I am a new pinball pinball owner, but thankfully very experienced in electronic repair. I bought my Gold Wings because I loved the theme. It was working when I bought it, but boy has it been a nightmare to keep running. The first issue ended up being a bad power supply. Replacing that had the machine running well for a week or two. Then, I was having intermittent issues that ended up being a loose ring terminal that was part of a previous ground mod. It ran well for another week. Then, I started having the hole kicker and flippers quit working. Shutting the machine down for a while would make it work again. I presumed that it was a bad connection.

A couple of weeks ago, I smelled an acrid smell in my gameroom. Upon inspection, I found a transistor that was burned to a crisp. When I looked it up in the manual, I found that it was for the hole kicker. A look at the hole kicker solenoid told me it was shorted, though I didn't know how bad until I took it apart. (See photo.) I wondered why a fuse didn't blow, instead of taking out a transistor. Here, I found my answer: that fuse position is supposed to be 1A S/B. What fuse was in there? A 20A fuse!! I'm guessing someone kept blowing fuses as the resistance on the hole kicker kept decreasing each time it got hot, thus increasing the current through the circuit. Their answer was a bigger (20x!) fuse.

I decided to go with an aftermarket driver board for future proofing, and who knows what else is marginal on the original. I might try to track down that transistor to have a working backup. I do like the added ground and the LED's that help troubleshoot problems. All that to say, this site has been very helpful in learning to troubleshoot my machine. Thanks for the help!

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Thanks, John. I am sure that you are correct. I believe the burned coil had been like that for a long time, hence the 20A resistor. Someone had done the ground mods in the past, though one of the ring terminals had come loose. I think you are probably right about repairing the original board, but with so many places shut down, and the uncertainty of what other components may be bad, the new board seemed like the best solution to get back up and running quickly. I mean, when will my family ever have this much time to play pinball! The LED's on it also help with troubleshooting, and there are protections built into the board as well. I also liked that it had a ground screw. Though I must say, that OEM transistor must be pretty stout to have lasted so long with a 20A fuse in the circuit.

I did take the time to tin the edge connectors on the main board, and check the pins on the jumper harness. I also added the extra 5v and GND wires. I actually found the transistor when I went to take the boards out of the machine to re-pin the connector. After inspecting it, I decided that it wasn't worth re-pinning. I actually wonder if it had been replaced sometime in the past: the pins looked perfect.

The game is running perfectly now, and it could all be in my head, but it seems that all of the coils are firing with more authority than before. Better grounding would, however, explain that.