugging J4 again a few times to no avail. I am thinking there has to be a short in the walker / staging area? Or a crack in the SDU board? Lifted playfield and the solenoids that are up there all feel free when moved by hand, so nothing frozen. I'm stuck.

The header pins do crack so need to be resoldered at a minimum.

The flippers do NOT go through the 1.25 fuse under the playfield - that fuse is just for the playfield solenoids minus the flippers. If you follow the power feed wire there are 2 going to the fuse holder input, one splits off and goes to the flipper power. The rectifier board fuse handles that one.

Likely you have a solenoid board issue start there. Pulling and reseating connectors to make something 'work' is not a permanent fix - it's more of a diagnostic tool letting you know that the connector needs attention.

I originally stated J2 but it was the J4 that has worked 3 or 4 times out of like 15 times to make the solenoids "wake up". Which pins should I check on that connection? I'm assuming I should pull the board and check the solder joints on the back if my connector is showing continuity.

Pull the board and inspect closely all the solder mounds around each pin. You can try and wiggle the pin by hand and see if it's loose.

If it's never been done just resolder all of them. I'm sure vid1900 has a bulletproofing guide for bally/stern games but if he doesn't, the pinwiki one is a good choice as well.

If you suck at soldering get a junk board to practice on first. You should really remove the old solder first so there's not too much on each pin and you start fresh, but you can just resolder each pin if you're careful not to add too much solder.

Does it make sense that J4 is intimately related to this issue? I'm having a hard time interpreting the schematic. The J4 is a 12 pin connector but only 9 pins are active. So which one of those 9 is the likely culprit?

Solenoid Schematic (resized).png

J4 Detail (resized).png

If all solenoids including the flippers stop at the same time and you have 43V on the playfield coils, check the 5V logic loopback wire on the solenoid driver board at J3.
A bad connection on either end of that wire will cause all solenoids/coils to go dead.

SDB_LogicPowerA.png

So just check the wire that connects 13 to 25 (dotted line?)
Should I also check J3-pin 17 at rectifier board?
J3-Pin17 on Recticfier Board (resized).png

You should be able to check continuity with the machine off between TP1 and TP3.

If the solenoids die with the machine still on you could check DC voltage at TP3 and make sure it's still there. A lot of people connect TP1 and TP3 with a jumper wire on the back of the board (or sometimes on the front, on the test points) to eliminate the connector as an issue.

According to BigAl56 (he worked at Bally when this boardset was designed) the driver board was designed like this (separate sections) to meet some FCC requirement or something like that. Hopefully he'll refresh my memory on this. I much prefer boards that have +5v busses and ground planes to handle power distribution instead.

See my revision on the previous post. You may have responded before the update. Should I also check J3-Pin 17 at the rectifier board inside lower cabinet?

Yes.
As slochar said you can also check it by testing continuity between TP1 and TP3 on the solenoid driver board as shown in the diagram I posted.
The loopback wire provides power to the logic section in the solenoid select/drive circuits.

A failure on this connection will cause the game not to boot-up. Unrelated to your issue.

OK then I know this connection is good because the game still boots up.
Thanks Slochar, Quench and Swillie. Your support has given me hope! I'll give a progress report later.

BTW. Still hoping for someone to weigh in on my question about J4. Is there a specific area on J4 that could explain this issue with the solenoids?? I ask only because the solenoids have mysteriously woken up a few times after unmating and remating this connector.
J4 Detail (resized).png

That would indicate the connector needs to be repinned and the header pins replaced.

Note: The lamp sockets that I have had to repair have the same problem.
------ Lamp sockets become loose from the brass eyelet inner clinched lip
------ breaking. Most lamp sockets can be repaired by reclinching the brass
------ eyelet. However, every now and then, the eyelet has to be replaced.

How would I go about "reclinching" the brass so it doesn't spin around? What tools are needed? What is the best method? I just bought a supply of replacement lamp sockets, but curious how a repair of the original could be attempted?

You can't. The insulator dries out from age and creates slop between the base and the bracket. I have seen where the wires have been soldered directly to the brass tabs but I would just replace the socket.

Here is how I fix old lamp sockets:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/lamp-socket-repair-non-solder-technique-#post-6525453
Here is when the lamp socket falls apart:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/lamp-socket-repair-part-two#post-5795366

OK I checked for continuity and it was good. Guess I'm back to checking the board for cracked solder on the back of the board. Any other thoughts?

Just joined the club! Great game.

Ok, so I just picked up a flight 2000. It came with NVRAM. But it won’t hold high scores if powered down for over an hour. I went through and cleared all audits and then was doing fine. But left off overnight and now high scores are not there. Only some random numbers with spaces. Game plays like it should. Starts games even though no number present in credits. Any thoughts?

does the NVRAM plug in to both U8 & U13 sockets ?

Check switch 20 on the MPU dip switches. With machine off, move #20 to the on position to allow credit display. If it is already on, then you may have a bad display.

Yes

Display is fine. Everything works fine until machine is powered off for more than an hour. Then displays are wonky until game start. Then works good. Then when over high score not kept. From reading other pages, looks like either NVRAM is bad or issue with board (maybe underlying corrosion). Decided to go with a new Alltek board.

Yeah could be corrosion in the sockets. An Alltek board is great to have around to troubleshoot the original board(s), when I brought my F2K to a pinball show I put Alltek boards inside to keep it more trouble-free

Reflowed some pins on J3. Lots of pitting on some. Back in action! Thanks for the help.

Got an issue with Player 3 LED display flaming out. Any solder joints there I should check for pitting?

I've got a F2K with original LED score displays. Player 3 score display flickers like the glowing embers of a campfire. If I leave the machine on for about an hour, some of the digits "heal", but not all. Anybody have any thoughts on how to repair this by means other than replacing the #3 display?

Originals are gas plasma not led.

Try resoldering the connector to the harness. Also there are some 100k resistors on the board that like to burn and should be replaced see pinwiki for details on that.

Just to rule out the connector on the harness swap it into another position. Try also as the only display connected if the high voltage happens to be a little low.

For those of you who've been on here a while, you'll recall our discussion of F2Ks which make a loud "burp" on power-up. For non-related reasons, I just installed an Alltek SDU in mine, already equipped with Alltek MPU and Lamp Driver boards. Now the burp is gone!

Any thoughts?

Less carbonation is my theory.

"Alltek - Bottled at the Source" ?!

I have all Alltek boards in mine, minus the sound, speech and rectifier boards. Mine has a wicked burp at power up but when going back to original mpu 200, no burp.

Do you have repro sound and/or speech boards in your game? I bought that new vsu board but have yet to install it.

Mine has the same set as yours, I think:

Alltek MPU rev L3
Alltek Lamp Driver rev F
Alltek SDU rev L3
Stern VSU100 rev C
Stern SB300 rev_
Stern rectifier rev_

But... the new SDU made the terrible burp go away

Does anyone have loose plastics for sale? Looking for the larger plastic that sits right above the 5-4-3-2-1 drop targets. Thanks!

I just replace mine. Let me check to see what condition the old one is in.

Thanks!

I have a complete set in good condition but i'm from Canada, shipping is higher.