I have a Gottlieb Surfer that has worked great for about a year.

However, recently it has started to advance the ball counter a random number of times when the ball drains during a game. Sometimes it advances for one or two additional balls, sometimes it keeps advance past the 5th ball and stops in some limbo position that is between the 5th ball and the 1st ball. Sometimes it works just fine and it advances the ball counter just one position and I am able to play a normal game, however this has become uncommon and normally I am not able to get through a five ball game without this error happening at least once.

Once it is done advancing the ball counter I can play whatever ball it has stopped on, scoring works fine. The issue is when the ball drains and it is resetting for the next ball.

The game always starts correctly, with the ball counter at ball 1. This error happens if the game is in one or two player mode.

The ball counter for this game is not a type I am familiar with, it does NOT go forward and reverse to reset, instead it just keeps advancing around in one direction.

I don't understand how this system works. It appears that whatever is supposed to sense the ball counter has advanced is not registering.

Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you everyone for the help and suggestions. I will check out those switches tonight.

Can someone please explain to me the ball counter for this game. It only has one coil on it that advances things one step each time it is energized. As I manually advance it with a game started I see Player one, ball one, I step it again and it goes to some intermediate position, another step Player 2 ball 1, stepped again to player 1 ball 2, stepped again to some intermediate step, another step to player 2 ball 2, etc.

Is there a feed back loop from the ball counter that tells the game it has advanced/in the correct position or is this just energized the correct number of times and hopefully it ends up in the correct position?

Thanks again for the help.

Got it. My memory was wrong on when the intermediate steps occurred. I did not realize that the ball counter (player Unit) was the same (or at least similar) for the 2 and 4 player game, .

So it seems to be working well again.

HowardR: Thank you for the suggestions and the highlighted schematic. It was a big help. The two contacts you suggested appeared properly well gaped and I did not adjust them. However, your pointing out what makes the Player Unit move reminded me where to go looking. I did what I often do when my EMs are not working, I go around and clean all the contacts that appear involved with the problem circuit (pulling through a business card a few times with the contact pinched closed is my preferred method).

Thanks again for the help.