My first EM problem. It was bound to happen sooner or later. DISCLAIMER: Complete EM newbie, so talk to me as if I know nothing (which is pretty much true)

First, I occasionally play a 4 player game to keep all of the motors and reels moving. Started up a 4P game this morning, and noticed that the 10K reel wasn't moving back to 0 upon re-start. Finally, all scores reset to 0 after a couple minutes, when it usually takes seconds. Now I'm into troubleshooting mode.

"Play" a 4P game, just making sure I have points on all the digits. Player 4 has no problems scoring in any of the digits, so it's not the score reel. OK.

4P game is done, game is over.

Start another 4P game, and again, the 10K unit has "trouble" moving again. I look underneath while the machine chugging along and notice that it's (literally what I've just learned) the score motor chugging. Just keeps going and going, and every once in a while the 10K reel clicks and moves a position until after a few minutes it all resets to 0 and stops.

I tried my best to clean all of the switches that I can reach easily, being careful not to bend the leaf switches out of their original position. I used a contact burnisher from Pinball Life (was this where I screwed up?)

Start up a new game with my fingers crossed. Go through a 1P game, drain ball 3 (set to 3 ball games), all bonuses are added up, 1P and 4P are lit on the back box and the score motor continues to chug along, even though the rest of the scores read 0.

The game won't stop chugging until I turn it off. Upon turning it on, and starting a new game, it starts up fine.

Any help will be appreciated! Again, caveman terms for me as best as you can! Thank you!

The O "ball return relay" is running when trying to reset

I used 600 grit sandpaper to clean the contacts on that reel and it made no difference.

Also noticing that it "awards" an extra ball when an extra ball was not earned (possibly on the "last" player in a multiplayer game). Hopefully it is related and can be resolved with the other issue.

Yes they touch when the reel is at zero. The others don't.

You aren't referring to the O ("Oh") relay, right?

Ok. On the affected score reel, the zero contacts touch when the score displays zero. The others do not touch.

The AX is in reference to the line of relays in the above schematic? Was going to check the Oh relay as mentioned above. Cleaning the switches and whatnot.

Yes the contact is solid from what i could see

AX was taken out and examined. Contacts were cleaned with the 600 grit sand paper. I took out one of the stacks (taking a picture of where the leafs lined up in their slots)....it was a pain to get back into it's proper slots, so I'm not going to really do that again unless I absolutely need to!

I couldn't see anything that was broken. Solenoid lugs seemed ok, all wires were intact, all contacts should be clean, and I don't think I squeezed anything that shouldn't have been squeezed.

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all the switches make good contact. There isn't a huge range of motion, but when I use the plastic piece to lock/unlock, all of the contacts are solid; it can squeeze the piece of sandpaper tightly. The "wiping" motion is minimal if at all. And yes, it does "snap" when I move the plastic piece back and forth to activate the switches.

All the solder looks good. One of them looks kind of funny since it connects two of the switch lugs together, but it must have been like that before when it was working since I can't work it loose?

The red/white wires connect the lugs of two leafs.

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No, still doesn't reset after the game is over. The score motor still continues to rotate and the Oh relay still pulls.

This solenoid with the blue wrapper continuously pulses if that means anything

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Would poor electrical contact on the stepper unit above cause the game to not "know" that the game is over and that it should reset? (Hence the constant pulsing of the coil) Should I clean the contact points on the bakelite disc and the fingers? I didn't notice any poor wiring connections or solder joints.

I found this amazing video by SteveFury that does a fantastic job of explaining the start sequence. I've viewed specific parts many times and have checked several of the associated switches as best I can, however the score motor is the one thing that I can't identify which switch is which (not that I know for certain what the other switches are either). The other part that I'm having trouble linking is after the end of a game, the score motor keeps turning. Obviously, there is a switch that is not pulsing (over vice versa) to tell the score motor to stop. I think there is something in between the player unit not telling the AX relay to latch/unlatch either.

Anyways any further help would be appreciated!

Short video of what happens after the last ball drains.

Hi Rolf! I will reread this about 50 times then check back in! I'm not quite fully understand but will try to figure it out.

Fantastic! So the Game Over Relay (Q Relay) does not pulse when the last ball drains. As the score motor was running like in the above video, a manual activation on the Q relay will stop the game (as normal). Pressing Start again will start a new game as normal! Progress!!

Now the question is, what causes the Q Relay to pulse?

It's in here somewhere?
http://www.pinrepair.com/em/index3.htm#start
1975-1978 Gottlieb Start-Up Sequence
Multi-player games with Ax/Bx relays

Not really sure what happened here?! I cleaned the contacts with 600 grit sandpaper and 91% rubbing alcohol. Checked that the wires were all connected, check that the mech and fingers moved freely, which they do, and now when I press Start one time, the game progresses to P1, P3, P4, then back to P1!

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Also these switches on the coin unit with 600 grit sandpaper

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I don't have a copy of the schematic. Tbh, and I know you won't like hearing this, but this is turning me off to EM ownership so bad. Its just out of my comfort zone (being SS and later). I will check everything from your post as best as I can. Not sure how to ID the switches on the score motor though.

Unfortunately, not good. I'll have to go over the switches you mentioned. It's exhibiting worse behavior than before (see a couple posts up). Again, I didn't change any positions of anything, but I obviously did something the game didn't like.

Thank you all for your help! I went over BX, as suggested, and also checked the coin unit again. I'm back to being able to start a 1 player game and having it progress through balls 1,2,3 without going into any other players. Whew! I can add 4 players like normal again and progress through balls like normal again.

