It was playing fine for years. I had just played about 5 games, and when I started the sixth game, suddenly it won't start a new game.

I hit the start button (game's on free play) score reels reset to zero, sounds normal, but when I expect the ball to kick into the shooter lane - nothing. The game continues to just cycle the motor. I checked all the stacked motor switches and they are all in their correct open/closed positions.

When I shut off the game while the motor is running, and then turn it back on, the motor will go to the home position and stop. But when I hit start, the endless motor loop starts again.

I did have one instance where the game started correctly and played fine, but after that game ended and I hit start for a new game, the motor continued to loop endlessly.

It seems like there is just one singular switch that may be the culprit, but past experience has shown I can create more problems trying to fix it.

The score reels reset perfectly when I manually set to a non-zero number. The problem seems to be near the end of the reset cycle.

Can anyone direct me to the most likely switch causing the endless loop?

No.

Motor continues to run with ball in outhole, shooter lane, or completely removed.

It only stops at home position when game is first turned on from beneath.

No, the DB relay does not appear to trip.

Where exactly are the ones, tens, hundreds and thousands "runout switches?" I'm not sure I'm looking in the right area.

I looked in the back of the head and saw the corresponding score relays as N, M, L, K, and every switch was open. I don't think these are the runout switches because they all looked to be in the open position. (Plus the score reels are all resetting to zero during the reset sequence so it looks like I will severely bend every switch to have them be closed.) Again, the game was working and then not. Unlikely that all switches suddenly became widely open. They look correct.

I also looked at the XB switch with the red-blk and red-wh wires and it was closed. And I had already checked all score motor switches.

Here is a pic of the 1000 score reel switches after the reels display zero. They are open. They are closed briefly while the reels rotate to zero, but once the reel shows zero, they are all open as shown in the pic. Same on every score reel.

The coil for the reset bar for all relays does fire, resetting them. I don't know if the DB relay or the sequence relays are doing anything because the game appears fully reset - they never move. other than the continuous score motor.

I checked the gaps for the DB relay and attempted to clean the contacts with a thin sheet of paper. Maybe it cleaned it, maybe it didn't.

That's my problem. I can't tell if anything I do is doing anything until I see things getting worse. So far, it's still the same. Almost looks like it's resetting, but motor keeps going.

If it would stop, i would expect the O switch would kick the ball into the shooter lane.

20210420_153855 (resized).jpg

Okay, so I focused on the switches inside the score reels. The wire colors seem so faded that it's basically useless trying to determine the correct switch by the color code in the schematic. However, I checked the zero position and determined which switches should be closed. They looked good, but the one's reel switch might not have been closed tight enough. I made an adjustment, and .. SUCCESS! The motor stopped spinning and the ball kicked into the shooter lane.

But then on the very next game, the problem was back. Score motor continues to spin and I can't start a new game. I'm not entirely sure if I was responsible for getting it to work that one game, or if I accidentally bumped into the cabinet and some other switch randomly adjusted to make contact.

I thought the problem was solved with the score reel switch adjustment, so why ain't it working after the one successful game? Frustrating. But I'll keep checking these switches.

So I spent some more time on the score reel switches.

Apart from having to resolder a couple of wires back onto a reel, I got the game to reset about 6 or 7 times.

It doesn't seem to be a problem with score reel switches. During the score motor loop when it's running constantly, I've slammed down the pf and sometimes the force of the pf will close the mystery problem switch. The motor stops, and the ball kicks into the shooter lane. Once a slam on the coin door did it. But this "technique" still only starts a game rarely.

Are the coin door switches a suspect, or could the outhole switch be to blame. The outhole switch looks correct. Could a top pf switch be a culprit?

(The scoring when a game finally starts is completely messed up now. Also the sequence lights are screwed up too. But still trying to focus on getting a game to consistently start. )

Before I dig into the score motor switch, I wanted to show a quick video of how I can get a game to complete the reset cycle and kick a ball into the shooter lane.

Slamming the pf will close the mystery switch. I'm not sure if slamming is working because the switch is right beneath the playfield or if it's vibrating the score motor switch or the XB relay switch.

Could it be a switch under the pf?

https://vimeo.com/540430370

Problem resolved. I ended up with a few additional problems after my attempts to fix it.

Turns out it was an easy fix. All I had to do was pay a skilled pinball tech to fix it. It took a few hours.

Michael Scott is a skilled tech out of Vegas. Happened to be in my town (where he is originally from) and revamped all of my EMs while he was here.