It is back to exhibiting it's initial behavior, which was not resetting after the last ball drains, as in the video i took above.

So nothing new at the end of all this. Will continue to study your posts and check things! I think a break is in order soon. Been looking at this since 7AM!

I will read and study this! Thank you! Connecting things with the power on make me very nervous. Unless Im told exactly where to connect what, i probably wont try it out on my own since I don't want to make things worse. But I will read the attached link and try to learn something from it.

Haven't done anything since my last post. Let me see if I can find motor 4C sw. So just to be clear, the 4C sw is the switch stack that is actuated by the top plate in the 4th position as indicated by the schemtic (to the clockwise position of the diagonal 3 sw. stack)?

And is it a wise idea to remove the entire unit out to examine or just leave as is? That was one of the switch stacks I "cleaned" in when I made my first post.

From this view, looking at the switch stack in 6 o'clock position, the larger of the 2 stacks.

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I believe this is the "home" position, from top to bottom the switches are:
OPEN
OPEN
OPEN
closed
closed

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Here it is actuated:
Closed
Closed
Closed
OPEN
OPEN

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so I am looking at the correct one?

Solid contact is being made. No change when set to 5 ball. I'm not sure if I mentioned but both 1P and 4P lights are lit in the back box when it is trying to reset after a game is over.

Yes. All the relays are labeled. I did do a check on R earlier, and it seemed fine. I'll post pics. It did seem a bit toasty though? What does the Hold relay do?

You can see the brown discoloration on the solenoid. I'm not sure if this was the case before the issue cropped uo.

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It's hard to tell, but the M/B switches all appear to function properly when manually moved by the plastic slots on the solenoid. I did run 600 grit in between them, but it was difficult to get to the bottom-most switch since it's kind of hidden.

You don't think it has anything to do with the score motor or the Q relay?

Also, can't remember if I mentioned earlier, but all the score reels on all players reset to zero with no problems now.

Can we take a step back for a minute? After working on this practically since Saturday morning and into Sunday late afternoon, my brain has been scrambled, and frankly, overwhelmed, with trying to figure out the process in its entirety. So I thought this morning, that I should maybe just take a step back and think about what's really happening.

Some things that occurred to me:

1. The original problem that indicated that something was wrong was the fact that the 10K score reel on 4P was taking a loooong time to reset to zero. That was upon a power on after the last time a 4P game was played the night prior BUT it would eventually reset to zero.

2. Subsequently after all of the score reels were set to zero, a 1P game (or any # of players) would start up fine, but only if the 4P score was set to zero. If not, back point #1.

3. Zero switch was cleaned on 10K score reel on 4P. Score reel resets to zero with no issues, but now it only happens on Start Up (turning power on).

4. Game now has issue where after the last ball drains on any # of player games, the score motor continues to turn and can't trigger the sequence of events to indicate that the game is over.

5. When that happens, I turn off the power. Turning back on, and starting a new game will allow all score reels to reset to zero, and start a new game.

So I think the main thing is that the game can initiate the start up sequence properly...I think we need to examine the sequence of events that happens after the last ball drains to what triggers the game to stop and know that the game has ended. Basically, I think we need to examine the "End Game" sequence as oppose to the "Start Game" sequence.

This may seem obvious, but laying it out this way for me, clears things up a bit, instead of me racking my brain trying to chase down something that I'm just learning about.

Again currieddog I am so appreciative of all the time and knowledge you've brought to this thread!

Absolutely. I think NOT having the machine in front of me allows me to think through the process a little better than trying to absorb everything at one time and just going at it. I will certainly go through those steps when the machine IS in front of me. For now, Clay's pinrepair has TONS of excellent information in it!

Cleaned the player unit by sanding with 600 grit and wiping with 91% alcohol. Also cleaned all switches on P5 and no change.

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Do you know if pinballninja cfh has this covered in his website? I'm probably going to get a log-in anyway but just wondering if this was there? I really hate messing with things when the machine is on, but I understand why that's necessary. After a game, I've been manually tripping the Game Over relay to see if I can get any other ideas or an "Ah Ha" moment if you will.

When I'm checking these switches, what stage should the machine be in while I'm doing it? Should there be a ball in the drain hole? Should a game be started? Not started?

The only problem the machine is having now is that the after the last ball drains, and it counts bonus, the score motor keeps running and it cannot initiate "Game Over." Doesn't matter how many players, and all of the score reels move to zero correctly.

Since there are no boards to burn, and only a few fuses that I could potentially blow, I am ok to work with the power on.

I am trying to report the machine's behavior as accurately as possible so that all of the information is there, so I apologize if my posts are confusing. It has done a lot of things since I started poking around, and by reporting it, hope to give you all a clear picture of what is happening without you actually being here.

Can I use a couple #89 bulbs to make this test light?

cfh is Clay's pinside username. Is he not the pinball ninja? I thought he was.

As for the rest of it. I must decipher your language haha

I found the problem! This switch is normally closed. I adjusted it back so that it is NC. I believe it is 2C on the score motor. Games play and end like normal now. Thank you all so much for your help!

How does this even happen? I literally have not touched anything under the playfield since ownership.

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Yes it was the outer switch. I really have not touched anything underneath since owning it (it's been a few months)! So really not sure how it came out. But yes, this has been a great learning experience! It's not nearly as mysterious as I once thought it was, and the plus side is that I have a bunch of clean switches and stepper units AND I didn't royally screw anything up in the process Double bonus on that!

And again, thanks to you and Rolf for the help!